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(From the early days of ARC in 1999 during the first rebuilding of the site)

NEWS FLASH.  Big move turns into trainwreck at ARC!

Things didn't quite go as planned with the big move, we are still in the process of putting the pieces back together, please bear with us!

An explanation from Steve

I don't have much time but I think I can get off a brief note to you all before IT wakes up from it's drunken slumber.  We had been having problems with our server and because we wanted to go to a daily update type of format, it seemed like a bright idea to move to a better server.  Now we will freely admit that none of the Three Steves are very competent at computers.....we tend to rely on our kids to turn the darn computers on for us each morning before the "said child" goes to have it's first diaper change of the day.  So we figured moving 120 megs worth on content was better left to an experienced company.  Did I mention we're not very swift at computers?....anyhow, we saw an ad for a place called "D.M.'s site moving service" and upon inquiring about the rates we were eager to get the job done.  It seems the individual we talked to by e-mail assured us he would come to our house and do the move and only charge one dollar.  We were overjoyed to be able to proudly sit back and boast to our wives between beers that important dudes like us don't move content from one server to the next....we hire someone else to do it for us.  And finally the door bell did ring......I opened it and to my horror was a 3 foot tall hairy little Mon-key standing at the door behind a shopping cart full of some sort of beverage.  Before I could slam the door, the varmit thrust the shopping cart at me and ran me down in the entrance hallway of my own house.  The other 2 Steves came rushing to my aid, but they were no match for a shopping cart full of canned drinks thundering at at full speed down a flight of stairs.  We laid there dazed and bruised as we heard the door to my basement computer room/model kit storage room slam shut.  To our horror, one of the cans from the shopping cart had fallen out and I read the label....it read "Banana Brew"....cold icy fear stuck The Three of us as we all realized that the D.M. in "D.M's site moving service" stood for none other than "Dan's Mon-key".  We tried to get into the computer room, but the hail of twisted broken sprue trees from my once impressive kit collection kept us pinned down till the little varmit barricaded the door with his 300 pounds of canned "Banana Brew".  The Mon-key had mentioned to me in the e-mails that he will be bringing some "thinking juice" but I never imagined it was "Banana Brew"...nor that I was e-mailing with Dan's Monkey.  There was only one thing left to do....grab another case of beer and try to out-think the Mon-key.....

                                                          Signed Steve

PART 2

Well after many beers, we realized we couldn't out smart Dan's Mon-key, so we called our 3 wives down to our "thinking room"...also known as the pool table room.  This, we quickly learned, was a huge mistake.  Imagine 3 women with their hands on their hips wagging their fingers and offering gems of wisdom like "And whose bright idea was it to let a Dan's Mon-key move the content of the web site?"  But once these 3 "helpful" women were on a roll...there was little for us to do except sit there and drink yet another beer in a vain attempt to dull our hearing to the point of temporary deafness.  Then, one of our darling wives asked if we had backed-up the sites content onto CD?   "HAH...we're men...men don't ask for directions, read kit instructions or back-up content onto CD's!!!"  More finger pointing and head shaking by our dear wives.  We had all the content on the hard-drive, so no matter what happened we could reload it....of course we did wonder if the Mon-key had ever figured out the delete key.

Well the little bugger was passed out from an all night session of Banana Brew, so we forced open the door to the computer room....argh...the stench...not to mention the carnage...styrene bits everywhere from my once glorious kit collection.  At least my wife will be happy....I no longer own a single un-built kit....but my spares box will be overflowing for many life times.  It seems Dan's Mon-key was none too impressed with the fact I did not own a Williams Bros B-10....his rampaging rage was complete.....he would have burned down Caz Dalton's house if he ever saw the finished William Bros. B-10 that Caz recently finished (the only finished version of this kit known to man...or Mon-Key)....I'd send you our dear readers over to our review section, but the Mon-key has probably deleted that file as well.  Come to think of it...it was probably that review that sent the Mon-key into his deleting rampage on our site.  Thanks Caz!!!  :-( 

I fired up the computer and noticed a huge empty spot on my hard-drive where once sat the content to the site.  There was no sign of a CD the Mon-key might have burned, but we weren't able to get too close to his stinking little comatose body.  Banana Brew seems to cause some pretty impressive sleeping sessions afterwards.  At that moment the Three Mrs Steves barged into the computer room demanding to know what we were going to do about the stench that was wafting throughout the whole house.  "Just carry "the filthy thing" outside to sleep on the back patio."....hummm we didn't exactly see any of them offering to get close to the foul smelling little fur ball...much less carry IT outside.  We decided it would be best to leave Dan's Mon-key where IT was and not upset him till we found out if the content from ARC was lost for good or backed-up onto a CD by Dan's Mon-key.  Now was a perfect time for more beer...we could still hear our wives and we could smell Dan's Mon-key...our senses needed some serious dulling.....      

                                                       Signed Steve

 PART 3

Well, Dan's Mon-key woke up only to confirm our worst fears.  Banana Brew leaves a horrible after-smell on the drinker's breath and the content to our site wasn't backed-up onto any CD and in-fact the whole content of our site was sent overseas to some foreign Mastermind that had been hired by the Mon-key to carry out this evil task of disrupting ARC.  Our wives had to sit down and rest, because they were laughing so hard at us...yup that's marital support for ya'.  We have discovered that the foreign mastermind and Dan's Mon-key had been plotting the hi-jacking of the ARC content for quite some time....reliable sources have informed us (thanks goes to Chief ARC Investigative Constable Brad Chun) that this foreign mastermind was even visiting the US recently for the sole purpose of collecting data about ARC and to arrange payment from Dan's Mon-key.  The cover for this evil Mastermind's trip to the US was said to be "purchasing model kits really cheap", but the head of the ARC investigation branch (Brad Chun) has discovered otherwise.  We have also discover the initials for the mastermind...D.M. and his Evil Empire is said to have it's headquarters in England.  We will be going through posts on our discussion board to see if we can figure out his name......it's only a matter of time before we catch up with him..... 

                                                                     Signed Steve    

PART 4

Well the news is not good.  ARC's Chief Investigative Constable Brad Chun has just returned from England aboard the ARC corporate 747 jet and informed us of the latest developments in this harrowing tale.  It seems the identity of the Evil English Master Mind is none other than Drewe Manton!!!  He runs an organization called the Test Post Club and it seems extortion is his motive in hi-jacking all the ARC content.  Drewe Manton has informed us that if we ever want to see our beloved content again, we better do exactly as he says.  Oddly...he only has one demand...that we turn over a portion of our beloved ARC webzine to the Test Post Club.  It seems there isn't enough humor in this world and the Test Post Club will now have a section of ARC for some non-modeling related content on the humorous side of things.  Shortly the words Test Post Club will appear in our header and that will link you to a section that will contain jokes or funny videos or funny pictures etc.  The Three Steves would like to take this moment to offer an apology for not being able to keep our web site 100% serious and modeling related but sinister forces are at work here and we are once again in over our heads.  Well...I've gotta' go...my wife just informed me that the other Two Steves need my help lifting a very smelly crate into the back of the UPS truck....it costs quite a bit to ship 100 pounds of bananas and 200 pounds of banana brew and one nasty little Mon-key to Kentucky in a crate.  I hope Dan Winfield is ready for the return of his Mon-key.  

                                          Signed Steve