Fun with Excuses

A fellow blogger - one whose blog I regularly read, in fact - indirectly chastised me a few days back for not having posted more "relevant" content and basically just effing-off lately. He didn't mention me by name, so I can't say he even specifically had me in mind when he posted what he did, but it certainly described the activities here as late and got me to thinking, so I decided I would make one final post in my defense, as to the issues I have been facing lately:

1. The Google PR debacle cost me several days throughout several weeks, because it not only took me by surprise, but I really did not have any idea as to what had happened for like two weeks after it had gone down! Then I had to surf through dozens of links to scores of message boards and wade through hundreds of posts to discover what had actually happened. Once I found out, I was obviously extremely upset - like everyone else. It didn't so much keep me from blogging as confuse me and crush my spirit a little; most of all, it just weighed so heavily on my mind that I couldn't concentrate.
2. A few months back, my 10-year old XP computer finally quit working. I am about 80% certain that it is just the monitor connection, but it's a Pavilion, which means everything is "on-board," not to mention that I have changed two other components already, so changing one more might trigger Microsoft's "anti-piracy" killswitch, which is what happens when you try to put it another computer. I had to switch to my backup box, also a 10-year old model running Win98. For those of you who haven't been on Win98 in a decade or so, most of the Web doesn't play well with it, so I was extremely limited as to which sites I could access, as well as what I could do on them.
3. Almost two weeks ago now, I got a new computer with a brand-new (to me) OS - Vista Premium - and it took me a few days to figure it out, not to mention configure it to work for me instead of against me (you only want to do a 30-minute search for your Control Panel that one time!). With that out of the way, I had to go through something like 15 years' worth of CDs - well, at least 10 - and put everything I think I needed on here. I still have to network the 98 box and slave the XP hard drive to this one (keeping my fingers crossed on both of these ideas), or otherwise discover another way to transfer the information from those machines to this one so I can get back to work on the site, as well as some of the other projects I am working on.
4. Lastly, this is an entertainment blog, and a lot of what we cover is from the world o' TV; the writers' strike has forced me to spend a lot of time searching for content which I think you will find interesting. I do have some press releases I haven't gotten out to you yet, mainly because I have been busy doing technical stuff since things have been so slow. Either way you cut it, the technical stuff has to get done, so while I tend to do it between posts on regular days, the downtime has given me a chance to focus on those aspects. So I am working, you just can't necessarily tell it.
   

So, yes, I can see as how some people may think of these as "excuses," and I agree that I have had a new computer for going on two weeks now, which really does solve most of these issues all on its own, but these are the reasons things have been slow here lately and I am just now getting to the point where I have control over them.

I'll get some of these press releases out to you throughout the rest of the afternoon/night, especially since Smallville and Supernatural are both repeats (but the Supernatural repeat is one of the best episodes this season!).