If you've kept an eye on my past few news posts, or perhaps taken a casual stroll over to the to-do list, you might have noticed that the date "December 3rd" has been popping up a lot; no further explanation has been given, however. So what exactly is so special about December 3rd? Why did I make that a deadline for all these site updates, and why was I rushing to get it all done at the last minute thanks to NaNoWriMo and school eating up the entirety of my November?

Why, it's dcNET's third birthday, that's why! Hooray, confetti, song and dance, et cetera!

"What's that?" you ask? "Since when? What ever happened to birthdays one and two?" Well, actually, it's a funny story...

...okay, no it isn't. The truth is, I completely forgot when the site's birthday was. (I'm sorry, baby, I'm a terrible person... you know I love you, though, right? D: ) I only checked this stuff on a whim a few months ago; at first I actually thought that it was October 4th, which is when I purchased the webspace and a domain name. Turns out that that domain name was actually a different one, though, one I eventually plan to use for non-fandom, original stuff. dcNET's domain name was purchased in late November/early December—not quite clear on the exact date—and as far as searching through my old website files can tell me, dcNET itself went live on the internet for the first time on December 3rd, 2007. I felt bad for completely forgetting about it for two years, so I decided that I'd start celebrating it this year. And there you go! Birthdaytiem.

The following updates would have appeared sooner in the day, by the way, but I was still rushing to finish some of them and then my mom took the family out to see Cirque du Soleil in the middle of the afternoon. It was a great show and all, and I really enjoyed it, but way to cut into my website's birthdaytiem, Mom. >|

BUT it is not yet 12:00AM where I am, so there is still time! Let the updates begin!

Item the first: new layout! Told you you'd be seeing more Wargle on dcNET! I wanted to actually try a different layout with this layout, so I've brought back the old drop-down nav from a while back. The Wargle up top was drawn specifically for this layout, unlike the other two which were plain artwork first and snazzy layouts second; I'll probably still put it in the fanart gallery, though.

This does come with a bit of bad news, however—in the process of updating a few behind-the-scenes things, the styleswitcher seems to have died. :( I honestly have no idea what happened or how to begin fixing it, but I will try and find a way to get it working again as soon as possible, especially since I did have at least one more layout I wanted to get done. I sort of wish I could use a different switcher, but the way I've designed the layouts for this website means that I can't use something as simple as the usual JavaScript or PHP styleswitchers you find on most sites (or, at least, I couldn't if I wanted to allow both this layout and the previous two). Gah. In the meantime, enjoy a healthy dose of Americabird!

(If you visited the site over the past two days and the layout seemed really messed up or the site was sporadically down for a few seconds, the layout testing is primarily why. I apologize for any inconvenience that may have caused.)

I tried a few fancy new things with this layout, which means that there may still be several hiccups to iron out. I'm still looking for a better font to use for the headings, for example, and I'm debating whether or not I really want the Wargle image to remain fixed in place since it can cause some browsers to lag or jump ever-so-slightly while scrolling. If something's broken, I'd really appreciate it if you could let me know about it as soon as possible; in particular, I'd like to know whether the font for the headings (the site title in the header, the red bits with underlines, etc.) is showing up as a handwriting-like font or as Georgia or Times New Roman. You could just email me about it, or you could try something else, which brings me to...

Item the second: comments! I finally got around to adding a comment system to the site again. Right now they're only on the news updates, though in the future there might be some other pages that will make use of the system. Go ahead, try it out! Don't spam it outright, obviously, but feel free to say hello if you don't have an actual comment or question. A link to the comment form can be found at the bottom of each news post.

Item the third: the revamped ASB for Beginners page! Yeah! It's about damn time! The old, stupid version is now gone forever, thank god. There's still a lot more I'd like to add to it, and soon at that, but I was in a hurry and it's solid enough as it is for now. Incidentally, it has inspired me to try and finish up the reffing guide I started a while ago; hopefully I'll be able to get to it soon.

Item the fourth: a new project/network site! I'd like to introduce you all to 649, a Pokémon fanfiction writing project I've set up for myself. More details are available on the blog itself... as are the first three stories! Go check 'em out, and I'll add more stories to it as often as I can!

Item the fifth: Clocking in at 50046 words, I won NaNoWriMo again!

This is not directly relevant to the site's birthday, of course, aside from the fact that I'd like to finish up that story and post it here eventually, but I'm still proud of myself. \o/

Whew, that was long. Well, anyway, there you go! Happy third birthday, my baby. I wish I could've done even more for you, but I simply didn't have the time (though I will say that I do have a few... interesting new projects in mind, fufufufu). Ah, well. Hopefully the rest of it will come soon enough. I hope all you visitors enjoy what I've got up here so far, and here's to another good year! Hopefully one that does not involve me going without proper internet access for several months at a time!