theblogofthehandoftamm

So I spent the weekend away from the mouse house, meaning today’s entry has only a kite in the air as photographic component. The last three days were spent loafing, sailing, eating, and drinking. And watching Fletch (Chevy Chase’s best movie) for the 50th time with my pal Bee. The night skies were beautiful by the lake and the mornings were shockingly free of crushing hangovers. I haven’t decided if that’s a victory or defeat.

Upon my return I found a large, dead rat in the backyard. This may or may not have been a mafioso warning so keep watching the news for reports of theheadoftamm being found in an upstart blogger’s bed or something. I also returned to an email from a devoted overseas reader who suggested my comments problem at the blog could be somewhere in my theme so I should try switching it. This I dutifully did and now my comments are indeed back up but the theme doesn’t offer me some components I want so expect a change again soon. Interestingly, once comments worked again I had a piece of spam in less than 15 seconds, which is reassuring. At least someone cares enough to dump garbage here. I mean apart from me.

Today Facebook took down Scrabulous and put up a beta of EA’s Scrabble, which doesn’t actually work and is already down. This freed up untold hours of my time, so I thought I would fix my comments problem at this alternative media organ you’re presently navigating (accidentally, I’m sure). I will now do my best to make a tedious story sound like it’s chock-a-block with tension.

I figured I would simply reinstall all the files for WordPress 2.3.3. Of course, my removing and subsequent restoring of directories took the site down for a short period. Given that my normal morning traffic without an update is negligible (actually, my afternoon traffic with updates is nearly identical), I figured this was a safe time for tinkering. Not so! In no time at all I had an irate reader on my phone, telling me that my blog was down. Nothing could have given me greater pleasure than to have taken on the role of my own Reader Services representative for a few minutes, which I cheerfully fulfilled with my expressed wish that he go and perform an autoerotic act. I also made assurances that the site was close to working again, for all the good that would do.

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After some days away from the electronic umbilical cord to the wider world, I return with bugbites and sunburn and possibly my lowest-ever levels of vitriol. All of these will pass momentarily.

I am a temporary bachelor in this week so expect tales of wanton hedonism in the coming days. I would describe the last 36 hours in detail but some of what transpired should really be left to the investigators instead of me confessing all here. It began with a terrible match in Toronto FC v. San Jose and only went downhill from there. Yesterday I had to be put in drydock instead of resuming my bloggery in a more timely manner.

Now that I’m more or less mended, I will return momentarily with a report on the fermented bounty of a certain cactus, as I’m off to a Tequila tasting this evening. I hope it fares better than the vodka bar.

On a boring technical sidenote, I don’t know if to be relieved or irritated that the comments problem didn’t magically fix itself in my absence but this site is not about discourse, it’s my vanity soapbox after all. I may attend to it or not before long.

With apologies to anyone looking to have their say, it seems that somehow the option of adding comments to posts has been knocked out today and, despite troubleshooting for a while, I can’t seem to locate what could be preventing comments from functioning properly.

I’m afraid I’m going to have to look into it again later. All this work on site has worn me to a nub. Time to go rest and recharge.

Come back in a short while, should you have the inclination.

As I type this I sit in the car dealership, where my wallet helps keep the very patient people’s car in fighting trim. Thankfully they also boast free wireless so I can share the trials and small victories with you.

As always happens when I’m sitting in the service lounge, the desk manager comes over to tell me what extra deficiencies the technician has noticed. Today I’m here for a coolant flush and a oil change but I haven’t been in my seat for ten minutes before I’m advised that the air filter, pollen filter (hunh?), brake fluid, and spark plugs also need to be done. The shop asks if I had the 64k overhaul on this car, which I dutifully did do some 18 months ago at another dealership. They seem suspicious.

Does this mean that the other shop did a half-assed job or that I’ve just been really hard on my brake fluid, filters, and plugs? Like everything car-related, I’m convinced it’s a scam. The machines are so beyond my understanding that I can be easily taken advantage of. Is this my fault? Kinda like computers where I’m concerned: just make the thing work for me without my needing to know what I’m doing!

So I’m getting plugged again.

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As an update to my frustrations, I’m pleased to announce I successfully killed my updated WordPress 2.5.1 and have reverted to version 2.3.3. This episode has deepened my understanding of how a webmasite works and I’m half-grateful. What does this mean to you? Hopefully better posts from a happier poster. Normal service, as they say, has resumed.

Likely invisible to the reader is my recent upgrade to WordPress 2.5.1. So far, it’s worse than my previous version. Firstly, I’m a fool who foolishly started upgrading before I really understood how to change my directories and ended up with a site that disappeared into a blank page for a few hours (although nothing could have pleased me more than learning someone was trying to view the site and met with the tabula rasa -because it meant someone was trying to view the site!). After some cursing and sweating, the site was restored and the new version of WordPress was operational.

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If you’ve come here by luck or accident, know that this is a work in progress, yet to have found its feet. Once I figure out how this Interweb works for making the pages look like my intention, I can begin executing the plan –which I also need. This may take some time.

service to begin shortly.