News Flash

Blogger is showing why it's a free service. My long post was lost in the ether. Frustrating.

"He hit the post button, having managed in 45 minutes to cover topics ranging from Louisiana Web Logs (via Mary)--also a great piece she linked to by Tom Burka (how Al Gore invented Howard Dean. Quote: Al Sharpton said, "I'll tell you this. Al Gore didn't invent Al Sharpton! That's something you can't cook up in a lab. I'll let you in on a litttle secret. I invented Al Gore," to Bush on Taiwan and China (short version: money talks, unilateralism walks), the Gore endorsement (if his speeches had been that good in 2000, he'd be running for re-election), and the Democratic debate (being rebroadcast on C-Span right now. Joe Lieberman is delivering his own political eulogy, Ted Koppel scores a low C as moderator, according to Atrios readers/commentors--pun intended), the Tony Kushner interview on Fresh Air, etc. etc., and so on. Links were googled up, carefully added to comments, and he closed with a recipe for shrimp curry that a lover of Indian food would find delicious.

Then he hit the post button, as he'd done twice today already, and dozens of times before. And he waited. There would be the inevitable re-read, a few last-minute edits, he'd wonder why all the stupid little symbols appeared in place of punctuation while doing a quick erase, and then he'd quickly hit the view blog tab before closing out for the evening.

The miscellany post.

And then it happened. Cold white space. The terse apology from Blogger--"We regret to inform you that your post has been lost. Lost forever. You may report the error if you wish. The Eurasians are our Friend. The Eastasians are our enemy. War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Truth are Lies. Ignorance is Strength. Sugar ration has been increased--half kilo a month. Doubleplusgood, eh Michael?"

The cat had long since run off, but approached again once the noise stopped. He raised his head up to read Blogger's message. "It really IS true," he said to himself, "it does feel better once you stop."

He loved Blog Brother."