Earlier this year I did a bit of tinkering with the blog in hopes of resolving two problems. First, the random-post function broke, and would simply reload the home page instead of sending the reader to a random post. Second, the archives page displayed some broken shortcode instead of displaying a chronological list of all the posts that Legal allows me to leave up.

I couldn’t figure out how these problems happened, and I couldn’t figure out how to fix them. So I downloaded all the posts, pages, comments, media, etc. Then I created a backup blog. Then I uploaded everything to the backup. The backup worked perfectly. All the content was there, the random-post function worked, and the archives looked right. I figured that meant I could reset the main blog, reupload everything, and have a perfectly functioning main blog.

That was incorrect. The main blog had the same problems as before, plus a couple of new ones. There were duplicate posts. About a dozen comments were un-published and awaiting approval, several dozen comments were completely missing, and about 700 comments were duplicated. Some commenters disappeared, even if their comments didn’t, which meant those comments would now be attributed to the blog– i.e., to me, so it looked like I was talking to myself. It all made for an even more disjointed and incomprehensible reading experience than usual.

At least I could work around the problem with the archive by using the old version of my archive. The old version was called “Every post on one big page.” I typed the date and title of every post, hyperlinked them, and put them one on big page. It was a lot of work to set up originally, and it was a moderate amount of work to update for the first time in years, and it would mean a little bit extra work after publishing every post going forward… but it was a functioning, up-to-date archives page. That said, I still preferred the speed and cleanliness of using a teensy bit of shortcode instead of maintaining a list of seven-hundred-something posts. And I still missed my damn random-post button.

So today I thought I’d take another crack at it by turning the clean, functional backup copy into the main blog. Once the backup was up and running properly, I could nuke the original version from orbit to eradicate whatever code, setting, plugin, etc., was causing all these errors.

So I activated the backup, made it the main, and took down the original version. The backup worked flawlessly.

For about an hour.

The good news is that the newer set of problems virtually disappeared. There was (I think) only one duplicate post. The problems with the comments seemed resolved. But the original problems– the broken random-post link and the broken archives– returned.

Thankfully, after spending a few minutes with tech support– the aptly named “Happiness Engineers”– the problem was discovered. Turns out that earlier this year, back at the beginning of this wildly entertaining saga, I made an upgrade that, ironically, just plain didn’t include the random-post function or the right archive shortcode. Not sure why that is, but here we are. And when I reactivated that upgrade today, on the backup-turned-new-main-version-of-the-blog, the random-post and archive functions broke down.

The Happiness Engineers saved the day, and solved the problems, fast and gratis. The “Random” button once again sends the reader to a randomly chosen post. The Archives page works cleanly, and updates automatically. And the comments no longer make me look like a deranged lunatic who talks to himself half the time and to imaginary commenters the other half.

But it occurs to me, however meaninglessly, that this is the teleporter problem. In the past, when I screwed up the blog nearly beyond repair, the proper software updates would save the day, and the blog would lumber on. This is different, because right now I’m typing an entry on a properly functioning, on-line blog, and I can open a separate window, go behind the scenes and see the old, dead blog at the same time. Actually, since the ones and zeroes that made up the original blog itself have certainly been overwritten, and rewritten, and reallocated, and rewhatevered to different hosts and servers and machines several times since aught-five, this is the teleporter problem exponentiated.

Welp. This is what I write about instead of commenting on anything substantial. Oh well. Here begins the blog again again again again… again.

Marxists, socialists, communists, etc. have celebrated May Day for ages. More specifically, they celebrate “International Workers Day” on May 1st because that was the beginning of the 1886 general strike that sought the eight-hour workday, and led to the Haymarket bombing a few days later.

The eight-hour day might be reasonable, but beware the motte-and-bailey: the comrades gloss over how poorly the international workers fared wherever the comrades took over. Genocide? Meh. Holodomor? As Walter Duranty once said about his commie pals, you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.

(Not that there were eggs, but you get the idea.)

Well, today’s May 1st, and I’d rather spend the month celebrating some folks who actually manage to feed people, even if those dirty filthy capitalist pigs make a little money doing so.

A few decades ago, the cattle industry began to celebrate May as “National Beef Month.” In 2017, Buona Beef announced that the fourth Saturday in May would henceforth mark “National Italian Beef Day.” A few years later, Portillo’s escalated matters further by declaring all of May “National Italian Beef Month.” Which, again, begins today. And by happy coincidence, these vastly superior celebrations originate from the same town as the aforementioned commie holiday.

I shall honor the holimonth and holiday with trips to as many Florida-based Portillo’ses as possible, where I shall feast on Italian roast beef sandwiches. Giardinera, gravy, mozzarella. As long as I’m there, I may throw in some Chicago-style dogs even though Hot Dog Month is July, which will warrant additional trips, and maybe a bite of the chocolate cake. Or a sip of the chocolate cake shake.

Driving 150-200 miles for an Italian beef sandwich and a single sip of a shake might strike some as wasteful, and maybe it is. But it’s not “secret police scour villages for hidden grain seeds so nobody illegally grows food during a famine” wasteful. Done ranting for now.

…

No, I’m not. Turns out the new Animal Farm movie– the one that completely inverts Orwell– comes out today, of all days. How genuinely revolting.

Can’t hurt to ask the League to do the logical thing and take advantage of the long weekend. It’s what Washington would have wanted.

Granted, certain years it’ll make for an awkwardly early romantic lunch, but we’ll see what Saint Nicholas can work out with fellow Saint Valentine.

Merry Christmas!

Today, the United States minted its last penny, at least for the foreseeable future.

This should probably have been done decades ago, given rising production costs and inflation. But then, what would we use to buy gumballs, or to flatten-and-stamp into souvenirs, or to toss into fountains and wishing wells? Nickels? Please.

I doubt anyone outside of numismatists and coin collectors would have noticed, except for the announcements. Pennies will still circulate for a good long while, and some cash places will round up, or round down, or keep pennies near the register for convenience’s sake.

You’ll still see prices and bills ending in $.01, or $.02, and so on, just like we have gasoline and property taxes priced to the mill– a thousandth of a dollar– despite not having a mill coin since… ever.

Of course, you’ll also occasionally run into cashiers or vendors claiming that since physical pennies aren’t being minted anymore, abstract pennies somehow don’t exist anymore, so we have to round everything up. And then you’ll point out that they could just as easily round everything down. And then you’ll remind them of gasoline and property taxes, and they’ll act confused– or maybe they’ll actually be confused. New rounding schemes and new rounding scams will emerge, and… we’ll get used to them.

Anyhow. It disturbs me to think that the penny is rolling faster down the way of the dodo. I suspect that’s a little bit of worry about inflation, and a whole lot of shaking my fist at the clouds. To think that the obverse of the 1943 steel penny once served as favicon and graced the background of this august journal.

…

I am reminded of an open letter I wrote many years ago to then-President-elect Obama, in hopes of winning a patronage job:

7. Announce that pennies now count as nickels, and then slowly take them out of circulation, replacing them with real nickels. Put Lincoln on new dollar coins the size of the old Ike dollars. Also, start printing $500 bills again. I am not a crackpot.

–Me, “Advice as promised.”

Inflationary? Yes. As inflationary as anything else the feds have done in the meantime? No. Self-serving, given the countless rolls of pennies I’ve stashed in caches and safehouses all over the country? Possibly.