Hello All,

After over two months of basically being offline, I'm happy to welcome you all back to the new Chase Lounge. Please use this thread to post general comments, issues, or problems regarding the new forum or its software. We can start new threads in the "Request a Sitdown" forum to address particular issues that may arise with great frequency.

I did more customization on this forum than the last with images and so forth and was trying to strike a balance between having to do too much original coding (at which I'm virtually a novice) and giving the board a custom and pleasing aesthetic that meshes monochromatically with the original theme. But readability and usability are obviously most important, so please let me know where the balance between look and practicality needs improvement.

One known issue is that polls did not transfer from the old forum. That means the poll information in any topic that included a poll (e.g., all the individual episode forums that included a thread to rate the episode) did not come over. That was a real bummer to me, but there was only one other option I could find that preserved poll data, and it presented other, bigger problems. So I elected to lose the poll data (although I think most polls are available for revoting; some may require re-configuring of the poll options).

I still have the old database with the old poll data, which means it would be possible to one day hand enter all that data and revise the polls here to reflect it. But I just don't have the time to do that now or in the foreseeable future, and if we go ahead and allow new voting, it wouldn't make sense to do that anyway since many people will be voting twice. But if there's ever real interest in the results of a poll from the old forum, I can always look it up in a database to compare to the new voting. I should emphasize that this doesn't affect threads where the voting or tallying was done manually (e.g., DH's excellent The Sopranos, All Time Favorite Episode thread, where Funhouse emerged as the winner.)

There will also inevitably be some broken URLs and unparsed html code. Actually, there was quite a bit of unparsed html code from the previous move from EZ board to a private domain, so some of what you see in that vein has actually been around for a while. But feel free to let me know if some important links need editing to work.

Posts that used custom font formatting (e.g., SilvioMancini's Bells, Duality, Metaphysics thread) will be particularly problematic to make look right because there were incompatibilities between the bb code used at the two forums.. I spent some time manually reformatting the first few posts in that thread, Silvio, but it took so much time, I'm turning the remainder over to you.

Sorry the move took so long. There were a lot of technical issues I had to research and reacquaint myself with. Mostly I had a lot of personal issues that kept me from devoting much time to the project for the last month. Hopefully all the work and delay will pay off with a low maintenance forum that we can all enjoy for years to come. Thanks for your patience, and, again, welcome back to The Chase Lounge!

Thank you for getting the forum back up! I still like to come back and peruse old discussions from time to time. I missed this place!

Thanks, Gary Cooper, and glad you check in every now and then.

Nice to see you finally got around to getting things moved over, Fly. I know you have many other personal things going on that has kept you from devoting as much time as you might have liked to do so. It is a testament to your enduring loyalty not just to the legacy of the show but your enjoyment and appreciation of the sharing of that love that you have even done so in the first place. As I stated before and will always continue to do, please let me know if there is anything I can do. I've already logged into the new admin area to get acquainted with the new feel. It may take some time (and I guess an update of my own) to get used to it, but since you tend to do nearly all the work, I doubt it will present any issues. (Of course, as your consiglieri, I would counsel to make your capos do it. Isn't it time for you to sit back and enjoy some manicot and nice chianti? )

Thanks as always, DH, for your kind comments and support.

You are right that it's more than just the show that makes me want to sustain the site. I love to see the familiar names here, even if it's only once or twice a year or, as in your case, more often. Some of the fondest memories of my life will forever involve reading and posting both at Chase Lounge and at Sopranoland after an episode. Not many people would understand that, but the "hard core" folks do.

I still have a couple of aesthetic things to iron out but just got back from five days in NY and have some catching up to do elsewhere in life. (BTW, while in NY, had dinner at Jason Minter's excellent Indian Road Cafe at the northern tip of Manhattan. Was lovely to see him again as I'd met him in person and had lunch at the cafe on another NY trip exactly five years ago. We didn't really talk about Sopranos this time, though.)

Glad you are getting to know the admin area. Let me know if you see something important I missed or just feel free to fix it yourself.

You mentioned something about a new forum or subforum for a TV show. Can't remember now what it was and it didn't come over to the new site because you posted it with admin privileges after I'd turned off posting at the old site. But feel free to implement whatever it was you suggested. It sounded like a good a idea.:-)

Indeed, I'd suggested a new subforum for Vinyl - the new HBO series Terence Winter developed with Scorsese and Mick Jagger. It's about the changing rock world in the mid 70s which seemed right up my alley and the first episode was pretty strong, especially with some great New York Dolls featured (a personal favorite of mine.) However, it tailed off or stalled somewhat midway through the first season and even though it is coming back for a 2nd season, apparently HBO and Winter have parted ways due to "creative differences" on the show. Not sure it merits a whole subforum at this point.