Force-Cast Microcast #1 Released, Removed, Released Again
(source: Force-Cast, 11-27-06)

Here's a bizarre bit of news to kick off the day:

Very early this morning, TheForce.Net posted a new episode of their Force-Cast. The episode was hosted by Dustin Roberts, rather than the usual team of Pete Nadel and Jason Swank. Along with this apparent temporary change of host was a change of format. This was touted as a new Force-Cast Microcast, which was entitled A Galaxy of Music, Vol. 1. It basically featured the series intro and ending, along with Roberts playing the role of disc jockey for various music. Compared to the standard format of the Force-Cast, it was bizarre to say the least.

What makes it more bizarre is that it was removed entirely (news byte and all) in the early afternoon, and this file was apparently not added to the RSS feed for the show (although the file itself is marked as "track 14" for the series, which would be correct for a new episode after last week's thirteenth regular episode).

Frankly, we have no idea what this was all about, but in order to keep things straight, we have counted this very limited release as an episode of the series and are crediting Dustin Roberts as host of the Force-Cast Microcast.

If we manage to get to the bottom of just what was going on with this strange release, we'll bring you all up to speed.

Update: As of 9:45 p.m. Eastern, the file is back up and available. It apparently is the start of a new style of episode, not a practical joke or something similar, as some suggested.