WAG - A Victory... With a Cost
Those of you who view this site with Microsoft Explorer were fortunately spared the sight of the battle that was waged today.
For those of you who viewed the website this afternoon using a Netscape browser, however, the sight that greeted you must have been unexpected.
Apparently my sight got hacked, or at the least, merely tweaked and twisted into something a bit… obscene.
I don’t know how long this has been going on. At the least it was a few hours; at the most since the start of Thanksgiving break. For whatever the timing was, the flame image that typically precedes the title of a post was converted into a gun-toting individual with an obscene four-letter word printed on his forehead (to clarify for my proofreading friends, I’m using common definition of obscene that refers to copulation). The same aforementioned Second-amendment-loving young man was always making a hand gesture that communicated the same message that he wanted the viewer to “go forth and be fruitful”.
He also had his tongue stuck out, but in reviewing the situation, that was the meant to be the least insulting part of the image.
There are few things as… I’ll use the term “interesting” again, as checking up on your website and seeing an immature Davy-Crocket-wanna-be using his body language to communicate, in his own special way, that he was “Number one.”
A few quick checks showed that the image conversion was only limited to the Netscape browser. After deciding that it was ironic that I was getting the bird for not using a Bill Gates product, or at least receiving it in a less direct manner, I went into damage control.
Working my way through the template of the website, and here I’m resisting the urge to use all kinds of technical jargon, and found the mutated line of code. Wanting to be rid of the image for now, for both personal as well as aesthetic reasons (the bulky image of the rifle-wielding-varmint threw most of the Titles off half a line, thus making most of them asymmetrical), I deleted the misinterpreted image file.
Of course, that meant I loss my dear friend, the faithful flame in the process.
I don’t know if ever be able to revive my flickering friend. Though the main image is repeated at the top of the page, I don’t know if I have the skills to make a distinction between the images of brilliant light and extreme dimness. I don’t know whether this is a one time deal, a hack done on a lark, a personal vendetta, a weird fluke, bad mamma jamma karma, or if the girls down at The World According to Carp were sick of the fact we were using similar plays on words.
Dumb luck, criminal designs, web monkeys playing around, who cares?
Anyway, thanks to the noble sacrifice of the fearsome inferno this site remains free from the rudimentary manipulations of Brady-Bill-defying-bumpkins who wish to have a crude way of telling everyone to go forth and multiply.
We will miss you, and await your future return.
We’ll keep the light on.
'In_Memoriam'
