Author Archives: Shawn R. McDonald

Verbing: What Your Company Needs!

“I’ll search for that term with a search engine.”

What’s wrong with the above statement? Technically, nothing. The problem is that no one talks that way. Try this one:

“I’ll search for it on Google.”

Hm… there’s still something wrong. No one says that, either. Last try:

“I’ll google it.”

Jackpot!

These days, the measure of success is if your product/company is a verb. Verbing a company name makes it ubiquitous.

“I’ll record this show on my digital video recorder.”

Wrong!

“I’ll TiVo this show.”

Ding!

Think about it. If this word did not have the ability to be verbed, the makers of TiVo simply would not be as famous. “I’ll record it on TiVo.” You might as well say, “I’ll record it on my VCR.” The word enters the language, but it doesn’t enter your consciousness.

When your company’s name is verbed, it means your company is one of action. It’s not something people use; it’s something people do! And that, my friend, makes all the difference. People like to think they’re doing something.

However, aren’t there other ways to make your company name ubiquitous? Well, no, not really. There’s the McPrefix route. McJob, McDiet…. Yet, we don’t have WalJob. If you can think of a prefix, by all means, go for it, but we don’t live in a prefix world anymore. We live in a world of acronyms and verbs. (Although acronyms may be becoming passe with the onslaught of GSAVE.) I can’t think of any other company with the ubiquitous prefix. It’ll be very, very hard to break McDonald’s stranglehold on the prefix.

That’s why I suggest the verb. Verbing words is what all the hip kids are doing now. Of course, verbing existed before, but the internet age made it cool. Verbing really works with electronic/digital products.

Another route is the ubiquitous noun. Kleenex is trademarked. Band-aid is trademarked. Yet you hear these words more often than tissue and bandage.

However, we now live in a service industry — in the digital age. You’re not making products that will replace what we normally use. It’s just not going to happen anymore. If you’re making a new company, you are most definitely making something people do, not use. That’s why you need to verb.

Don’t believe me? Does anyone remember the Segway? Do you know why the Segway failed? It’s because they didn’t attempt to market their product as a verb! It was the next big thing. It wasn’t something you do. It was just another disappointing toy.

Segway was perfectly verbable, but there was a tiny little culprit in the way: The. The Segway, it became. If they the your product, you are dead. It’s their own fault, though. It was the Segway Human Transporter. They tried to make it cool with the HT, but it didn’t work. Verbing is what’s in. Unfortunately, the visionaries weren’t visionaries in linguistics.

So, all you budding entrepreneurs: Remember, make sure your company name is verbable, and can’t be thed, if you want to really succeed in the 21st century.

I’m Thankful for Cindy Sheehan

I completely disagree with her, but I’m thankful we live in America, and she can do what she is doing.

Imagine a woman in Iraq whose son disappeared. Do you think she could have camped outside Saddam’s palace and demanded a meeting? Do you think the media would have covered it? She would’ve been killed, on the spot.

That’s why I’m thankful we live in America.

That’s what her son died for. I don’t know if Ms. Sheehan thinks it’s worth it, or not, but the dream for Iraq is to make it a place where other mothers can do what she is doing right now.

Even if you don’t think we should’ve been there in the first place, we can’t pull out now. Even if you don’t think democracy was one of the reasons we invaded, it must be now. We must have faith in our soldiers and especially the Iraqi people, even if you don’t have faith in Bush and his administration.

A Chapter’s End

Seeing my friends begin to leave for college is almost as painful as watching Adam Carolla try to be funny. No, but seriously, it’s the end of a chapter in our lives. When school ended, I was so happy, I never considered this. It was like the year 2000 in the 90’s… it’s always there, but it’s so far away. It’s only now when people start leaving that it hits me. Not only that, but shit… we’re already halfway through this decade. Joking about Y2K is joking about something that happened five years ago.

I know there’s always winter break, etcetera, but I get the feeling that when we come back, we’ll be completely different people. These idyllic days are over. For some reason, I feel like I’m never seeing these people again. Or worse, they’ll only merit a fake, “Nice to see you again.”

When I moved back to California from Colorado, I learned a valuable lesson: You can never go back. I don’t know if any of my friends have learned that lesson yet, or if I’m over-reacting to that lesson.

*    *    *    *

Last Saturday — Sunday really, it was 2:00 — the full weight of it began to be realized. That time I spent on the couch, watching 3 hours of television, was a ritual that was coming to an end. The shows will still be on, the same people will exist, the couch will still be there, night and day go on, but that little slice of time, turning off the TV after an all-out session, is gone forever. Waking up with a foggy mind and squinting eyes, stepping over the dog… that’s gone forever too.

Memories are meant to be fleeting. The good times I had with my friends, of course I’ll remember those. But those are in the past now, and they’ll remain in the past in the future. The little rituals are the things that will kill me.

Brushing my teeth in front of that piece of crap mirror… Seeing a light go out when I drive home after a day of fun that went well into the night… Having the opening of a door accompanied by the happy patter of my dog’s feet on the hardwood floor… Skipping that one step that creaks… Complaining every time my mom drives my car instead of hers… Wandering between the boredom-fighting trifecta of the computer, pool table, and piano… Sitting here, in this chair, typing in my weblog… These little rituals are what I will miss the most.

*    *    *    *

So, maybe it’s not the fact that you or I will change. Maybe it’s not the fact that we won’t see each other for a long time. It’s our little rituals that will change. The things we don’t even notice that we’ll miss the most.

Playing in the band, getting the heat from Newton, after he told us what he had for lunch… Receiving a phone call, not knowing if the person on the other end has something big and crazy planned, or wants you to think up something to do… Random missions to find things like Nintendo adaptors… Whining about an assignment on AIM in the wee hours of the night instead of actually doing it…

Maybe you’ll still do some of these things, but never in quite the same way. It’s not that it will all disappear. It’s that you can recover slices of it, but it will all never fit together the same way it did before. That’s what I meant about never going back.

Maybe I’ll be in the same position. Opening the door after a late night with my high school friends, I’m greeted by my dog. I plop down on the couch and watch an hour of Adult Swim, reruns from last summer. After it’s over, I go up the stairs, making sure to skip the step that creaks, to brush my teeth in front of that piece of crap mirror. There might even be the same colored cup I always used. But something’s not quite right. It doesn’t feel the same. My room is a stranger’s room. The sheets are nicely tucked in… perhaps a habit I pick up in college. Everything’s a little bit dustier.

Do you understand how I feel now? I’m nostalgic for now. Only now is quickly becoming the past. Look, it’s already 2005. And just yesterday, I was wondering if the year 2000 would ever come. The cruel numbers keep moving ahead as the world changes around you. Maybe the 00’s are a sequel of the 90’s, like I often joke, but the sequel’s never the same as the original. Just as I can never go back to 1999, back to the old millenium, I will never be able to return to this chapter in my life.

Able Danger Mythmaking

I’m almost halfway through Bruce Schneier’s Beyond Fear, a book about security, and it’s already changing the way I think about security. When I read about Able Danger, I instantly thought, “But what about the trade-offs?” The pundits talks about the claim that Able Danger identified one of the 9/11 terrorists. They say it strengthens the case for data mining.

Now I see why after Beyond Fear, it says, “Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World.” The Modern Mythocracy doesn’t know anything about Able Danger. The pundits have no idea how many non-terrorists Able Danger tagged. They have no idea what a rogue agent could do with this information. They have no idea what additional risks data mining could present. All they see is one bit of information. They don’t know if the trade-offs are worth it.

Instead of thinking sensibly about security, they spin a myth, telling us that data mining is the magical anti-terror panacaea that the government is hiding from us. Now, I don’t know anything about Able Danger myself. However, I’m not going to make up a myth about it. I’m not going to tell you that that particular venture in data mining is not worth it. I don’t know one way or the other.

You should read Beyond Fear, instead of the latest pundit’s myth on what they think will make the nation more secure.

Quote of the Day about Democrats

Kevin Drum of Washington Monthly makes a post listing possible answers to the question, “What is wrong with Democrats today?”

I believe commenter craigie has the right answer: “What’s wrong with Democrats is that you don’t see any conservative bloggers asking what’s wrong with Republicans.”

That is too funny.

Of course, there are people on the right who criticize the right. However, this is normal debate on certain issues and personalities. Republicans don’t assume there is an inherent flaw in their party ideology/branding. Or worse, in the American people.

The Democratic Party’s weak point is the War on Terror. Stress terror, not populism. Populism is dead.

John Roberts

I have to admit that despite all I’ve read in the newspapers and online, I don’t know anything about this guy John Roberts. So, I’m not going to give an opinion on him.

I am, however, still going to say a few things. First off, I’ve read a lot, and I think it’s ridiculous that I don’t know anything about him. I mean, he’s supposed to be a reliable conservative, but I don’t know where he stands on anything. All I know is that he was a lawyer just representing the views of his clients… interpret what has happened in the way that puts this nominee in the best light.

I want someone on the court who will limit the government’s powers. I want someone who doesn’t think the 10th amendment is worth diddlysquat. Before, I wanted Kerry to win because I was afraid who Bush’s nominees would be. I listen to Scalia and hear the wall between church and state being torn down. Our laws should be based on the Constitution, not one judge’s narrow views of Christianity. However, I’m willing to let the Ten Commandments stand in courtrooms if it means pushing back the trend of giving the federal government way too much power.

I want a judge who’s not a strict constructionist, but someone who will respect the governmental principles upon which this country was founded. Like federalism.

Principles that deal with government, I must emphasize. It’s not up to the court to impose morals or religion upon this country. The court’s only moral duty is to protect the rights of the every citizen, whether they are of the minority or majority.

Will John Roberts do any of that? I don’t know. I should trust my president and my senate to judge this for me. But I don’t.

Changing Your Mind (Post-It)

I put this on a Post-It note recently:

“We live in a world where changing your mind makes you a liar.”

I was inspired by a commercial on Fox News. I think it was Sean Hannity (I don’t like that guy) blabbing about some politician, it might’ve been Ted Kennedy. He had two video clips, which probably contradict each other. Of course, in one of the clips, the politican looks much younger. Hannity asks the viewer, “Has [so-and-so] changed his mind?”

I make no judgment on the politician or Hannity. However, Hannity asks the question as if changing your mind is a bad thing — as if changing your mind is equivalent to hypocrisy.

Perhaps he asks it sarcastically. Perhaps he asks it in earnest. Still, we live in the age of “gotcha’s.”

With the current information glut, people can glean politician’s responses to everything. They can cull quotes from video, audio, and text, looking for the tiniest incongruity.

Portraying Kerry as a flip-flopper worked so well that now we have to try it out on all our enemies. No longer can anyone change his or her mind due to evidence. Any change in position is seen as political expedience.

However, you can’t blame it on any one group. You can’t blame it just on the right-wingers. Politicians do change their mind because of political expedience. Yet, you can’t blame it on the politicans for their enemies taking this overboard. You can’t blame the people or the media for perpetuating it.

Moreover, there’s no easy fix. How can you tell when a change of heart is genuine? Should we not expect our leaders to have well thought out opinions?

The second question can be partially answered. The world changes too quickly for anyone, even our leaders, to be perfectly consistent on everything. Sometimes, world events force us to change our opinions. 9/11, for example. Sometimes, new information comes out that forces us to reevaluate our positions. Geocentrism was just as valid as heliocentrism until evidence piled up against the former. We shouldn’t have unrealistic expectations of our leaders, or potential leaders.

I think that’s what the information age has brought us to: We have unrealistic expectations. The information glut has become our new false idol. It gives us false confidence, making us think we know more than we really do just because we can use Google. “If I can find this out in a few seconds, why don’t you already know it?” we seem to wonder.

Information is not an immobile god. It changes itself; it evolves. If the information changes, then I think we should accept that people can change.

The next time someone tries to play “gotcha” with politicians, don’t buy into it. Don’t perpetuate a culture where changing your mind is equivalent to lying. It will not stay in politics and seep into every facet of our lives.

Haha, okay, not every facet, but be wary.

Intelligent Design is Bullshit

I heard that Bush talked about Intelligent Design. I figure now’s an appropriate time to give an opinion.

I’m not going to mince words here. I’m not going to be politically correct. Intelligent Design is bullshit. Intelligent Design is neither religion nor science. There is no “debate” about Intelligent Design. That is bullshit too.

Intelligent Design is demeaning to science and demeaning to religion. Intelligent Design pretends that religion isn’t good enough and dresses up itself in pseudo-scientific language in order to fool the public. Intelligent Design pretends that the people are too stupid to know that religion and science are two separate things and that each have their place in this modern world. Religion is about faith. Faith has its places, but the science classroom is not one of them.

Intelligent Design is blasphemous. Science is testable. If ID were science, which it isn’t, it would attempt to test God. “Do not put the Lord your God to the test” (Deuteronomy 6.16). Science is not so bold. It only attempts to explain the universe in human terms. As to the question of God, science cannot say that there is no God, only that God is beyond its realm because God is incomprehensible and undefinable. That’s where faith comes in, not Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design purports to know God.

Of course, the proponents of Intelligent Design will say, “No, we do not attempt to know God. We’re saying that evolution can’t explain everything. So, there must be an Intelligent Designer, or even Designers.” And that, my friends, is bullshit. It’s bullshit in a science classroom. And it’s bullshit religion. Intelligent Design doesn’t say anything.

Can’t you see? Look at the langauge the proponents of ID use! Intelligent Design has no regard for the truth. Intelligent Design is therefore pure and utter bullshit. Intelligent Design doesn’t care about God and it doesn’t care about science. If taught, it will dilute both.

Do you want your children to be taught something that has not a care for the truth?

Sometimes you can have it both ways

I recently read Fred Kaplan’s We Can Leave Iraq by 2007 article in Slate. It discusses pulling our troops out of Iraq, not because it’s a quagmire we’re about to lose but “to force the Iraqi government to start taking their sovereignty seriously.” It reminds me of William Saletan’s article from June 28: Stand Aside: It’s time for welfare reform in Iraq, arguing that we need a withdrawal time table in order to let the Iraqis begin to take care of themselves. Only this time it’s really going to happen.

How is the left going to portray this? Of course, to them, it’s a plot to win the midterm elections. You know what? Maybe it is. Yet “it also has the virtue of being a good idea,” as said in the article. So, you will hear the Democrats vociferously complain in the media, but they’ll still go along with it. Once again, they’ve been outmaneuvered by the Republican Party. The Republicans get to have their cake and eat it too, while the Democrats are left cluelessly rationalizing why they have no cake at all.

This is the right move for Iraq. The so-called “insurgents” will cease to be battling an occupying force and will be seen as attacking the new, legitimate Iraqi government. The movement will fall apart once it lacks any sympathy from the common people, who want democracy, and the foreign terrorists will be seen as just that, not “insurgents.”

Fuck you, Union City

I take 7th street because you put up fucking cameras up all over Decoto. So now, you lowered the speed limit on 7th street. Not only did you lower the speed limit, the beginning of the road is now 25 mph. For less than 100 ft, I swear, it’s 25 mph. You know that’s just there so you can set up speed traps. Well, fuck your speed traps and your cameras. I’ll take fucking Whipple. Why doesn’t Caltrans take a break from that and spend some time finishing Mission?

An Early Strategy for Defeating Hillary

Reading Jacob Weisburg’s But Why Can’t Hillary Win? article in Slate provoked some thoughts. The article argues that Hillary can’t win because she lacks likability: “As hard as she tries, Hillary has little facility for connecting with ordinary folk, for making them feel that she understands, identifies, and is at some level one of them.”

If she clinches the nomination, this is less of an issue. If the electorate is about as evenly divided as last time, Hillary will win a key demographic that could put her over the top: People who will vote for her only because she’s a woman. I believe the best time to beat Hillary is in the primaries.

What we, the anti-Hillary crowd, don’t want to do is emulate the Deaniacs. We don’t won’t to be obnoxious anti-Hillaryites. This could push people over to her column. If she truly lacks likability, she should self-destruct in the early primaries. Kids, reading is good for you. I recently read Sneaking into the Flying Circus: How the Media Turn Our Presidential Campaigns into Freak Shows. If she can’t connect with the voters well, then she should lose in New Hampshire and Iowa… she won’t be able to perform well in that context.

Alright, here come the caveats. First off, from the article itself: “Whatever she may be like in private, her public persona is calculating, clenched, relentless—and a little robotic.” Maybe she is more likable in private, that could help, or at least not hurt, her in the early going. Maybe they’ll like her at the house parties, who knows? I’m banking on her totally bombing in that stage of the race.

The second caveat involves the structure of the primaries themselves. Last year there was a front-loaded primary. Kerry had the race clinched after winning the first two states. No, no, he had it clinched after winning Iowa. Momentum counted for a lot. (Momentum, not Joe-mentum.) Depending on how the primaries are structured, Hillary could recover if she doesn’t win in the beginning.

Still, I think the best strategy in the beginning is not to go all out with Hillary attacks. Don’t make her the favorite going in. It’s best not to give her any attention at all. Throw support to a better Democratic candidate, and let the momentum meme carry him through the rest of the primary. It’s best if Hillary’s campaign dies with a whimper… if people, especially the press, wonder, why did we even think she had a chance this year? Negative press may backfire; no press is always deadly.

I know it’s way too early to be thinking about this, but I really don’t want Hillary to be president. We can do much better for a first woman president.

Next Website

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve begun work on my next website, and it’s going to be very cutting edge. Perhaps it’ll work. Perhaps it won’t. I’m willing to take the risk to try something new. The content of this site will mostly be comprised of things taken off Psycho-ward.org. However, a good portion of what is on Psycho-ward.org will not be on the site. Think of it not so much as my old site redesigned, but my old site reincarnated. A new mind, and body, but the same soul. I have a name for it, but the name will remain secret because I haven’t registered it yet. I’m really excited, and I hope I complete it before I move to college.

Cutting the Deficit in Half

Hey Bush, remember when you were debating John Kerry? Remember how both of you said you had plans to cut the deficit in half?

Does anyone remember how I said I didn’t believe either of them would cut the deficit in half?

Yeah, well, Bush, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt with Iraq and our faulty intelligence, but on this issue, I still think you’re a liar.

Oh well, it’s not like reducing the deficit is any kind of big issue or anything, especially not to fiscal conservatives…

Rule of 150 and Forensics

What I’ve read really does apply to real life! I was talking to Alaena today and she mentioned how forensics had gotten more clique-ish. Something clicked in my head. I asked her how many people were in it. She told me around 200, but before there was around 100.

When I read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, I came upon the Rule of 150. Apparently, when a group size becomes over 150, humans have a harder time interacting with people. The group breaks down. This website explains the Rule of 150 better than I can.

Ain’t it obvious? This was a real life application of the Rule of 150. What I’m really excited about is that something I read came in handy. I wonder how I’ll be able to apply all the other wonderful books I’ve read.

Are humans inherently good or evil?

Are humans inherently good or evil? No. Let’s break it down. Are humans inherently good? Yes. Are humans inherently evil? Yes. All humans are both inherently good and evil.

Does it make sense any other way? If we were all inherently good, then why is there evil in the world? Why is there suffering? Why do some people choose to harm others? Why do some people choose to act selfishly?

The same applies if we are all inherently evil. If we are, then why do have tendencies to do good? Why do morals and ethics exist in every society? Why are there some people who choose good, like Gandhi?

I can only conclude that to be human is to be simultaneously inherently good and evil.

The story doesn’t end there. That means to be good, one must continually fight the evil within himself. It takes effort to be good; it takes suffering to be good. However, the most important thing is that to be good, it requires one to choose good.

The Modern Mythocracy

I just picked up Why America’s Top Pundits Are Wrong from a bookstore in SF. I’ve only read the introduction, but so far it looks interesting.

The phrase in this entry’s title, the modern mythocracy, came to me when reading the book. The introduction posits that pundits are modern day mythmakers. It coins the term punditocracy. I, for one, find that mythocracy rolls more easily off the tongue. Also, I’ve such a penchant for alliterative phrases… it sounds so great with modern. Anyway, the modern mythocracy seems like a theme for future weblog entries.

By the way, tune in tomorrow for my favorite alliterative phrase I’ve come up with.

The Reasonable Right

Just thought of that phrase, the “Reasonable Right”. Is it catchy? I like it. That’s one meme I’d like to spread. I knew there was a better phrase than the condescending “Raging RINOs – Republicans / Independents Not Overdosed (on the Party Kool Aid)”.

Hm… as if calling those who disagree with me unreasonable is not condescending. Well, at least it’s less snarky.

Oh, and one point I’d like to make. “Reasonable Right” is not meant to be a club name. It’s kind of a catch-all different people can use to refer to themselves when they think people they normally agree with are overreacting.

About Framing and the Democrats’ Woes

Lloyd told me about a piece of news he’d found out about via Sullivan, and then, I chanced upon this entry, which refers to this great piece, The Framing Wars.

In it, I found this to be quite funny:

“I can describe, and I’ve always been able to describe, what Republicans stand for in eight words, and the eight words are lower taxes, less government, strong defense and family values,” Dorgan, who runs the Democratic Policy Committee in the Senate, told me recently. “We Democrats, if you ask us about one piece of that, we can meander for 5 or 10 minutes in order to describe who we are and what we stand for. And frankly, it just doesn’t compete very well. I’m not talking about the policies. I’m talking about the language.”

Maybe there’s something wrong besides language, perhaps.

Well, the author of the article sums it up better than I ever could, in the concluding paragraph:

“What all these middling generalities suggest, perhaps, is that Democrats are still unwilling to put their more concrete convictions about the country into words, either because they don’t know what those convictions are or because they lack confidence in the notion that voters can be persuaded to embrace them. Either way, this is where the power of language meets its outer limit. The right words can frame an argument, but they will never stand in its place.”

Job 42.3-42.6

“… Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

Beautiful.

Manufactured Harry Potter Outrage

I heard on some news radio program a debate, if one could call it that, between some idiot who thinks that Harry Potter is preparing kids for the End of Times or whatever, and a normal person (I am calling him this because I don’t remember at all who he was). I have to say, the idiot should not have been given air time, and the normal person should not have wasted his breath. I wonder if the idiot actually believes what he’s saying? Even if he does, you know everyone in the news media knows that normal people don’t take them seriously. It’s a manufactured non-debate to promote Harry Potter because we’ve got no other newsworthy items (apparently, 7/7 is already stale).

As for what I think about the relationship between Harry Potter and Satanism: If you even acknowledge that there is a “debate,” the idiot has won.

Life is not a gift Post-it

I write down little snippet thingies that come to my mind on Post-Its. Often, it doesn’t even reflect my belief. It just sounds interesting, so I write it down. Here’s something I wrote yesterday:

“They say life is a gift, a blessing, but it is a curse, and you best treat it as such.”

The Situation Advertisements

I heard an advertisement for The Situation with Tucker Carlson on the radio. It featured a guy with “News ADD.” As if the common man should be afflicted by this! As if this is something to be proud of?! Oh woe, what has our society come to? Can the news only be digested in 10 second segments? Does it become stale before you can finish uttering the headline? Has no one the attention span to care?

Nay, if you actually know something, you’re boring. The American people want conflict/drama — bold declarations, not debate. You can’t afford to be convinced of anything in this country anymore. If you aren’t perfectly right from the beginning, you’re a flip flopper, you’re a horrible person with no convictions, no morals, no backbone. The Americans value the truth. They just won’t pay/vote for it.

Well, fuck your societal pseudo-disease.

The Yellow Light Conspiracy

I’m the last person to be a conspiracy-mongerer. Well, unless you count my sarcastic conspiracies, but this one is far from sarcastic, I tell you.

On all lights where they put cameras, they decrease the time of the yellow light. They put a camera up, and make the yellow light shorter, so the city can make more money. It’s true! I’m sure of it! Don’t even bother trying to run the yellow light. You won’t make it.

And so, the camera intersections are more dangerous because of this.

That leaves two things to do. One: Get the crash statistics on intersections with cameras versus intersections without cameras. Two: Time the yellow lights. I wonder if there’s a law about how long they’re supposed to be. If they aren’t as long as they’re supposed to be, can the city be sued?

Queer Eye Gimmicks

I meant to write this long ago and forgot about it during vacation:

Can anyone tell me what’s up with the latest episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? Boston Red Sox. Quintuplets. Why does each show need a gimmick? You’ve already got a gimmick: Five queer guys giving fashion advice to a straight guy. The show’s good enough as it is. It doesn’t need additional gimmicks to keep it fresh.

back on the weblogging track, perhaps

My goodness! Last time I went on vacation to Las Vegas, I had a gigantic comment spam problem. I couldn’t do anything about it except turn off commenting. I had to wait until I got back to install the new version of Movable Type.

Well, this time, it works the first day I’m on vacation, and then my weblog goes kaboom. For some reason, it’s saying nothing is configured for this website. I play around, find out the files are all still there. The weblog is still there when I access it as a subdomain, but everything after June 6 is deleted. Interesting, that was the time I made my server change. But why did it wait until now to stop working?

I wanted to delete the domain and then do the add-on thing again, but I decided to postpone it until after vacation because I was afraid I’d lose all my e-mails.

When I get back, I do that. For some reason, all the files and e-mails are all intact, as if nothing had ever happened. Of course, my problem still exists, as if I had done nothing.

So, I’m disgusted. I wake up the next morning, and somehow, everything is magically fixed. And by everything, I mean the agnoiology.com address is working and all the entries after June 6 are still missing.

Luckily, I’m an intelligent bastard. When I first found out my website wasn’t working, I went to Google and found the June archives and old index cached. I copied all my entries.

I start copying them in, and I’m about 5-6 entries in, when I get an Internal 500 whatever error. If any of you are using Movable Type, you may notice a little news update on that. It has something to do with an error or something in cPanel, which my webhost has provided for me.

I was going to send an e-mail to my webhost, but I figured it’d be too much work, and I really wanted to play Black and White, which I’d just recently rediscovered.

After I made it to the fourth island, which is really the first one again, I decided to try this weblog thing again. (That’s a lie. First, I finished Book 7 of The Brothers Karamazov.) Maybe it would magically fix itself.

Lo and behold, all the entries that were lost, I’ve now inputed. And now, this entry explaining all that has occured. I did lose one comment, however.

Yet, the little news headline said the 500 error problem was intermittent. Maybe it’ll attack again. I’ll send an e-mail to my webhost tomorrow.

For now, I’m back on the weblogging track, perhaps.