I really need to get back to work, but here's a quick official announcement about the new chat that we're trying out. It's here:

http://www.lothere.com/chat/

Things to know:

• You will have to Register a new account over on the chat side, unfortunately. I couldn't get it to share the user registration database without a lot of work so I didn't bother.
• You can make your text have colors, bold/italic/underline, and smilies. Use the buttons for those.
• You can also use a few BBCode tags. [b][/b], [i][/i], [u][/u] will bold, italicize, and underline whatever they surround, so you don't have to make the entire line bold/unbolded, etc. I think there is a way to enter colors for individual words, too, but I didn't check that out.
• Links of the form http://www.google.com/ are automatically converted to clickable links. You don't have to surround them with anything.
• You can "whisper" to someone or view their profile by clicking their name in the Online list. Close the whisper/profile button with the tiny « button just above the input field
• You can include images by using BBCode tags like so: [img]http://www.lothere.com/images/1085f/eadRADandconniebear.jpg[/img]. You can link directly to an image anywhere on the Web (including this site.) Be reasonable in the contents of the images you choose.
• There are gobs and gobs of hidden smilies. Play around by entering words placed between colons like :angry: and you might have a nice surprise.
• The history in the chat only seems to last for a couple hours before it's deleted. If that's really going to bother anyone, I can see about rigging up a automatic archiving of the chat histories. But I am not sure I want some of the things I type in the heat of the moment to be preserved for posterity. Especially since you can now post pictures. Of men in kilts.
• We have dancing bunnies. is the key.
• The chat room is called The World of Procrastination and Distraction for a reason. You have been warned.