Category: Bloggus interruptus

The snot locker

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
There’s no escape.

Apologies for the extended hitch in the blogging gitalong.

Herself returned from Maine on Saturday with a case of The Bug, and thanks to the recent heavy rains I have been enjoying an extended allergic reaction to just about everything, including, as you have seen, bloggery.

The Boss is feeling much better now, thanks to rest, tea, posole, and television. I remember when rest, Canada Dry ginger ale, Lipton’s chicken noodle soup, and comic books did the trick for me. So it goes.

Despite a surfeit of snot I have been out and about on the Soma Pescadero, and you may expect an Adventure Cyclist-style review here in the very near future. Of the Soma, not the snot.

It’s been interesting to see how the Pescadero stacks up with the rest of the Merry Sales family — my two Soma Sagas (one rim brake, one disc); the Double Cross (my oldest Soma); and the New Albion Privateer. Marketeer Stan Pun says the Pescadero is “probably our most under-the-radar frame,” which is a pity, because it’s a smooth blend of past and present. It should be flying high.

Anyway, more on that later. Right now it’s time to ride.

Or so I hope, anyway. We have a largish fire burning at the Arizona-New Mexico border, another one freshly pissed out in an industrial district north of downtown, an air-quality alert, and a red-flag warning.

If I were smart I’d stay inside with the doors and windows shut. But if I were smart, I wouldn’t have mowed the lawn yesterday.

Right in the eggs

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
Cool with a side of clouds.

Whew. Looks like I picked a good week to go on a news fast. These pendejos are pitching fastballs. At this pace there won’t be a wall without shit running down it before Valentine’s Day. A lot of it won’t stick, but it’s gonna pile up. The forecast calls for deep doo.

My news fast coincided with a cold snap that kept me off the bike. I don’t object to cycling in the 30s if the sun’s out, but when Tōnatiuh abdicates in favor of Ehecatl, it’s time to go for a run.

Thing is, I’m not a runner. Not really. A runner certainly wouldn’t call me one. Especially if s/he’d caught me at it.

I can pretend for 45 minutes but that’s about it. And that doesn’t burn a lot of daylight for a fella trying to avoid the doomscrolling.

Still, I managed. For about four days. Who can avert his or her eyes while passing a domestic disturbance in daylight or an unshaded window at night? This is like driving past a five-car crash without checking the gutters for rolling heads.

So I eased back in, slowly. A little Kevin Drum. Then a bit of Charlie Pierce. This is akin to reading the police report, if Joseph Wambaugh wrote it. The Atlantic, for a soupçon of button-down viewing with alarm.

Finally, I hit the hard stuff. The New York Times. Holy shit, etc.

I hope the rubes who elected this bozo are enjoying the shitshow. Looks like it’ll be a good long while before he gets those egg prices down.

Fall

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
Oh, the days dwindle down, to a precious few. …

There hasn’t been much time for bloggery lately, with Herself’s sisters in town for an extended visit.

Having four females in the house, a fella hardly gets a minute to catch his breath, much less his thoughts.

To be fair, Miss Mia Sopaipilla likewise found her routine disrupted. The three sisters held their morning war councils at the kitchen table, which is the second step of Miss Mia’s ascension to the countertop, the first step being a stool. So instead of being all cute on the countertop she’d find some acoustically appropriate corner of El Rancho Pendejo to announce her annoyance.

Man, does her voice ever carry. Miss Mia may be a senior citizen, but she can still hit the high notes.

Anyway, that’s my excuse for the lack of “content” around here lately. (The fine weather for cycling may have played some small role.) We’re down one sister as of this morning — Heather flew back to Tennessee — but Beth will be with us for a couple more days, so I anticipate a continuing hitch in my digital gitalong.

The good news is, you can fill the lonely hours with the latest from Hal Walter, who is collaborating with son Harrison on a project that is something of a work in progress. “The Blur Goes to College: Full Tilt Boogie Too” is intended to be a book, eventually; in the meantime, they’re rolling it out on Substack, in serial form. Writes Hal:

It’s part comedy and part tragedy, part train wreck, part triumph. Moreover, this is a story of empathy and compassion, and exploring the rights of people with so-called “intellectual disabilities.” We wanted to get the story out as soon as possible. We hope you enjoy this serialized rollout on Substack as we finish the book and eventually get it into print.

If you enjoy what you see, you can subscribe to have chapters delivered by email. If you’d like to support the project, donations are gratefully accepted via Venmo @Hal-Walter (phone# 8756).

Block editor

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
Once more around the block.

Some of yis have noticed that commenting via Safari seems to have been restored, all praise to Cthulhu, may Its tentacles grow ever longer.

Last night I heard from a code wrangler at Automattic who advised thusly:

This issue has been forwarded to our development team. I cannot give a time frame on when the issue will be fixed but a workaround is to disable “blocks in comments.”

Huzzah, etc. Remember the last time we had trouble with comments? How it forced me into finally abandoning the Classic Editor for the Block Editor, and changing themes to boot?

Yet now, here we are again. Because not only are comments buggered without the workaround, pending a solution from the development team, it could be that the advanced age of my current “new” theme, Penscratch 2, may be part of the problem.

Thus, a tip of the Mad Dog Safari Hat goes out to our own Steve O’, who suggested as much in — wait for it — comments.

Meanwhile, cheers to Jason the Code Wrangler for kicking this thing up the chain of command and recommending the workaround, which works.

While we await the Wisdom from On High I may slap a new coat of theme on an old blog and ask you Safari users to try commenting there. Steve O’ and Pat O’B have been able to comment on this junkpile, which runs on Independent Publisher 2, but I think that theme is a tad long in the tooth as well.

Is this thing on?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

While we await the wisdom of the WordPress Wizards, SAO — one of our longtime readers who can still post comments — suggests that the Dog Blog’s theme, Penscratch 2, may be at least part of the problem.

Penscratch 2 is an old theme — not as old as its predecessor, Kubrick — but still, plenty of white hair in its ears and a stoop to its bony shoulders, plus it seems to have forgotten where it left its keys to the comments. Also, it may have shit the bed.

So, while we wait — and wait, and wait, annnnnnnnnnnnd wait —I need someone who is still unable to comment using Safari, DuckDuckGo, or whatever to try adding a comment to the most recent post, “Age limits,” at this unused blog, which runs the Independent Publisher 2 theme.

Thanks in advance. More as we learn it.