Can I get one retroactive resolution please? Thanks.

Here it is:

I will not play around with the “technical settings” on this blog ever again unless proper consultation has been secured from a professional.

In case you didn’t notice (and BTW, why didn’t you notice?), my blog had been “down” since Monday and wasn’t back up and running until Saturday afternoon. I can’t even begin to explain what went wrong other than one back end URL change kicked off a series of unfortunate events that resulted in hours of chats with Google/Godaddy/Bluehost. While the blog is back, I now have to deal with being blacklisted by a spam database (from a 2007 event, before the blog existed) which is causing me issues from accessing the blog at home. Fun.

Your next logical question should be, what URL change were you making dummy? Glad you asked, allow me to explain.

I had renamed the blog “Master of None” in celebration of my many interests and self aware knowledge that I kind of am no more than decent in any of them. I loved the title and was ready to forge ahead with it. But then I was contacted by the people of Anzi Ansari who had already created a show of the same name, “Master of None”. In a rather intimidating manner, they told me to shut it down and all would be OK. If I refused, the lawyers would get involved and I wouldn’t have the financial backing to put up a fight.

So I just made that story up. Like it? The truth is I love Ansari’s show and just couldn’t let this blog share the same title, no matter how small time I may be.

But I couldn’t give up the blog title completely. So I got creative.

While my last name, Markowski, would clearly indicate that I am of Polish descent, I am actually closer to like 75% Dutch. I grew up in a very Dutch town of Midland Park, NJ. My grandparents last name was Van Veen.

One of the most memorable traditions of my childhood was my elderly aunt – Aunt Agnes – yelling something in Dutch on Christmas Eve and then throwing a whole bunch of cookies on the floor. I believe these were ‘kruidnoten’ which according to legend were thrown into the corner to ward off evil spirits. Now realizing that we just picked them up and ate them makes me wonder about her intentions.

I could tell Aunt Agnes stories all day – she kept doll heads in her refrigerator, re-gifted perfume and creams to my sisters for Christmas and gave us chocolate letters, never matching our first initial. The good old days.

In honor of my Dutch heritage, I decided to change the blog name to “Master of Geen”, with “geen” meaning “none” in Dutch. I even purchased the domain www.masterofgeen.com and that is the URL I played around with on the blog and caused the near disaster this past week.

Goofy name but I like it.

I’ve got a bunch of resolutions, a lemon update and oh so much more coming up in the next few days so be on the look out for actual blog content. Until then, I need to work on my blacklist removal.

Happy New Year.