Archive for the ‘Bloggus interruptus’ Category

Housekeeping notice

December 5, 2018

Here’s your head, there’s the keyboard, what’s your hurry?

The Wizards of WordPress are preparing a switch to “a new, modern publishing experience” called Gutenberg.

Having been through a number of new, modern publishing experiences during my association with WordPress in self-hosted, custom, and WP-hosted iterations, I anticipate a few hitches in the ol’ gitalong here at the Duke City Chuckle Hut.

I’ve been pretending this is not happening, the way a cat does with anything it deems out of order, but the guys at DrunkCyclist tell me that the bomb could drop this week. If you’re so inclined you can read more about the grand-do and foofaraw at MarTech Today (thanks and a tip of the Mad Dog propeller beanie to Nick W. for the head’s-up).

The bigshots are supposed to have access to a plug-in that lets them revert to the classic editor, but I’m not sure that option will be available to those of us slumped in the cheap seats.

So if for some reason you can’t find me here, look for me at my old Blogger bunker, which I’ve dusted off for this oh-so-special occasion.

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Posted in Bloggus interruptus, Dire portents, Technology | 13 Comments »

Bug music

July 15, 2017

Climb in the back with your head in the clouds and you’re gone.

Blogging is like riding a bike. You don’t forget how to do it, even after an extended break, but the longer you give it a miss, the less inclined you are to get back after it.

Or maybe that’s just me.

Anyway, there’s been plenty of bad noise out there lately, and I’ve had to direct a fair amount of my own in other directions, so the bloggery has suffered. Appy polly loggies, droogies.

We watched Ron Howard’s 2016 Beatles documentary on Hulu the past two evenings (made a miniseries of it, we did) and while no new ground was broken, it was a fresh reminder of how quickly the lads got tired of being The Beatles.

I can dig it, as I occasionally get tired of being me, and without nearly the amount of pressure The Beatles endured. There’s a lot less screaming when I get down to work, is what I’m saying. Unless you count the racket coming from Your ‘Umble Narrator, that is.

Anyway, today I have declared a Beatlethon. We kicked off with “Abbey Road,” followed by “Revolver,” and at the moment “Rubber Soul” is blasting out of the stereo. On deck: “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” followed by “The Beatles,” a.k.a. The White Album.

We may or may not get to “Let It Be.” I may just let it be.

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Posted in Bloggery, Bloggus interruptus, Music that doesn't suck | 22 Comments »

Ch-ch-ch-changes

September 30, 2015

The sharp-eyed among you may have noticed a hitch in the virtual gitalong here over the past 24 hours or so.

My website/email hosting provider, Hostcentric, must have been starving the hamsters again, because my main email account went away for the umpteenth time, and I finally got pissed.

My first move was upgrading this free WordPress.com blog to a paid item and redirecting my DNS signposts here. The original, a self-hosted WordPress.org deal parked for years at Hostcentric, had become an archaeological curiosity, a sentimental attachment and something of a pain in the ass.

That rearranging of my digital furniture took a while to draw the attention of Teh Innertubez, but now you can get here via the old URL (maddogmedia.wordpress.com) or the new one (maddogmedia.com).

Resolving the email problem will take a little longer, but I hope to get started on that bright and early tomorrow morning. I’m thinking Google Apps. Anyone have any experience with it? Holler in comments or send me a note via Gmail.

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Posted in Assholes, Bloggus interruptus, Techno-travails | 7 Comments »

Thorazine is on my Xmas list

November 29, 2011
Miss Mia Sopaipilla views with alarm

"You said a bad word," says Mia. "And another. And another. And another. ..."

What’s been going on around here, you ask?

Well, let me think here for a minute. Hmm. …

We had the big Thanksgiving Day U-turn from Bibleburg to Fort Collins and back on Thursday; a full day of VeloNewsery plus dinner with our across-the-street neighbors Larry, Jill and Wendy on Friday; lunch with (and saying adios to) our wonderful next-door neighbor Judy on Saturday, with an extra-large side of work; and work work work on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, culminating in yet another dinner with friends tonight, a northern New Mexican project to which I tended between bouts of pixel-pushing for the Boulder boyos.

Whew. Long week for an old dog. And it ain’t over yet.

As you might imagine, something’s had to give around here, and that something is exercise. My ass is approaching critical mass, and I ain’t talking about the traffic-snarling bicycle parade, either.

I did sneak out for a 20-minute “run” this afternoon before putting the beans on the stove. Folks probably thought they were seeing a particularly ugly, sluggish zombie on the prowl.

And I probably managed to sweat off a couple of grams running around the kitchen, chopping, mincing, slicing, sautéing and stirring bits of this and that until in desperation, running out of time, I finally dialed down the menu from cheese enchiladas in green sauce with one side of beans in chipotle and another of red chile roasted potatoes to a bare-bones platter — bean burritos smothered in green with a side of the aforementioned spuds.

The bad news is, I probably put those lost grams right back on by going back for seconds. Plus pie. Did I mention pie? Oh, Lord.

Meanwhile, we will return to our regularly scheduled snark come Thursday, when I have a day off — and the weatherman is calling for wind-driven snow and a high in the 20s. I foresee much grumbling and the first stationary-trainer ride of the season, not necessarily in that order.

Posted in Bloggus interruptus, Cooking, Fat bastards, Food, Holidays, Kvetching, Pissing and moaning, Running, VeloNews.com | 11 Comments »

A house-wetting party

November 16, 2010

Welcome to the new DogHaus. Please park your fleas at the door and pee only in the designated corner. No, not that one.

I got the Hostcentric weenies to cut my monthly fee in half for the digital injuries I’ve suffered while tap-dancing through their virtual minefields, but they still piss me off. So I’m gonna try playing in this virtual sandbox for a while, maybe test-drive a few features WordPress 2.6 doesn’t have while I try to drag maddogmedia.com/wordpress into the 21st century.

Until then, please leave your critiques in comments. And seriously, not that corner. Christ, where’d I leave the mop?

Posted in Bloggery, Bloggus interruptus, Techno-travails | 3 Comments »

Don’t touch that dial … unless

November 15, 2010

OK, boys and girls, we’re gonna try a software update bright and early tomorrow morning, see if we can flush a few of the gremlins out of this here WordPress blog, which lately seems to demand optimization and/or repair of its tables on a disturbingly regular basis.

If worse comes to worst, you can get a terminal dose of profanity sometime tomorrow at the backup DogS(h)ite, maddogmedia.wordpress.com. The original site, maddogmedia.com, will be unaffected as well. Bookmark both those bad boys. My faith in the upgrade process is matched only by my respect for the Democratic Party.

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Posted in Bloggus interruptus, Technology | 1 Comment »

Hand me the Bravo Foxtrot Hotel

July 1, 2010

OK, I’ve done a little research, hollered for help, cursed a whole bunch, sipped a glass or two or three, and finally repaired and optimized my WordPress database, so let’s see if this has sent the censorship gremlins packing.

If for some reason you find yourself unable to comment on one of my brilliant online observations, please fire off a NastyGram® to our retarded IT guy, otherwise known as Your Humble Narrator, to wit, me. But if I were you, I’d spend my time enjoying the Fourth of July weekend instead of hanging around here, waiting to see if I can come up with a fresh way of saying, “This fucking sucks.”

Or, if you’re truly, hopelessly and spectacularly bored, pop on by VeloNews.com at 9 a.m. Mountain time on Friday, when the Boulder-based Journal of Competitive Cycling will be running its second 2010 Tour de France Round Table. It’s set up like one of Charles Pelkey’s live updates, but instead of following a bike race online you get to ask the editors and reporters how we’ll be following a bike race online — to wit, the impending three-week dash around Frogland.

I skipped the first TdF Round Table for reasons that are better left unsaid, but I may chime in tomorrow, because it will be the last chance I get to crack wise for three long weeks.

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Posted in Bike stuff, Bloggery, Bloggus interruptus, Technology | 6 Comments »

Ghosts in the machine

June 29, 2010

OK, folks, bear with me here — the WordPress install on this site is getting buggier by the moment, like a GI’s skivvies in a Thai whorehouse, and I may have to attempt a software update or a shift to a new hosting provider.

I’ve backed up the database and the entire WP folder, and the automatic update is just sitting there in the admin tool, winking frantically at me like a strumpet with a crack habit. But the thing is, I have a clusterfuck with the VeloFolks tomorrow and a visitation by the mom-in-law on Thursday and a BRAIN deadline on Friday and the Tour de France on Saturday.

So what I’m sayin’ is, don’t be surprised by a bit of weirdness — like comments shutting themselves off without authorization from the Home Office — and a lot of radio silence in the next few days. It ain’t that I don’t love youse, y’crazy bastids, youse.

If the whole shebang should blow up in my face, look for me at Mad Blog Media (The Freeware Edition) until the dust settles. Peace out.

Posted in Bloggery, Bloggus interruptus | 3 Comments »

WordPressed

June 19, 2010

Looks like the comments done went and shut theyselfs off again, dagnabbit. All this new-fangled technology ain’t worth a warm bucket ‘a spit, you ask me. It’s a helluva world when the damn’ software makes the meatware’s decisions without so much as a by-your-leave.

A casual search through the WordPress forums finds many references to this issue, but no solutions. And since VeloNews.com is also a WordPress construct and has many of its own interesting gremlins, I’m not certain that upgrading to v3.0 of the software will solve my problem.

Anyway, the yak factory should be back in business, for recent posts, anyway. When this happens the only way to re-enable comments — which are supposed to be permanently enabled for everyone who has had one previous observation approved by the Sultan of the Sandbox, to wit, Your Humble Narrator — is to go into every post, click the comments-permitted box, save the post, rinse and repeat. Life, short, etc.

Until the next time, then, you may fire at will.

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Posted in Bloggus interruptus, Technology | 1 Comment »

Are you ready for some football?

November 23, 2008

Trying to add to my limited stores of cultural literacy, I switched the idiot-box controller from “video” to “TV,” manipulated the rabbit ears and plunked down in the rocker for a Sunday afternoon’s worth of Entertainment, American Style — the NFL on CBS, starring the Denver Broncos vs. the Oakland Raiders.

That lasted, oh, about 10 minutes.

Judas Priest, how can people watch this crap? Every other play was punctuated by three or four minutes of ads for wee-wee drugs, fast cars, watery beer, bad TV, worse movies and pricey electronic gizmos (including the new BlackBerry Storm, a Verizon-only iPhone rival).

And you know it’s only gonna get worse from Black Friday onward as panicked retailers start discounting this, that and the other in hopes of getting us to retrieve the Visa cards from cold storage, march down to the mall and do what Americans do best — buy a whole shitload of stuff they don’t need and can’t afford.

I’m no different. I like toys. Ask Herself, she’s keeping a list, and that sucker is longer than the original manuscript for Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.” There’s another guy who had trouble controlling his appetites.

But I’m trying really hard to be sensible these days.

“Hi, I’m Patrick, and I’m a shopaholic.”

“Hi, Patrick!”

I have not rushed out and bought an iPod Touch, or an iPhone, even though I know Steve Jobs may have to start wearing mock black turtlenecks if I continue to refuse the Kool-Aid. A Honda Element does not, as yet, darken my doorway. I haven’t even augmented the Mad Dog arsenal, though the local militia seems convinced that Obama is coming for our guns and it’s time to buy buy buy before the blue helmets leap out of the black helicopters onto our brownish lawns.

Posted in Bloggus interruptus | 10 Comments »