Nuts and bolts

Don't you just love to say it?

It's not my fault. It's not my fault. It's not my fault. Man, that feels good. After all, it seems our culture places a value on never taking responsibility for one's actions. Hey, it's one of the seven steps to a better you, or one of the five steps to unlocking your inner potential, or one of the 15 steps to finding your life's purpose which, of course, involves driving an expensive, gas-guzzling SUV! You deserve it! Feel good about yourselves, folks...you're not to blame! Yay!

(Wow. Don't know where that came from. Sorry...it's 4 a.m. and I can't sleep.)

But, in this case, it's really not my fault. In fact, it's Google's fault...that you can't comment on my blog anymore.

Here's the deal: because I want CandidChristian.com to have some semblance of design originality, I chose the option of being able to manipulate the HTML coding back when Blogger let you do that sort of thing. Maybe if Blogger's available templates were any good--or if there were more than 15 or so from which to choose--I'd stick with theirs. But probably not.

I digress. There are two ramifications as a result of my choosing to handle my own coding. No. 1, I have very little idea what I'm doing, so my rudimentary HTML design skills consists of little more than high-tech trial-and-error. It's also why the sidebar looks as cluttered as a 14 year-old's bedroom. And, two, it means that I can't get as good tech support from Blogger simply because my template, after tons and tons of changes by a rank amateur (yep, that's me), is a mess that would take a skilled hand indeed to clean up.

So, when I realized that no one could comment on the site--and that's a big problem for me, especially in light of the social media blitz I've been doing for the past few months as a way to boost traffic and tell more people about Jesus--I simply assumed it was because I'd screwed up somewhere. And when I tried to sort through all of this massive coding, I was hopelessly lost trying to find a fix.

But it's not my fault. Or, at least if it is, my only fault is in deciding to stick with my own template instead of picking a cookie cutter look that, while easy to maintain, is terribly boring. See, there's a bug on Blogger. When they did some tinkering back in February--having the nerve to call it "bug fixing"--a glitch developed in which bloggers who have their own unique template no longer had access to Blogger's comment pagination system.

The good news is that it's one of Blogger's "known issues." The bad news is that it's been a problem since early February, and these things are usually fixed by now.

S0, while it's not my fault--lovin' sayin' that--it's still my problem. Isn't that the way it always works.

Please, then, use e-mail to CandidChristian@gmail.com to comment, I'll then approve and re-post here. Or, you're always welcome--and encouraged--to use the social media buttons below.

Grace and peace...