Category: Bloggery

No comment, part 2

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments
Yo, how’bout you log in to this right here, hey?

A WordPress “happiness engineer” and I have had one exchange of views about the comments issue, and I am eagerly awaiting round two.

In the meantime, if you continue to have problems sounding off in this space, the WPHE’s advice is to:

• Clear your browser cache and cookies.

• Make sure Javascript is enabled.

As for me, I recommend trying a variety of browsers. I was able to comment on the DogS(h)ite using the Mac versions of Firefox and Chrome on a 2014 MacBook Pro running the Catalina OS.

Some of you have noticed that the “Leave a Reply” box looks a little different lately, and the WPHE acknowledged that WP “is constantly updating and improving its features (emphasis mine), so it’s possible that recent updates could have affected the appearance or functionality of the comment box.”

O, indeed. “In my Father’s CMS there are many updates,” as the Good Book tells us.

Now, I’m just spitballing here in the absence of evidence or expertise, but it’s possible that my insistence on using WP’s Classic Editor instead of its beshitted Block Editor — curse its name, yes — may play some role here.

Or it may be that the theme I use, the venerable Kubrick, has long since been “retired” and is no longer supported properly. Chances are it’s just gathering dust and being “updated and improved” by mice in the bottom drawer of an Army-surplus metal desk down in storage room B. There may be a Swingline stapler on the desk, right next to a box of matches.

Lotta strands in old Duder’s head, man. And they’re not all plugged into the proper sockets. More as I hear it. Meanwhile, keep those cards and letters coming, and don’t touch that dial.

No comment

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 41 Comments
Ow. Ow. Ow.

A quick housekeeping question for all y’all:

Anyone having trouble commenting on the site?

I realize this may be a tough one to answer if you’re having trouble commenting on the site. But a couple of readers have mentioned issues recently and I’ve noticed a subtle alteration of the CMS that may indicate that the WordPress peoples have moved some of the furniture around and the rest of us are barking our shins on it in the dark.

Anyway, comment if you can, email if you can’t. Let me know how you comment — right here at some individual post, via Facebook, by subscribing to posts, whatevs. I’ll take my troubles to the WordPress gods in prayer.

Rock ’n’ roll

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments
Your Humble Narrator on the job in 2015. …

I’ve done a number of questionable things for money, but the only one with any staying power was journalism.

Earning power? Well … not so much. Especially after I left the newspaper to hang out my own shingle back in 1991.

Still, like crucifixion, it gets you out in the open air. Here’s your rock, there’s your hill, what’s your hurry?

I finally left that rock at the bottom of the hill about this time last year, and I can’t say I miss rolling it. Both rock and hill had shrunk over the years. But so had the pay. And the people who owned the hill at any given moment still seemed to think they were doing you a favor by letting you roll that rock.

“Well rolled indeed!” they’d exclaim as you reached the summit, gasping for air. “Sign here. And here. And here. And here. Yes, payment 30 days after publication as specified in the contract. Did we mention we’ve rewritten the contract? No? Well, we have, in Cretan Linear B this time, and I’m afraid we can’t cut you a check until you’ve scrawled your X on that old bottom line.

“Oh, dear, rock’s rolled down the bloody hill again. Be a dear and fetch it, won’t you? And do have your attorney or shaman or whomever look over that contract. Ta.”

Lacking professional support I eyeballed that contract myself and came away thinking the rock looked pretty good right where it was. It still does.

Doesn’t mean I’ve quit rolling rocks altogether, of course.

… and off it, as 2022 limps to a long-overdue finale.

Many years ago, between paying trips up and down the hill, I acquired my own tiny mound on the Innertubes and in my spare time nudged the odd pebble up its gentle slope. Strictly for giggles, mind you; if I were to charge admission it would feel like work.

I think I started blogging on AOL in the mid- to late Nineties; for sure I was doing my own self-hosted thing on a succession of small-time ISPs by 1999. The Wayback Machine has a capture from December 2000 that shows a visitor counter which started tallying the rubes a year earlier.

So, yeah. I’ve been at it for a few years, and I’m not giving it up. Not this year, and not next, Dog willing and the crick don’t rise. The bells and whistles come and go — the cartoons, the videos, the podcasting — but the blogging remains.

Who knows? It may just be The Next Big Thing.

But even if it isn’t, my thanks to all of yis who have gathered upon the hill — and who keep gathering, against your better judgment — to watch Your Humble Narrator perform his one-man, dinner-theater production of “Bowling with Sisyphus.”

I know, it’s only rock ’n’ roll. But I like it.

Snot takes

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments
Old MacGoblin had a bot, AI AI Ohhhhhhh. …

Hold your water. I’m not dead yet, you ghouls. The dead haven’t the pipes for the lugubrious lung-butter lullabies I’ve been performing nightly for the past couple of weeks.

So, no, this post was not written in memoriam by ChatGPT in goblin mode with art by Lensa AI. It is not about the Tripledemic, the World Cup, who’s gonna die in “The White Lotus,” Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Me Me Mine), Harry and Meghan, Brittney Griner, Ye, or Elon Musk.

What is this post about? you ask. It’s about time I posted, is what it’s about. The Kleenex has been getting all my hot takes lately and you lot have probably begun speculating about whether I left yis any bicycles, and, if not, the location of my final resting place in case you should find yourself in the neighborhood and in need of a vengeful wee.

So, yeah. You’re a bit early for the reading of the will. Please, have a seat. And pass the Kleenex.

Piece of Cake

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments

OK, I know you folks floating around out there in the Innertubes are dying to know all the deets about the exotic life of the retired velo-scribbler.

So, hold my fake beer and dig this:

Yesterday I went to Lowe’s for some lawn soil to spread over the recently seeded bare patches in the yard and gave ’em a good watering, then mowed the healthier bits of grass. Later I cooked up a big ol’ pot of jambayala.

This morning I toasted and tea’d Herself, who has a full day at the lab. Then I fed and watered Miss Mia Sopaipilla, giving her a few head-bumps in a sunny spot for dessert, and emptied her litter box.

Next I got a loaf of bread going and set about watering a few shrubs and one tree out front, using SuperDuper! to back up The Main Mac to an external drive, downloading an OS update, and washing the breakfast dishes (two cups of strong black coffee and one of strong black tea will lead to multitasking).

And now the garbage is going out. Boom! You can’t stop me, so don’t even try.

I hate to go all Hollywood on you little people like this, but I figure the few of you who still have jobs deserve to know how I’m pissing away your Social Security contributions on my rock-’n’-roll lifestyle.