Election Day is drawing closer. To help you decide which candidate you’d like you be your newest webmaster (next to me, of course), debates have taken place between candidates Cody and Power Shot on key issues such as economics, swallows laden with coconuts, skub, and cheesecake. We’re releasing this special debate over the air, through ZUCast, so those of you subscribed via iTunes should get it immediately, and the rest of you can stream the debates right from here.

Make sure to stop by ZU on November 4th and vote for the candidate you want to win! Whoever wins will be ZU’s next co-webby alongside me, so treat your vote with care. There will be a poll only on the forums, so please make sure you register to vote if you’re interested in voting.

I was fortunate enough to chat with Cameron today while one of his friends was busy playing The Wind Waker. I asked him about Team Four48, their mission, what inspired them and why they chose Zelda over other franchises. Sprinkle in a bit of metaphorical jabber, and you’ve got my spicy half-hour long interview with Team Four48’s Cameron Banga.

This is the uncut interview. It’ll download in iTunes for those subscribed to the podcast. While I can’t yet guarantee it, as I’m waiting for confirmation from our podcast editor Margar, I’m hoping that she’ll be willing to cut up a ten minute version for the upcoming installment of the ZUCast.

Team Four48 is currently on track to finish the remaining two Zelda games by their 6pm EST deadline, and it looks as though they’re going to break their $2000 donation goal as well. Make sure to watch them as they do - we’ve got a live feed going as well as video feeds and a donation widget to help them out.

A big, hearty congratulations to the Podcast team - the revamp has caused Apple to re-review ZUCast, and this time we were approved in a single day! ZUCast is now officially in the iTunes Podcast Directory. The link on the right sidebar for “Subscribe via iTunes” has been updated and will take you to ZU’s iTunes Store location.

Alternatively, you can click here and go there right now. Don’t forget to subscribe - and look forward to the next cast, where ZUCast splits into two sections: ZCast, the Zelda podcast, and CCast, the ZU community podcast.

ZU has an incredible designer. His name is Anton Wiklund, and he created most everything you see here today. A bunch of smaller images on the site were derived from his work. But we feel that you didn’t really get to know him at all - you know me and Scott, but for one reason or another this beautiful temple seems like it came out of nowhere.

But Anton deserves more than your absolute devoted attention. Which is why ZUBC and ZU want you to send in your questions, so that our podcast team can interview him video and audio style. If you’ve ever been curious about the new layout in the last two days - its development, progress, why we chose what we did and how Anton Wiklund worked with our comments and directions - now is the time to send it in. And thank him for this beautiful layout, because it wasn’t myself or Scott that made it - it was Anton. A round of applause for him!

You can send in your questions anytime in the next week or so. After that, the podcast staff and I want to begin speaking with Anton and assembling the awesome video interview

Hit the jump for a contact form. Simply fill it and hit send. We’ll take the best questions we get and use them to fuel the interview.

Yes indeed, welcome, everyone, to the brand spankin’ new Zelda Universe! It has been months in the making, with many long hours of me staring angrily at a collection of scripts, blocks of PHP, HTML, CSS, and all the other things that go into making a website these days.

I hope everyone can agree that it is all well worth the effort and the wait. There’s many things to see all around - including a media player at the bottom of this post (read for more info on a new podcast we’re releasing today!) - and there will be more to see as the rest of the week unfolds with new features and articles rolling out continuously. Click on the nice little link below to see details of what we have to show you today - and beyond!

UPDATE: We got dugg! Digg us and spread the word about the new ZU around the internets!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAlright, guys! I’m sure that a lot of you who hang around the forum are familiar with the “Guess the ZU’er” game I used to run through the past years, officially and unofficially. Well, this is kinda similar.

The third iteration of ZUCast introduces the podcast’s new name and logo! In a roughly hour and a half podcast, we’re giving you thiiiiis much (hit the jump for info):

Hey now! No need to be cranky! and we’re still getting used to this - sure, we might be a couple of months late, but HECk have we got a show for you!

We listened to all sorts of comments all of you have been gracious enough to give last time in response to the first cast; and we hope you thoroughly enjoy what we have for you now! The ZUBC is proud to present, to you, the 2nd ZU Community Podcast!

This is our first installment. Ever. Our podcast team has worked diligently for most of their lives (the useful parts of them, anyway) to bring this to the ZU community - and their labor was definitely worth it. In our first ever installment, we’re offering up to you, the valiant listener, the following in a compact, 40-minute episode: