So, in an attempt to widen up the ol’ audience, my colleagues and I have taken it upon ourselves to be proactive in our efforts. Kevin Lee O’Dell, being the lovely creature he is, informed us of the inclusion of octonaut into the world of social networking. I mean, really, MySpace is so 2004. Ryan Butler has created a group, wouldn’t you know, that’s about the ‘Naut. I guess it’s to get people pumped, I don’t know. Anyway, I logged in to that damned site today to find this:

My, my. Stellar work, Ryan Andrew Butler. I wrote up a pretty awful description that is probably too long and, to your average Facebook-goer, doesn’t contain nearly enough boobs as it should. At last count, I’d say we’re damn near zero. I’m sorry, really. Next time, friends, there will be a tremendous amount of boobs nestled sweetly within my prose. I guess, well, I guess I just felt like leaving them out this time. If only we could make those Facebook memberships into actual believers, then we’d have something. As it stands, the members of this particular group probably thought octonaut sounded hip and modern, thus they joined to also look hip and modern. Uh oh, guys, octonaut is actually a site that has real words on it. I much prefer to frequent internet domains that facilitate fake words, but it’s all the same.

In other news, I hop over to the forum the other day, and just what do I see? Well, a surprise, really:

How wonderful! Reid Abraham Clydesdale Young Jr. is now a bro. Guys, let’s take a moment to celebrate an otherwise unrealistic event. Now that we’ve shed our Jebzig! skin, we’re a group of bros who know people. But in all seriousness, welcome, Reid (yeah, I capitalized it, deal with it). Feel free to hang around as long as you’d like, discussing The Moutain Goats with Kevin. You two are so cute, you know.

Also, I have a quick question for anyone out there who is familiar with Simple Machines Forums. Why is it, of all the people who frequent the forum, it is Eli’s lovely fiance, Kat, who has her username italicized when she visits the forum (and doesn’t say anything — hmph)?

Seriously, for the life of me, I can’t figure this out. At first I thought that Eli did some craziness with his administrative powers, but I believe he said that he was unaware of the source of the anomaly, too.

Anyway, that’s not really all that important. What is important, though, is that if you used that cursed networking site, you join up and spread the good word: the ‘Naut is coming. Future Dinobot Comix is close to be transformed into a beautiful butterfly after spending so many years inside a horrid little cocoon that I imagine was created in Notepad in 5 to 10 seconds. I’m going to hook Bear up some some frontpageness soon, too.

The best news of all: Steve is doing crazy things with the code to make octonaut a wonderfully simple little package. I anticipate it!