A few things to say today.

First of all, you'll notice that I went ahead and set all the pages back to the Lugia/Jolteon style. I got an error report from someone the other day saying that the Wargle layout was effectively unusable in Internet Explorer. I'm still waiting for them to get back to me with more details about the problem, but in the meantime I switched to a layout that definitely works in all browsers so no one else has trouble navigating while I work on it. If you had a similar problem with the Wargle layout, or if you have access to Internet Explorer in one version or another and wouldn't mind giving me a hand in troubleshooting whatever's wrong, the Wargle layout is still visible on this test page; I'd appreciate it if you could check it out in IE and email me a detailed account of anything that's broken (screenshots are a big help, by the way). I'll repair it as soon as I can get a better handle on what's wrong.

EDIT: After a quick check on one of my other computers and some additional emails, it looks like the problem is in older versions of Internet Explorer; IE 8 seems to work fine. I am so far beyond caring about IE 5 that it's not even funny, and I'd rather not have to care about IE 6, but if you're using IE 6 or IE 7 I'd still appreciate it if you could let me know what's wrong. I've also noticed a few other minor problems, so I'll be checking those as well. Hopefully it'll all be sorted out by the time I get the styleswitcher fixed.

Speaking of layouts, this reminded me that I still need to puzzle out what's wrong with the styleswitcher; if I can actually get that fixed, then at least if the problem with the Wargle layout is "entirely IE's fault" I can keep the layout and give IE users a functioning alternative. I'll see if I can't get some help with that problem later today, after I get some other obligations out of the way. I also need to get a little assistance on the new comment system, which for some absurd reason is not able to handle quotation marks correctly. Argh.

I don't have any actual content updates for dcNET itself at the moment, but I do have another little project-side-thing to show you. Insubstantiality is a simple blog I started for fandom-related... stuff. (The title will probably change a million times before I'm satisfied with it, which is why it's only listed as "Fanstuff Blog" in the Network menu.) It'll mostly be personal thoughts about the various fandoms I'm interested in, discussions of projects I'm working on, things like that that aren't appropriate for the updates page of dcNET itself. I don't know whether anyone will actually be interested in reading whatever goes up there, and I don't especially care—I just think it'd be helpful for me to actually write some of it down and get it off my chest and out of my head. Right now the only post of note is a list of "fandom resolutions", fanthings I'm going to attempt to start/finish/keep up with this year; aside from a resolution to update moar none of them are directly related to dcNET, but if I'm able to hold to them successfully then I'll have stories, art and other content I can add to the site anyway, so there's that.

I also finished another story for 649, so that should hopefully be up later in the week after I tweak a few things.

Hope your 2010 was great and that your 2011 will be even better. And that I can keep that "update dcNET more often" resolution. Yup.

Tried the whole blogging thing before maybe one or twelve times; didn't quite pan out. Figured hell, it's a new year, might as well try again anyway. Here we are. Have fun. (Would've used my old LiveJournal for this—it is just kind of sitting there and rotting, after all—but WordPress is shinier. LJ will just have to be for stalking other people's journals, then.)

Why the nth attempt at a blog, you ask? Not sure, really. It's not so much that I feel like I have anything earth-shatteringly interesting to share as it is that I have a whole bunch of fanwork ideas and such that I want to get off my chest somehow, and I guess this is how I've decided to do it. I doubt that this will attract a huge following, and I don't really care whether it does or not; I'm running under the assumption that actually writing about this crap will make me feel better about being Captain Never Start/Finish Anything, and hey, maybe someone will have some interesting input or something. Bah.

So! The forecast calls for fancrap, and lots of it. Fanfic ideas/plot bunnies/brainstorming primarily, maybe the occasional picture or ramble about fakemon, maybe some discussion about fandom itself. Probably lots and lots of stupid memes I happen to steal from whomever, with the excuse that "it's going to help me think about/organize my fic, totally." I also have some other, uh, ideas and things I want to talk about; not going into detail because it's four in the morning, but I will say "Zork" and "audience participation" and leave you to ponder those (hint: they're two separate things) for however long it takes me to remember to ramble about all that. A good deal of this will probably be Pokémon-related, but I've also got nagging ideas for stuff like Tales of Symphonia, Golden Sun, Fire Emblem, maybe some Ace Attorney... pretty much anything involving anything else I like is fair game here. (This would probably be a good time to warn those of you who chance upon this blog from Pokémon-related places—most of you, I imagine, since pokeymans fans are the only fans I bother associating with atm—that, yeah, those other fandoms may actually be pretty prevalent here, as opposed to Altered Origin where I say it's "not a Pokémon fansite" but then never do anything else ever anyway.) Can't promise regular updates, but now that I have something resembling a direction for this blog it is at least likely that they will appear more often than "lol never". For a while, anyway. Check back often! Or don't! That's cool too!

I am extraordinarily fickle and so the blog title, tagline, theme and more are subject to change without warning and whenever the hell I feel like it. You have been... warned. (four in the mooorniiiing)

I will try my hardest to keep real life as far away from this as humanly possible, aside from the occasional "school happened and that's why blah is late" or whatever. It's not like there's any actual loldrama or major accomplishments goin' on there anyway; wouldn't want to bore you! Will also attempt to avoid original fiction/art/sfdhhfda stuff, if only for the sake of order. (One of these days I will get all of my original-work websites/blogs/etc./atsdhf done aaaaaaa) That's all primarily seekrut anyway. So yes. Fancrap. That is all.

In closing, it is four in the morning and I've already broken my new year's resolution to stop staying up so damn late. Whoops. Your irregularly-scheduled rambling will begin when it isn't fllhdghljbnadg-o'-clock. Probably it will also contain a much lower concentration of sentence fragments. Posts made at keyboardsmash-o'-clock are notorious for those.

...and that means that I'll be diving head first into National Novel Writing Month in an attempt to actually get some serious writing done (since apparently I can never write any fiction unless it's for a) NaNo or b) a grade). As such, you probably won't see me around much this month. Once again, though, the story I'm going to be writing should be suitable for dcNET when I'm done editing it... and editing Incarnadine Harvest from last year... and At Liberty from the year before... and I should probably stop now. I'm depressing myself. (But I am going to try really hard to finish those up one of these days! Really!)

Unfortunately I was unable to finish the ASB for Beginners revamp in time, and it's going to have to take a back seat to the NaNovel; I did make some major headway on it over the past few days, however, so with any luck it'll only take me a little while longer to finish it up once November is over. That'll be just in time for another important deadline, as you might notice if you check out the To-Do List over there. Hm. I wonder what that is, anyway?

Just so I don't leave you all in the lurch while I'm off a-noveling, I did finish creating the prize image for the Pokémon League Swap Meet Puzzle since that was something I could do quickly. If you've already solved the puzzle you'll have to enter the answer again to see it, but you should already know what that is so it shouldn't be a big deal. If you haven't solved it yet, then maybe this'll serve as some incentive to keep trying! I've gotten some positive feedback about the puzzle relatively recently, so I'm glad to hear you guys are enjoying it! (Now, I wonder if I should update the puzzle to include fifth-gen Pokémon... probably not until we get their English names, at least... hmm.)

Lastly, dcNET has another new affiliate. AobaruNet is a neat fansite with fun interactive games and interesting reviews–do yourself a favor and go give it a look!

I think that's all for now. Happy Halloween to those of you who celebrate it, wish me luck in NaNoWriMo, and I'll be back just in time for December 3rd, whatever that might be!

EDIT: Also made a minor tweak to the layouts so that the menu link to the page you're currently on is still clickable; that was a stupid thing included in the CMS by default and I don't know why I didn't fix it sooner.

Yep. The pictures should now be back in semi-chronological order and have their titles, dates and descriptions as best I can remember. (I still have to fix my art threads and crap, but meh.) I also uploaded a new picture, just finished a few hours ago, so there's also that. Yay moar Wargle.

Guide still isn't done; I swear I'm trying, though, because November is coming and I want all of this website stuff done so I can waste all of November on NaNoWriMo.