And because I'm not one to do all that work for only 20-some-odd hours of enjoyment, Caption This! Mode will remain an option at HCC going forward. Just right-click the HCC title graphic on any page and choose CT! Mode from the hover menu. You'll be able to cap hundreds of hours worth of late-90's Sci-Fi Channel programming all through a nostalgic interface blissfully free of the capping advances made in the last ten years or so. Your caps will still go into the regular HCC gallery, and you'll see the caps made by other people who are using the normal interface, you'll just be seeing it all through a Caption This! "skin" as it were. And of course you'll be capping a different feed than those mysterious future-dwelling space men.
Special thanks to JediClone, those great banner ads you saw at the top of the screen were from his old Sponsor This! site. As a side note, I'd love to hear any feedback from folks who might remember the Caption This! caption-entry screen better than I do. I was able to find archived versions of the old gallery and the Tom Servo page to base my emulation on, but had to completely wing it on the caption-entry screen. I think I got it pretty close, but if anyone remembers it more clearly (or even better, has an old HTML file or screenshot) I'd love to hear/see it.
In non-April-Foolsy site news, I wanted to give a quick Grabatron update. The Grab Bag sets from the Live feed had been piling up pretty badly without much hope of them getting caught up, so I wrote some new code to help with the problem. If a Grab Bag set has been sitting in the Grabatron for more than a month, I'll run automated code that will pick the rest of the needed grabs at random to finish out the set, so it can be added to the catalog. I've already done so for the bulk of the 60+ sets we had piled up that were more than a month old. Going forward, ideally grabs will be hand-picked before the auto-grab becomes necessary, but at least now we have something in place so the Grabatron doesn't end up on a future episode of Hoarders. Thanks again to everyone who helps out!
-Jazz
T'was a great prank--or blast from the past, depending on how you look at it. Lotsa fun!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it's a reflection of how long I spent on CT!, but it actually took me a moment to notice anything was different. I think it was when I couldn't vote for a caption. Great job pulling that off, Jazz, and it especially makes me appreciate all the great features you've added HCC, which I quickly missed - you know, once I realized what was going on.
ReplyDeleteBTW, going with the theme I reverted back to my old CT! handle of ZaphodBeeblebrox (man, I was lucky to get that handle back then!), and quite frankly, found that I missed it. Is there any chance of reclaiming that, or would that just screw everything up? (It looks like someone was briefly using that handle back in 2007).
Zbeebs: Yeah, I would have no problem if you wanted to use that old handle. You would have two different Ultimate Archive pages unless you wanted me to change all your ZBeebs caps to the new/old handle, which can also be done.
DeleteThat would be awesome if everything could be consolidated under ZaphodBeeblebrox. I guess the only trick would be letting everyone know my name had changed. Hey, I could be "The Artist Formerly Known as ZBeebs"!
DeleteIt is done!
DeleteYes! Pitiful fool, with my full power restored, you will now all bow down to the awesome power of.... uh, oops, I meant, thanks Jazz!
DeleteI had a ton of fun Capping it "Old School" as it were. I didn't notice (or miss) the you have from time A to time B to caption this grab, or something like that.
ReplyDeleteThe joke was on me when I actually entered my old Caption This Password only to discover later it was not needed.. GOOD ONE!
I want to thank you for all the work on this project.
As much fun as it was, I'll stick with the "New School" capping with all the features you have worked so hard to include to make our Capping fun!
Thanks Again
Pope WEIRD the 1st
It was fun for about an hour until until I got locked out for the rest of the day :/ It might of been my fault however, I accidentally put in my "deadmallsanita" user name for other websites without thinking when I made one cap.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the old caption this! website, here are my captions from the fall of 2002: http://www.angelfire.com/gundam/laurenweediem/caption.htm
I want to especially thank Jazz (and JediClone, I guess) for two of the banner ads (which were all a great, great feature to add to this art-work of good April humor)... the one for AmpleWoman and the one for the Meessa No Liken Ja-Ja Sweepstakes were particularly loved, liked, and laughed with/at.
ReplyDeleteI knew, from some web programmer's sixth sense, that the password field was bogus/void, so I just entered 'biteme' as a password... it always worked. :)
But it all made me miss the modern HCC after a while. It's just not the same here in The Future! where an African-American man is President and we seem to have blown the 'perpetual prosperity' thing they were talking about c. 1999. (Surely not related Future Phenomena -???)
It was a more innocent time back then... Hoagies were visible... Blonde Tux Bastards remained nameless... I could sleep at night without hideous nightmares of Uncle Klunk stuck in my head...
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly enjoyed the Caption This April Fool's prank. Even back in the CT days I used to complain how much better it would be if the capping thing were in the hands of the cappers... usually by pointless email to scifi.com after the millionth time CT crashed. We've come a long way.... It would have taken by now for the SciFi tech support to solve their freezing problem anyhow. Oh, and I still haven't gotten those Bionic Woman tapes I paid Deadlyringer for. What gives?
Excellent work, Jazz. With this new CT! mod, you're like the new Bonnie Hammer. Oh wait, that didn't come out right... or did it? : )
I'm thrilled and honored that my old banners were made a part of this. Capping that way again was so much fun. Also a pleasant surprise to find that a CT! interface is here to stay. Not that I plan to use it much, but nice to know its there if I want to. Like so many other options on HCC I skip past.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem I have with it is I HAD THINGS TO DO YESTERDAY! And instead of doing any of them I sat on my butt reliving the glory days. What a waste of a night well spent.
My memory is that the caption-entry screen was even more painful (at least in the middle era when I stop using CT!). No refresh button and possibly just navigation in one direction (as in only to the image screen or only to the gallery) but I can't remember which direction it went. There may have also been some added pain in entering your password. Unfortunately I've screwed around with my own code so much since I ran a CT! skin to commemorate the last MST3K rerun on SklyFyChynyl that the skin no longer functions much past the front page.
ReplyDeleteWe had to spend the weekend moving into our new place and didn't get internet until Monday so missed all of this! Hope you enjoyed yourselves!
ReplyDeleteMore thanks to JediClone, and Gerson as well, for their input on what the CT caption-entry screen looked like. I've updated our CT! Mode based on a screenshot Jedi smuggled out of the 90s in an uncomfortable place and am now confident we're faking it like pros. Thanks guys.
ReplyDeleteThat was some prank! I plugged in a few caps but couldn't stick around long (when can I these days? sheesh!). Please, oh please, oh please tell me that at some point the cappers got stuck with a bleak, bland, bloring grab for an hour or five.
ReplyDelete