Remember yesterday when I wrote about having a “lazy Saturday” and how life was “good” and I was looking forward to enjoying the day?

Well forget all that. Two hours after I posted, the world fell to crap and I hated everyone and everything — except you, of course.

I was really hating my web host. It started out as my fault. Well, I guess the whole thing was my fault, but that’s beside the point.

12 noon – I went into my domain’s control panel to enable an anti-hotlinking option. When I came out of it and went to the blog, everything except the homepage was gone. *poof* It was crazy. 404 errors all over the place. I went back in and disabled the anti-hotlinking script. No change. Everything was still bye-bye. I FTPd my week-old back-up. Nothin’ doin’. I just couldn’t figure out what was causing my categories, archives and posts to disappear all of a sudden. I spent the next hour scanning the WordPress forums for the answer that did not materialize.

1:30 p.m. – I thought I had it fixed, but as soon as I cleared my cache — curses! Feeling drained and like a failure after trying everything I knew six ways from Sunday, I broke down and submitted a help ticket to my web host (siteground.com — cool people). After going back and forth for an hour, the support rep, who was also stumped, offered the option of restoring my entire blog directory — 9 MB worth of posts, comments, themes, pictures, sounds, widgets and plugins — for $29.95.

So I parted with my $30 and they did the deed. Yay. I posted that everything was fixed. I went on a hunt for a good backup program.

Then, the apocalypse.

3:15 p.m. – I went into my WordPress dashboard and re-entered some information. There’s just one small detail: I entered one reference URL wrong. Ka-blam. Chaos. Locked out of the dashboard with no way back in to fix my stupid mistake. Curses! Back to the WordPress support forums. This time, I found an answer. I went into my PHP admin panel and rooted through the database until I found the wrong URL. I fixed it and saved it. Problem solved, right? Wrong.

5:30 p.m. – I tried logging back into the WordPress dashboard. My login link took me to some weird place, far, far away. Not to my dashboard panel. I sat in silence, jaw hanging open, staring at the screen. I could not believe it. What had I done? I couldn’t think of a single thing I could have ruined. I began a frantic search for a fix. In the meantime, code was broken and themes disappeared and there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. I finally got back to the login screen, but I couldn’t access it without doing a ceremonial rain dance first. The page I’d been using for nine months wasn’t logging me in correctly.

7:05 p.m. – I was just about ready to throw a tie rod. I couldn’t figure out why nothing was loading right; commands weren’t commanding.

And then I saw it.

I happened to compare my bookmark for the login site with the address in the location bar:

When Siteground did the restore, they changed the admin pages to load with the “www” intact — something I had never done since buying the domain back in February. Of course, they didn’t tell me this.

I changed my bookmark, and everything was fixed. Then I made some hot cocoa, sat downstairs with the Thriller, and thought homicidal thoughts.

And that, my fiends, was my relaxing Saturday.

Fink out.

…is that everyone has his/her own flavor of it. And 90% of the time, it tastes like broccoli.

I’m not talking about relationship commitment (that’s another post for another day, or maybe even never). I’m talking about saying you’re going to do something, and following through. And in the case of students and a school commitment, it might involve a little parental help once in a while.

And that’s often where the wheels fall off. Therefore, I’m just a bit honked today. And a little depressed, and disappointed. (And delusional, mayhap?)

Feh. We all fall off the wagon from time to time, and I’m not looking down my pointy nose at the unwashed bourgeoisie. I got no ax ta grind, because I’ve blown it bigtime before, too. But let’s say you’re rehearsing a mainstage musical, like, ummm, Annie Get Your Gun for instance. And you’re exactly 8 days from opening night when you find out that one of your chorus members is out trick-or-treating instead of at rehearsal. Ok, that’s a choice. It may not even be a big deal to you. “It’s just a chorus member,” you say. “Nobody important.” Well rock on and I respect your opinion and all, but it’s a huge deal to me. Everyone is important — including and especially the other 30 people who *did* show up.

(What’s a 14-year-old 8th grader doing trick-or-treating anyway, you ask? Well I don’t have a solid answer for that one. It’s the most bizarre thing. I dunno. Maybe 49+ years on the earth, living in various large and small cities has rendered me completely unobservant, but I’ve never seen anything like that.)

Anyway. In spite of flagging commitments on the part of some students (and parents), the show will be wonderful and I will be proud. I’m already proud, heck and garsh.

All right, time to go make the donuts. That reminds me…I can’t forget to call the bakery today and order breakfast for Saturday’s rehearsal. My prediction is since there will be free food, everyone will be there.

I know what my problem is. I’m overpaid.

Fink out.

Just when I thought I was the only one getting the infuriating run-around from eBay, I found I was indeed not alone.

I usually have no trouble putting my thoughts into words. But eBay “support” has bested me. I cannot even begin to sufficiently explain my level of utter disgust, anger and unmitigated exasperation. I have never in my life been treated this way.

After the most recent absolutely idiotic and unbelievably lame response, I could stand no more…

This is the most asinine, ridiculous thing I have ever heard. I cannot convey to you my complete disgust at the treatment I have received after 8 years of buying and selling on eBay. I’m not talking about the [auction listing in question]; I’m talking about being summarily ignored, then spoken to with stupid canned responses, as if I know nothing.

You have all positioned yourselves to be consummately unreachable; you no longer function as a community, but rather as a corporate steamroller. Your faithful customers are the last of your concerns.

I know you are a simple CS droid and have no power. If I could get the email or phone number of someone higher up, I would. But I was told by someone in your miserable excuse for “Live Help” that her supervisor’s contact information was “confidential.” Terrific. Customer Service that you can’t reach. Am I the only one who sees anything wrong with this picture?

My God. No wonder you’re worried about Amazon. You should be. People are jumping the eBay/PayPal pirate ship in droves. A simple Google search on “unfair ebay practices” reveals that.

You (that is, your company, not you personally, as your place on the power grid is only slightly above mine) may enjoy the monopoly now, but your time is waning. I hope you all get what’s coming to you.

And now I feel better.

Nothing will change, though. Good, honest, faithful eBay sellers will still be openly and willingly sacrificed (doing the aforementioned web search will reveal plenty about that). In the big scheme of life, I guess it’s not a big deal. But it sure was this afternoon for awhile…heh.

Fink out.