June 26, 2003

Sending out an SOS

I don't know what to tell you.

Last week I asked everyone to send questions for me to answer this week and I received a ton of good/bad/funny questions. I was planning on answering them today, in a really lengthy entry that I would leave up for you all to read over the weekend.

Then "blogger," the service I use to post the actual content onto this website, stopped working at around noon on Wedneday and didn't start working again until 6 am yesterday. And when it finally did start working, it wouldn't let me post yesterday's entry in it's entirety, because it was "too big." I was forced to post the entry in 3 smaller parts, which was not only a huge pain in the butt, but also looked weird. Nevertheless, I didn't know of any other way to get the actual entry onto the website so you could read it, so I did it.

Then, I waited and waited and, throughout the day and night yesterday, I tried to post the original, long version of the entry and each time I was given the same error message. It wasn't a particularly long entry either, so it is definitely not something "I did."

And, as I tried to post my "Questions and Answers" entry for today, I received the same damn error message. Unlike yesterday's entry, this is a very long one and would probably require me to post it in like a dozen different sections. When I try to publish the several thousand word entry, the following is all that shows up on the page:

"BIG POST ERROR, POST ID 105668193054857662"

So, blame "blogger" for the fact that you don't have a new, very lengthy and, in my opinion, interesting entry to read today and over the weekend.

Yesterday, while the service was down from 12 pm until 6 am (approximately 18 hours), they had the following message displayed:

"Your service will be back up later today. Please bear with us."

The message was "dated" 11 am, pacific time.

Then, as I said, when the thing finally got up and working after 18 hours or so, I couldn't (and still can't) do something I have done every weekday for the last year, which is post a new entry. And let me tell you, blogger has the absolute worst "customer service" I have ever seen in my life.

There is no number to call, no email address, no message board, no chat room, no nothing. Literally nothing. What they do have is a place where you can file complaints or problems for "review." Conveniently, they keep track of all the things you have filed. So, I checked my filing history and found that, back in December of last year, I filed two complaints. Here is the response that is shown:

12/12/2002: "Unreviewed"

12/15/2002: "Unreviewed"

Boy, that is some service! I filed my latest complaint, which basically boils down to my blog no longer being workable for anything more than short little entries (not exactly my strong suit) and I figure my chances of getting a response are slightly less than zero.

But really, what else can I do? I am truly asking (begging) for help.

This is very frustrating for me and I can't see how I can continue this blog if I am forced to post each entry I make into 15 little pieces just so it will actually show up on the page. I don't want to do that and I'm sure you all don't want to read that.

But what can I do? I can't get in contact with blogger, they literally ignore my complaints that I file and I don't know enough (anything) about computers to make the switch to another website or another service or whatever it is called.

So, I am calling out for help. There are literally thousands of you who read this website frequently and I assume many of you either work in the computer/internet industry or at least have a lot of knowledge in the field. If you're one of those people, I need your help.

What can I do so that I can continue to run this blog the way I have been running it for the past year or so?

Please help me. I will try to get this thing working over the weekend and I assure you there will be a brand new, "Gleeman-length" entry for you to read first thing Monday morning, whether I have to divide it into 10 pieces or 1,000 pieces.

And trust me, I'm as pissed off about it as you are.

In the meantime, besides praying for the life of this blog and sending me advice/suggestions, check out my entries from earlier this week:

Monday: The Adventures of Little Joe

Tuesday: The Bizarro World All-Stars (Part One: The American League)

Wednesday: The Bizarro World All-Stars (Part Two: The National League)

Thursday: We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog entry...

Or check out my Baseball Primer articles:

Aaron Gleeman's BaseballPrimer.com articles

Today's picks:

Colorado (Jennings) +105 over Pittsburgh (Fogg)

Chicago (Clement) -100 over Chicago (Wright)

Arizona (Patterson) -150 over Detroit (Bernero)

Cincinnati (Graves) -110 over Cleveland (Traber)

Florida (Pavano) +160 over Boston (Kim)

Philadelphia (Duckworth) -110 over Baltimore (Johnson)

Atlanta (Ramirez) -140 over Tampa Bay (Gonzalez)

Milwaukee (Kinney) +180 over Minnesota (Lohse)

Total to date: + $2,065

W/L record: 154-144 (2-1 yesterday for +110. My website may be broken, but at least I am up over $2,000!)

*****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****

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