Requisite Entry #1 -- Slamming AOL

My understanding is that there are two mandatory entries in every blog -- an entry slamming one's ISP (or blog software provider) and an entry including photos of one's cat.

I had intended the latter this morning -- and my attempt prompted the former.

Let's just begin by saying SOME nice things about the AOL blogging software.  What pretty much made me decide to start this journal in the first place is that it can be updated by sending an IM, which seems so astonishingly simple and time-saving, I thought I'd give it a shot.

Since then, it has been nothing but problems.  Like the fact the "add hyperlink" button (or any of the font changing stuff) simply does not show up when you're writing on a Mac.  Or the character limits.  Or the fact that the journals just don't show up on older versions of netscape (like the one I'm using at work).  Or the fact that friends can't leave comments without having an AOL screenname.  (Shout out to Peggy!) 

But this morning.  Dang.  I drafted an entry and reached the point where I was all set to insert the photo of my cat.  I clicked on "Add Pictures."  AOL opened up a nice big screen asking me to download some Picture software.  Hey, I'm all for cross-promotion, but I was in a hurry.  The alternative was just to upload something from my hard drive.  I went with that.  Then I realized that I couldn't remember the file name of the picture I wanted.  (Is it Kitty1?  Kitty2?  Kitty3?  Crap.)  And I was running late this morning, so figured I'd just back out of the "Add Photo" thing, cancel the new entry and deal with it later.

I closed the "Add Pictures" window.

That was my plan.  AOL didn't just close the "Add Pictures" window.  It also closed the "Add Entry" window and closed AOL itself for good measure.

I wondered what had happened to an entry when I got booted from AOL mid-entry, so I logged on again and tried to access my journal, only to discover the whole damn thing was gone.  Gone gone gone. 

I sent an IM to update the journal, figuring that if the bot sent back that it updated the journal, the journal still existed someplace to be updated.  This worked, but I still couldn't access the journal.  I needed to reboot my computer before it came back on screen for me.  Aargh.