I “upgraded” word-press, the system which this website would function through if it could be said to do so. In fact I did this back in January and said as much at the time, but not in the proper entry body, but rather above that of another site entry, because I only intended it to be a brief notice, but then I wouldn’t stop talking and it occupied too much space. Since the primary intended matter of that bimshwipe took place in the past I decided that combined with the message from the present the piece then overall required time travel in excess of what was reasonable to make sense of. I corrected the problem immediately but I had to go forward a month to pay back the deficit.

What had prompted the word-pressure was when some alien being called “malware blacklist” called my email to congratulate my website for getting on the list, and warned me that my outdated copy of WordPress was a “high” security risk.

I was slow to notice because it is routine procedure for parties to occur without my knowledge, and if I find out there’s been a second it’s generally in my emotional best interest to remove myself from the flow of information entirely. I would elaborate further but then this would be pushed back to April, so I did the upgrade. I wasn’t allowed off the list but I did get to break several administrative functions, which is always exciting and cathartic.

Additionally, the tacky presenting imps now float above their bases. I don’t suppose they look any less dignified than before but they do seem less deliberately placed so they will have to go. Away. They had to go anyway, I suspect. Considering that the next-to-last specific comment regarding their presence that I recall receiving came from someone who has not spoken to me in nearly a year they’ve probably been up there for longer than necessary.

An add-on which is designed to remove garbage comments which would not work without me upgrading now works at last. However, the upgrade also broke the thing which allows me to open entries to comments which I had closed, because all the comments coming in were garbage, which amounts to the same thing, except if the add-on doesn’t actually work than I can’t close anything new either.

Although since that happened and I wrote about it in January it seems to have been repaired, you don’t know that, and in thatever situation the imps still float.

There were always measures in place to control the word waste generated by pressing them, but the old measures became self-conscious about me calling them out on some of their idiosyncrasies. Like that whole “not working at all” thing. Like that time some dubious unfiltered ad robot comment got this site permanently placed on a malware blacklist. Apparently undoing a press only leaves those in charge depressed.

To remind folks that it was trying very hard, the system would occasionally distract humans from commenting using the following alert.

Which worked out very well because occasionally is more than sufficient to cover the frequency with which I am worth talking to. I saw it myself when attempting to test the upgraded situation, and I said to me This explains a lot, and yet I know less than before. Prior to now I’d only encountered stories of this helpful notice’s existence. You may assume any error page that isn’t a depressing shade of green or that lacks any flippant text has eluded my ability to discover, much less rectify the cause of, for what nothing that’s worth.

Looking through my files now I definitely wrote an alternate version of that message in the pertinent file but this ever so helpful upgrade must have overwritten it and been so proud of the deed that it also decided to make the page appear more often.

I also evidently changed another message that I never even encountered. I doubt I’d be here to tell this story if I had.

And don’t you think I’d leave if I could?