Oooooh….. Shiny!

Sorry posting’s been a bit light again. I have got a ton going on this week, but I’m also… (ahem)… playing with WordPress.org – and I am just rather enamored of its sheer awesomeness.

My mad techgeekchick skillz don’t seem to be serving me that well this time and I feel a little bit like a newbie trying to learn Windows 3.x all over again in that respect – and there is just SO much stuff!!! – but it’s pretty neat and I’m having fun. And have fallen in love with the hosting company (Host Gator) after my yucky experiences elsewhere (I won’t say who, but feel free to ask me which companies to avoid at all costs). I actually made a spontaneous decision (based on the recommendation of a WordPress.org expert) to jump over there after pulling my hair out for hours trying to install and update a WordPress blog where I was, and when I got set up at Host Gator, I had the thing on and live in less than five minutes (as well as some really cool other stuff that came with the account).

I’ll let you guys take a look at it when I get a little more moved in and situated. I don’t project that I’m going to move the Zone over there  – well, maybe someday, but I’m still rather attached to WordPress.com and even though it’s probably dumb of me, I never really wanted to put any advertising on the personal blog and whatnot. Now, the music blog, that might be another story – but I’m not jumping ship from WordPress.com with the personal blog anytime soon.

This new adventure is pretty cool though, I’m getting a kick out of playing with it. I just hope I don’t break anything, eek.

Well That’s A Pleasant Surprise…

Finding a new Twitter widget in your WordPress dashboard that you didn’t know was there is pretty cool for a Friday the 13th.

Wonder how long that thing’s been there without me noticing…

Tags, Categories, Labels, Topics, Subjects – Ahhh, Identifier Overload!

So maybe I’m just being unusually stupid about something I’m not usually so retarded about, but why would I want to use categories AND tags too? What’s the purpose?

Any WordPress (com or org) folks want to enlighten me on this mystery? I know tags suddenly appeared out of nowhere in my WP dashboard several months ago, but I can’t honestly think of a reason to use them unless I’m just missing something really important. Categories have always suited me just fine and this tag box is kinda in my way, unless there’s really some infinitely important reason to be using them.

Bits & Pieces, Or Just Bits ‘Cos I Don’t Have Time for the Pieces Right Now

There’s just really no time to be spared, so pardon me for this hit & run update.

1. A little while ago, I ate a cheese Krystal – because I was badly in need of food that I could get quick and didn’t have to cook and it was 3 in the morning – and it was unbelievably, horribly, terribly, awfully & ungodly bad. I have never had a Krystal that tasted that disgustingly, putridly bad in my life. Yes, I realize that Krystals are not haute cuisine, but come on – it’s a Krystal. How can you screw up a Krystal that bad?? If I die in my sleep here in a little bit, you’ll know what happened. Blech. A shoe sole would have tasted better I think.

2. I’ve been eating entirely too much fast food lately anyway, which is kind of okay because I never eat anyway and all I ever get is, like, one little McDonald’s cheeseburger, and they’re all of a dollar and I DO NOT HAVE TIME to cook. But let’s not talk about the fact that in the past two weeks I’ve been served (A) a cheeseburger that was between two top buns, and (B) got home one day and opened the bag to discover I had a top & bottom bun with cheese in the middle – and no burger. Wake up, people! I know it’s just an unimportant $1.00 cheeseburger, but it might just be someone’s only meal of the day that you totally screw up.

3. I know I shouldn’t have laughed because they’re both elderly and one’s a little sickly and might be a bit senile, but watching not just one but two of my cats fall off the desk a few minutes ago, within a few minutes of each other, with an empty chip bag (the small 99-cent Big Grab size) on their heads was almost as funny as a few years ago when my elderly then-16-year old cat got his head stuck inside an empty Krystal Chik box.

4. On a not-as-amusing note, Maggie’s (same Maggie as in the pic above) new favorite place to nap is with her head on the edge of my keyboard, which usually eventually occurs to me at some point after being puzzled as to why I’m typing in all caps or ““““` is appearing on the screen again.

5. I am apparently now completely and totally assimilated into the electronic communications world at this point, because now that my fax AND my printer are both borked, and a fax that I needed to get where it needed to go so I could start getting some commission payments didn’t go through because that dinosaur of a mid-’90s era fax that I inherited from my old office is totally dead now… it took about a month for it to finally occur to me that I could just put a stamp on an envelope and MAIL it.

6. Besides the petered out fax and printer, now my desktop is apparently on its last legs too – I’ve known it was coming, was hoping to hold it off a little longer, seeing as how that’s pretty distressing since I do 100% of my work on this computer these days – but it spit out a frightening serious error at me the other day and threatened to not start (but it eventually did). In the course of seeing what I could afford to ditch in an effort to get it speeded up a little and prepare to defragment the drive for the first time in I dunno how long, after going through some other directories, I took note of the millions of Notepad files I’ve got saved to the desktop – and had a bit of a chuckle over the title of some of those files, such as: CLC Links Widget, WP Tutorial, Moved Blogs, kathyt, kathyt Links Widget, More Moved Blogs, B Blogger Template, one simply titled B, B Tutorial (yes, I don’t remember why I felt I needed to make her her own instead of giving her the one I gave everyone else), and Sarcastro Stuff (which reminds me yet again that I STILL need to repost all his old photos one of these days, ugh). Anyway, giggle – yeah, I’m a blog geek.

7. There are angels in the blogosphere and in my MySpacesphere too. Angels, I tell you.

8. I’m so tired I don’t have time to BREATHE, and I don’t have time anyway because I have way too much work and projects to do. This staying up for a day and a half at a time, sleeping a few hours and starting all over again is getting a little old. I’ve been up again for about 38 or 39 hours now and worked straight through for about 22 well, really about 29 or 30, of those, so yeah – ‘scuse me if I’m a little loopy right now.

That is all. But seriously, if I don’t at least show up for a minute on Twitter by tonight? Food poisoning. Ugh, a nasty, dirty, filthy shoe sole would have no doubt tasted better. Yuck.

9. (Yes, Lesley and Brittney, I know I shouldn’t eat meat anyway.)

10. (But still – it’s a Krystal! How can anyone screw up a Krystal??)

11. Zzzzzz…

“Preview” Feeds Are the Scourge of All Evil and Should Be Outlawed

I figure I’m extremely overdue for my biannual post griping about this issue, probably because I have been so behind in catching up with most of the blogs I try to read regularly, I haven’t been using my feed reader much and have been mostly spot-checking off my blogroll here, daily or weekly or so catching up with the blogs I just won’t miss.

But now, after finally having gotten my feed reader un-backed up and at a manageable level of posts to deal with again, I’m ready to bitch about it again. I’ve been threatening to do this for probably a year and a half now, but this time I’m serious.

If you are one of those bloggers that only publishes a “preview” feed of your posts and doesn’t publish your full feed, I’m deleting you from my feed reader. I don’t care if you’re my best friend or my mother, you’re getting axed sometime within the next couple of weeks or so.

Fortunately most of the blogfolks I know well and read regularly don’t have this annoying habit (and neither my best friend nor my mom really blog), so there’s really not that many on the soon-to-be-deleted list. Unfortunately there’s a few bloggers I’ve been reading for years (who likely don’t read my blog anyway so, I know, what’s the point, right?) that ARE on that short list, but I’m so sick of it I don’t care anymore. There are some regional bloggers on that short list too, though – not many, but a few.

When it comes to dealing with other blogs, there’s nothing that drives me more insane than trying to efficiently catch up with (and stay on top of) my regular blogreading than coming back across those feeds that only publish a preview and you have to go to the blog site itself to actually read the post, so I’m just not dealing with it anymore.

The more time that’s gotten consumed dealing with the blogosphere in general, the more I’ve tried to get my reading and participation down to a manageable level where it’s not going to take me fifty billion hours every day to stay caught up and top of things, so if I have to delete blogs that I normally read every single day or almost and have for years because they refuse to publish their feed in full, so be it.

The way I look at it, if I’ve taken the time and made the effort to subscribe to your feed because I’m interested in what you write, I should be able to do so with my feed reader if I want, instead of you throwing a bone instead of your full feed and making me have to take a bunch of extra steps to actually get to read all of what you wrote beyond a few sentences.

I suppose the factor of being able to see there’s been an update is a pro of subscribing, but honestly there’s just not much point to me in subscribing to your feed if I have to go to your blog anyway to actually get to READ your posts, so from now on, I just won’t. My time is taken up enough by blog reading to have to be dealing with extra steps in the process.

If your reasons for insisting people come directly to your blog to read are because of advertising and you run Google ads, Feedburner has a Google AdSense option that can be included in your feed. Use it. Hell, I’ll be happy to click on ads from time to time in a feed if you’d just publish your full damn feed.

If your reasons for insisting people come directly to your blog to read are because you are overly attached to your SiteMeter or other stat counter and like to suss out the mysteries of who is reading your blog on the off chance that seeing a particular city in your details means so-and-so’s been reading your blog… then you need a new hobby.

I really do mean no offense, but I’m just sick of it. There was a backlog of something like 65,000 posts in my feed reader – which gives you a good idea of how long I’d been ignoring it – and every time I clicked on one of those blogs that doesn’t publish posts in their entirety, my blood pressure shot up just a little bit more. I almost deleted them all right then, but figured I’d wait a week or two just on the off chance that some might run across this and realize hey, maybe not publishing my full feed is a bad idea after all.

I won’t be deleting any of them that are on there from my blogroll, but since I’ve gotten my feed reader caught up again, I likely won’t be tagging the blogroll much for my own personal reading purposes, so.

So there it is. With the exception of Sarcastro’s kid blog (which I suspect may be an oversight anyway), if you don’t publish your full feed, your days are numbered in my feed reader. Like anyone cares, I know, but it makes me feel better to have vented about it anyway. Grrrr.

Not Ready to Eat My Words Yet, But I’ll Give Up a Concession

On a semi-related note to new news, I guess I’m going to have to quit badmouthing that thing that rhymes with Clogger after all.  I discovered it really HAS improved a great deal since most of us made the mass exodus to WordPress a couple of years ago.

Still could use some tweaking (and damned if they don’t have the SAME templates and NO new ones), but the system itself is really a whole lot better.

I’m not impressed enough to go back, and I still like WordPress much, much better.  But it really has improved, I’ll give it that much.

A Puzzle of Spam

This is probably just asking for trouble, I know. But I am a little puzzled as to why in the last, oh, two or three weeks, the amount of spam comments and trackbacks sitting in my Akismet basket here on WordPress has gone from an average of 100 or more a day to, like, two in a week.

Those of us who have our own domains attached to our WP blogs have always attracted lots more spam than those who don’t, as a general rule, and it wasn’t unheard of for me to glance in there after not looking for a week or so and see 300-500 of the pesky little suckers in there.

Only having two… and I have no idea when the last time I looked was – a week? Two? In any case, only having two… that’s kinda drastic. Not that I’m complaining, but I wonder what changed?

Have any of you other WordPress.com bloggers noticed the same thing? Especially those of you who have your own domains attached?

Blogger, You Still Suck

I wanted to comment today on this post over at Knuck’s because he has a really cool little kid having a birthday today, and the post is a really touching father-to-daughter post even with that special Knuck brand o’ sarcasm (heh), and I just liked it. Having also been an only child and daughter (in this scenario my sister doesn’t count), I dug it (and got just a little bit teary reading it, but don’t tell anybody).

But alas, I have given up all hope of being able to comment on Blogger blogs anymore after months and months of trying and even having consulted with a Blogger/Blogspot expert of sorts, who also eventually gave up trying to figure out why I can no longer comment on blogs on the Blogger platform. When someone who actually was a part of building the damn Blogger platform in the first place can’t even figure it out, I’m sure not going to keep wasting my time trying to.

I love all my Blogger blogging friends, they probably think I don’t care anymore nor read but I do, and I miss being able to comment over at their respective cribs. It figures, and is just my luck, that the majority I would like to comment often on are using Blogger’s regular comment system and not HaloScan or something. Most of these folks I have tried a time or two to get them to convert to WordPress (or ANYTHING besides Blogger) and my powers of persuasion have failed miserably. Or simply, as with some, they just never have had the problems those of us who fled Blogger lo now so many moons ago have had, so they felt no need to move.

Which is okay, really. I still read most of them. I just miss being able to comment at Knuck’s, or Lindsey’s. Or Short & Fat’s. Or Rex L. Camino’s. Or Chez Bez. Or Klinde’s. Or Linda’s. Or Larry Elvis & Curly’s dad’s. Or The Vol Abroad’s. Or Mrs. Bez. Or Dr. Woo’s. Or my out-of-state blog crushes Churlita and Margaret. Or many, many more.

On the upside, the list of folks my powers of persuasion to move to WordPress worked on (or someone else moved indirectly because of it, thanks to some of those) is WAY longer than the Blogger holdouts, as well as the ones who never went to the Dark Side in the first place, so I guess I shouldn’t grouse too much.

No, this post wasn’t meant as a sneaky way of tossing out some link love, I just wanted to bitch about Blogger again ‘cos it sucks. Hee.

On another note – hey, I just noticed I got written up at AnimalShak a couple of weeks ago, sorry it took me so long to notice. I’m not the most observant crayon in the box some days.

In Which I Do the Happy Dance & Get Ready in 2008 to Get Physical… I Mean, Political

Oh hey, remember my Roger Abramson Watch?

He’s baaaaaaaack! I guess I can take it down now (or soon). I know my fellow Rogerettes are thrilled as well!

Unfortunately not on WordPress, but on Blogger (heavy sigh). I still cannot leave comments successfully on any Blogger blogs and haven’t been able to in months (exasperated) – but that’s okay! He’s baaaaaaack!

(And so too recently, I note, is Sean! Woo! Watch me get all excited about politics and current events in 2008 now, this should be fun, huh?!?!!!!) :D

In Which I Respond to the Bez

I haven’t been able to post on any Blogger blogs in months, so I’m probably about to adopt the annoying habit of turning my intended comments on peers’ Blogger blogs into posts on my own blog.*

So, my response to Mike over at Chez Bez is: Non-Southerners**. It came from the Times, after all!

Shoot, everyone knows you if meet a new adult person down here, “What do you do for a living?” is going to follow soon on the heels of (if not before):

“Where are you from?”

“Where’d you go to college?”

“Are you married?”

“Do you have children?”

“Where do you go to church?” (in some circles, anyway, and…)

“Can I get you (some ice tea, a beer, a coke, etc.)?”

And some more, of course.  Nosy or not, I expect some of my kinfolk would have sniffed that it’d be considered rude and impolite NOT to answer those questions.  Folks in the South are just that way.***

* (Fortunately this is now a minority as most have moved to WordPress or otherwise, whew.)

** (Nope I didn’t say Yankee… but I could have. Or Midwesterner or West Coaster or whatever, natch.)

*** (Not saying I agree, mind you.)

P.S. Hee.