With the new season not currently schedule to start until January 2012, the earliest we probably would resume regular group chats would be some time at the end of December. Currently, it is not unusual for only 2-3 people to show up for the weekly chats, and even then the actual Southland discussions last about 5 minutes max, then the rest of the time is spent on personal discussions that could easily be done on personal Instant messaging or Facebook chat.

At our current rates, we are paying $15/month (thanks to paraChat giving us a DEEP discount) which would be $60-$75 between now and the end of the year. The problem is, I have received IN TOTAL only $117.00 ($111.42 after fees) in donations this year. So far this year, I have already paid $212.79 on the chat room and $578.23 total on the website, between the chat room, shipping for the charity auction and domain names. So, for 2011 alone, I am currently $466.81 in the hole, and that doesn’t count values brought forward from 2010.

Now, I love Southland, but we are NOT a 501(c)(3) non-profit or any other type of charity. I have to pay for this stuff out of pocket. If none of the users/fans consider it important enough to even contribute a measly $5 once in a while to help keep the site running, then I am not going to pay out of my pocket and take money from my family & my business to let people gossip and play around. It’s that simple.

Bottom line – if people want the site and the features it offers, then they need to put their money where their mouths are. Without the donations, and with everyone flocking here to Facebook instead of the website, I don’t see a need to continue the effort or the expenses.

Charity Auction

We conducted our second round of the Charity Auction and the results were, well, less than overwhelming. While two people did take advantage of the “Buy It Now” feature that we added this time around to outright purchase a a couple of the autographed photos, the general response and interest in event was lackluster at best.

The good news is, we raised a total of over $700 for AmeriCares. $700 for AmeriCares equals to over $30,000 in aid delivered on the ground in Northern Japan, so I’m thrilled about that. Major thanks should be given to those who participated in the auction and supported this wonderful cause. Overall, however, I am seriously disappointed in the lack of support from our community. Not just the lack of bids – I understand financial hardship – but also in the lack of helping to promote the auction, failure to help by Retweeting the item posting tweets, or anything else to help promote it to the public in general. How much would that have cost fora a show we all supposedly loe so much, from people who spend so much time talking about it online, who also spent so much time tweeting & Facebooking about the tragedy in Japan?

So, needless to say, our days of philanthropy are over. The remaining cast members who promised to send autographed photos to auction off never ended up delivering anyway, so I’ve got nothing left to auction. Plus, the whole deal of mailing off the items & handling the inevitable issues of complaints about shipping, nondelivery, customs, etc. was just too much work. My hat’s off to anyone who does this on a regular basis for a living – I sure as heck couldn’t do it every day.

If anyone still wants to support the AmeriCares Pacific Earthquake & Tsunami Fund, they are always accepting donations! The work is far from over and won’t be for a long time to come. Please click on the AmeriCares logo on the right and you will be taken to the correct page on their site to make a donation specifically for that fund (as opposed to their general fund, or one of their other projects, like their Tornado relief funds).

Live Chats

Thanks to a great deal from our chat service provider, who gave us an amazing discounted price on the chat room, the live chats will continue for the foreseeable future. For the moment, I have enough money left in the donation fund to keep the website domain names registered and keep the chat rooms running for a few months at least. As long as the money is there to pay for it, the service will stay up for those that want to participate.

Season 2 DVD & Web Store

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that Season 2 of SouthLAnd is now available on DVD now in a 2 disc uncensored pack. The bad news for many is that it’s only available online from the WB Shop.

To make things easier, and help support the website at the same time, I have setup an affiliate agreement with the WB Shop and we’re offering the Season 2 DVD right there from the site. You will see the picture & link on every page over on the right side, plus you can visit the store linked from the very top of every page.

If you are planning on buying it soon, please considering clicking through one of our links to do so. The purchase is exactly the same as if you went directly to WB’s site, you’ll get it in the same amount of time, but if you do then we will get a small percentage of the sale of the DVDs, plus a percentage of anything else you buy at the WB Shop during the same trip.

Our store also has a number of other great Southland-related items, all of which we get a percentage of if you buy them after clicking on our links. These include things like Southland on iTunes an Amazon.com, as well as various movies starring the cast of Southland.

Website Hiatus

Due to a number of pressing personal & business issues, I will not be around very much to do, well, pretty much anything for the website for the next couple of months. As there is not really anything going on with SouthLAnd right now, that’s pretty much a perfect time. Other fans are doing a great job of keeping track of the stars and their activities in their hiatus from the show. You can stay updated on that stuff best by joining the SouthlandFans group on Facebook, where fans post on a regular basis. You can also find links to the Fan Pages for many of the cast there, too.

Hopefully everyone will have a safe and enjoyable summer, without too much harrassment from Mother Nature. We should resume normal activities here in the late fall, when TNT resumes filming of the show for Season 4.

Until then, behave yourselves – Southland Style!

Southland

Among other things, in the 2+ years that I have been running this site I have accumulated multiple domain names in order to protect our interests and prevent “domain squatters” from ruining our online reputation as the #1 Southland Fan Community.

What does that mean in real life terms? Well, for example, not only do we own SouthlandTvFans.com, but we also own the .net, .org, .info, .me, .mobi, .tv, .biz, .us and even .co.uk versions of SouthlandTvFans. We also own multiple variations of SouthlandForums and RenewSouthland (which we used for the petition), sfc.me (used for our own custom Short Links) and we even own Southland.me!

So here is the question of the hour!

For a nominal fee, all of which would be used to offset actual costs of running the service and this site ONLY, would Southland Fans be interested in a totally Southland Customized Internet Communications Suite of services, that includes:

• COMPLETE Google Email Services, accessible via Webmail and virtually any email client (IMAP & POP3) including Mobile Sync on Smart Phones. Use the familiar Gmail web interface, forward to your existing email account or use a mail client like Windows 7 Mail, Outlook, Mac Mail or Thunderbird
• Google Contacts – store your contacts securely online and sync with all your computers and mobile devices
• Google Calendar – Keep track of important events, share with friends
• Google Docs – Forget expensive software from the big companies – use the fastest growing free software available!
• Full Google account for use virtually ANYWHERE that a Gmail account can be used to access hundreds of free services, including YouTube, Orcut, iGoogle, Groups, Wave, Buzz, Google Voice – you name it
• Google Talk chat, including the ability to log into & use AIM accounts
• Google Sites – websites in a few clicks at yourname.southland.me or yourname.southlandfanclub.com, for example!
• Google Video – NOT YouTube! Share videos with other Southland Fans!
• Customizable Southland Fans start page
• Much, much more!

So what do you think? Is this something that you, as a fan, could be interested in for a nominal fee (TBD, but VERY reasonable for even the most frugal fan)? Please! Leave your comments here and let us know! Commenting is easy – all you need is an account on ANY social networking site and we will never spam ANY user after you register! At the very least, respond to our poll so we can get some numbers to help us make our decision. If you are the real supportive type – do both!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Poll requires JavaScript to be enabled. If you can’t answer it, please just leave a comment below.

Please – let us know!

Thanks!

Bob Parker, your humble webmaster & the SouthlandTvFans.com Steering Committee

Additional notes from user feedback:

• If you have trouble using the poll above (some people have with some browsers – not exactly sure why!) – just leave a comment below. I will take all comments and votes into consideration. I just want to get an idea of the interest!
• By nominal fee, I’m talking something along the lines of $4.95 a month MAX, probably much less. Most likely we would setup something to charge on a quarterly, semi-annual or annual basis to make it as convenient as possible.
• Payments (assuming this actually goes through and happens) could be made through either PayPal or Google Checkout. This means you could pay with a PayPal account balance, any major credit card or eCheck, from any country in the world (slight surcharge for international users to offset currency exchange fees, unless paying in US funds). The goal is to make it as simple and as easy as possible for everyone!
• While the list of features sounds impressive, it really is very basic and simple: Get a custom email address of yourname@southland.me (for example) to show the world how much of a Southland fan you are! All the bells and whistles are extra, to use or not use as you like. If you simply want the email address and forward it to your current email – go for it! If you want all the rest of the features, they are there for your use. It is as simple or as fancy as you want.

On a side note, thank you to everyone who signed our “Renew Southland” Petition – while ultimately it may have proven unnecessary (or maybe not? who knows!) I know that the show of support was appreciated on many levels, by many people – you’ll have to trust me on this one and leave it at that . We got over 2000 signatures on the petition (slightly less than that confirmed), with only word-of-mouth advertising for it, and for that we are very appreciative. Thankfully (and with thanks to TNT and Warner Brothers) it was not necessary for us to really push the petition into overdrive.

Sadly, the news of the renewal was marred by the tragic events in Japan earlier this month. For those of us on this site and the online Southland Fan community, this is brought all that much closer to home because of the immense and important participation in our community by our very own Hinako, aka @pinelou, who along with her family is a resident of Tokyo. Of course, our hearts go out to all of those affected by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami, but as with any disaster of this sale, knowing someone personally who has been affected by a disaster really brings it home for you, no matter how large or small.

After speaking with our website Steering Committee as well as several of the cast members of Southland, I have decided to hold a Charity Auction to help raise some funds for Japan. We may not raise millions, or even thousands, of dollars for them, but in a situation like this every penny counts. So let’s show the world what the Southland Fan community can do!

I did a lot of research – I mean a LOT of research. I realize there is a whole bunch of publicity being put out there to donate money to the Red Cross, especially on television. No offense to the Red Cross, they are generally a great organization that means well, but I did not choose them for a couple of reasons including the amount of administrative percentage they take from donations (excessive in my personal opinion), the amount of time it takes for donations to actually make it to the intended recipients (do you know how much money donated for Haiti is actually waiting to get TO Haiti? Google it, Boot!) and their history of taking donations contributing during crisis’ like this and redirecting them to their “General Fund”.

Instead, I found AmeriCares^®, an organization that has one of the highest donation-to-recipient ratios out there that I’ve found – 99% to programs, with 1% to Admin, fund raising and overhead. That is simply amazing. Simply put, donations made are applied directly where they are needed. More importantly, they really make their money work. In fiscal year 2009, for every $100 donated, AmeriCares was able to delivery more than $3500 in humanitarian aid worldwide! Now that is an organization I can get behind! Remember me saying that every penny counts above? Even if we only raise a couple hundred dollars, AmeriCares can stretch that money by as much as 38X based on 2009′s stats, when it comes to actual aid delivered on the ground. That is what I call making a difference. Don’t believe me? Check out their rankings!

The Auction

Rather than simply asking people to donate, we are going to hold a Charity Auction. After all, this is a Fan site, so what better to do than raise money with stuff related to Southland?

We will be auctioning off several items, through eBay, including 1 size each of the Southland jackets that we have been giving away in chats & contests, as well as a variety of autographed cast photos graciously donated by the cast members themselves. With regards to the photos, in order to avoid “flooding the market” we may or may not offer more than one of the photos for auction after the first one is posted and sold. Which ones will be available more than once? Only I know!!! So if you want it, you’ll have to bid on it – and bid generously – because ALL the proceeds go to AmeriCares. The buyer pays for shipping, our site sponsor InterFuzed is paying the eBay and PayPal fees, so all of the money received for each item from the auction proceeds goes directly to AmeriCares. Period.

Please note – auction items purchase, and the money spent to purchase the auction items, will NOT be tax deductible as charitable contributions! IF this is important to you and IF you happen to be the winning bidder on any item or items, you must contact me after the auction closes BEFORE paying for your item to make special arrangements! Otherwise you will NOT receive any tax deductible benefits from your auction purchase!!!

If you don’t win an auction for the item you want, or you just want to help out in general instead of/in addition to the Auction, please consider making a direct donation to AmeriCares. Donations made directly to AmeriCares (an IRS recognized 501(c)(3) organization) are fully tax deductible to the extent allowed by the IRS – please consult your accountant or a tax professional. To make a direct donation to AmeriCares, please go to https://secure.americares.org/site/Donation2?df_id=7659&7659.donation=form1, http://sfc.me/americares or click on the logo you see on the right side of most pages here on the website.

Please stay tuned to the site here for news on the auction! I hope to have the first items up and ready for bids within the next 24 hours. I will post here with the details of the items, what they are, pictures and the starting bids for everyone to look at plus links to the item listing pages on eBay as soon as they are available. After that – Hey, Bidder, Bidder, Hey! Let the auction fun begin!

The changes are small, but cumulative. The HUGE background graphic has been replaced with a much, much smaller 1 pixel high graphic that repeats, which should drastically increase the page load time now.

I have also seriously tweaked the styles used on the pages, to set the background colors around the Category menus using CSS styles, rather than relying on the background graphic to do so. This has two benefits – speed (as mentioned above) and much greater compatibility with multiple browser types, as not all browsers displayed things the same way (most notably Internet Explorer) which made things look really, really funky on the site when viewed with them. You might also notice some little things, like rounded corners on the post/sidebar boxes.

The rest of the changes are fairly subtle and primarily deal with speed and style enhancements – I won’t bore you with the details. Needless to say, an overhaul was long overdue (e.g., we still said that filming had started after the season was over! D’Oh!) and I hope to keep things much more up to date in the future.

Thank you to all who have helped keep this site alive and have shown their love for the show that is SouthLAnd. It is your love for the show that keeps us doing this, keeps ME doing this. Without you, we would be nothing!

I will be totally honest with you – the primary reason for this move is to save me time and effort. Maintaining ONE website is much less work than maintaining two. With the way things have been lately and the fact that I run my own corporation while also working as a software developer full time (over 50 hours a week) on top of running these sites, anything I can do to help cut down on time is welcomed with open arms.

Here is the good news – for users like you, absolutely NOTHING changes!

All existing posts and user accounts remain intact. Nothing was lost in the transition.

All old links and URLs remain intact. I have setup special forwarding on the server, so if you have any links out there to the old Forum address, or a post on the forums, the people clicking on those links will be forwarded to the exact correct location here on this site, no fuss & no muss.

The better news for ME:

People all around in the internet industry, and the entertainment industry, pay attention to total website traffic statistics. Before, our traffic was split between two sites, this one and SouthlandForums.com. Now, all the traffic will be under one domain, making it even better for us.

Also, because the forums will be located UNDER the main site, it offers opportunities we didn’t previously have to allow us to integrate the two sites. This means using Forum logins on the main site, or vice versa. Integrating forum posts into the main site. Exciting features like that.

For now, you should know that, in the long run, nothing has really change for you. You may want to update your bookmarks to avoid the redirect, but that’s not really necessary.

If you haven’t been to our Forums yet – what better time to check them out? With the season finale just behind us, there is a lot to talk about and a lot of friends from around the world to discuss the show with.

SouthLAnd received one other nomination, in the Outstanding Directing in a Dramatic Series category. Felix Alcala was nominated for the episode What Makes Sammy Run?, but the award went to TNT’s Men Of A Certain Age‘s Millicent Shelton.

Regina King is no stranger to the Awards scene. As mentioned earlier, she was nominated last year for SouthLAnd. She previously won the Image Award in the Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture category for the movie Ray in 2005, and was nominated in the same category 2 other times for Down To Earth (2002) and Enemy of the State (1999). She has been nominated twice, and won once, for the BET Best Actress Award including one nomination for her role as Lydia Adams on SouthLAnd in 2010 and the win for her role on Ray in 2005. She also received a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) award as part of the cast of Ray, which received the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Award in 2005. Regina started her rise to fame with a Young Artist Award in 1986, receiving Best Young Actress Starring in a New Television Series, for her role in “227″, followed the very next year by the Exceptional Performance by a Young Actress in a Long Running Series Comedy or Drama award.

Ms. King joins Kevin Alejandro in receiving individual award recognition for her contributions to SouthLAnd. Kevin received the Imagen Foundation Award in 2010 for Best Supporting Actor – Television for his role as Detective Nate Moretta. We are confident, however, that these are but the first of many awards to come for the outstanding ensemble cast of SouthLAnd, especially once the awards voters have the opportunity to view and vote on the oustanding episodes we have just seen in Season 3.

Congratulations Regina! Your fans are happy for you, proud of you and thrilled for the honor you have been given. It is definitely well deserved!

While John won by random draw from among all the (disappointingly few) entries, I would like to commend him on his excellent review & commentary that he posted as well. It was both well thought out and insightful, a true delight to read.

Yes – first episode was fantastic….

Someone said online that the show was slow on the Facebook page. Slow? What show were they watching – there was no way this episode was “slow”. Not every day of a cop’s life is action, and shoot em ups, if it is, there’s something wrong with how they handle the job.

Dewey, I can see – maybe he’d be the exception.

However, the way that everything played out was placed well together in the script writing. I also have to say that the cast worked well together on the show as it always had, and was thrilled to see that each original cast member returned for the most part in the first episode – was also thrilled to see others, such as “Sal” returned for the second.

The moments between Cooper and Ben, especially in the transaction dispute was fantastic. The way Ben says “I’ll be in the car….” as if to say, “Here we go again….” was priceless.

As far as Lydia’s new partner is concerned, she’s not the brightest bulb in the world, with me being a computer guy, and she asks, “How much does memory cost? I went to best buy and bought a memory stick and it has 2 million gigabytes of memory in it….can’t be all that expensive…” Well, different memory for different things, and if a memory stick had that much, she’d need a wheel barrel to carry it around in, LOL….:-).

Who ever said this episode was slow was watching the wrong one – I didn’t turn away from the TV once while it was on, nor did I find myself wanting to change the channel. If you liked Southland before, you’ll LOVE it now – new stories to unfold, and yes, maybe some past ones returning as well…..especially with Tammi and Sammy.

Great job again on Southland Season 3 – I agree with the original reviewer. It was fantastic!

Once again, congrats to John for his win! For everyone else that participated, thank you for your entries and comments. We appreciate your involvement.

Stay tuned for our next contest and more opportunities to win those coveted jackets – coming soon!

Now, thanks to a team of extremely dedicated volunteers here at SouthlandTvFans.com, you can join in on some of that “Wow factor” that is SouthLAnd On Location! We have added a new Locations Page to our About Southland section of the site that features an interactive, custom Google Map that is just chock full of all the locations that our volunteers have dug up from all around Los Angeles and surrounding cities. It’s not just some pins in a map, though – it’s a fully interactive Google Map!

See a pin in the map? Click on it! You’ll get notes about what episode, or episodes, the location was featured in (to the best of our knowledge, of course – this IS a volunteer project!) as well as some fascinating trivia. Of course, being Google Maps, in most instances you can zoom down all the way to Street View™ to get a panoramic 360 degree view of what it is like to actually stand there AT the location yourself.

We don’t stop with what is there right now, of course. This map is a living, breathing project. As each episode airs, or new information comes in, new locations will be added all the time. There is even a convenient feedback form right there on the page. If you are familiar with the area, or happen to be around when they filmed (or are filming) a scene, then by all means, submit the form and let us know! One of the volunteer map team will verify the information and add it to the collection.

last, but not least, if you are a SouthLAnd fan and have experience with Google Maps, with a little free time on your hands, why not volunteer your time to help out our project? It doesn’t take much time – just an hour or two a week or whatever time you can give! Any help at all is appreciated and you’ll be contributing to an amazing project for the SouthLAnd community.

So check out our newest addition to the website at /southland/the-locations, click on “about southland” at the very top of the page and/or share it with others at http://sfc.me/maps. If you want to contribute to the project, please let me know using the Contact link here on the site. Of course, a big shout out and HUGE thanks to our volunteer Maps team for all the great work they have done, and continue to do, on this project.

CONTEST IS NOW OVER! Winner of 1 Southland Jacket will be announced soon! – SouthlandTvFans.com Staff

Sorry everyone for the delay but here is the review. The contest runs from now until Midnight Pacific time Monday January 24. For complete contest rules please see our earlier posting.

Review & Recap: Let It Snow

By Davina Gantz aka gingercara

Where to begin. Last time we saw a new episode was April. I have watched all the episodes so many times I have them memorized. I, as have so many others, have been anxiously awaiting the new season.

There has been much speculation as to what the new season was going to bring with the show switching networks. Many media sources were able to view the 1st episode of the new season and have written reviews. I have heard nothing but fantastic things about this episode. The promos have given us all a glimpse into what the new season holds. Having  just seen the new episode I had to immediately put my thoughts to paper. So here goes.

Photo Credit: TNT/Doug Hyun

You know the expression “Don’t believe the hype”? Put that out of your mind. NOW. This episode had me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end. I don’t think I breathed the entire time it was on. I don’t even think I blinked.

The first scene introduces us to Lydia’s new partner Josie Ochoa. It’s obvious to me that Lydia does not care for her or her attitude. Josie is older, has been on the force longer and does things very differently than what Lydia is used to. This is made obvious by the car chase. It is against policy in Lydia’s mind I believe. This is not how Lydia would have handled the situation. She is used to being in the drivers seat, not riding along at the whim of someone else who won’t listen to her.

Next scene we see Cooper walking slowly and painfully to the bathroom where he puts on his back brace and takes the last of his pain pills. He is obviously in a lot of pain. But like anyone dedicated to their job he puts on his uniform and goes to work.

Cooper and Sherman are called in to handle a potential missing person’s report. Lydia and Josie are brought in when it is determined the woman is indeed missing after a search of her locker reveals her purse was still there and it is discovered she never punched out from her shift. Lydia and Josie, with the assistance of a police dog, discover the woman’s badly beaten and raped body.

Sammy and Nate are called to a double homicide involving gang members. After some investigating they discover who the killer is and make the arrest. Sammy and Nate still have the great chemistry they had in the previous two seasons, love seeing them work together.

Cooper and Sherman pull over a woman changing lanes without signaling. The driver of the car comes onto Ben who lets her off with a warning and some flirting. Cooper’s only reaction was “did you get her number”.

Classic Cooper moment when the two officers are called to a toy store to deal with a distraught woman that can’t get a refund on a doll she purchased. Cooper handles the situation with his usual straight forward tell it how it is attitude.

Cooper and Sherman called in to assist with a bank robbery in progress. Very tense scene with much gun fire and an injured officer (Shots fired, officer down!). If you thought the riot scene from “Phase Three” was intense, this scene gives intense all new meaning. Cooper orders the other responding officers including Chickie to take off their vests to put over the window of the car so they can rescue the downed officer. They drive through the gunfire to get to the officer. Cooper pulls him into the car while Sherman chases down one of the robbers who ends up shooting himself in the head right in front of Sherman. Very intense scene, very well done.

My take on the new detective is she is a bit brash, seems uncaring but very caring at the same time. Maybe a bit prissy. She definitely gets under Lydia’s skin with her attitude. I think she will become more like-able once we see more of her. They do catch the killer and make an arrest after a not by the books car chase.

Lydia very obviously misses Russell and he misses her and his old job. He is not thrilled to be riding a desk.

Photo Credit: TNT/Doug Hyun

Very interesting moment after the bank robbery. Cooper asks Ben for assistance in standing up and walking across the street. Cooper is in quite a bit of pain, this is the first time he shows his pain to Sherman instead of brushing it off like it’s nothing. Cooper then goes to the hospital where his ex-wife Laurie works. He is very kind and caring to her but it is only to get pain pills from her. She tells him no, tells him he needs help. He gets a little angry, pulling away from her. She is on the verge of tears, you can see how upset she is about his addiction. There is definitely still a bond between them despite the divorce.

Sammy and Tammy. Last we saw them they were fighting because she was smoking pot and got her expensive camera and laptop stolen. Sammy feels bad about the fight and buys her a new camera. He comes home to her smoking, she says she is quitting and she is pregnant. What is in store for them other than a baby on the way? Sammy seems to be happy about it, Tammy, not so much. And then it starts snowing.

The episode is very well written, very well acted, it was great seeing SouthLAnd on my TV, shown the way it was meant to be shown. It is now a show for adults. TNT has allowed everyone involved with the show to make it the way it was supposed to be seen. If this episode is any hint as to what the rest are going to be like, fasten your seat belts, put on your helmet, we are in for one hell of a ride!