Wheel in the Iron Lung

You may have noticed that things aren’t running very smoothly at Man and Ultraman at the moment. The photos I put up from last weekend’s gallivant into the mountains are no longer showing up, and their links are dead. That’s because my online photo galleries at M&U have disappeared. This is only the tip of the iceberg, I’m afraid, just the problems easiest to see from where you’re sitting. Very Bad Things have happened to my stuff.

I’d like to be able to tell you that this is all my web server’s fault, or WordPress’s fault, or yours. (What did you touch?!) But no, I’m sure it’s my own stupid fault. Yesterday I was fiddling around with the files over at DreamHost, which is where my blogs and media files live on the internet. Why was I fiddling? If you must know, it’s because I have a dream that one day I’ll manage to understand the tiniest fraction of web coding’s arcane mysteries and use that knowledge to upgrade M&N from the limited, free version I’m currently using to a stylish self-hosted version with bells, whistles and gadgets galore. (As you can see, the American materialistic impulse is not yet completely dead in me.)

Trouble is, giving me access to all that back-end stuff is like giving a monkey a blowtorch inside a particle collider. Nothing good can come from it. Because I’m the sort of person who could fuck up a bowling ball. While trying to install the newest verion of WordPress, I deleted something, or probably several somethings, and now the whole thing has blown up in my face. This blog’s still working, but that’s about it. All my media files, including my photos, are down until I can wring an intelligible answer from the throng of sneering, geeky know-it-alls on the online technical forums, which, given their inability to write anything but acronym-filled gibberish, may take a while.

So please be patient. Whatever you do, don’t abandon me! I need your support, now more than ever. That, and my blankie. Has anyone seen my blankie?