Demonland

by The Oracle Thank god it's February! The tennis is over and most of the big cricket is behind us. The round ball game is in the final throes of another lacklustre season and somewhere on the other side of the Pacific the guys with no necks are gearing up for the Superbowl. That warm feeling's in the air - the footy's coming! I saw the Bombers going hard at it in an intraclub game at Shepparton the other night as the mercury nudged the mid to high thirties and a few others followed suit during the week. I know it's all madness at this time of the year but in a world of earthquakes, panty bombers and Tiger Woods running rampant in the hen house, the return of our game brings some much welcome relief. Some of that relief is quite comical. Apparently, Carlton cancelled its practice match at Vizy Park because of the wet conditions (only 13mm of rain fell?) and the fact that a few of the players had a touch of the sniffles on Friday morning. Of course, the booze bus parked ominously outside the ground in Royal Parade had nothing to do with it. I'm prepared to cut them some slack on this because I have such a generous heart and I feel good - the footy's coming! Well, I hope it's coming but every time I open up the newspaper, I read about an AFL player charged with trafficking, another being investigated for possible rape and a young kid with just a year's experience behind him involved in an alleged assault while drunk of a taxi driver. One who has yet to make his debut will also face trial for assault later this year. Then there was that full boatload of boozed up footballers tripping up the Yarra with one of their number being force-fed a skinful of grog while in chains. I can't figure out how Vlad and his henchpersons at AFL HQ omitted to act on the Casboult handcuffing incident but I'm prepared to cut them some slack on this because I have such a generous heart and I feel good and - yes, the footy's coming! Vlad must be wondering what in hell's name is going on and I'm sure he must break out into a cold sweat every time he picks up his morning paper. I must confess that I also shiver at the thought that one day I might open up the Herald Sun and see pictures of one of my favourite Demons being dragged away in handcuffs to some police lock up but I know my boys. I saw most of them at the Members Information Night. They're professionals. Wholesome types who would never get into trouble, would they? Besides, you don't get locked up these days when you get a parking ticket. Surely? And they're not like those other blokes. Most of those miscreants I mentioned earlier are yet to see their days in court so for the time being each of them is an innocent man and I won't comment directly on their stupidity or their alleged transgressions. However, I will say that collectively they're all a bunch of idiots who have not only damaged themselves and other people, but they have also damaged the game and turned the past few months into in football's horror summer. That's why I can't wait for next week to come around when the Demons play their first intraclub practice match at Casey Fields and when we finally see them kicking and handballing, saving and scoring goals. That warm feeling's in the air - the footy's coming!

I have heard that Jack Grimes and Jack Trengove were the stand outs but don't know the positions they played.

From the Official MFC Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/DemonsHQ

from Cameron Schwab's Twitter: '>http://www.twitter.com/CamSchwab

You shouldn't have any hiccups anymore. On this new server I have re-enabled many of the forum's new software features that I had to disable in order to not have as many hiccups. At the moment all looks good as we had the most people on at one time since switching over to the new software. 82 people were on at one time late this afternoon. We had 444 on at once on the old software on the night if the draft. We'll see how it all holds up once the season starts and the venting begins (hopefully not too much of that ). All is looking good though. As you would know feedback is important and it wouldn't have been seen as complaining. Despite the fact that I was well aware of the hiccups it's always handy to know of any issues that arise.

The post on Demonology is not a first hand report. A poster has stated it was reported on SEN that Sylvia walked off from the scratch match clutching his lower leg. Devastating if true and if it is severe but has anyone confirmed the report?

I've added back in some of the features that were causing an overload of the system on our old server inorder to test out the new server so please report any issues you experience here.

Welcome!

Hi All, Demonland is moving servers again. This may happen today or tomorrow so there will be some downtime. When you arrive at Demonland or the forums there will be a message that will let you know whether your ISP is pointing to the old site or the new. Please be patient as it takes a while for the ISPs to be pointing to the correct site. Hopefully this corrects the issues we've been having with the site error messages and will also allow me to introduce some new features of this new forum software. Anyway I will keep you posted. We have a new host who is a member of this site and I will post all the details regarding this new partnership once we are up and running. Regards, Andy

Looks like the hiccups are here to stay as the shared server we are currently housed on is pretty crap. Black??? Looks like a dark navy blue to me.

I have a video camera and a pretty good still camera. I don't have a camera stand though.

I think this thread has slightly veered off topic. Time to close it before things get nasty.

It's going to occur every now and again due to genuine loads on the system. The changes I have made by disabling some of the non essential features has definitely cut down the amount of times this is happening. A few days ago this was happening all the time now I haven't received the error messages for a few days.

when you posted that the change had already been made. It must have taken a while to filter through to you.

if you are referring to the reputation plus or minus buttons on each post that tabulates the "reputation" points of a poster, I have disabled this features as I thought it might create unnecessary tension between posters despite it being anonymous. After all we are all demons supporters. We don't all have to agree but we should be civil. Despite it being able to highlight the good, I felt that it wasn't necessary. We can all work out for ourselves who we choose to like and dislike without announcing it .

At the moment no but perhaps in the future. I've pretty much done a bastardised customisation of the template to get it looking like it belongs on a demons website. If this was my full time job I would offer many more.

Wona Wona & Watts Trengove Morton Morton and Bell Jurrah Jurrah Jetta Bennell, Maric & Green Gawn & Tapscott Garland Garland

Photos courtesy of george_on_the_outer Petterd and Wona Rivers Spencer Strauss Tapscott Tapscott Warnock Bate Bennell Blease Cheney Dunne Hughes and Watts

That's strange because I'm not receiving them anymore and I've been extensively testing the system out. Try logging out and then logging back in. Not sure if that will even do anything but it can't hurt. If you know how to clean out your browser's cache then do that and see if that helps. Is anyone else still receiving them? Please let me know as I have no other way to know of issues if you don't let me know.

This is as much red and blue as we are going to get. I experimented with blue backgrounds and white writing or red backgrounds with blue writing (and many other variations) but it just looked tacky and not very "clean" and sometimes very hard to read. I think there is enough red and blue for now.

Not sure what that means or is referring to. Could you be more specific and let me know what the text says (that's if you can see it) All looks good on my screen but different screens display colours differently (ie: lighter or darker).

Many of you would have noticed the site error messages (see below) you may have received over the past couple of days. I have been in contact with our host providers who claim that it is a result of the message boards. Not necessarily the new forum software but as a result of some of the extra features that in laymans terms cause a heavy load on the system. I therefore have disabled some of the non essential extras such as the recent topics and posts that was on the side bar of the forum index list as well as some other features such as who is currently browsing topics. This appears to have helped quite a bit as I am not receiving those messages as much. Whilst some of those features were cool they are certainly not essential and the main part of the forums are the content and being able to use the site. All I ask is that you be patient and if you receive the "Service is Temporarily Unavailable" page just hit refresh and you will be taken back to the page you were on. I know it is annoying at times but keep me posted if you continue to receive it all the time. It will happen now and again but hopefully the changes I have made have done the trick and it will not happen as frequently. Cheers, Andy

Thank you for your generous donation and a big thank you to everyone else who has been very generous in donating to assist us in covering the costs associated in running Demonland. It is very much appreciated.