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My Incipient Panic Attack

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

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I’m trying everything I know to get this blog back to where it was during the first half of this topsy-turvy year–you wouldn’t believe how hard I’m trying–but now I have to stop and write a Newswithviews column, and earlier I had to stop writing my book because it began to rain on me. Anyone who thinks this is easy, well, step right up and try it for yourself.

Excuse me–just had to lug a couple of these 5-gallon jugs, bad knee and all, upstairs to the water cooler. Somehow managed it.

I do these things because I have to, it’s my job, and I hope it will be fruitful in God’s service. So let me get started with this column–whatever it turns out to be.

New Glasses, Wrong Prescription

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Do you ever get the impression that people aren’t working quite up to the standard we were once used to?

My sister needed new glasses. So she did all the re-bop, shelled out a fair amount of money, only to discover, as she drove home from the optometrist’s, that she couldn’t flaming see out of the new glasses!

Back to the optometrist. Sorry, lady! That’s the prescription that the doctor wrote and that’s the prescription you’ve got. How about that? The person who tested her eyes, or maybe someone a little farther down the food chain, wrote the wrong prescription. So now my sister has two pair of glasses that don’t work, but don’t bet on her to be content with holding the bag. Someone’s going to have to pay. And someone’s going to have to re-do the tests and write up the right prescription.

Honestly, we shouldn’t have to expect that much incompetence. Now she has to drive back to the eye doctor’s with bad glasses on New Jersey’s highways–not an assignment for the faint-hearted. I wonder how long they’re going to ask her to wait for glasses that actually improve her vision.

Not supposed to happen in America!

P.S.–Almost forgot: someone said the glasses just had to be broken in, after a week or so they’d be just fine. Adding insult to injury.

An Honorary Quokka!

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Wow! Look at all those bicycles! Surely nobody would miss just one…

Byron the Quokka here, with excellent news! Meanwhile Lee is outside doing cartwheels (figure of speech: last time he really did a cartwheel, he split his pants) because Patty has fixed his computer.

For this achievement, the faculty at Quokka University has awarded her the designation of Honorary Quokka and appointed her QU’s resident Computer Expert. We realize the “resident” part cannot be taken literally, her living in New Jersey instead of Rottnest Island; but we think we have the communications technology to make it work.

It all goes to show how it pays to marry somebody who”s both smart and determined–smartest thing he ever did.

Now if we can only convince him to offer a bicycle as the prize for the next comment contest, maybe we can pump up the readership to what it used to be.

Update on the Update

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Twenty-four hours after initiating a routine maintenance chore, the computer I normally work with is still out of the saga, hors de combat, non-functional, doesn’t freakin’ work, etc. etc. It is still configuring! Can you say “configuring”? I have no idea what that means in computer lingo; plain English won’t help you out of that labyrinth.

Patty is cautiously optimistic that it’s almost done having a breakdown or whatever else you call it when you approve an update and the whole thing turns into Nadler. Well, that would be wonderful indeed if she were right. Then I could go back to trying to get my Share button back.

I’d like to put up a couple more posts today; but I’d also like to go outside and have a cigar before it starts to rain.

Meanwhile, we can all be thankful that no one is serious about basing public policy on computer models. Especially just before an update.

The Update: a Horror Story

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Well, now what do I do?

The computer sez “install new updated version of Firefox.” I didn’t dare try, but Patty did. That was an hour ago. It still doesn’t work. It just sits there “configuring.” It’ll only take a few minutes, she said.

Meanwhile, viewership has imploded and today is shaping up as a right proper rotter. Where did everybody go? Was it something I said? I wonder if other bloggers have experienced this lately.

Yes, I’m typing this on another computer. We have two. The one I use has stopped working. What a great update. As Pyrrhus once said, “Another such victory and I am undone.” I don’t have a victory, but I love using classical quotes. It keeps me from cursing.

So now I guess I’ll go back outside and try to read this big thick book with really small print that I have to review for Chalcedon. It’s all about postmodernism. After that I guess I’ll scream for a while.

Now I Have No Facebook at All

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

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What are they trying to do to me?

This morning I have no Facebook connection at all. When I try to reconnect, WordPress tells me it’s “not allowed.” What?

Is this all to force me to use their shiny new “block editing”? Well, I can’t use it! And I don’t want to use it! I’m here to write, not sod around with computers.

WordPress acts more like an adversary than the provider of a service. But of course if I leave I’ll lost an archive numbering thousands of posts.

No wonder I’m down 120 views a day.

P.S.–Jill has found other Facebook buttons I can use, so at least I can go back to sharing my blog posts on my wife’s Facebook page. The only drawback is that the new buttons don’t tell me how many readers have shared the post. Maybe it’s a WordPress glitch that’ll go away. I don’t know.

Can You Share My Posts Now?

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Ragnar the Happy Puppy, once a business associate of Byron the Quokka, has found that the “301 Whatsit Permanently Moved” message that used to scuttle my Facebook posts is now gone as mysteriously as it came; and also the little “share” buttons now have numbers in them again (WordPress blames that glitch on Facebook).

I would like to know, now, if my readers are able to share my posts with others on Facebook. I’m sure some of you have given up trying.  But the only way I’ll know if it’s working is for readers to share my posts. The more it gets shared, the higher the little number in the button. Sorry, but that’s about as hi-tech as my language gets.

For that matter, yes, I do know that many of us have learned to despise Facebook, and for good reason. But for the time being, that’s what I have and that’s what I must use.

Meanwhile, I’m short 100 views a day, or more–still haven’t solved that mystery. But if a bunch of you each share two or three posts, at least I’ll know it.

P.S.–Since I wrote this, all the little numbers in the blue buttons have disappeared again. You could just scream.

Meanwhile, Re-Farmer has reported that she was able to share my posts on Facebook if she visited the blog through Google Chrome instead of Firefox.

So you might want to try that.

If I Was a Business, I’d Be Out of Business

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The numbers are in. Calloo, callay, oh frabjous day.

Compared with the first six months of this year, our blog has lost 100 views a day, these past three months. Do I know why? Nope. Do I even suspect why? Nope.

This is the year the locust has eaten down to the ground.

Well, two hymn requests have come in this morning, and I think I’ll post them. Why not?

I’m Already Tired

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Ha, ha, ha. It makes for such funny video, when the goofy cat gets her head stuck in a bag.

But it’s not so funny when it happens in four in the morning.

I was awakened in the dark by a sound of frantic rattling. Believe it or not, I knew instantly what it was: one of our cats had gotten her head stuck in the handles of a shopping bag and was running all over the bedroom in a panic. Shamble out of bed, turn lights on so you can extricate the cat. Only now she’s gone. Lights out, try to go back to sleep because I’m desperately tired. But the cat had only paused to draw her breath. Now she’s running all around the room again. Lights on. Stumble. Ah! Got her. C’mon, let Daddy help… and I got the bag off and am free to continue my hopeless pursuit of a decent night’s sleep.

Oh. And she managed to break a plate, too. Ha, ha, ha.

‘An Unintelligible Message’ (2016)

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I still don’t know what a minified exception is, or why it was necessary to warn me that one had occurred.

What is the blooming point of any message that sounds like Constable Chumley wrote it?

An Unintelligible Message

We have more communications devices and less communication than ever before in human history. Have you tried to talk to anyone who’s always up to his eyebrows in text messages? “Use the non-minified dev environment…” Gee, thanks for that advice!

What is our civilization’s chief problem? No, it’s not “systemic racism”!

It’s systemic idiocy–and good luck trying to solve it!