Beta bits

I just switched over to Blogger beta. It was one of those impulse things. I was signing on to my regular Blogger account when this pop-up box appeared asking if I wanted to try out the new Blogger in partnership with Google. I had no idea that Google bought Blogger. No matter, the pop-up box said there were lots of new features at my disposal with Blogger beta, so I said yes.

What the hell was I thinking? I don’t need new features. I need to stay away from new features. New features are bad. New features will steal your time and suck the life force out of your body, turn you into Kevin Costner.

People have been technology-challenged since the VCR. And yet we keep buying more stuff, trying to keep up with the times: DVD players (now with Blu-ray), computers with wireless home networks, surround sound systems, digital music players. Face it, we don’t understand any of this stuff beyond the bare bones knucklehead features. On/off? Yeah, sure we can handle that. Set time? Probably, but the daylight saving component is iffy. Choose your digital music format buffering level? Uhh, yeah, right.

There is no way that I am going to use any of the new features I just signed up for at Blogger beta, and yet I just couldn’t bring myself to say no. Have you seen those new Jessica Simpson ads for Directv where she plays a dumb but extremely hot blonde waiting tables at a bar? In one of the ads, Jessica-of-the-impossibly-short-short-shorts asks her audience if they wouldn’t rather be checking her out in high definition 1080i. Her punchline, delivered in a perfect southern belle drawl, is brilliant: “I totally don't know what that means, but I want it.” (Those last two words pronounced “woe nit.”) Yeah, Jessica, I can relate. My new drag-and-click template editing capability at Blogger beta? Don’t have a clue how it works, what purpose it serves, or even if I can figure out how to use it, but I totally woe nit.