Uncategorized

While I wait for Blogger to start publishing to my weblog again, I’ve updated the sidebar. I’m reading a new book, listening to new music, and I’ve seen three new films in recent weeks. And I’m sure you are all just pleased as punch to know this, aren’t you?

So P.T. Barnum never said “A sucker is born every minute,”, and George Washington never said, “I cannot tell a lie.” How will I ever learn to trust my copy of Bartlett’s Famous Quotations ever again? (I’ve already lost my faith in the Internet as a reliable source for quotes.

(Links courtesy of the message board at Angels from Another Pin and this Salon article, respectively.)

Fellow capper amycamus shares this unconfirmed statistic: “there are more than 3,000 homes in the U.S. built as exact replicas of the Brady Bunch home.”

I don’t want to keep talking about Michael Savage — in my opinion, the man deserves to be forgotten — but I thought it was worth noting that, in his official statement about finally getting fired from MSNBC, he writes: “I especially appeal to my many listeners in the gay community to accept my apologies for any inadvertent insults which may have occurred.”

Savage had viewers in the gay community? Isn’t that like saying the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan had friends in the NAACP?

This isn’t just a problem with Blogger, but: why offer “details” on an error message when all those details amount to is basically a unhelpful “there was an error; we don’t know why”? I need to know what’s causing the error, not just another reminder that it exists. If I see a “Publish error” in Blogger, I’d like the “details” link next to it to tell me more than “There Were Errors in Publishing.” If you can’t help me resolve the error — and I understand if you can’t, since sometimes these things simply require patience and persistence and don’t necessarily mean something’s actually broken — why offer me a link or window that indicates you can?

This particular case is a minor issue, may not even be on Blogger’s end, and will likely resolve itself momentarily, but I’m generally much happier with technical help that admits it can’t help me up front than with the offer of help that…well, isn’t helpful.