Monday, April 30, 2012

Change sucks, except when it doesn't.

Good morning, gentle readers.  This morning, I mentally composed a wonderful post for this blog, but when I signed in I saw that Blogger had "upgraded" my dashboard to their new configuration.  And, unlike the last time they did this, this time I can't seem to change it back to the old dashboard configuration.
So, thanks to Blogger's foolishness, that wonderful post I had prepared has completely evaporated.  It has gone to the Land of Winds and Ghosts.
Change, ladies and gentlemen, is not always fun.  Changes that you didn't ask for, are even less fun. Mainly because they're annoying.  If something isn't broken, and it's working fine, why bother altering it?
You see this a lot online, especially in blogs and social networks. They are constantly upgrading their interfaces or adding new apps to make their site more  attractive.  And there are always people like me, gentle reader, who hate it when they do this.
I still haven't signed up for Facebook's Timeline, mainly because I think its ugly and awkward.  It seems to be geared more toward people who post 10,000 pictures a day.  I have posted a staggering two pictures on my Facebook page, both from a road trip I took to California a few months ago.  Timeline holds absolutely no allure for me, and I'm not going to accept it until I absolutely have to.
I'm stubborn that way.
Or crotchety, if you prefer, although that makes me sound like a gnarled old man, standing on his porch, shouting at the neighborhood children.  "You kids stay off my lawn!"
I don't think I'm that bad.  At least, not yet.
Blogger's new dashboard interface isn't winning any ribbons from me either.  It's too white and I think it's been revised to appeal to the handheld device crowd. I don't update this blog from a handheld device, but an ordinary PC.  The new look is unappealing and I just don't like it.
So, am I abandoning Blogger? Am I going to throw aside this blog for another? Am I running to WordPress or LiveJournal?
No. 
I will squat right here and seethe.  I will fire off some barbed feedback to Blogger regarding the new dashboard.  In short, ladies and gentlemen, I will spew venom for a while and then, eventually, get used to these changes.  Then, when blogger makes future changes, I'll probably work myself up into a tizzy over them and go through the whole process again.
Change sucks, ladies and gentlemen.
Except when it doesn't.
When I'm writing, my stories change all the time.  This is one of the reasons I can't write mysteries. Mysteries require, in my humble opinion, a carefully worked out plot.  A plot, gentle readers, that one must stick to, that constrains the narrative, that kills the joy of writing.
Half the time when I start writing something, by the time I finish, the story has twisted on me.  It has changed shape.  The character that started out as the protagonist, more often than not, winds up as a secondary character or, sometimes, the villain.  The story may have begun on grassy African velds that, eventually, are revealed to be nothing more than an illusion, a studio set or the product of virtual reality. 
My stories change all the time and I let them.  They are mercurial, free form beasts that I climb onto and ride like hell until we crash into a wall with 'This is the End, Stupid!' carved into its surface, in letters 50 feet high and impossible to miss.
This entry is a perfect example of good change. It started as a rant against Blogger's new dashboard and, somewhere along the way, it metamorphosed into an article on change. 
Maybe this "upgrade" isn't such a bad thing after all.

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