I went to post the eBay? No Way blog a couple of days ago and ran into a problem. With text completed in compose mode, ready to publish, I clicked preview. The window popped up, but just white space filled the preview box. No print, no picture, no URL links – all of which I’d spent the early morning formatting on the compose screen. I tried preview again and again. After the third try I was certain I knew why the blog wasn’t appearing.
The AdSense police had Mommy of the Bride under surveillance. Which could lead to Internet incarceration - solitary confinement of mommyofthebride.blogspot.com to the place where all bad bad bloggers go – the no publishing zone.
I immediately began a defense in my head.
“I swear I didn’t click one ad. Honest Officer AdSense.
“Save your excuses for Judge Google,” he’d reply. But that alone would not spare him my plea.
“Sure I thought about it, But the nuns always said the thought wasn’t a sin. Just doing it was.”
“Doing what?” he’d ask. I’d caught his attention.
“Clicking.” Not the answer he’d hoped for.
“Tell it to the Judge.”
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| I pictured the judge would look like Columbo, in a crumpled gown. |
So I’d go on to tell the judge how I only speculated about clicking my own blog ads. I’d own up to a sudden jump in ad activity after the AdSense Nonsense blog. A show of family support I suspect. And yes, I’d apologize, if he thought the title of my post – a bit rude. I meant no disrespect. The Nonsense could just as well refer to my rambling – as to Adsense absurdities. If Judge Google bought that, I’d go on to mention how any sweet and understanding top-of-the-heap Google law enforcer like himself (who I pictured dressed Columbo – like in a crumpled black robe, squinting his eyes as I spoke), how that wise-as-Solomon kind of judge could certainly understand why I had used the official Google AdSense logo as the banner for that entry. It looked so pretty and went along with the blogspot suggestion to add an eye-catching visual to every entry . Then, in one long breath I’d begin to say , “What’s a blogging MOTB to do? Especially one who’s trying to break the mold of MOTB blogs that just copy and paste stuff out of theknot.com, or ehow.com.?” I’d get a quick sniffle in before I’d continue, through the same breath, to explain, “I'm only trying to tell the story of my only daughter’s wedding." Or maybe my daughter’s only wedding would sound more convincing. Or only daughter’s only wedding.
And then, after patiently listeningl to whatever I had decided to say, Judge Google would rub his forehead in true Columbo fashion – and say. . .
What would he say? I continued to wonder as I scanned my Google Account details for some sort of warrant of Internet Arrest until I finally found an alert from Blogger headquarters. Something that would probably kick me off the Internet for life.
I half-closed my eyes, clicked the alert, and forced myself to read:
English to Hindi transliteration is not working since 07-July-2011. The font symbol "अ " which earlier used to appear is missing now. It’s a global problem ALL users are facing same. We are working on solving the problem. Thank you for your patience.
Until the Hindi symbol अ could appear again, I would not be able to post a new entry.
The Hindi font symbol soon became visible , along with those that allow me to write:
वर-वधू के माँ के एकांत में नही
In other words, the Mommy of the Bride is not in solitary confinement.
.
