I am embarrassed that I didn’t listen to that nagging feeling inside of me that the precipitous drops in blog views, clicks on publication notifications and ad earnings were due to an exogenous factor and not, necessarily, to a real decline in blog readership. I am angry that WordPress, the platform that hosts my blog, has never heard of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
As the blog author I don’t receive email notification of a new post. My (i)ncomparable niece informed me that the way these notifications are displayed has now changed. Observe, if you can:
The trouble with my PC is getting worse so I had to take a picture of the screen and save it directly to WordPress media. Apparently, until a few days ago someone following the blog would receive a notification with the blog title in bold, the first few words of the post and then a readable “Continue Reading” link in Blue. Clicking that link would take you to the post on the Internet.
Now, the first few words are shown but the notification to “Read on blog” is tiny and almost illegible. PLEASE use the “Read on blog” link OR just click on the post title itself; either will take you to the blog on the Internet and actually count as a blog view. (If you must, you can click on the “Reader” link, which will count as a view but will not display ads.)
The number of issues I have/have had with WordPress are too numerous to count. Recently, if I would post for the 4th consecutive day, for example, I would receive a notification congratulating me on publishing for 38 straight days or 43. That took weeks to straighten out.
For months an issue existed where when I would start to write enough words in a post to have the editing screen scroll down, I would lose access to the Toolbar. Like I wrote it literally took months for them to solve the issue.
Hey, WordPress: STOP MESSING WITH SOMETHING THAT ISN’T BROKEN AND THAT INCLUDES TRYING TO FORCE US TO USE THE AWFUL BLOCK EDITOR!!!!!!!!!!
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I am also angry and embarrassed at/by the behavior of hateful, ignorant anti-Semites. One of whom, whose name will never appear in this blog, is a “leader” of the anti-Israel protests at Columbia University. He recently said, in public, “I would kill as many Zionists as I could if I thought I could get away with it.” Of course, by “Zionists” he means “Jews.”
Hey, Mossad, you guys went to Argentina to capture Adolf Eichmann and bring him to Israel to stand trial for his part in the Holocaust. Why are you standing by while these cretins spew their filth?! Make them “disappear.” To say you want to kill people because of their religion or ethnicity is not protected speech.
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After breakfast on Saturday morning my wonderful wife and I drove through the nearby Penske set of automotive dealerships. Here are three photos to share:
This 2021 Toyota Supra is offered at the MINI dealership. It has a few more miles than I would like (~35,000), but priced below $48,000 and with no need to pay for shipping it is very tempting. My wallet is still reeling from the payments for all of the things that we have done at the house in 2024, though.
This beautiful 2022 Lexus LC convertible (duh…) has only 4,000 miles. The dealer was asking a shade under $90,000. When new, most of these had a sticker price north of $100,000. IF my wonderful wife buys a ragtop newer than her 2018 Corvette, this is the model I hope she buys, but the choice will be up to her–as long as it’s not a Volkswagen or Porsche. She doesn’t want to buy either of those, anyway.
Speaking of hopes:
Sorry, Philip, it’s yellow. If I could afford it I would buy a Maserati MC20 almost regardless of color. The only concern would be the rumors that Stellantis is going to pull out of the North American market by selling Jeep and RAM and shuddering Chrysler and Dodge. Getting a Stellantis product, like Maserati, serviced could be quite a hassle.
Yes, one more time: if you don’t have dreams you have nightmares.
#AngryAndEmbarrassed