Why you haven't heard from me lately (among other reasons)

Although I haven't been blogging very much lately, I have had some spare moments to lurk on my friends' blogs. And although I've tried to adhere to proper blog etiquette by leaving a periodic comment, I've been thwarted by MSN Spaces' recent makeover. Since Windows Live launched, I've had some technical difficulties with posting a comment on any MSN-hosted blog while using Firefox on either a Windows PC or a Mac. (And for those of you whose blogs aren't hosted by MSN, I really have no excuse.)

I find this a little annoying. So annoying, in fact, that I contacted Microsoft to see if they could resolve the problem. Astonishingly, within 48 hours of submitting my complaint, I got a reply from MS tech support. "Nadia" clearly felt my pain:

I am Nadia and I understand that nothing happens when you click on the "Add" button to add a comment to your friend's Blog entry. I know how inconvenient this may be for you.

She then proceeded to give step-by-step instructions for how to optimize my browser. I diligently followed the steps, but sadly to no avail. Although my browser was now "optimized," clicking the "Add" button to add a comment still had no effect. Within a day, I got another email from Microsoft asking my opinion of my technical support experience. I tried to register my displeasure at not having my problem resolved while also making every effort to show that I appreciated "Nadia's" efforts.

Unfortunately, dark inertia set in after that, and I never bothered to follow up. Now I can't seem to remember where I found the form for submitting a complaint to tech support. The other day I tried to track it down, but couldn't find it. So if any of you have any ideas for how to work around this problem, I'd love to hear it. (The comment posting problem; the problem of not finding the form is just abject laziness on my part.)

For the record, the post that started me down this path was one that Roger wrote about a month ago. It was about hair metal (in fact he wrote two in a row!) so how could I resist? For what it's worth, I merely wanted to point out that if you're going to go to the trouble of tattooing a picture of Randy Rhoads on your back, you might want to make sure his name is spelled right.

As an unrelated postscript, I'm sure you've already heard one of the first pieces of fallout from yesterday's elections was the canning of Donald Rumsfeld. Although I won't miss the way he's bumbled through our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, I will miss his unique manner with the media. This afternoon NPR compiled some of his finer moments that are definitely worth a listen.