All kinds of stuff...
Day Four of the Blogger Pro Battle...
I hope Pvt. Jessica Lynch is ready for the media frenzy. Not since Sarah Hughes has America had such a cute heroine (and I say that with the utmost respect for her military status and training). As far as who should portray her in the made-for-TV movie(s) that I'm certain are already being scripted, my vote goes to Brittany Murphy, the young actress who starred in “Just Married” and who won big-time points at the Academy Awards by sending her thanks to the American soldiers...and who reportedly also admitted that she didn't have enough information and knowledge to second-guess the military action.
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As shown at the top of this post, it’s Day Four in the great Blogger Pro breakdown. I noticed that Blogger problems have taken such blogsphere luminaries as Tim Blair off the air, and for a couple of minutes, I felt honored to share that common burden. The feeling quickly passed and I just want things FIXED. NOW (particularly since Tim is back online and I'm not)! Please? (I’ve never been very good at confrontation. But I have issued a Strongly Worded Request.) OTOH, it's admittedly a tempest in a teapot; I'm under no illusions regarding my place in the blog food chain. It's not as though the Library of Congress has asked me to provide it with my archives so that future generations may be enlightened by my wisdom.
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Am I the only one in Midland who thinks that the MRT pushed the line a little in today's story about Dr. Richard Bartlett's legal tangles with an HMO? The oblique reference to the Patel case added nothing to the story, and seemed to cast an unnecessary stone in Dr. Bartlett's direction. Unfortunately for him (from a Congressional election perspective), in such a crowded political field, many voters will focus on whatever factors seem to set a candidate apart...good or bad.
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Another MRT story — focusing on statewide salaries for teachers and administrators — just cries out for some quantitative massaging. Stay tuned...
Posted by Eric at 10:37 p.m. CST [GMT-6]
Monday, March 31, 2003
Day Three of the Battle with Blogger Pro. I had a glimmer of hope last night when I noticed that my template inexplicably contained some invalid Blogger tags. Fixed 'em, but still no publish capability. More hope when I actually had a reply from a Blogger tech in response to my error report. He said he'd "tweaked some settings," but... This is a little ridiculous.
Nevertheless, we persevere, determined to be the master of, not mastered by, technology. (Righhhhtt.)
And, by the way, I KNOW that the permlinks are not working...I just can't do anything about it until, you know...
Speaking of how technology can bite, I just tried to send an email to a ChevronTexaco employee and it was rejected by his mailserver. Apparently, ChevronTexaco is employing the services of the Spamhaus Block List (SBL) in an attempt to screen out spam. While I'm not familiar with SBL, this practice is not unusual, per se. What I do find annoyingly interesting is the fact that the system is apparently blocking all email from the entire Cox Communications (cox.net) series of IP addresses. Here's the explanation:
Brendan Battles / IMG Online / World-Services
Battles abusing open proxies on Cox
[IP address omitted] is listed on the Register Of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) database as being assigned to, under the control of, or providing service to a known spam operation run by Brendan Battles / IMG Online / World-Services. Please see the ROKSO spam records for Brendan Battles / IMG Online / World-Services
A notorious spammer, Brendan Battles, has been abusing open proxies on Cox for a number of days, to harass JustThe.NET. Cox was informed but does not appear to be taking action ot stop the abuse.
Hmmm. Well. I googled "Brendan Battles" and got only a handful of matches...but almost without exception, they were sites dedicated to the prevention of spam and other acts of misuse of the email system. The guy has a rep, that's for sure.
Incidentally, JustThe.net (great name) is an ISP in Mentor on the Lake (another great name), Ohio. Wonder what they did to get on Brendan's hit list?
Anyway, here we have one individual shutting down email capabilities from one of the largest ISPs in the country. Of course, Cox is not totally innocent, in that they have apparently not taken appropriate measures to deal with the abuse of their system. Fortunately, I had another POP email account which I can use to bypass Cox...but how many other people on the Cox system don't have that luxury?
Posted by Eric at 8:45 a.m. CST [GMT-6]
Blogger Pro(strate) continues to deny me access to my own blog, instead giving me unintelligible error-code excuses for why I should find something else to do with my time. But this is too important not to share: put down what you're doing, and jump over to Bill Whittle's essay. It's long; it has some big words in it. But if you can finish it without a chill down your spine and a lump in your throat, then you're more of a man than me. Or, perhaps not.
We fight wars not to have peace, but to have a peace worth having.
Bill's going onto my blogroll ASAP.
Posted by Eric at 5:25 p.m. CST [GMT-6]
Sunday, March 30, 2003
The Gazette will be "off the air" for some unknown period, due to problems arising from an upgrade to Blogger Pro that is preventing us from publishing new posts (this notice was added the old fashioned way).
Why is it that "upgrades" so often renders useless software that was previously flawless? [Rhetorical question arising from a bad attitude...don't bother.]
In the meantime, feel free to visit amongst yourselves.
Posted by Eric at 8:10 p.m. CST [GMT-6]
About the publisher
Random Abbye photos...
Random Thursday: The Abbreviated Tuesday Political Edition
More rattler than meets the eye
Poop happens. And then disappears.
How the West was Won
Beware of Vampire Dog
Tieing? There's no tieing in gymnastics!
NBC Bungles Web Video
Random Thursday: The Monday Olympics Edition
On Holiday
Random Thursday
Chair Play
Book Review: "The Road"
Education is paramount. Well, next to jet skiing.
Warbirds, Old and New
The Neighborhood:
West Texas Blogs:
[Midland unless otherwise indicated]
Other Texas Blogs:
The Business:
The Church:
The World:
Greetings--
I just stumbled in here--wanted to let those who care know that I purchased the URL "brendanbattles.com" the moment it became available because that is MY real name, and some guy has/guys have been using that URL for years for everything from sleazy marketing to porn sites. Since I THOUGHT my name was a bit unique, imagine my surprise! So let anyone who cares know that I am NOT "that guy," and just parked the site name to protect my own. And--since I'm far from an internet expert--I'd appreciate any advice regarding "clearing my name"--you can e-mail me at bgbattles@hotmail.com Thanks!
P.S. If you know any screenwriters (or aspiring screenwriters), I'd appreciate it if you'd pass on my site, www.screenplaysurgeon.com. Thanks again!
Posted by: Brendan at August 4, 2003 04:03 PM