715. I Hate New Blogger

I check my blog approximately 12,000 times per day.  After almost two years of writing in this space, I know the subtle nuances of my Blogger software.  I know how to add a link, and how to add a photo.  I know how to check for comments, and how to edit a previous post.  I am feeling pretty smug in my superior knowledge of all that is computers.  I am Bill Gates. 

One bright morning (a morning that started out with the sun singing happy energizing songs and blowing air kisses to neighborhood bunnies gallivanting by), I had the misfortune of noticing a new teeny-tiny microscopic itty-bitty box next to where I sign in for Blogger.  The box said helpfully, “Try New Blogger now?” 

I was suddenly Alice in Wonderland in Pandora’s Box.  Hmmm.  New Blogger, what is that?  Would I like to try it?  If I try it and don’t like it, surely I can go back to the way things were, right? 

Webster’s dictionary defines try as “To taste, sample, or otherwise test in order to determine strength, effect, worth, or desirability.”  I like Webster’s.  Webster’s is good at clarifying things for me.  

When I go to the mall, I try things on.  I might try on a pair of $500 Manolo Blahniks, but I never actually buy them.  I might try on a sweater that is two sizes too small, but then I hang its stretched out fibers back up on the hanger and scurry out of the changing room without making eye contact with the salesgirl.  Even Baskin-Robbins doesn’t force me to buy a pint of Chunky-Banana-Brownie-Mint-Rainbow-Madness after I innocently try a taster spoon of it and spit it out. 

New Blogger has a different philosophy than those places.  New Blogger operates on one principle and one principle only:  commitment. 

I clicked on “Try New Blogger now?” and was instantaneously transported to the jarring continent of New Blogger, a continent that did not come with a map, passport stamp, nor free bag of stale pretzels. 

“Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha!” the computer cackled, “You will never get out of this place alive!”

I desperately searched for some sort of button, an escape hatch if you will, that would lead me back to the comfy safe worn-in fuzzy slippers world of Old Blogger.  I’m sorry, Old Blogger!  I wasn’t having an affair with New Blogger!  I only let New Blogger buy me that one drink, and then I gave New Blogger my phone number, but it was for business reasons!  We never even kissed, I promise!

My two years of devotion to Old Blogger evaporated in that one millisecond when my hand guided the mouse up to that innocuous little box and right-clicked on it.

Did I say it was like Pandora’s Box?  I meant Dante’s Inferno and the nine circles of Hell.  Using New Blogger is like going to sleep as one person and waking up as someone else in an entirely different country and not speaking a word of their language and not recognizing the unattractive person lying in bed asleep next to you.  Only it is more disconcerting than that. 

What was on the right is on the left.  What was up top is gone.  The font is different.  Blank lines appear in the middle of your text for no reason.  The screen you think you should click on takes you to the wrong place.  I wander the convoluted underground subway system of New Blogger without the local currency, crying.

In a fit of desperation, I Google “How to get rid of New Blogger,” but almost every single response of the 47,600,00 (I guess I am not the only person this has happened to) involves re-writing HTML code and getting a Master’s degree in Computer Science.  I don’t have that kind of time. 

Dante’s 9^th Circle of Hell is betrayal.  The 8^th is fraud.  I am tempted to open up my window and push the computer out.  But that would be the 7^th Circle of Hell:  violence.  (The 6^th Circle is alcohol, but it might be permissible given the circumstances.)    

In the end, I resign myself to my fate:  I am married to New Blogger with no chance of divorce or parole.  Until one day, five years from now, I will notice another little box beckoning, “Try New IMPROVED Blogger?” 

MOV