C2 PREVIEW: Yes, Virginia, there really IS a website.

As promised, I took a few screen shots of the new C2 for you all to see today. Clearly some of these are just partial shots of the browser window, and the Friends of Israel forum shot is of the empty forum (waiting for a walk through by Carl in Jersualem, its manager), but this will give you an idea of what your new home will look like. (Click on each image to enlarge; these images won't open in a new window - I got lazy - so hit your "back" button to come back here, or just right click on each one to select open in a new window.)

If you like what you see, please give Running Bare a "Great job!", a handshake, a pat on the head, a lick on the face - whatever you prefer (or whatever he'll allow you to do); he's typed thousands and thousands of little characters into a development environment to create this, and we are really digging the result.

For about a week, we'll be testing/experimenting with staff, and unless they find some serious bugs, we should be moving in shortly after. We're planning to stay here for the coming week - Pi Guy has created a very entertaining series of Halloween Pub threads (for the entire week!) and we may as well enjoy them here - but The Plan™, as it stands, is to move in right after that.

This seems a good time to thank you all for being such great commenters, and for your practically flawless cooperation with our policies. A big thanks, also, is due the C2 staff of contributors, moderators, and "wenches" - you all, as a community, have made this a most enjoyable experience for us.

Feel free to ask questions, and we'll try to field them this afternoon.

Viva C2!

C2 PREVIEW: The Guest Room

Time for another C2 Preview, guys. This idea was inspired by Throbert McGee, though we'd been toying with something like this for a while.

We're planning to provide a place for C2 members (and possibly even non-members) to submit guest contributions for publication, approximately whenever one comes across The Big Desk of Bare that we'd like to toss out for conversation. All pieces submitted and accepted will be published with the understanding, made clear in a statement on the site, that the views of the writer aren't necessarily the same as ours - but we're hoping for some good debate fodder.

This won't be limited to political editorial writing - really, the sky's the limit. It could be satire, for example. Let your imaginations run a little wild while we're waiting for the new C2 to open, and we'll let you know how to submit something to The Guest Room once we're inside.

And now, as always, talk amongst yourselves.

C2 PREVIEW: Forum lineup, and "What the *bleep* is taking so long?"

Good afternoon, C2ers! We've had a lot of questions about the permanent home for C2, so we'd like to take a second to address a couple of them, and see if it might benefit everyone to have a visual to demonstrate what we're building.

Correspondence Committee will consist of nine, possibly ten forums (the eight you see here, plus one not formally announced, and one in the development stage), the primary one being the front page, The Daily Broadside. That's where you'll find the news and political discussion.

Then if you're in the mood to talk with others about the book you're currently reading, you can stop in The Hardcover Cafe, and participate there. If a discussion of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is more to your liking, you can stop in at Pi Guy's Time Capsules forum and see what's going on. Market talk can be found in All About the Benjamins, the forum 3Wood will be hosting. The Liberty Pub will operate pretty much as usual, but will expand to include sports talk. Carl in Jersualem will be keeping you up-to-date on news in the Friends of Israel forum, and as we recently announced, Render will be managing Home of the Brave, with contributions from Army Wife (a new detail we very happily just worked out).

So you can see why we're so busy. We didn't intend to be at Blogspot so long, but we want to make sure everything is functioning well and is shiny and new for your arrival, and it's a web development project and this is just kind of how things go (our opening date has been pushed back a few times; we only opened up here in mid-September, so I guess it hasn't been that long...Blogspot just makes it FEEL like it ; ) - but we'll get you in as soon as we can. We just wanted to give you a chance to visualize what's going on over here, and let you know we appreciate your patience. After seeing how it's gone opening the Blogspot site up as a temporary home, we're pretty excited about the community you're all building with us...and we're as ready as you are to move, but we thank you for understanding the delay.

We'll try to field some questions here, but otherwise please consider it an open afternoon thread while we score up the latest news stories for the Afternoon News Dump thread.

You guys are the best!

C2 PREVIEW: Home of the Brave

For those who haven't been made aware, the .com version of C2 is probably best described a sort of "blog mall". There will be, in the beginning, eight (possibly nine) distinct forums, all tied together by a single population.

From the beginning, it was our desire to create a place where our very valued and beloved active duty and veteran service members could congregate, and where those interested in military topics could find the go-to news. Maybe a place where military families could gather for mutual support and useful informaton.

Bare himself is a Gulf War Vet (USN), and as some of you know, my own father was a veteran of Iwo Jima. We really wanted to get this one right.

For a while, we struggled to find just the right name. Service rivalries complicated this a bit. (I lobbied for "Uncommon Valor", which was way too USMC-centric for Bare, who loves to tell Marine jokes and repeatedly points out to me that the Marines are actually part of the Department of the Navy ; )...and neither of us wanted anyone to feel anything less than appreciated and totally welcome.) But when we finally had it, we knew it: "Home of the Brave".

Now, if you're dreaming up a forum idea, one thing you have your eye on is finding a manager who knows the topic inside and out. We believe we've found just that person, and today we are delighted to announce he has accepted our invitation. C2ers, please welcome Render, author of The Last Stand blog and the new manager of "Home of the Brave", our C2 military forum.

C2 PREVIEW: Hardcover Cafe - Jorline, we used your idea, a little modified, but we love it!

Well, this was a bit of a comedy of errors, but we are so pleased with the result. Yesterday we announced we were looking for a name for the new book/coffeehouse forum, so we put the idea out there for suggestions in a thread. There were so very many GREAT ideas, and we knew we would get something to work with, because there are a lot of bright and creative minds here.

When I saw Jorline's idea, "Hardback Cafe", and the reaction to it, it was clear Jorline was really onto something. Somewhere in my sleep-deprived brain, it morphed. I announced to Bare that Jorline had come up with the perfect name, "Hardcover Cafe" (oops, C2!), and I had just the graphic treatment for it in mind. It was perfect. It had the coffeehouse feeling we were looking for, the upscale feeling we wanted to offset the peanuts-on-the-floor feeling of The Liberty Pub, and we loved it.

But that wasn't the name, exactly, that Jorline had come up with - which was very popular with so many on the thread. I had morphed it into what I thought was the perfect name in my mind.

By the time this was pointed out to me by Pi Guy (at about 2:00AM), I had already created the graphic with the intent of showing all of you today, and thanking Jorline for the great name suggestion.

So Jorline, this isn't exactly the name you intended, but it's close, and it's exactly what we wanted - and it's because of you that we got it! So a HUGE thank you goes out from Bare and me to Jorline, whose brilliant idea scored big with us - even if I screwed it up! LOVE IT. Thank you! (And you should know - a lot of the staff prefers your name "Hardback", and I don't doubt that so will many of our commenters - it's a great name, some thought sort of a take-off on "Hard Rock Cafe" - and if we didn't already have a Pub, that's just what we would have selected.)

We'll buy you a Seattle-sized latte just as soon as we figure out a way to do it! Here's to Jorline!

UPDATE: Turns out Jorline was debating using "Hardcover" after all! And his daughter even argued for it! All's well that ends well, so Jorline (and offspring), we thank you for the fantastic name of our new book/coffee forum on C2 - it's all yours! I didn't screw it up as much as I thought !! YAY!!

C2 PREVIEW: The Liberty Pub

She's little, she's a lady, but we have it on good authority that she isn't old. In fact, we heard she was quite a hottie. Meet or say hello to your hostess in C2's Liberty Pub, littleoldlady!

This is where you can kick back a few and shoot the breeze on the new site. There will be plenty of entertaining topics - football, baseball, recipes, gardening, cars, music, shopping...you name it, this is where you'll be able to talk about it, 24/7.

Our very own littleoldlady will have an assistant in this pub, affectionately referred to as "Bar Wench" (don't ask, we won't tell). But don't worry, your fruit cup will still be dished up by our resident social coordinator, and you can count on that. Same time, slightly different place, but most decidedly with her own unique flavor.

Help yourselves!

C2 PREVIEW: Help and Support Forum

So we had this idea.

When we move into our new digs, it might be a cool thing if you all had a place to go for help with technical issues, should they come up. Trouble uploading an avatar? We're on it. Something just plain not working? Let us know.

Though many will be pitching in, this forum will be hosted by the architect of the new building, Running Bare. Bare has worked for some of the most prestigious software companies in the world, and he totally loathes an unsolved problem. Unless the Patriots are on Monday Night Football. Then, it's the back burner for you, pal!

One note: You may not recognize Running Bare in the new place at first, as he's still kicking around screen name ideas in his head. Last I heard, Supreme Overlord of C2 Nation was still available, but even if it wasn't, if he wants it, he can just steal it, and there's nothing we can do about it.

And by the way, if we haven't said it enough, one more time wouldn't hurt: Thanks, Bare, for all you've done. We're almost home!