Passive-aggressive Blogger on the warpath (important announcement here)

Twice in the last few days Blogger--the not-so-gracious host of this and all the other "blogspot" blogs--has been playing some games I can only describe as passive-aggressive.

Several times, when I've logged in to post, Blogger directs me to register for another version of Blogger that they've been trying to push for months--called, quite creatively, "New Blogger." And this isn't just a passing thing; when it does this, I can't post on my old blog at all for several hours.

So far it's reverted back spontaneously and allowed me to post at last. But this privilege will not last for long. Blogger has apparently decreed that I and others will be forced make the change.

Till now I'd been perfectly happy with Old Blogger (well, maybe not perfectly, but perfectly enough). And till now Old Blogger had been perfectly happy with me being perfectly happy with Old Blogger.

But since the unnamed, un-emailable, unphonable, basically unreachable Hal-like powers behind Blogger, They Who Must Be Obeyed, have decreed that I must switch to the New, I'm not happy. Why? The bulletin board there is full of complaints about New Blogger, and the bugs haven't been worked out yet. Despite the fact that the service is free, I don't want to be their reluctant guinea pig; I don't want to switch (whether I'd rather fight than switch is another question; I'm a chickenhawk, you know).

As regular readers here know, I've been working on the reorganization of the blog and its move to another server, but that's not quite ready yet.

In the meantime, I can't disable Blogger like the astronauts did Hal (and to do so would cause the immediate demise of this blog anyway, since the two are inextricably entwined). So I thought I'd post this message while I can; I seem to still have access to Old Blogger.

Here's the IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

If I'm forced to make the change before I'm ready to leave Blogger and start up with the new non-Blogger-based server, it's very possible the switch to New Blogger will go so smoothly you won't notice. But if there are any problems, I'll go to a default blog I've set up on New Blogger just for the purpose of posting until the real new one is ready.

Here's the URL of the new temporary blog, neoneoneocon (catchy, isn't it?). Make note of it (and, if for some reason all of Blogger gives up the ghost, tune into Shrinkwrapped's blog; he's not on Blogger and has kindly offered to post a message from me in a crisis).

Remember, I'll only use that new temporary "neoneoneocon" one if anything goes wrong with this one, and only for a little while till the permanent new one is ready. Hopefully, I'll never need to use the temporary one.

Then, when I move to my more permanent site, I'll post the new URL for it--on this blog if it's still functional; on the temporary one if this one goes kaput, on Shrinks' blog if they both are unreachable for some unknown reason. And that will be that (I hope.)

I'm not sure yet of the URL for the new permanent blog. But one thing I do know: the new permanent blog will not be here at Blogger, and therefore will not have "blogspot" in its URL. But all the old posts and archives for the present blog ought to remain undisturbed and readable, even after the new permanent blog opens.

There. Was that complex enough?