Posted 2:32 PM by Scottman

Hey! Tim fixed the JavaScript error that I caused. Evidently it wasn't that tough for him to knock out, but I am still in for a fist beating for screwing up. So if you see me at a show with black eyes, missing teeth or other signs of trauma, you'll know that I paid my penalty for my lack of programming skills.

Below is a photo my wife took of me the day I got out of the hospital after Tim beat me senseless for not putting ketchup on his hamburger at the District show.

Posted 8:58 PM by Scottman

If you are the one person who visits other parts of the site as opposed to the other six who spend all of their time on the message board, you may have noticed that the contest schedules on each band’s profile page doesn’t list any shows in October. The reason for that is that I am an idiot. Tim is the one who actually does all of the web site updates and I am the one who answers the bulk of the email and researches the mundane details you see on the SI site. Tim is away at camp this week with Mt. Vernon this week so I took it upon myself to update the site. I am pretty well versed in HTML, but I am not very knowledgeable in JavaScript, which is language that drives most of the lists and schedules on the site (e.g. the contest list and contest participant list).

When Tim finds out that I screwed up the code, he is going to beat me up – I just know it. He’ll probably kick me off the web site too. The only reason he keeps me around is because I own most of the camera equipment we use. Plus I have to drive to and from shows after dark because Tim immediately loses consciousness as soon as the sun sets. So when he runs me off, he’ll have to find someone else to cart him around at night. I’m sure he’ll let everyone know when he is ready to hold auditions for my successor. *chuckle*

Posted 12:56 PM by Scottman

Speaking of new things, we are tentatively planning on having some contests on the web site this season. Here’s what we have thought up so far in no particular order –

Draw Vern – For those of you who don’t know, Vern is the name of the SI logo. To make it interesting, we are thinking about adding the stipulation that everyone has to draw Vern with crayons, or something that is equally weird. People can scan the images or mail us their drawings and we will scan them and post them on the site.

Write marching band story - That should be easy enough, right? Tim and I thought that just writing a story would be too easy, so we are going to add the stipulation that all entries must use the word "tasty" 11 times (non-consecutively) throughout the story. Stupid? Yes, but that's what we are about this year.

Draw a picture of your band director - In this contest, bandos are encouraged to draw an image of their band director. They can use any means they wish to do it. Like the draw Vern feature, we will post the images on the SI site.

Photo caption of the week - Each week I'll post some weird photo from the previous weekend and people will be able to submit a caption for the photo. The one that is the funniest wins.

Name that band - I'll dig up and post old photos of bands and have people submit entries of who they think the band is. A drawing is held of all the correct entries to determine the winner.

Win a Gourmet meal with Tim and Scott - In this contest, Tim and I will draw the name of someone and buy them a meal at a band contest. What makes it a gourmet meal is how we will package it. We will use other names to make the food sound chic and expensive. For instance instead of a cheeseburger with mustard, they will get le' hamburger avec moutarde et fromage or something similar. The winner will be featured on the SI site.

In the meantime we are securing a bunch of cheap and meaningless merchandise that we will use as prizes. What do you expect? Tim and I don’t have a budget!!!

Posted 12:53 PM by Scottman

OK, so I am back after a long absence. For the one person who checks out parts of our site OTHER than the message boards, you may have noticed that we have started updating the site for the 2003 season. We are also staring to add some other stuff too. I have added a few new articles and there are some more on the way.

I am still unsure about ISSMA regionals this season. Evidently so is just about everyone else. I have written to some of the folks at ISSMA and asked for clarification so Tim and I don’t end up going to an empty stadium somewhere because we thought regionals were going to be there. Whenever we hear something official (probably a couple days before regionals when ISSMA decides to post it on their web site) we’ll post something on the SI web site.