Happy Leap Day, Folks!  Here's the latest news:

I took the whole week to catch up on my work, and now everything is completely all right in my end!  Finally!  Now the act of balancing college with ISML is stabilized, and this league will finally pick up the pace and get back on track.  That being said, I did indeed get some Saimoe work in.

Nominations - I know everyone is running up here wanting to see who's in the top 17 (well, 16, now that Kyou Fujibayashi (CL) sneaked in), but due to the make-up work that will decide my future, the nominations are not completely updated, but I hope to have them on by tonight.  I have time now, so I can get to work on them now.

The Test Poll- Still under construction.  I got to working on it from time to time, but there are still a few kinks that I have to work out.  It should be running sometime next week, so I may just be scheduling the Rozen Maiden vs. Nanoha exhibition match without it having to be moved (finally).  The date is not yet announced, but I hope to have it running on Tuesday.  How the test poll will work is that you're still not allowed to vote more than once, but unless I'm in a bad mood (and I've already banned IP addresses), I'll be lenient on penalties, if at all I give them.  If you do decide to multi-vote, just do it about five or six times for the purpose of testing the poll scripts and not to make Fate stomp on Suiseiseki on the street just because she was upset by only 7 votes in Korea.  Once I get the results up, then I will edit the script little by little and continue with these tests until either nominations end or I'm satisfied that we can run this tournament without complaint.

International Message - under construction.  It's almost finished.  I'm having an overseer edit my message to make sure that I am giving the right message so that those who do not speak English are comfortable in participating in this event.  That will also be posted on the website, hopefully soon.

Schedule page - Fully updated.  The new dates are now on the schedule page.  Do note that I have changed the order of matches within the Aquamarine period and the Topaz period so that it can accommodate for the now lost vacation.   These dates are tentative, as they do depend on my currently uncontrollable schedule.  Expect some dates to move around and around just because something happens in my end that are more important than running this league.

Contestants page - You should see some new faces on the roster this week, but they were on the roster to begin with.  Just that they have their pictures taken is all.  There are five that are still missing, but they should be completed by next Saturday with no problem.  As for the profiles themselves, I haven't gotten around to doing them yet, nor have I updated their schedules to fit with the new one.  With Spring Break ahead, look for me to be doing some of those occasionally.  Of course, you are welcome to write the first paragraph of a contestant's profile you want to write and send it to me, and I'll handle the rest of the biographies themselves.

Finally, what to expect: I will be on retreat this weekend, so I won't be involved with this website on Saturday and Sunday.  The test poll will more or less be likely to be available on Tuesday, but if not, at least expect it to be around this week if anything.  Nominations will be posted as soon as possible, hopefully tonight, so stick around and wait a while for it to be uploaded.  Expect my involvement in this project to pick up the pace a little bit and if all goes well, we can have a successful year.

First order of business: I apologize for not having the poll script ready.  This past week, my exhaustion got worse for the wear.  The doctor told me to take it easy this week.  Apologies for not making an announcement, since I wasn't sure how long I would be out.  Please understand that I don't have the energy to run this full time, which is why I am always asking for help to run this league.  Starting today and until the 1st, my work on this project will probably be limited, so expect things to be pretty slow.

Now on to the important stuff: Nominations will be opened tonight, as soon as possible, 1:00 AM GMT -5 the latest.  As today is the 21st (err, 22nd), I can't keep the world waiting any longer.  However, the following changes have been made for this second round of nominations:

1. Nominations will end on March 20th, a span of 4 weeks.

2. Those of you who nominated in the first round will be eligible to nominate a second time.  IP's will be reset, so you will be allowed another nomination.

3. Because of her dominating performance in the first nomination round, Kyou Fujibayashi (CL) is now automatically locked into the first Fanvote slot.  She will be added to the list of contestants you will not be allowed to nominate, as she is now qualified to enter this competition.

4. All already nominated contestants will retain their points.  i.e. Kotomi Ichinose, the now current leader, will retain her 198 points and so forth.  The cutoff point is now 16th place.

That should be all regarding nominations.  If there are any questions, contact me using the contact form or post in the forum board.  I prefer that you use the contact form, since I check my e-mail more often than not.

Now onto the rest of the announcements:

1. Due to my exhaustion problems in the past two weeks, I've been missing classes as well.  With deficiencies coming out in the next few weeks, my work on this league will be limited, as I would be trying to catchup on my college work.  I'm going to try hardest to revamp this website so that it is completely updated.

2. The test poll that was scheduled on the 17th?  Naught.  The date didn't exist.  I had it written out too, and I will be ready to test it.  There will be a poll test scheduled on Monday, the 25th, assuming I'm up to the task.  It will be an exhibition match - contestants to be announced, unless I've already announced them.

I'll sort out the rest of the stuff once I'm done with the work on my end.  Stick around, and contact me frequently for concerns.

Yeah.  I've been working on the test survey while re-watching Kanon on a big-screen projector and I am not too happy about what I have to do in regards to that pollscript.  The pollscript I was working on involves me to upload a LOT of files on the server before hand instead of automatically creating them as an output file.  Fortunately, I found a script that should be easier to work with, but this will involve me having to start from almost scratch.

Because of this, I am moving the test to Monday, February 17 for the nomination survey.  This will put a few things back, but I should be able to manage.

Nominations have now officially closed for the first period.  Due to country participation allotments, I have decided to indeed go ahead with the second period of nominations which will open on the 21st.  However, there may be a few restrictions this time around.  Whether they are there or not will all depend on whatever you voters prefer.  Suggestions for the second period will be included in the test poll that I hope to get up by tomorrow.

The website will undergo a major renovation following the test poll.  As I have announced yet another schedule change, modifications must be set up in order to accommodate these changes.  Therefore, schedules will be changing (again), the contestants page will be updated, and hopefully more profiles will be added.  It will almost be like a second draft of a paper - completely revised.

As expected, I will be doing a lot of the website changes.  As always, I am leaving it to you the voters to find other voters out there and get them to come here.  Although I sincerely thank United States, Vietnam, and Indonesia for their widely devoted participation, I would like the rest of the world, especially the countries who probably would not understand what I am saying right now (Japan, South Korea, China), to make a difference in this International league as well.  As this is the first year we are doing this competition, the league is so far only available in English.  That does not mean I am targeting an English-speaking community.  I would like a lot of foreign support, as this is an international league.  For the many countries who were not able to vote beforehand, a second opportunity, thanks in part to my increasing workload, is given to you, and I wish to see you take part in this league.  Always remember to spread the word for this league, and together, we will make this a success.

Now onto nominations.  Under the usual top 40, there should be an excel file that enlists all the characters accepted that have been nominated so far.  You will have the opportunity to look at each and every single character and see where they stand.  If you're in the red, or worse, the white, then you will need to gather some support in order to get your character into the remaining 17th slots.  Needless to say, I am seriously thinking about post-humorously giving Kyou Fujibayashi an automatic invite, as she has completely dominated the nomination standings since day 1.  This will be one of your options in the test poll.

Once again, nominations are not over - it will only be a one-week break.

I know a lot of you are getting restless.  Don't worry.  Suiseiseki is getting restless, too.

However, I, as a whole, am "rest"-less.  Due to health implications, I was unable to work on this league the way I had planned to, therefore progress seems to be slow here.  (i.e. I'm sick and I'm still sick.) Unfortunately, even with all the time in the world, I still believe that I don't have enough to make this league internationally successful as I wanted it.

Therefore, I've decided to scale back dates.  All match dates are postponed until April 3, 2008 and beyond.  This will give me some more time to prepare for this league and make it successful, not to mention work on a few things on my end as well.  I will still be advertising the league all around, but I would like you to do the same.

Nomination Deadline will remain on Valentine's Day.  Nominations will still close on February 14, and I will update the standings by then.  However, all is not lost for the nominations, as there may be an opportunity for them to open again.

As far as polls go, I have finally found a script (free of charge) that I may consider running.  It does everything the current script I'm using does plus it tallies all the votes for me.  And it does give me the option of taking only one vote per IP address.  Therefore, tests have been scheduled.

February 16 - There will be a survey question similar to a match setting concerning nominations.  You will have three options:

1. Leave the nominations closed - all 17 remain locked in.
2. Re-open nominations on February 21 - no one is locked in.
3. Re-open nominations on Feburary 21 - Anybody with 100 votes over 17th place will be locked in for distancing themselves by the 1st deadline.

Depending on how the votes go, I will make my decision concerning nominations on the 19th.  It will not necessarily be majority rule - it will depend on how the votes are spread out.  The 2nd nomination deadline is TBA soon.

February 23 - 2 Exhibition matches - Fate vs. Suiseiseki, Nanoha vs. Souseiseki
February 26 or 28 - 4 Exhibition matches - TBA
March 4 - 16 Exhibition matches - TBA

Results will not count towards the league itself - it will only serve as a test for the poll script.  Nominations will still be running regularly.

I apologize for the inconvenience, but due to implications regarding my health and education, I am unable to update the nominations today.  However, there will definitely be an update on the 13th, 24 hours before nominations close.

As promised, the nomination standings have been updated and we've seen three contestants bumping three others out for the nomination slots.

Workload on my end has continued to increase.  As always, I'm still looking for help to run this tournament and make this league a legendary event.  If you're interested in contributing, please e-mail me at hendrickfan66@yahoo.com or send me a private message on the forum boards.

Apologies for not announcing some updates.  College work hit me.  Hard.  I've been doing things on the website to try to make it better in preparation for Leap Eve, as well as finishing up the character profiles and also try to find a way to get some more people interested in this tournament.  I'll try to remember what updates I did.

Obviously, as you may have noticed, there is a new standings page, intended to post the actual standings once we get to the round robin stages.  Because it is there as a place holder, I did promise to give a sneak preview of the nomination standings as it currently is.  So far, we've seen a battle, and a war will now ensue around 17th place.  Sadly, I do not have room for 65 this year, so we will just have to make do with what we have.  I will also update the nomination standings on the 7th, 11th, and 13th, just to make sure that the new voters will also know where they are headed.

Other than that, I have made a few updates.  I have added Shinku's profile (or did I do that before the last news post?), added some portraits in the contestants page, and fixed a major spelling error (kudos to the anonymous person for catching "Sugintou").

My current priority is working on the welcome page that I want to be translated.  I am still looking for translators into any language, especially Japanese.  If you are interested in helping out with this league, contact me via the contact form or leave a message at the forums.