Though it really makes the style pages rather unwieldy, the changes to styles made in 1.74 are now reflected in the styles database.

Some of you may remember a feature here at CoC called the "clog" - a place for staff members to post their thoughts on just about anything they felt like. For various reasons, it wasn't used very much (my reason was that at the time I had another site where I posted such things, and I rarely felt the need to repost them elsewhere), and it was removed in late 2003.

Now it's back!. Since I'm the only staff member at this point, I imagine I'll be the only one saying anything, but it's possible Mistwolf might drop by as well from time to time, and of course if anyone feels like joining the staff, they'd be able to post to the Clog as well.

The first article of the reincarnated Clog is up now, about IGE and their recent activities... more will follow very shortly.

I find some of the decisions baffling, but there are a number of good sites listed here. The winners are on the Community Page of the Herald.

In case being a gamer didn't make Sanya dreamy enough, she's also a sci-fi fan... and is going to a convention, of all things. Maybe if we ask nicely we'll get pictures of her dressed up as a Go'a'uld? Yeah, obviously I'm a geek too.

From the announcements section of the Grab Bag:

With a waving handkerchief, a lump in our throats, and a goat by our side, we wish our Team Lead Coordinator, Miss Linda, a fond farewell as she makes her way… well, a few feet over to the side and down one floor as she takes her place on the development team for Mythic's next game, Imperator. Gang, in addition to goat herding, she's really made the documentation on the Herald what it is, and for that alone I know we all thank her from the bottom of our cheez doodle encrusted keyboards. She's also done great things for the team lead program, and we know she's going to be great at her new job.

The Heir to the Goat Pen has been in training for awhile now, and we'll announce her name on Monday.

And on that bleated note, I'm off to prepare for the complete dorkishness that is the convention for the COOLEST SCI-FI SHOW ON TELEVISION (alluded to in tonight's column title). Hey, if you're going to be a nerd, embrace it. See you Monday!

From the Herald:

As you are about to read, we're planning on putting 1.74 up next week. I wanted to let you know that we're only putting up one cluster at that time, and we plan to wait and see how everything goes before we cluster any other servers. The names of the servers that will be clustered next week will be announced before we launch them, as the candidates could still potentially change. We'll also announce our crossteaming prevention measures at that time.

The housing trophies listing has undergone a much-needed update; all of the existing listings were updated (namely the Frontier ones), and the ToA trophies are now listed as well. The listings are still no match for those at DAoC Trophy Mobs, particularly since the listings here lack pictures, but I hope to remedy that lack over time. And in the meantime, the updated lists should be more useful for those who just want to know where to find a mob.

The links to the old style lists have also been removed from the nav bar, although some links will remain on other pages for a time. Mythic recently introduced a large number of alternate versions of existing styles, which the new database can handle more effectively.