Complaints About New Blogger, with bonus cat photos

Swistle touched briefly in her post today on the new Blogger interface (the behind-the-scenes part of the blog), specifically about how much she hates it, "even after giving myself time to get used to the change since I always initially resist change". That made me laugh first because I'm exactly that way myself, and second because I have been keeping a list of all the things I hate about the new Blogger interface, so I wouldn't forget any when it came time to post complainingly about it. So I think now is the time! If you don't care, just nod and go to the end for the cat picture (and a little news).

In no particular order:

• The Preview feature shows the post filling the whole screen (no sidebar), and without the title. Or in other words, not at all like it will look when published. Helpful. The composition pane actually looks more like the final product than Preview does.
• There is often an extra space at the beginning of paragraphs. This is one of the Twelve Approved Ways to Drive Your Proofreader Insane.
• If you add in a bunch of pictures and then dare to move any around, it completely messes up the spacing between them, leading to vast spaces that you can't see or delete in the composition pane.
• Speaking of photos, mine often will appear in the pop-up upload window the right way up, but appear in the post sideways. I have to go back, re-load the picture, tell it to turn clockwise, tell it to turn counterclockwise, then insert. This may be something funky from Picasa, or something between Picasa and Blogger, but it's all Google, it should work together, just fix it!
• When I upload a bunch of photos, it assumes I want to insert them all at once, and I have to de-select all the ones I'm not ready for.
• Then, when I go back to insert the others, the photos are often not visible on the pop-up. They're there, they can be selected and added, I just can't see them, so I can't see which ones are which. Very helpful.
• And even when you've added the photos to the post, they stay in the pop-up window. In case you want to put them in a second time, I guess, like I do that a lot. Maybe I should start?
• The calendar is Monday-through-Sunday. I believe I am not the only person who mentally defaults to a Sunday-to-Saturday view. That's the way we do things in my country, and seeing it another way messes with my mind something awful. (The Boston Ballet's website does the same thing. Perhaps it's supposed to be cool and European? It isn't, though, it's just annoying. For that matter, the BB's website is so incredibly unfriendly that every year I call to get Nutcracker tickets instead. And you know I will always do things online instead of calling if at all possible. [This week I had to file my Unemployment by calling, since the website was having technical difficulties, and it was just so much more annoying.] But trying to get seats in a specific spot in the theater is, I have found, not possible online. Whereas the phone people are wonderful and friendly and helpful and everything phone people should be and almost never are. To sum up this incredibly long digression on the Boston Ballet: the website is an uncategorical FAIL, but the phone center people are all WIN.)(Whew.)
• This one is a tiny change but continues to stymie me: In the toolbar at the top of the composition pane, the button to add a link used to be a couple of little chain links, like this: . It's for links, it's a chain, get it? Well, in the new interface, they replaced it with the word Link, there in the middle of all the symbols, and my eye keeps skipping over it. It's been a month or more since they forced the new interface on us, but I still keep looking for the chain. I link a lot, and it's pretty annoying.
• When I'm looking at the posts that exist for this blog, if I switch it to only show posts that have been published (as opposed to drafts), I can't search. I have to be on All Posts to search. (I initially thought you couldn't search posts at all, which I do a lot, and I was pissed! But it turns out you can ... just not everywhere, which is weird.)
• Finally, I was typing away one day when Google logged me out, mid-sentence. WTF? I had to reenter my password, and it lost the last bit I'd written. It hasn't happened again, but once was enough to make the list.

There! I feel better. Feel free to unload your own rants in the comments if you like, on whatever subject is irking you.

I promised cats, so here we are:

She is hoping that the magical fluff powers of her tail will protect her from me and my evil intentions.
He is asleep.

Oh, and the news? The company where I had the two phone interviews and the editing test has called me in for an interview. You know, the traditional face-to-face kind. Wooo! Wednesday afternoon. Which means I will be taking a sleeping pill tonight and tomorrow night.

Quickly for Thursday (the lightheaded edition)

I'll keep this brief (no, really), as I'm feeling a little ... funny tonight, and not up to much exposition. There are a couple of things I wanted to share, then I'll go back to the couch and watch the rest of the Bruins game (will they keep up the good work? they're up 3-0 after one period).

First, I was looking at my blog stats the other day, and I noticed this rather interesting term in the keyword searches:


It fascinates me that my blog came up as a result for "if you can't get someone out of your head maybe they're supposed to be there". In fact, I really want to know the story behind that search. Anyone?

Second, I know that we had super-snow January and not so much February, but it's still fresh in my mind, making me laugh very much at this:


I haven't done a cross stitch in a few years, but I do enjoy Subversive Cross Stitch.

Time for the second period!

Four Years, Man! Four Years! Four! Years!

Four years ago, which is actually very hard to write without riffing on four score and seven years ago, I took the step from "reading other people's blogs" to "starting my own". Blogging is a funny thing, now and four years ago, with people at all points along a spectrum of understanding. From those whose lives have changed due to it, to those who say "bla-what now?"*, this form of expression is far from being one size fits all.

*When I started doing this, and my mother showed the blog to my father, he reportedly asked what he was supposed to do with it. "Read it," my mother told him.

When I first wrote, August 9, 2006 and thereafter, I had various "reasons" for it, including these:

"the chance of connecting to someone I would otherwise never meet has a certain odd appeal."

"I suffer from polishing compulsion, where I want to make every word, every sentence, that I write perfect before I continue. ... I hope that, by blogging, I'll be able to loosen up a bit."

Today, I find my own usage of the word odd rather funny, now that I have blog-friends that I e-mail to "talk" to, and would enjoy meeting for real but feel I know already. And I am now much more comfortable with the concept of "finished is a better goal than better than perfect"; I check off the latter point as well.

It's hard to believe that there are things about myself that haven't come up in the last four years and 1000+ posts, but I came up with a few extremely minor and probably boring things that I think are making their blog debut today. Without further ado, here they are:

Totally Random Things You May Not Know About Me

• When I comb my hair after I wash it, I do so with my eyes closed. There's a reason: because when I comb into a tangle, I wince, and if I see myself do it, it hurts more. Yeah, I didn't say it was a logical reason.
• I have an inexplicable fondness for the TV show Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Sunday nights at 8, there I am, soaking in the emotional manipulation and repetitive redundancy. One Sunday evening I was on the computer, and when I saw it was 8:02, I hopped up with a cry of, "I'm missing it!" and scurried into the living room to turn on the TV. I watch reruns on TVLand and CMT. I'm sure it's staged and arranged and rehearsed and I don't care (and don't want to know).
  
• When I wear shoes with laces, the laces are always coming undone. At least once a day, often more, and always the left before the right (apparently I tend to sit with the left tucked under the right, so it loosens, or that's the theory anyway). Sneakers, boots, shoes, double-knotted, doesn't matter, they gradually loosen and flap free. Does this happen to everyone?
• I have watched NASCAR on TV, by choice (though not in a few years). (My friend Pat and I agreed, many years back, that she would teach me about NASCAR while I taught her about hockey. Therefore, I became a Dale Earnhardt fan, and she "rooted" for the Bruins. Naturally.) I would venture to guess that none of my friends could say this. I'm not bragging and I'm not ashamed, but it's one of those things that I would have trouble telling someone without feeling the need to explain.

Do you have any questions that you'd like to ask? Feel free, and I may even answer!

**********
Off topic, but hockey fans are counting down to training camp (opens September 17th!), and here's a great fan-made video tribute to get you in the mood (assuming you're a Bruins fan):



Summer must end, which is sad, but at least it means hockey begins again.

Of Cats

I* got this tall, solid scratching post years ago, when Pan and Harold outgrew the little kitten-sized one, and I took pity on Pan squatting down to be low to the ground so he could scratch UP! It's worked out well; although the sisal-rope stuff has settled down over time, it's pretty well made, and has held up to a lot of scratching.

*Actually, I think my mother got it for them. Thanks again!

A few months ago, after Harold died, I pondered whether I should keep it, as it does take up space, and Miri didn't seem to be using it at all. (She liked to scratch on the actual carpet instead, the pest.) And then came Carlos.


Carlos loves it. The first photo, taken without a flash, is a blur because he was launching himself around the base, attacking the dangly things that have hung ignored for so long (Pan liked them, and even he didn't play with them much the last year or two, but just did plain scratching). He dives and swoops and has a wonderful time.

Kung fu pose! Oh, flash! Bright!

I know you're still there.

Recently, I've even noticed Miri scratching the base, instead of the rug. Win-win; it stays, of course.

And here they both are, not curled up together, but adjacent at least. I think that Miri is completely ready to be friends, while Carlos isn't quite secure enough yet to encourage her. Still, for only a month in, they're getting along splendidly.


Herself still wants love, naturally--on my terms, stop trying to kiss me, touch the belly if you dare, can't you scritch my cheeks endlessly and leave the rest of me alone?

I'm so cute, right?

But now there's another contender for the cute title. Look at him:


Deeply asleep, or practicing his dive for the 2012 Summer Games?


I do love a cat in sunshine.



**********
Hey, by the way, yesterday's post was the 900th I've posted! How about that?

And I've used 70% of my photo allowance. Have to keep an eye on that number. I've been perfectly happy with Blogger, overall, and wouldn't plan to switch to another platform, but I can't fathom blogging without pictures. As well make me type with my tongue. Not going to happen.

Reminder: comment on my review of Home Is Where the Wine Is, and you might win a copy of the book for yourself! Go on, you know you want to!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I'm not starting this with a clear idea of which is which. Let's start with the easy one:

The Ugly. Blisters.

I have twelve blisters on my feet. Twelve! I can't even remember the last time I had one, and I have twelve.

To be fair, 8 of them are fairly small. At least in comparison. I'm not so obsessive about them. They are Overshadowed.

Two of them creep me out a little. They're Really Big. They don't actually hurt, at least since I haven't whacked them against anything yet (and given my coordination skills, that's actually impressive), but they worry me for the future. They're not Pain, they're Potential Pain.

The last two are Pain. They're the ones that were popped, red, and irritated by the time I bought the flip-flops on Thursday. (Have I reached Too Much Information yet?) Last night and this morning they were kind of painful (I'm trying to be understated, is it working?), but with more goop and big bandages, they're better now. Maybe the worst is done with them? Maybe?

Unfortunately, I can't go shoe-shopping until there's improvement, and I don't even want to try on the sock I'm knitting, though I'm almost done and curious about the fit. Soon, soon. God grant me patience, and I want it now.

In other news (good? bad? up to you), I did get my first severance check this week, and also notice from unemployment that my claim is official. They don't say when the payments will show up, but all in good time, I guess.

I sent my resume to another agency yesterday.

I bought another interview outfit, way on sale.

I may have (ahem) arranged to buy some yarn on sale. Details later, with certainty.

Oh, all right, this is getting dull even to me. Let's talk about something more fun!

Last week, while visiting my parents, I was noodling around on the computer one day and decided to check my blog site statistics. I don't look at them that often, but after having been on Sitemeter for some time, I recently signed up with Statcounter, and I wanted to fiddle around with it some more.

When I signed in, I thought there was a mistake at first. To give you an idea of why, here are the visits for the last two weeks, as of tonight:


I looked at it on the 30th, and you can see why I thought that spike must be an error. Turns out, it's not. A site/blog called Tipnut had written about making scrubbies, and linked to a number of places online to learn how, and the first one on the list? Yeah, hi! That would be me.

I never thought, when I posted that, that anything much would happen. I've been linked to for it once or twice before, but the volume was nothing like this. And in the scheme of things, it doesn't change much, but still, it gives me a little thrill, somehow. It would be nice if someone who came for the scrubbies stayed for the general ramblings.

Not likely, perhaps. But nice.

Thoughts on Blogging

Do you realize that based on two recent posts, a Google search for UFO and cloning* could bring up my blog? How interesting blogging is: it really leads one to unexpected places.

*I haven't tried it, so I don't know how high up the list I'd be. Probably not that much, but certainly I'm not the site to visit if you want to clone a UFO anyway.

I don't know that I thought about frequency of blogging before I started, except to not want to be someone who writes that "I can't believe I haven't written in so long" post every few months, and nothing else. That's just frustrating, you know? To find a blog that you like reading and then they don't write ... sigh. I didn't know if anyone would be reading what I wrote (other than mama), but I knew I didn't want to do that to any potential readers.

What I've found, though, is that I rarely have trouble coming up with at least a brief something to write about. For someone who never finishes what she starts writing, that was kind of a surprise: I have a fair bit to say! Perhaps it's the novel-writing imagination I lack, which is a shame given that I really want to finish the hockey-novel-in-progress (except I don't know what happens next).

I don't always write every day (except this month!), but I write most days, and finding the time isn't usually a problem. The dishes can always be ignored for another few minutes while I tell you what happened to me today, or what my knitting is doing, or how cute my cats are. I sometimes wonder if I'd blog as much if I didn't live alone. Maybe, maybe not.

Google Reader, you say?

As a follow-up to yesterday's post on how readers find my blog, I wanted to discuss one of my new favorite things, Google Reader, and how easy it's made it for me to keep up with my favorite blogs.

First, though, could we take a moment to celebrate the Bruins' win last night? Due to the stupid lateness of the start, I only watched the first period, which ended 1-1, then listened to the start of the 2nd in bed. The last score I remember was 4-1 Boston, so I was happy (how nice that I fell asleep before the next two goals, which were all LA). This morning, I found out my boys managed to win, 8-6. Not bad! Need more defense, but there's some offense for you, finally! Another late game tonight*, and then next week we return to normal. A 7 PM game Thursday, how refreshing! (Of course, I have a condo meeting at 7 on Thursday, doesn't that figure? But I'll be able to watch most of the game, anyway.)

*And I don't think I'm even going to be watching the first period, since there's apparently a power outage in San Jose at the moment. It's a conspiracy, I tell you.

Now, Reader, my newsreader. If you know what these things are, skip ahead over this section. For those who don't, here's a brief explanation.

Say you read a blog or other website that is updated periodically, whether it's daily, weekly, monthly, whatever. You check back every so often to see if it's been updated. Perhaps you check every thirty seconds to see if the Yarn Harlot has written about last night's event yet (maybe now? how about now? or now?) or to see if Crazy Aunt Purl has written anything to distract you from your day.

Perhaps you stumble over a blog you really like, and think, I'll have to remember to check this one again. Then, if you forget its name or address, you get frustrated as you try to remember how exactly you found it in the first place. "Was I searching on 'llama yarn hat pattern'? Or 'alpaca hat pattern knit'? Or...?"

At last, you cry out, "There has to be a better way!"

There is. Google Reader is one of a number of similar ways to both keep track of your favorite blogs, and be notified when they update. Now, I admit, it's the only one I've tried, but it sure does do the job. I won't call it perfect (there are a few bugs in every system), but hey, it works pretty close to perfect, and it's free. Not bad. To use it, you do need a Google account, which I have. Once you're in, you "subscribe" to whatever blogs you want, and then whenever you open Reader, it tells you who has new posts. You can access it wherever you sign in to your Google account, so it's better than bookmarks for remembering addresses, plus you don't have the frustration of checking sites to find that they haven't been updated yet (or was I the only one doing that?).

Now, for reasons I know not, you can read the full entry of some blogs in Reader, while others only give you the first few lines, and you have to go to the site itself to read the full entry. This leads to one of my few frustrations with it, which isn't even its fault. The Yarn Harlot is so popular, her server has trouble keeping up with demand, and frequently I won't be able to get through when I try to go to her site. At such times, it's really frustrating to know that a new post is there, but not be able to read it!

One of my favorite features is the "starred feature". If you want to be able to find a particular post again, you can "star" it, and then if you want to find that pattern or recipe or whatever again, you don't have to go searching through the whole blog, or even try to remember which blog it was. Handy!

So, this is why I'm so fond of Google Reader. Thanks to Stacey for telling me about it!

Now if I could just get into Ravelry ...

Whoa! I went to check on my status, since I was pretty close the other day, and I'm in! Invited today, woo!

My user name is ccrinMA, of course (can you believe it wasn't taken?). If you're a Raveler and have any tips, lay them on me! Who knows how long it will take me to get all my info in there, but should be fun to play with, eh? Must not stay up all night ...

But before I go, you need a cat picture, don't you? Pan was very needy today, so at one point I decided that if he wanted to be played with, I would play with him.


He really didn't seem to mind being in a toy fort; he even stayed there while I got the camera. After a while, he did move, though. Can you see the mousie in this shot?


Hint: look for the little red nose...