Three weeks I called Bill Gates and said, “Uncle Bill, the bank account is a little soft this month. Do you think that you might see your way clear to floating a little cash my direction. Don’t need much, maybe a couple million.” There was a long pause on the other end of the phone and then in a quiet voice he said that he didn’t know who I was. “Wait, don’t hang up. It doesn’t have to be 3 million, how about $250,000 or a couple of bucks to buy me lunch.”
There was a click followed by that annoying noise the phone makes when you have been disconnected and forgotten to hang it up. Some people call it the idiot alert- I don’t call it anything or at least I didn’t that day.Instead I cursed Bill Gates. Something to effect of, “Damn you Bill Gates you billionaire who gives all of your money away to starving children in India and Africa.” Apparently having that kind of money does more than save starving children, it allows Bill Gates to secretly bug your phone. I know it sounds crazy, but you have to believe me. Â I don’t wear a tinfoil hat or anything like that. Actually I might but the tinfoil makes my forehead break out in big red splotches and that disturbs the kids, the dog and the neighbors.
No, the reason you need to believe me is that I consulted the Velvet Elvis Painting that hangs on the kitchen wall. It is smack dab next to the one of dogs playing poker. I got it at swap meet in cleveland heights and it has almost brought me luck. Actually I’d get rid of it but that wacky woman, the Shmata Queen threatened to hit me again with that enormous black purse.
Anyway Velvet Elvis told me that one should never insult Uncle Bill or that Mr. French would come try to lay a beat down upon you. Well I told Elvis and his suspicious mind to have a little less conversation with someone else because I am not afraid of Mr. French, Mr. Belvedere or Mr. Clean. In fact I’ll fight all three of them in a steel cage match. Not only that but I’ll do it for charity and raise less than one percent than Uncle Bill does but that is not really a fair comparison. I was never declared a Monopoly other than that one time at Band Camp, but I digress.
So my intrepid band of heroes if you are still reading this let me circle the wagons and let you know that several weeks ago I discovered that if you view my blog through Internet Explorer the comment box disappears. I haven’t the foggiest idea why that happens, but I am working on figuring it out. Could be a bad plug in or maybe Velvet Elvis is right and Uncle Bill has reached out and grabbed my blog by the Internet Explorer balls. Just know that I am fighting for your freedom to comment here. Answers to come sooner than later.
Erica M says
Justin Wright at ZoopMedia.com will fix this for you in under five minutes. I send him 25 bucks in PayPal then a follow-up email with all my technical issues. He’s never taken even two hours to get back to me and that day, it’s all fixed. Well worth it.
Jack says
That is a great tip. Thank you!
Abby says
Michael’s right on, as it took me awhile to figure out why I could only comment on my work computer and not my home computer. I took it as a sign that I should read intelligent writing such as yours instead of dribble I am sent at work, while my home time should be spent trying to compose my own dribble to share with a handful of readers.
However, last week I eventually took five minutes out of my life and scrolled all the way down to the bottom to find I could comment! Then I felt pressure to come up with something worth the effort, but I feel I have come up short on multiple occasions and would like to blame it on Bill Gates and his selfish charity obligations that don’t include tech-stupid 20-something year-old women in Michigan. Long story short, you have to scroll way the hell down to comment–what Michael said.
Jack says
I am very appreciative that you both took the time to try to figure it out. I suspect that a lot of people have just pointed and clicked their way to their next destination. Still curious as to what is causing the issue.
Michael says
Jack:
I filled this comment using Internet Explorer.
The problem with the comment box is that it is way at the bottom of the screen!
So to fill this out I:
1. Entered my Name.
2. Entered my e-mail.
3. Entered my web address.
4. Scrolled using my mouse for five minutes.
5. Realized the do hickey scrolly thing on the right hand side of the screen was available, waled away on it to the bottom.
6. Filled in this comment section complete with instructions on how to get here.
7. And after this I pressed the submit button.
Hope this helps.
Jack says
Michael- You are the man. I hadn’t thought to try some of the things that you did. Thank you for your help, it is very much appreciated.
Michael says
No problem….
Took me a couple of tries at replying to one of your previous posts to notice.
This problem is weird though.
Even weirder is replying to a comment (i.e. yours to my original comment) and comment box pushes the rest of the comments to the bottom of the screen.
Another thought is Bill Gates is innocent….ya I know hard to believe…but perhaps Google has a hand in this as well. Someone did move their blog from Google’s Blogger.com base to this WordPress format. So maybe Google is underhandidly causing issues with your comments in Internet Explorer as payback. But of course Google is so smart they do not want to be found out, so they have commenting appear fine in Google’s Chrome browser but screw it up in Internet Explorer. All this in order for you to blame Mr. Gates and not Sergei Brin and company atop their Mountainview perch in sunny California. It’s all a conspiracy I tell you….A CONSPIRACY!
Jack says
I am with you- it is a conspiracy.