"WORKIN' FOR THE MAN/EVERY NIGHT AND DAY..."

Two gentlemen working a hell of a lot harder than I have in the past 30 years...

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What would Labor Day be without some labor, eh? That’s what I asked the grocery clerk at Vons this morning when I had to run out to buy some milk, and the icy glare followed by the roundhouse to the left that she none-too-cheerfully doled out to me in response communicated quite clearly that, well, she just doesn’t have a sense of humor. The fact is, I too am at the keyboard working today (the time I’m taking to type out this post is in tribute to what we used to call the mandatory 15-minute coffee break), so while I wait for the swelling in my jaw to subside I’ll be whacking away at a project for the office, fully confident in my moral superiority over that cranky barbarian in a smock scanning bar codes at my local market.

But it seems the all-knowing, all-seeing Blogger.com server, never less than cranky itself, is making you good folks who are attempting to enter answers to Professor Huxley’s quiz labor a bit yourselves and tear a little hair out in the process. Almost everyone who has tried to punch in their answer has received a full-screen prompt saying this or something like it:

REQUEST-URL TOO LARGE! THE REQUESTED URL/COMMENT “…..” IS TOO LARGE TO PROCESS.

You get this comment regardless of whether you’re attempting to submit an URL or not. I did some research on this problem over the weekend and have found that it is not one that is exclusive to SLIFR. That segment of the blogosphere that is governed by the Blogger.com operating system is being plagued by this annoyance, and based on the post dates of many of the queries in the various forums I visited the powers that be are taking their sweet time in dealing with it. (Perhaps they’re all kicked back on their chaise lounges in their respective backyards enjoying the fruits of another American holiday.)

The hell of it is, when you get this rather urgent-seeming prompt, your comment still gets posted.

Of course, no one has any idea of this because the screen that’s shouting at you gives no indication that the comment has been successfully retrieved. It’s alerting you about (drumroll) a nonexistent problem, as least as far as comments are concerned.

So I apologize to the many people who diligently tried several times to post their comments before contacting me with their answers via e-mail or Facebook, or just giving up altogether. Please be assured that I have received everyone’s comments, some several times over. (Poor Dave S. submitted his about seven times!) The reason you don’t see them immediately is, of course because I have been moderating comments of late due to an incredible tidal wave of spam, but I think I will brave the waters and disable that comments moderation feature until either A) Blogger.com fixes this stupid “request too large” glitch or B) the wave of links for hot jewelry, knockoff jeans and Viagra substitutes resumes. That way you’ll at least be spared any further confusion as to whether or not your original document has been published.

Once again, my sincere apologies. Please don’t be discouraged from submitting more great answers. Reading them has been a real boon to my flagging spirits and usual nagging worries over this weekend. And I do hope you get to spend the rest of our holiday weekend doing what you want to do, not what somebody else wants you to do. I have a feeling that might be part of the reason why we all are supposed to have the day off to begin with!

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