Hey folks…Whew. Well, we made it. If you’re reading this update, the new site is live. We gotta admit, for a while, it seemed like it would never happen. Read below for all the details on how the new site came about, new features, and more.

“Gladiator” kicked some major ass tonight. This is THE movie to beat this summer. We know it’s not even Memorial Day yet, but this is a rockin’ flick with not only some of the coolest war/fighting scenes ever, but some damn cool characters and dialogue, too. Russell Crowe is the man.

And how about that Flyers game last night? Staying up for that one was worth it, but the price is getting paid today. Yikes. Last night’s matchup against the Pens was the 3rd longest hockey game in NHL history, with 3 regular perods and almost 5 overtime periods, lasting a full 7 HOURS (7:30 PM – 2:30 AM). Wow. And now the series is tied up at 2 games a piece, with the Flyers taking last night’s win in overtime. GO FLYERS!

We’ve got a few news stories, but nothing major (Yes, we DID see the poll on the STAR WARS webpage and were going to skip it, though we’ve gotten 40 messages or so on it so we suppose we’ll do a newsbite on it), so check out all that’s new with the site AND a section of bonus NewsBites as well. Enjoy. We hope you like it.

Welcome, one and all, to the new and improved News Askew! We’ve worked our collective asses off for the past 6 months to put this puppy together. It’s a pleasure and a relief, after months and months of promises, to finally bring the new site online for you to enjoy.

The idea first came about when we realized that, while the main page looked okay on the surface, it was a mess underneath. A lot of areas were getting lost in the shuffle, and the site was tough to maintain with all the news archives. We’d also been wanting to add a search engine for the longest time, but our current archive structure (1 month = 1 big file) didn’t lend itself to any good search program out there. So, we decided to take a different approach and start fresh. This was back in November of 1999.

Why did this take so long, you may ask? Well, here’s the big part — We re-entered and archived EVERY news story in this site’s history. We’re using a new database-driven news engine, which will enable us to make faster updates, handle the archiving of news stories automatically, provide search capability, and more. Why did we do this? Well, it was either that or just scrap 3 years of news, and we didn’t really find that to be a viable option. So, we spent the last 6 months re-creating each and every story, down to the graphics, scooper names and e-mail addresses, links, and more. We didn’t want to lose any of the history that made News Askew what it is today. So, we’re happy to say, you’ll find it all intact. Keep in mind that our 3 year news database is HUGE, so searching it takes a while, but when you consider all that’s being searched, and the way it’s being done (on a story-by-story basis), it’s not all that slow. Remember to use double quotes (“like this”) to surround phrases that you search on. It makes a big difference. The searches are also returned in random order (not by recent to oldest date or anything). Sorry. It’s not the best search engine, but it definitely works. Search smart, and you’ll be fine.

In addition to the new news engine, we’ve added some noticeable new features to the site. First of all, things have been completely re-organized to allow more logical access to things. Our “Featured Story” area keeps an archive of all the stories that were too long or too important to just use as single news items. The “On Location” area keeps a record of any View Askew related event we’ve attended, along with detailed descriptions of what went on there. Read the stories below for more features and announcements regarding what else is new in this massive update.

Our beautiful new logo comes to us courtesy of Clerks Cartoon artist extraordinaire Chris Bailey. We loved it so much when we saw it that we didn’t have the heart to shrink it down to a banner size. We think it’s the perfect look and feel for a first impression on the front page, and want to thank Chris a ton for helping us look a lot classier than we really are. New hand-designed header graphics & drinking game logos, courtesy of graphics wiz Dave Blumenstein, adorn our subpages. Thanks to Dave, we were able to get away from our boring old text headings and spice things up a bit. We dig his work immensely, and thank him very much for helping us out with a crucial area where we’re basically talentless.

Finally, we are very proud to present our Talkbacks area. Each news item will now provide this much-requested feature. Please log-in, reserve your user name, and read or participate in some of the discussions. We’ll be monitoring TalkBack closely to ensure that it stays an enjoyable, useful addition to this site. This is our favorite new feature, and we hope it gets a lot of use. Like the search engine, TalkBack IS admittedly slow, due to the massive amount of data we’re dealing with. We’ll make improvements as we go.

While we’ve done our best to test the site across platforms and browsers, we also realize that with newer technology comes greater chance for error. So, if you are experiencing problems with the way the website works or looks, we STRONGLY suggest that you upgrade your web browser of choice to the latest version (We recommend Internet Explorer 5.0, though the latest Netscape should work as well). WebTV boxes should also work, though you’ll be missing on some of the cooler nuances that the new site offers. Also, try and run your PC in a FULL SCREEN browser window and at LEAST 800×600 resolution (though 1024×678 is ideal) for the perfect effect.

As with any new site, we expect there will be some degree of an adjustment curve to the new look, as well as some bugs to iron out. The archives will have missing graphics and broken links, which we’ll tend to as we have time, so don’t worry about those. If you find any major problems with the site, please let us know. Have fun!

Probably our most desired new feature and the one we’re most proud of is the Talkbacks area. Each news story will now have a discussion area for comments, questions, and the like. We hope this will do a few things for us: First of all, it will allow you to ask questions regarding items in the story that others may be able to answer quicker than us (while at the same time eliminating some of the e-mail clutter). They’re also intended just as an area where items can be discussed amongst the most important folks out in the Askewniverse: the fans.

We’ve created VIP slots for all the key players in View Askew, so if a name’s in RED, you know they’re the real deal. Anyone pretending to be someone from View Askew or a direct affiliate of ours that does NOT post in red is an impostor. That being said, if you think yourself a candidate for this, and we have not already gotten a special password to you, please let us know and we’ll get you set up.

At presstime, “RED” posters will be as follows: Kevin (Kevin Smith), Vincent (Vincent Pereira), Deadshot (Jason Mewes), Ben (Ben Affleck), Brian_Lynch (Brian Lynch), CartoonGuy (Chris Bailey), DanteHicks (Brian O’Halloran) and, of course, Brad & Chris (us). We can’t promise if ANY of these folks will show up, mind you, but their accounts are there and can be used anytime they’d like.

Some talkback areas are allowed to run rampant with continuous nonsense and flaming. We will stand for no such thing. These areas are meant for fun, sure, but there are limits. We’re not going to censor bad language or your right to an opinion (positive OR negative), but we do have the right to remove anything that we find offensive or inappropriate. We also can suspend and ban accounts at any time, and this goes for the first offense. We want Talkbacks to be a place everyone can go and enjoy, not a dumping ground for flaming and other garbage.

A word of caution: Talkback posting will be a bit time consuming since our news database has to completely regenerate for each item posted. The wait is not due to transfer speeds or modem speeds, simply for the amount of data that must be processed when a post takes place (the front page must be updated to indicate that your comment was posted). We apologize for that, and hope that the slight speed problems won’t discourage you from posting once in a while.

So, what are you waiting for? Go get your name reserved in the Talkbacks area! It’s important, by the way, that you register with a proper e-mail address. If not, any password problems or other issues relating to your ID will not be taken care of, and it’s possible if you ever forgot your password that you might lose your ID forever. So please be careful. Talkback DOES include an e-mail address suppression feature if you would like your address to remain private. This feature is available to every user.

Okay, so ya got it? Alright then, get talking!

It had seemed like forever since we’d last touched the Summaries. So much had changed in the View Askewniverse and the things were suffering. Our busy schedules and the craziness of the site itself had been keeping us from getting to look at them for an update ourselves. Luckily, Zeebadaboodee came to the rescue with an AMAZING summaries update that really does make this the true View Askew FAQ that it has always strived to be. This is THE place to go for all the info, folks, in fact, we bet there’s a95% chance your question is already answered over there SOMEWHERE.

We were still quite fond of the redesign we did on the summaries about a year ago, so we decided to just take all of the information that Zee had compiled and throw it into the current design. In the process, we’ve added (and deleted) categories, to make information easier to locate in a more logical spot. So, on first glance, the summaries may not look much different, but we promise you, there is just an amazing and VERY current variety of information here. And now that we’re caught up and have the new site design done, they should be quite simple to KEEP current, as well.

With the addition of our searchable archive database AND these summaries, News Askew has now become more than just a place for the latest news, it’s also become THE premier View Askew resource database on the net. If it’s not here, it’s not anywhere. We urge all of you to check out the new and improved summaries. We promise even those of you who don’t have questions will find something new and interesting over there. And for those of you that DO have a question: Read ‘em!!!!

It wouldn’t be a site revision without some changes reagrding the reason this site started, our Official View Askew Drinking Games! Not only do we have some spiffy new logos courtesy of Dave Blumenstein (check them all out together on our Drinking Games index page), but we’ve again revised the rules a bit to keep things interesting. The Dogma game, since it’s fairly young, gets the most major revisions. ‘Rats also sees a few more updates. We’re now feeling that the four games are about as good as they’re gonna get, so we’re going to stop taking suggestions for changes or new rules and etch them in stone. We’ve played them all and, believe us, there’s NO need for more drinking than what’s already there!

So, if you’ve never seen them, or been afraid to play, check them out. But as always, drink responsibly and NEVER drive after you play. Even if ya don’t drink, read the rules, we think you’ll get a chuckle out of some of them.

Thanks to the following folks for suggestions that made it into the final revisions: Brian, Matt Peck, Omar Drake, Phil, Annie Roewe, Rob Brown & Jen.

• We didn’t think this one was even worth a mention, but considering we’ve gotten 40 e-mails on it (and counting), we suppose we’d better run the story just to stop them from coming in! The StarWars.com website’s weekly poll, though it doesn’t mention Clerks, had a very Randal-esque question running at the moment:

Thanks to all of you who sent the poll in to us. The names are way too numerous to mention.

• The Jay & Silent Bob Trade Paperback with VARIANT COVER is shipping this week If your local comic shop doesn’t have it, you can order it using this Diamond Comics code. We assume the Stash may get some of these as well, so you may wanna check with them before anything else. (FEB001468 DFE JAY & SILENT BOB ALT CVR TP $16.95)
• The University of Wisconsin cites Mallrats as #5in their “Top 5 Movies For College Students” listing.
• Anyone who saw Ben Affleck meet “Mango” on Saturday Night Live when he hosted a couple months back may want to relive that skit by reading this online transcript. Those of you who didn’t see it may just be baffled. For some reason, though, strange as it is, it’s funny.
• The Jason Lee film “American Cuisine” is playing on the American Movie Classic channel this Sunday at 3:00 PM. We dunno how good it is, since we’ve never seen it, but it’s not on video, so this may be one of your only chances to catch it.
• Finally today, this month’s Empire Magazine (UK) has its share of mentions of Askew personalities yet again, though nothing too noteworthy, but does give the Chasing Dogma trade paperback a nice review:

Thanks for stopping in. We hope you’re enjoying the new site.