As anyone with access to the Innertubes and one functional eyeball can see, we have not upgraded the DogS(h)ite to a new theme and the Block Editor (curse its name, yes).
Further discussions with the WordPress elves lead me to think there’s more to this holiday package in the skull-and-crossbones wrapping than meets the eye (What’s this scrawl on the card? “Happy Solstice from The Unibummer?”) and I don’t feel all warm and fuzzy about tugging on its black ribbons until the bomb squad has given it a good going-over.
Frankly, I’d rather talk shit than fix shit, especially since Herself has had a wicked cold for a week and the onliest one of us getting any sleep around here is the cat.
So, ignore anything you see melting down in my labs (New Wheeled Order and Town & Country). This old jabber factory ain’t burned down to the foundation yet so I’m gonna go with convenience over modernity for a while.
Thanks to everyone who tooled around the dimly lit, undermanned, and poorly maintained corners of the Innertubes to inspect and comment upon the options for a virtual urban-renewal project here at the DogS(h)ite.
I think I’ve touched all the bases, repackaged the necessary bells and whistles, and preserved all data for the Permanent Record. And thus, sometime today or tomorrow, I will probably tell the WordPress Blog-O-Mat 9000™ to knock down this old hovel and erect in its place a Shining City on a Hill.
Or maybe it’ll look more like rattle-canning a fresh coat of camo’ on the old single-wide, hoisting a new Anarchy flag, and raking up 15 years’ worth of dessicated dog turds. I tell the neighbors they’re Art, but they don’t believe me, about that or anything else.
If all goes well, you shouldn’t notice a great deal of difference. I anticipate a round or two or three of Whac-a-Mole, but the plan remains to hawk the same old hooey, just out of a new window, minus the bullet holes and duct tape.
If it all goes horribly wrong, well … let’s not think about that, shall we? You’ll probably be able to hear from me without need for a computer, browser, or Innertubes. (“Gaw dam cog sug muh fug sum bidge. …”)
But if you can’t hear the caterwauling, leave a message at the New Wheeled Order sandbox or email me at maddogmedia (at) gmail (dot) com.
A screenshot of what the new DogS(h)ite might look like.
Hear ye, hear ye: I’ve been experimenting with two newish WordPress themes on two unused blogs — Penscratch 2 on New Wheeled Order and Independent Publisher 2 on Town & Country — and I’m getting close to a verdict on which one might be best suited to serve our little coven of malcontents here.
Not knowing exactly how readers “interact” with this blog leaves me thinking I should probably focus on how it looks on a phone. I prefer working it on a laptop — and a laptop hooked to an external monitor when possible — but I am a confirmed Luddite and may be the lone exception.
With that in mind, Penscratch 2 looks cleaner to me. There’s a menu right at the top for easy navigation. In Independent Publisher 2 I seem to be restricted to parking items like search, archives, bio, and whatnot in a widget area, like a sidebar or footer. And to my amateur designer’s eye, which is deeply rooted in the Before-Time, it seems to waste a lot of space.
Penscratch 2 seems easier to work, too, even in the Block Editor (curse its name, yes). I spent some time with it yesterday and almost got to where I was feeling comfortable. Dropping a photo with caption into a post was nearly as simple as working in the Classic Editor. In the editing window a sidebar at right gave me the option of selecting a resolution, aspect ratio, and a custom width/height.
And really, that’s all I want from a new theme and editor, if I absolutely have to have them, which is coming to feel inevitable given the ongoing hiccups with the old setup. Publishing should be easy, because writing sometimes is not. Also, any changes should not blow up Ye Olde Blogge, which has muddled along for 15 years in its present incarnation.
I’ll spend some more time tinkering over the weekend, as the weather is forecast to be heavy on the suckee-suckee.
Meanwhile, if you can spare a moment, have a look at the two links up top and post any comments here (if you can). I’m starting to think I need to either embrace the Block Editor with a new theme or relocate the entire operation to Substack, Medium, or some other alternative, all of which is unknown country. Who knows what dragons might be there?
Anybody remember who else was on Paul von Hindenburg’s shortlist to be named chancellor of Germany in January 1933?
Could’ve been Baron Hoodat von Votsizface for all we know.
In most competitions, political, sporting, or otherwise, the runner-up doesn’t get a lot of press, the main reason being that s/he is the First Loser.
The winner gets the trophy, a parade, the keys to the Republic; the First Loser gets a polite interview or two — “Them’s the breaks, hah?” — and then toddles on home to gnaw on his or her liver before hitting the rubber-chicken circuit.
And even this shabby treatment is predicated on there being an actual competition taking place.
So why is the goat rodeo the GOP is trying to pass off as a horse race to nominate its pestilential candidate still on the nation’s front pages?
“Hope is not a strategy,” Chris Christie, one of the aspirants for the First Loser’s tinfoil tiara with bottle-cap medallion, told Faux News on Monday. Especially when one has none. (He’s sticking around anyway.)
Exactly why remains a mystery. The Joisey Jagoff and his fellow aspirants for the glue factory are still whinnying at each other in the paddock while Multiple Felonies lumbers around turn three, farting and wheezing old Nazi marching arias.
Face it, Chris, Nikki, Ron, and Vivek. The only horse’s ass in this race that matters is the one you haven’t even seen since before the starter’s pistol fired. You’re racing for second against a fat Nazi.
Even Hindenburg beat Adolf Hitler, f’fucksake. Only once, and not for good. But still.
Look, there goes former Squeaker of the House Charlie McCarthy, over the side, just like former Squeaker Pro Tem Patrick McBowtie before him.
What good news for the critical rubber-chicken sector of the nation’s economy. These hirelings spend years helping our corporate “citizens” turn the government into a $2 whorehouse, then travel the country proclaiming themselves* to be shocked — shocked! — that the government is a whorehouse.
And a cut-rate one, too. For them and their deep-pockets pals, of course. Not for you.
Mad Blog Media 