Enter the Laughter Redeux

I am reposting the last post I had at the old blog, from one week ago, Tuesday January 24, 2006. That afternoon is when I was locked out, and all of my attempts to contact Blogger Help have fallen on deaf ears. I'm a never-say-die kind of gal though, so I start anew here. I have been contacting everyone on my blogroll and frequent commenters, to notify them of the new digs. I deeply appreciate all of the support and good wishes I have received from so many of you. Valentine’s Day is TWO WEEKS from TODAY! (All the male readers experience temporary blindness - LOL) I’ve decorated the ol’ blog - added a countdown (I will send the code to anyone who wants it) changed the banner and colors a bit (still tweaking the colors some, it’s hard to find colors that look good and provide enough contrast to show up well.) WIN FREE CANDY! Send in your best Valentine joke, and I will compile them into a post each Friday for a contest, and ask readers to vote for their favorite. You can post your j...

You should back up the posts from your blog (all of your computer documents really). At least my old blog it is still there, just frozen in time, never to be updated again. Sometimes they get hosed and all the files vanish. No one knows why - LOL These things happen. Worse things can happen, like when your hard drive dies. It is not a question of "if" because none of them last forever. Are you prepared? Oh gawd, I’m having flashbacks to the days I sold cemetery lots . . .that was our big pitch. . ."Are you prepared?" Well of course no one is, because nobody likes to think about dying. And they were not interested in hearing my spiel about it. - LOL Same with hard drives. And servers. So if you don’t put that information somewhere else, it’s gone for good when the drive dies. (Granted, there are companies that specialize in recovering data, but they cost thousands of dollars) So BACK UP ! LOL I write my blog posts as Word documents first, so I can check the spell...

January 29, 2006 is the first day of the Chinese New Year. The Year 2006 (Red Dog) is the 4703rd Chinese year. Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon 15 days later. The 15th day of the new year is called the Lantern Festival, which is celebrated at night with lantern displays and children carrying lanterns in a parade. The Chinese calendar is based on a combination of lunar and solar movements. The lunar cycle is about 29.5 days. In order to "catch up" with the solar calendar the Chinese insert an extra month once every few years (seven years out of a 19-yearcycle). This is the same as adding an extra day on leap year. This is why, according to the solar calendar, the Chinese New Year falls on a different date each year.

(Cue emotional organ music of 1930’s melodramas. Cue deep, manly voice of announcer:) Welcome back folks, to another episode of ‘Marti’s Miseries’ our ongoing story of a plucky little blog-gal who faces adversity and peril. As you may recall, on last week’s episode, our brave woman of admirable exploits had been named to the Blog Herald 100 Blogs List . Basking in glory was not in the cards for our glib gladiator, as she soon found herself in mortal peril, saturated in gasoline ! Despite this harrowing event, she emerged with the grit and determination we’ve all come to know and love. (Cue tug-at-the-heartstrings, pulling-for-the-hero musical interlude) Her generosity of spirit and willingness to go to any length for notoriety gave rise to her episode of Tuesday, January 24, 2006 , in which she offered a FREE box of chocolates to the winner of a joke contest! (Cue crowd sounds - murmuring approval) BUT! (Cue menacing escapade music) This was the last official word from our champion of ...

If this has been a test from the Almighty, I think I passed. I didn't firebomb the offices of Blogger Support. LOL Oh wait, I can't- they obviously don't HAVE offices, they just have a robot autoresponder somewhere that sends out a letter that says, "Thanks for writing. We're free, what'd you expect? You've got a problem? You're screwed." If you used to read my blog here , and you know how to get Blogger to give me access to my old blog, or to publish to my domain using FTP, please write me. I don't know how. I have changed the settings a thousand times and nothing works. Phooey. So what if all of the directory listings, bookmarks, blogrolls and links that I've built up over the last year are hosed now? I've had to start over plenty of times in my life, this damned thing isn't going to beat me.

I have been a writer since pre-school. Our family has been on the internet for almost a decade, going clear back to the early days off USENET bulletin boards. I watched Husband and Son foraging excitedly through this new cyber-jungle, and followed along on their safari. I learned that I could find people who had similar interests. I learned that I could post messages that other people responded to. I found a place to share my crazy ideas and express myself through my humorous writing. It made me happy. Eldest Son started blogging and sent me his link. I was fascinated, and played around with several private blogs, learning the ropes. Then I officially started Digital Doorway: Enter the Laughter in January 2005. No one came. It made me sad. But I am one determined gal, and I learned about traffic exchanges, started commenting at other blogs, and got myself listed in directories. Readers came, and life was good. Then disaster struck. On Tuesday, January 24, 2006, I put up an early morni...