Help! I Can't Follow You, Delete You, or Comment on Your Blog

I believe that I have mentioned before, loudly and often, but not recently about how I lack technical savvy. I have a TERRIBLE time navigating this site (and other sites) and found all of YOU by serendipity. In other words, there was no skill involved. I just back-doored into a good thing and then kept doing it. If you have read the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich.... I blog with the same amount of skill that Ms. Plum apprehends her FTAs (Failure To Appear). Though I don't think my adventures are nearly so comical.

Let me tell you about my current predicament(s) and see if anyone has an answer for sorting this mess out. Yes, I am talking about my Blogger predicaments.

1) I have hesitated to follow any blog that doesn't have a Google Friend Connect button that adds the blog to my Reading List (aka Dashboard). If you don't have that button then I am stuck with your blog in my dashboard FOREVER. In some cases, that is a good thing, but in others... not so much. People quit blogging or I stop reading (for a variety of reasons) but they are there FOREVER. Which leads to my second predicament...

2) Since I now follow over 300 blogs I cannot add any more blogs unless you have the GFC feature because I have exceeded the Reading List maximum. Let me back up...

3) If you don't have the GFC button the only way to add you to my Reading List is to copy/paste your URL into the Add A Blog feature on my Reading List. Okay. I have done this, but now I am stuck with you FOREVER (see #1) because you don't have a GFC button so that I can remove non-working blogs.

4) I have done some investigating and there is a thing that looks like a Nut across from the Reading List. If I click on this I should be able to Manage My Blogs. In other words, I should be able to delete some out of my Reading List to get back under 300 and add some that I would like to add (but can't). Every time I click on this "Tool" I get the message that it cannot access my blogs and I should come back soon. Well, I have been coming back soon for about a month and I still get the same message EVERY SINGLE TIME.

5) Yesterday, blogger decided it would be fun to only show me ONE blog on my Reading List (instead of the usual 20 or so) and then when I am through those, I can click on the "More" button and it loads another 20 or so. Now, I have ONE and the MORE button doesn't work. Sorry if I haven't visited. I am having issues. If you have found this post, you clearly know something that I don't... after all, you are here and I am stuck.

6) So, friends, how do I delete blogs out of my Reading List that don't have a GFC button? Should I be using some other system (other than the Reading List/Dashboard)? I have heard some of you talk about Feedly and probably others, but it is like reading Greek. Makes No Sense to me. I have no idea how to begin to compile my blogs into another List. Is there another tool that I have yet to find that will help me to "manage" the Reading List? 

7) And, last thing, if you update your blog and change your comments so that I have to comment via Google's Circles (Briane P. I am looking at you!) I cannot comment. They want too much information for me to leave a comment and I am just not comfortable with that. They should just ask for fingernail clippings to be sent to a predetermined address and be done with it. So, if you can change it back... please do!

Okay, Wizards of Blog Land, bring on the advice and help (lots and lots of help), because I NEED IT.

I KNOW IT'S NOT ENOUGH...

The internet is a crazy thing. You make friends with people you will likely never meet face to face. Of course, you can have really awful experiences with people you never meet face to face (and I've blogged about one of my own already). You only need one of those to become more cautious. But, the reality is that there are a lot of genuine, big-hearted people on here. And this whole blogging thing offers up just enough anonymity for some people to be honest in a way that they wouldn't be otherwise. Me... well, I blog for strangers, friends, and family, so I sometimes land in the soup. But, I read many blogs every day written by people that I have never met, and each day they feel less like strangers, and more like friends. So, when they go through hard times my heart breaks for them.

I am not naive. Well, I am a little naive. Okay, I can be pretty naive. Pretty much anyone could shake me down for my last ten bucks if their sob story was sad enough. I am a want to make things better for people kind of person. I know that about myself. I can be sitting in a pool of my own misery, and if someone else tells me their sad story, I can forget about myself and go to work on fixing their problem. That is good and bad. Sometimes you need to take care of you, and sometimes you need to step outside of your own drama and pay it forward. The thing is that I know that I don't have the words to make it better for a particular online friend who is suffering right now... just the desire. So, we do what we can, even when what we can do is such a small thing.

This is some video footage from one of my favorite TV shows, Joan of Arcadia. Joan talked to God... make that God talked to Joan. And God took on lots of different looks throughout the show. For those of you who have never seen the show, God shows up in the last portion of the clip as a teenage boy.

Before you watch this, go down to the bottom of the page and turn my video player off. Again, I apologize for the inconvenience.