Last night the viewership was so low, I thought my computer might be broken. This morning it refuses to post hymns. Now I’m trying to see if I can post anything at all.
Do I even dare try a picture?
Dig it: I can post a picture of a rhinoceros, but not a hymn.
Please bear with me today. I’ll have to try to get the other computer working.
I hope this computer isn’t going mad again. I just tried to reblog a post from our friend SlimJim’s Domain for Truth blog. On his page it says I was successful. But on my page, no sign of it. Where did it go?
Floating around in cyberspace somewhere…
I tried to do it over, but all I got was a statement that I’d already done it–when of course I hadn’t, because if I had, it ought to be there.
Well, let’s see if this post gets posted. *sigh*
The computer went on strike again this morning. Why? Because that’s what computers do! And we’ve made our whole civilization totally dependent on them.
Then we tried to go to Wegman’s to pick up some foods we haven’t had for three months, thanks to Lockdown, shortages, etc. Eating the same few things for all this time: it was starting to pall on us.
Just as we were almost there I remembered I hadn’t brought my Badge of Submission, they won’t let you in the store without it. Go back home and get it. Start for the store again. Patty says she doesn’t think she’d better go, after all–too much pollen in the air today. That must be why we were both coughing like crazy. Back home. Set out for Wegman’s for the third time this morning. This has begun to resemble a Twilight Zone episode. “I will go there and get those items if it’s the last thing I do!” I growl.
Meanwhile, Patty has cajoled Mr. Computer into working. It will now require several extra steps. Every time anything changes, with these machines, it’s extra steps for the hapless user.
Why, look at that! It’s already gone past 12:30! And I am way, way, way behind. Great heaping pile of stuff I’m supposed to do. Ha, ha.
To those of you who are still waiting for me to do this or that, please bear with me, I’m trying to keep my head from exploding.
“The New WordPress Editor is coming!”
I do not want a “new” editor. “New” means “different,” and that means not being able to do my work until I learn a whole lot of new improved booshwa. I never asked for a new editor. I don’t know why WordPress would impose these changes on me. I’ve never done them any wrong that I know of.
So toss away another chunk of time, pleading with the Happiness Engineer to leave me in peace with my old editing format which I can actually use. This is among the least profitable activities I know of. The Happiness Engineer’s solution is always to hit you with a lot of computer-nerd lingo, which to me is just pure gibberish. “Here, stupid! Here’s a passel of extra steps for you to take before you can get any work done!”
Do they hate their customers, or do they just hate me?
I am told that I’ll be getting the New Editor whether I like it or not ’cause that’s what we’re gonna do and we don’t care what you think, so go jump in a lake.
All I asked was to be left alone.
Yesterday our whole Google search thingy went totally haywire: the search engine doesn’t search, it just takes you automatically to the last site you visited. I’ve found a way around this, but it’s very tiresome.
We also wound up with light-blue text on a grey background, just about impossible to read, but thankfully that got fixed by Jill at Chalcedon HQ.
Today’s cockup is, I can’t share my posts on my wife’s Facebook page as I’ve been doing every day for years. Every time I try, I just get this inscrutable error message, “301 Moved Permanently.” That’s what shows up on Facebook. Note: if it occurs to you to click it anyway, the post will appear and you can read it. But I’m sure I’d never think of that.
The conclusion of the WordPress support guy: Maybe if I wait a few days, the problem will just… go away.
I know computer failures are pretty small potatoes compared to getting sick (although we’ve been having our share of that around here lately!); but for me it’s a matter of being unable to do my work because my tools won’t function. Plus the frustration of being completely unable to solve the stupid thing.
Anyone out there know what a “301” is, and how to fix it? There are articles about that online, but they’re so full of computer lingo that I get lost before I’ve finished reading the opening sentence. Something in plain English would be nice.
S.O.S.!
You may have noticed I’m running late today. Actually, I’m surprised I’m running at all.
Our computer here has done everything in its power to keep me from posting my blog or editing The Wind from Heaven. It’s gone totally haywire. No more Facebook. And just to get on my stats page requires a lot of slippery maneuvers that are hard to remember.
The laptop isn’t messed up yet–only I can’t use that one because it’s taking all morning to install an update.
Yesterday was a hoot. Suddenly my blog posts were all light-blue letters on a grey background–just about impossible to read! That had me climbing the wall. My webmaster out in California fixed it: she had inadvertently changed some things as she went about some cyber-housekeeping chores.
But now our Google search engine won’t search for anything, it’s real hard to see comments on the blog, Facebook postings are now impossible–and I’ve heard from a couple readers that their computers are on strike, too. Refusing to perform basic functions.
Hey! How about this for a fantastic idea? Let’s hook up our cars to be driven by computers!!! Ain’t that a peach? And then we can put computers in charge of our nuclear missiles–what fun! What could possibly go wrong?
“We have encountered a technical problem,” simpers the evil computer. “Please try again later.” And again, and again, and again…
I knocked myself out yesterday to write a Newswithviews column, and then the unspeakable devil of a computer refused to send it. This morning we tried for going on 90 minutes to get the thing to work. I even typed the freakin’ column all over again so I could send it on the other machine—with exactly the same result!
I admit I screamed and pounded on the floor.
And of course we couldn’t buy all our regular groceries yesterday, although I was in the store for twice as long as normally, so we had to go back out today and try Whole Foods. It’s not my kind of store. I want regular working-class food, not this hoity-toity past lives stuff. Well, at least I was able to get wax paper, lettuce, and eggs.
I don’t know about you, but for both Patty and me, this Chinese Death Monster Virus scare has begun to take on an air of unreality. Like, are we stuck in some stupid movie somewhere? Is Kevin Kostner going to turn up in our parking lot?
And it’s kind of like being poor, only you have money… but what good is money if there’s nothing you can buy with it? I am too old to take up a whole new way of life, that of being poverty-stricken.
And still I can’t send the flippin’ email. The computer says no, not allowed.
I hate technology.
Patty has installed the new Firefox. The first thing it did was through a bunch of boxes at me, asking me if I want to do this or that or the other, none of which made any sense to me at all. Happily, I was able to get rid of them.
Well, as the feller said, a moment after he jumped out of a 20th-story window, “So far, so good!” Many years ago I knew a kid who climbed very far up a very tall tree and then fell down. When he finally emerged from the hospital, he said, “It was kind of fun, coming down, but the landing was bad.”
But it looks like I’m back, and I think Byron has an update for us on Quokka University…
If you don’t hear from me for a while, it’s because we are going to risk plunging into The Abyss and getting lost down there: which is to say, we have to try to install a new version of Firefox onto this computer. My contribution to this technological feat will be to go outside and smoke a cigar.
I’m always afraid how these things will turn out. What new things will be wrong with it? What new problems will the new version surprise us with?
[Drum roll] Well, here goes nothin’….
For 45 minutes today has this computer jerked me around! Just great for my blood pressure. It keeps coming up with little tricks this morning that I’ve never seen before.
The tension mounts as he tries again, for about the 25th time, to post a link to another article, any article…
And, as if by magic, now the link appears. Why wasn’t it working before, when it drove me to the other computer?
Suddenly it occurs to him that he has forgotten to pick up the laundry. He must dash back out to his car…
