The Site is Back
Friday, October 10, 2008 at 08:37If you attempted to visit earlier this morning you probably received an error page instead. It wasn't because we forgot to pay the bills--honest.
Apparently a power transformer died somewhere up in New York and it knocked our hosting service out for awhile. Things should be back to to normal now. We apologize for the inconvenience.
New Version of Software
The company that hosts our site went to a new version last night. If you are experiencing problems logging in, or in how the site displays, you will need to delete your temporary internet files. If you are not sure how to do this, see the following site:
If that doesn't resolve the issues, post a comment below (login not required), or send a message via the Contact link and one of us will work to assist you.
Sorry for the inconvenience: we didn't know about the upgrade either!
Note: I'll move this post to Announcements in a couple days.
Zoy Clem
Site News for July
Independence Day, 2008
Greetings
We're small...no one knows us...but we don't care. The editors here at the BL RAG are dedicated to making this site a place interesting to varying viewpoints and various interests. Expect to see additional enhancements and changes as we learn and grow.
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News
Regular visitors and site members have probably noticed some of the layout changes here at the BL RAG over the past couple of weeks. Skinnydipinacid designed our new logo, and Wes suggested the other noticeable layout changes (wider margins and a better situated menu).
Speaking of Wes, we've been remiss in announcing his joining the site editor staff. Please welcome him the next time you comment on one of his threads.
Site Additions
News: We're going to start running more straight news snippets as well as opinion on the Front Page. And of course, you'll still have the biting journals of Redbeard, Skinny, and Winston to go along with our new co-conspirator, Wes.
Expect regular Caption Contests in the Distortion section.
For members, a somewhat Not Safe For Work section (NSFW), The Wild West, has been activated. Blame Skinny for its activation! Note that the general public cannot view this new section, and members must login to see it, or comment. Members should be forewarned that the content thus far is primarily male-dominated sexist T & A (we have no female editors at the site -- where are you, Karen-O, to provide your blogette goddess sense of balance?) .
Notes on Existing Sections
For the sports fan, Skinny is keeping the BL World up to date with his manic humor and sometimes cynical Cub-view in the Sports section. It was a dark hour indeed when the fabled Goat Curse was uttered...
Music: Yeah, we're actually branching out a little and producing a few music videos for new and upcoming area bands (Washington DC - Los Angeles). Expect to see more over the next few weeks and months in the Music section. We hope to present new bands on a regular basis. And, of course, we'll still present music videos from established acts (I know, it's mainly punk -- we'll be running regular Oldies, Classicial, Country, Jazz, and other special interest music videos as we get settled in with our call letters in the cyberspace musical Blog Land domain).
Movies: Expect periodic movie and television reviews as well as offbeat artistic criticisms in the Movies section.
Saturday Cartoons: Felix the Cat and his varied group of friends will continue to grace the pages of the Distortion section, as well as game videos, satire, comedy, and weird events and activities caught on film.
Scribblings and Original Articles: We'll have some new pieces up here in the next week or so...poetry, and who knows, perhaps a bit of fiction. Bozio has an upcoming piece on the rather delicate (and soon-to-be-regulated) subject of obesity.
Other Site changes
Some of the menu items have been re-ordered. I've removed the Opera section for awhile (although old entries will still be preserved). The section will be re-opened once I have time to do it correctly: probably late summer.
The Future
Contributor's Section: Around mid-July we'll be opening a new section to members that will allow them to post their own blog topics and threads. We'll move the more interesting or newsworthy contributions to the Front Page.
The Server: Finally...we purchased our own dedicated server recently (a powerhouse), and have a dedicated hosting service but due to unforeseen and unhappy circumstances we have had to delay its installation for a still-indetermine time. We hope to have it up and running soon, and once we do, you'll see a gradual migration to a new host with expanded capabilities and a vast realm of new features.
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We're getting there. Now, if we only knew where where is.
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Thanks again for visiting the BL Rag. We hope you enjoy your visit and return often. And please feel free to register. The only requirement is an e-mail address (to confirm your registration).
Changes to the Site Layout
We'll be changing the look and feel of the BL RAG this weekend, and likely enough the look may undergo a few iterations of change until we come up with a happy new design that we're all satisfied with. This is a temporary modification, as we will be moving to our own dedicated server here in the next few weeks. After the server has been configured, we'll eventually move to different software, to take advantage of a number of features we don't have now (such as private messaging and a better forum). We'll post additional announcements here in this section as we approach the time of migration to the new server.
Thanks for visiting the BL RAG.
New Sections
There's two new sections called Original Articles and Scribblings where we'll be putting up original fiction and non-fiction stories, poetry and what-not from both the editors and contributors. A couple threads from the Opera section have also been moved into the new areas.
In the Orginal Articles section, the is a nice piece written by one of our site members (Dean Peters aka Bozio), on the topic of taxes. Please have a look.
Members: If you would like to contribute articles, either notify one of the editors or use the Contact button to post a note to that effect, and we'll upgrade your access to allow for posting topics in these new sections.