Dissonance

Thanks to Laurie I learned that this blog suddenly started requiring commenters to log in. Catrina in Burbank told me the same thing about a month ago but at that time I just assumed it was a temporary bug. So, thanks to both of you.

I don’t know how that happened. I didn’t do it. I do not moderate comments here. Anyone is free comment here and say anything they like. What I found was that it was the non-WordPress users that were required to be registered and signed in. The fix was a very complicated process. I had to uncheck a box.

Some time ago I found that my D drive will not read CDs anymore. Just as the insane do the same thing over and over again and expect different results, I keep sticking discs into the machine with hope that it will somehow work again.

The sound could also be described as a security alarm. I was seriously worried now. The only thing I could think to do was give this old computer one last good old-fashioned fist pounding. I did so by bringing the ball of my fist straight down on top of it with twice as much force as before. When I did, that blood-curdling sound stopped immediately. My sound is fine and the tray slides in and out easily only now in sort of a zig-zaggy motion. Maybe now it will run discs.

It was on this day in 1978 that the very first spam message was sent. It was sent out on ARPANET which was in use as far back as 1969. ARPA was the Advanced Research Projects Agency. The ARPAnet was a government-run network which evolved into what we now know as the internet.

It was Gary Thuerk who first emailed hundreds of people at the same time for personal gain. Happy anniversary Mr. popularity.

No! No. No, no, no, no . . . Why this? As far as I know I’m not considered a whiner. At least no one has told me so. The people who really, really know me have described my negative side as grumpy, pessimistic and sort of angry with society but I don’t ever remember being described as whiny. If I am, please tell me now and I’ll stop that immediately. But only after this deliberate exhibition of foot-stomping whinery.

It looks like I’ve completely lost my audio device on this computer, meaning I will never, ever hear another song for the rest of my life. Also, I will never, ever be able to fully understand what’s going on in any videos that are sent to me for the rest of my life.

I hope that was dramatic and whiny enough. This does piss me off though. I don’t usually listen to music but when I need to hear a song, I really need to hear that damned song. This happens frequently and a simple system restore has always solved the problem. Not this time though. I system-restored the shit out of this computer over the weekend and still never got it back. I finally gave up on that approach and emailed one of the Houston Chronicle’s tech columnists. I was very surprised that he answered me in my inbox within an hour. I didn’t know how he responded to questions. My assumption was that if you were lucky he would address your question in his column. He must be one hell of a busy guy. From his response I learned that I am screwed. His advice was to visit the computer makers web site and re-download the audio driver. I don’t know who the hell made this computer. My brother-in-law put it together with scavanged parts a long, long time ago.

I was surprised yesterday afternoon to see this completely new dashboard. At first I thought something was wrong with it but after looking around I realized that this was a new design. I didn’t think much about it at the time because I just wanted to check my favorite blogs. I did that and then went on with my nightly duties around here. After I did all that I fell asleep. I didn’t set foot back on the floor until about 4:00 AM when I had to go turn off the lights and the TV.

After all that unexpected sleep and then walking through the apartment I didn’t feel like I was going to get right back to sleep so I opened up WordPress again. This is when I noticed just how different the dashboard is. I went to WordPress News and saw the announcement time-stamped at 9:44 PM (later than the change took place). I spent the next two hours reading user comments and exploring all the new changes. The comments were interesting. Some love it and some hate it.

I played around with the widgets and found that all but one that I added and removed worked. In my opinion it’s much easier than dragging and dropping. I just hope they can get the “Recent Post” widget to show the title instead of the code. There was some talk about problems with retrieving drafts. I have been in and out of this post several times just to see what would happen and I got it back every time. However, I haven’t actually logged out, rebooted and checked the status of a draft. I’ll try that another time. The method of adding photos, images or videos doesn’t look like it’s going to be all that different either. I’m about to find out. Here goes. Remember, this is only a test. This will be just a random image from my files, an audio and a video from Youtube.

I’ll try an image first.

Check.

Then a song.

Your’re No
Good.

Check.

And now a video.

Paint Jam

Check.

This concludes my test of the the new WordPress dashboard. It is mostly working for me. I am only a free user. I cannot speak for the users who use the more sophisticated tools here. All I can say is that I have had no problem understanding or using the new dashboard.

If you enter this word in a search engine you will get many different results. Most will be about cognitive dissonance and others about the musical definition. Looking further, you will also find other sites of the same name. One being a goth looking band and another by someone who is trying to write a screenplay. Then there’s me.

It’s easy to find this blog by typing in that search word but it will probably be 2 out of 10 results. If you add a D to the end of the word I’m about 5 in 10 search results on the first page (just an estimate). That’s because I use a D in my URL. I don’t use it in the title of this blog.

If this was a band blog I suppose there would be a conflict over the rights to the name/title. But this is just a blog. A really pointless blog. I really don’t think anyone gives a shit if I share the name. It’s just a word. They might have to fight me for it though. Kidding.

I have always regretted choosing this as a name for this blog. In 2003 I started exploring the blogosphere and became fascinated with it. I wanted to know more about it so I read as much as I could. I decided that I wanted to see how succesful I would be at creating my own. As you know it was quite easy.

I was surprised to see that creating a blog was as easy as it was. It was all set up except for a title. I didn’t know what the hell to call it because I had no purpose or direction. I was just playing around on the computer. To be honest, I never intended to use it. I was going to abandon it. I decided to keep it up just to see what would happen. The name dissonance doesn’t really mean anything in reference to this blog. It’s just a word I used because I couldn’t think of anything else.

I lost my internet connection well over a week ago. Of course, I panicked. I started yanking cables and reinsurting them, trying new cables, rebooting, using canned air and even whacking the modem with my wooden back scratcher. Nothing worked. I was screwed and I knew it.

I had to call my ISP tech support. After listening to their lame-assed music for two hours on the phone I . . . just kidding. They were on the line in a matter of seconds and helped me narrow down the problem. A woman with a very pleasant voice walked me through the same steps I had taken several times before on my own and gave me the diagnosis.

“Your modem has taken a dirt nap”, she said.
That’s pretty direct. I like that. She told me exactly what to do, I thanked her for her help and she told me to call back if I needed help getting set back up.

I set up the new modem/router tonight and now I’m back online. My email hasn’t been opened in over a week and I’m seriously behind with my favorite blogs. It’s going to take me two days to catch up. Possibly three.

About a week or so ago and probably long before that Arm Jerker wrote about the odd search queries she was finding in her blog stats. The funniest if not the weirdest searches were those (and there were many) for a certain actor belonging to the “Brat Pack” of the eighties. It’s worth looking at.

I get strange queries in my stats all the time too but I’ve never mentioned them before because I never thought of them as very interesting or funny; Just weird. That is until today. Earlier this year I spent a week working in Key West. I also have this Laurie and a this Laurie linked here. According to my stats here, the search for Laurie Toy Key West will send you right to this blog.