So Help Me Google

Image via CrunchBase

Yesterday I was sitting at my computer laughing at Geezer Online's post about the right way to walk up and down stairs, (aka Doug Jamieson - see the link on my sidebar.)

When I finished I wrote a comment and hit enter.

A message came up that asked if I would like to use my Blogger profile.

Now I often post comments on Doug's blog.  And as far as I could see I hadn't done anything unusual so I clicked 'okay'.

It seemed like the right thing to do.

It wasn't.

Not only was my comment on Doug's blog lost,

my own blog disappeared!

Just like that.

The whole thing.

Gone.

And, if you can believe it, a message appeared on the blogger dashboard asking if I'd lost my blog.

"Scoundrels!" I cried. "You know darn well that my blog is gone!"

Unfortunately, once I admitted that I had lost my blog I had to start following Google's instructions to find it. 

I tell you, Hansel and Gretel had an easier time - even after the birds ate their bread crumbs.

They only ended up in the witch's pot, I ended up in Google Help.

Go there, do this, click that, quack like a duck, curse like a pirate.

At one point Google's mechanical voice phoned me with a secret access code.

Still no blog.

In exasperation I finally shut my computer down and took Flynn he Dog out to wash the spy car.

When I came back I girded my loins for a new foray into the cyberspace underworld.

I flicked on my computer and -

my blog appeared.

Looking no worse for wear except for one thing -

My own picture has been added in with the pictures of my followers.

I'm now following my own blog.

Eek.

How navel gazing and self-centred does that look?

 And I haven't been able to figure out how to unfollow myself.

Anyway,  I guess both of me will  announce the winner of the Magic Pig Wand right here on Wednesday about 1 p.m. Toronto time.

Jeesh.

Porn in North Pelham

The people who run Blogger, (the site where I post m y blog), have introduced a new 'statistics' tab.

I'm forever checking it because I can see where people are when they are reading my blog. (I mean the country they are in, not the room in the house). If someone reads my blog in a certain country, the bloggerfolk shade it green for me. The more people who read it, the darker green that country appears on a map of the world on my screen.

We aren't talking big numbers but I do have more hits coming to my site from the US than from Canada. I figured that most were likely ex pat Canadians. I pictured them drinking whiskey in seedy hotel rooms and weeping with homesickness as they read my poignant tales of life in the old sod. In my mind each one looked terribly handsome, sort of like a down-at-the-heel, young Burton Cummings.

Burton Cummings via last.fm

Occasionally I get one or two hits from the UK. Naturally the 'stats' tab came out after I dissed the Queen a few times. It hadn't occurred to me that Blogger was international.

I've also had hits to my blog from Germany, the Netherlands, France, Russia, Japan, even one from Latvia.

Last week I had one from Brazil and in my head young Burton Cummings morphed into Antonio Banderas for some inexplicable reason. (I do know Antonio Banderas is from Spain not Portugal.)

Anyway, I was feeling quite good about things until I noticed one of the referring sites to my blog was http://www.buypenisenlargements.us/  International shoppers at www.buypenisenlargements.us are being sent to MY blog by mistake?

And I thought all of those countries were shaded because I could work an adjective.

Jeesh.

It Just Isn't Canadian

Image by nosha via Flickr

A Canadian has always been a person who agreed with the opinion of the last person with whom she or he spoke. That gave rise to our well-deserved reputation as being a particularly polite group of people. Everybody liked us. If we had personal opinions, we kept them to ourselves until the rest of the world went home.

That isn't to say there weren't Canadians with opinions. That's why God gave us Rick Mercer and Christie Blatchford, after all.

The problem is, thanks to easy access to facebook, twitter and blogger, every single Canadian  has an opinion on everything now. Which might be okay except we don't agree on anything and nobody knows how to compromise because most of us have never had opinions before.

Take the outpouring of vitriolic comments about the G20 fiasco in Toronto. Like a dog with a bone, we just keep shaking it. But we aren't getting anywhere. Nothing new is being said. Not one mind is being changed. It just goes on and on.

I tell you, this business of having opinions, well, it just isn't Canadian.

I think we should quit talking about it, let the civilian-led police inquiry happen and then see where we are.

That's my opinion.

Not that I expect anyone to agree.