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.
The DBR Axis TT and I went for a spin in the Elena Gallegos Open Space on Tuesday as the temps inched back into the low 40s.
Naw. That ain’t trash, waiting to be packed out. It’s just old, like its operator.
So don’t pack us out, for pity’s sake. Ain’t neither of us ready for the scrap heap yet.
Speaking of old trash and scrap heaps, I finally heard from the WordPress people about the comments issue, which seemed to have resolved itself to some degree after my last complaint on Nov. 22. Quoth WP:
The comment reply box has changed to the new box that adds the options of styling or layout changes using blocks. It cannot be disabled, it is the new default.
Fear not, your visitors don’t have to use the blocks, they can simply click into the box, and start typing.
This is the new “Reply” box as I have been seeing it lately.
A limited inspection of the process indicates that leaving a comment is once again fairly straightforward:
1. Place your cursor (or, depending upon your mood at the moment, “curser”) in the “Leave a Reply” box and start typing.
2. You will then be presented with the option of logging in using a WordPress account, Facebutt, or email (the latter method wants your email addy and a name; providing a website is optional). Select a login method.
3. You also are prompted to have posts/comments emailed to you. The buttons are off by default. Make another selection.
4. Hit the “Reply” button at lower right.
I switched laptops and launched Chrome to try commenting using an old email address. But I was not logged into the Gmail account I wanted to use and got a prompt saying so (O, buggah, etc.).
Rather than dive down that rabbit hole (usernames, passwords, and shit, O my!) I switched to Firefox to post my comment and saw it had me already logged in using my WP info.
I don’t have a Facebutt account so I couldn’t evaluate that option.
Anyway, that seems to be where we are at the moment. We don’t have to face that quadruple-decker “Reply” box with all the arcane symbols belonging to WP’s Block Editor (curse its name, yes). Just start typing and let ’er buck, cowpersons.
Anyone still having issues? Leave a note in commaaaaaaaaah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
We seem to have been detoured off the Infobahn and onto yet another long and winding washboard gravel road to Hell as regards what should be the simple process of posting a comment on the DogS(h)ite.
I first noticed the latest WordPress “enhancement” the other day while trying to comment on the Better Burque blog. Being logged into WP, I assumed — wrongly, as it turned out — that I could write my comment and post it under my nom de blog.
But when I wrote my little piece, then clicked the “Reply” button, nothing happened. Or so it seemed. There was no visual cue that the button had been clicked. My comment just sat there, like a fresh turd on a flat rock.
So I clicked the “Reply” button again and immediately got a popup that said something like, “Oops! Looks like you’ve already said that!”
And so I had. The comment had been posted, but not as me — as Anonymous, who seems to be everywhere these days, and mostly up to no good, too.
Anyway, I forgot all about it because I comment on the DogS(h)ite from the Comments tab in WP and never actually see the preposterous clusterfuckery that appears at the bottom of each post, the way you Little People do.
Nevertheless, there it squats, like a poison toad, a probe from the WP Block Editor that has infiltrated my Classic Editor environment, bent on mischief.
Now, I just viewed the blog using my backup MacBook and a different browser (Chrome) that was not logged into WordPress. So I got the full nickel tour of Whatthefuckopolis.
And what an ugly neighborhood it is, too. Frank Lloyd Wrong on the brown acid designing the Hotel California for a Wes Anderson movie.
It seems navigable, but I didn’t go through the entire process of logging in with an email address or my Google, Apple, or WP deets because I don’t want to get caught in some digital Doom Loop that drops me onto the Event Horizon just before everything goes sideways in orbit around Neptune.
I will ping the Happiness Engineers about it. There must be a way to return to the simpler days of commenting, before some engineer decided to go all carbon-fiber, hydraulic-disc and electronic-shifting on us.
I wish I could tell you that I’ve been enjoying all the decades-overdue dope-slaps Cheeto Benito has been getting from judges lately. Incidentally, you wanna wash those hands afterward, Your Honors. You don’t know where this mook has parked that fat orange mug of his.
Or that the GOP pestilential “debates” featuring the also-rans — a junior-varsity rogues’ gallery that Batman would hand off to Robin (“Here, kid, take care of my light work. …”) — have been must-see TV. I haven’t watched a nanosecond of them, preferring to let Charles Pierce (“doomed and useless”) and Kevin Drum (“shitshow”) handle that thankless bit of heavy lifting.
No, I’ve mostly been riding my bikes, awaiting tonight’s Harvest Moon — the last supermoon of the year — and fiddling idly with the WordPress Block Editor.
I’ve had several back-and-forths with a WP “Happiness Engineer” name of Liz about the Strange Case of the Spastic Comments, and she’s been very patient with this senile old fool, who basically wants to keep driving his 1954 Studebaker Conestoga of a blog editor until the wheels come off.
Which they may very well be doing. Who knows? My WP theme is retired, and so am I, but at least I remain functional. Most days, anyway.
Anyway, with one eye peeled for that instant when a wheel or two or three passes me and my Studwhacker as we’re getting our kicks on Route 66, I’ve been under the hood of an unused WP blog, banging on greasy bits I don’t recognize with a good hammer and a bad attitude.
Any of yis who are still experiencing technical difficulties with commenting on this blog are cordially invited to visit that one and try to comment, see if its swinging door leads to a jukebox and a barstool instead of the Three Heads of Cerberus (Drunk, Confused, and Angry).
It’s a one-post blog, with a new(er) theme called “Hemingway Rewritten” — yeah, I know, the gall of me — and none of the usual bells, whistles, and aaaooogah horns in the sidebar. Plus, since it’s a free blog, there are ads. Ick.
Frankly, you’d be better served by howling at the moon.
Mad Blog Media 