WHEN YOU'RE (NOT YOUR) THAT GUY

I like this apart from its (not it's) obvious Americanism. It reminds me of someone ...

People who fix other people's grammar are often called pedants, nitpickers, or grammar Nazis.

It's (not its) annoying because:

• It misses the point.
• It interrupts the flow of the 'conversation'.
• It can be arrogant and bullying. 

If a message is understood then criticising a simple typo shows you care more about showing off than actually listening and the interruption can be construed as being rude.

What's funny though is that the grammar Nazi often misspells a word or messes up their own punctuation in the very same comment that they publish.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING INTERESTING*

 * "Thank you for your post.
 Now, with the next post, you just need to work on making it interesting."

- RICHARD OF RICHARD'S BASS BAG

Well, be careful of what you ask for.

I guess most of you will be familiar with the Moving House and similar TV series.

I've watched a few programmes and found the huge trucks and the developing technology interesting.

We had a closehand view of it last night when two huge trucks moved two large classroom buildings from the school across the road from our house. They had to manoeuvre them out the school gate, beneath trees to make a tight right hand turn onto our narrow street with cars parked either side. As far as I could see no damage was done and they get away alright. The exercise took about 40 minutes.

Now that was interesting.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE *

 * Not that trite platitude that Americans have been using for the last 10 years relating to US servicemen and which, unbelievably is being used in New Zealand by fools who do everything by rote even platitudes. It's up there with "Have a nice day" and "Missing you already". Robert's silly Catholic "I love you" is just as bad.

Now Richard will probably accuse me of being an old moaner and wanting to pick fights with everyone like Mike at the tennis club, inconsiderate drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, telecom industry personnel, bank employees, tradesmen, supermarket cashiers, other supermarket shoppers, people who use their phones at the cinema and many others including bus drivers who I mentioned in this recent post here: NO THANKS

Talking of bus drivers, this morning, as it was raining and because my foot is still sore I decided to take a bus to Willis Street. I walked down to Thorndon Quay, crossed the road to the bus stop and luckily saw a bus coming along. I and a woman at the bus stop waved at the driver to signal that we wanted him to stop but he just sailed past without making any effort to pull into the official stop. It was in service, displayed a number 3 destination and had passenger onboard. Bastard!

I'll be thinking twice about thanking the bus drivers as I exit the buses in future.

Sheesh!

THE ONE TRUE RELIGION

 

I watched this film last night on Netflix. It's quite good and well worth a look.

Robert might have to get approval from the Vatican to watch it but, given that it exposes Catholicism along with all other religions as nonsense then that permission is unlikely to be granted.

It's a psychological horror film about two Mormon missionaries who pay a home visit to a man who showed interest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon). He debates (lectures) religious history with them before things take a nasty turn.

In a way it's a bit like Richard and me discussing with Robert the inconsistencies of Christianity and Catholicism in particular without of course the 'nasty turn'.

You readers will like the heretic's (Hugh Grant) overview of the 'big three' religions - Catholicism, Islam and Judaism and the connecting the dots he does.

I see on-line that the film is receiving positive reviews although the churches are a bit miffed by it:

Church responses

The LDS Church released a statement condemning the film's portrayal of violence against women. They then posted an article on missionary safety, intended to "assist journalists and the public with questions and concerns regarding the safety and well-being of missionaries". A number of former Latter-day Saints praised the film as a realistic and nuanced portrayal of missionaries.

Writing in 'The Christian Post', the Christian apologist Robin Schumacher noted that Mr. Reed became "his own god and asserting control over those around him—something that is indeed frightening". Schumacher concludes that Mr. Reed's behaviour in the film was consistent with Fyodor Dostoevsky's dictum: "Without God all things are permitted." Schumacher did criticize the film, however, for Mr. Reed spouting the claims of the Christian myth theory. In the same vein, Bret Eckelberry, in his review for 'Plugged In', critiques 'Heretic' for presenting this "poorly evidenced fringe hypothesis widely rejected by both Christian and secular scholars" as "something new and shocking."

Watch it!

MISCELLANEOUS ...

 ...  Or, as those wi* from the "Nui would put it: 🚀 *.

Miscellaneous #1

New World supermarket.

Last week as I was buying groceries a pushy woman (PW) customer at the checkout behind loaded all of her shit close to my good stuff on the conveyor belt. There was no divider to put down. As I was watching the cashier scan items I saw that at the end of my stuff she had scanned the first of PW's stuff - a $9.95 charge for McCain's frozen pizza slices. Shit in fact. I make my own pizzas. I alerted the cashier and she put the item back amongst PW's crap and I assumed cancelled the entry. 

Yesterday when I found the till receipt in my jacket pocket I checked it and there was a $9.95 charge for pizza slices. I went on-line to request a refund but found the website process difficult and when I did manage to find a portal there wasn't enough allowance for characters for me to explain the reason for the refund request.

I then found a phone number to ring and after a long wait explained to the person at the other end what I wanted only to discover that he dealt with on-line purchase problems only.

I found another link to complaints and re-entered everything that I said initially on the website form and sent the request away. To where I don't know. It might as well have been to Mars as I received no acknowledgement of acceptance and today no follow-up email. Bummer.

Today I decided to go to the store in person (which I didn't do yesterday as my foot was sore.) Today I had to go out anyway to pick up a prescription from the pharmacy which isn't far from the supermarket. I was prepared for an argument only to discover that the guy manning the customer service booth was very helpful and immediately processed the credit to my bank card. He also told me that as the error was a scanning error on their part the policy is the credit double the amount so I received a $19.90 credit! Remember - it pays to keep take your receipt when they ask and keep it for a few days just in case.

Miscellaneous #2

The doctors.

Last week I requested a repeat of my medicines and, after a few days received a notice that the 4 items were approved and that they were available from the pharmacy. Last Friday I went to the pharmacy only to discover that 2 of the 4 items were dispensed. When I queried it they said I had to order again via the doctors. I went on-line again to the doctors via Manage My Health and requested again the missing items. On Monday of this week I received a reply from the doctors saying that the request was rejected as the initial request had been processed.

Yesterday I marched limped to the pharmacy with the copies of the initial prescription request (4 items) that were marked as approved, the prescription receipt from the pharmacy (2 items) and the rather snippy response to my second request from the doctor saying that the request was rejected AS IT HAD BEEN PROCESSED DAYS EARLIER! I spent a half an hour with the pharmacist and his assistants trying to get a resolution with no success. They said that they only received an order for 2 items and the doctors maintained that they had sent an order for 4.

I went next to the doctors surgery which fortunately is next door to the pharmacy. I then spent another 10 minutes explaining the situation and then had to wait to see a 'clinical' nurse. I explained it all to her and she looked up the details on the computer. This showed my initial request and the doctor's approval of 4 items and the order of 4 items to the pharmacy. It was then that the nurse said that they have been having problems with the computer system and glitches were occuring. She promised to request the prescription again, urgently from the doctor who was at that moment busy with a patient. "I'm more than a patient" I thought "I'm impatient" but thanked her and made my way home.

Today I received an alert from the doctors surgery and the pharmacy conforming the availability of the 2 items which I collected before going to the supermarket.

The result was positive but the downside in this in time and stress is unacceptable. It's just as well that I'm so easy-going.

* Half 'wits'

ATHEISTIC DEVIL MAN

Robert has taken a new tack and instead of going about loving everyone including sinners he has gone on the offensive like that old version of god who likes to drown people. In recent comments he has said:

"Bullshit. Get a life atheistic devil man."

"Get a life and start posting how wonderful atheism is."

He did say this and here's proof with screenshots as he will delete his blogs and comments soon:

I kind of like being called an atheistic devil man. It's better than "Hey you!" or "Stop thief!" I guess.

Apart from the interesting image it conjures up ...

...  the paradox in Robert's statement intrigues me.

He has mixed the religious representation of evil - the devil - with the platform of rejecting religion and the supernatural - atheism.

"Well done that man!" as Father McCann (a living manifestation of the devil if ever there was one) would have said. 

At least Robert is being consistent in his contradictions.

WHAT'S HAPPENNING AROUND THE BLOGS #2

"I went to confession and received Jesus twice. Feeling good and ready for Heaven"

- Robert 

That statement could be misinterpreted and you have to be careful with the spelling of his new blog name.

WHAT'S HAPPENING AROUND THE BLOGS?

 

"I changed my strings a couple of days ago. I took off my Evah Pirazzi Gold ones and put on a set of Evah Pirazzi (without the Gold)."

         -  Richard of Richard's Bass Bag 

"What do you think?"

POSTUS INTERRUPTUS

The post titled 'NOTHING" I wrote a few days ago was very successful not only receiving a comment but it was the longest comment that Robert 'Walk with me Jesus' has ever written!

 A fine accolade which made me think that interrupted posts might be the way to go given that ...

Interrupted *

This post has been approved by The Catholic Church and The Vatican's teachings.

BLOODY AI

 

Regarding the comments function Google tells me this:

The primary reason why the Google Blogger comment function fails to work or throws errors like "Failed to publish comment. Please try again later." is due to how modern web browsers handle third-party tracking and cookies. 
Because Blogger's comment infrastructure is an outdated architecture, the system loads the comment section from the blogger.com domain inside an iframe, while your actual blog runs on blogspot.com or a custom domain. Modern browser privacy settings interpret this cross-domain loading as a malicious tracking attempt and block it entirely. [1, 2]

Core Issues Explaining the Failure
Third-Party Cookie Blocking: Browsers like Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Mozilla Firefox now strictly restrict third-party cookies by default. Because the blog domain and the blogger.com validation domain are different, the browser blocks the connection, stopping the system from recognizing that you or your readers are logged into a Google account. 

Enhanced Tracking Protection: Security extensions (like Privacy Badger) or integrated browser protections (like Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection) mistake the comment iframe for an invisible tracker and silently suppress it. 
Corrupted Dashboard Widgets: If you can see the comment section internally but it fails to load on live pages, the template's HTML rendering engine or "Post Page" widget might be broken. 


How to Fix the Comment Function

For Blog Readers & Commenters
If you are trying to leave a comment on someone else's blog, use these steps to bypass browser blocks:
Disable Tracking Protection: Click the shield icon in your browser address bar (on Firefox or Chrome) and turn off "Enhanced Tracking Protection" or "Block Third-Party Cookies" for that specific website. 
Turn off Cross-Site Tracking (Safari/iOS): If using Safari on Mac or iPad, go to Settings > Privacy and toggle off Prevent Cross-Site Tracking. 
Use Incognito/Private Mode: Open the blog post in an Incognito window to check if a specific extension is interfering with the scripts. 

For Blog Owners
If you host a blog on Blogger and your readers cannot comment, try these backend adjustments:
Change the Comment Location:Go to your Blogger Dashboard.
Select Settings > scroll down to Comments.
Change the Comment location from Embedded to Full page or Popup. This forces the page to reload the comment structure outside of the broken iframe system. 
Verify Layout Permissions: Go to Layout > edit the Blog Posts gadget > make sure Show comments with count is turned on. Disabling this accidentally hides the comment window globally. 
Reset HTML Templates: If using a custom theme, your HTML widgets might be outdated. Navigate to Theme > Edit HTML and choose to Revert widget templates to default to restore native scripts. 

OK - I tried some of that and it has made no difference.

I equate this problem to my gout condition. The medical providers have been bloody unhelpful so I'm just waiting until the condition comes right by itself without drugs - maybe a week or so. 

I guess Aunty Google might get this sorted so I'll wait it out. What's the downside anyway? No Robert's posts? I think I'll be able to manage.