Rory and David, who rushed to send the tantalizingly just-out-of-reach Movable Type update to Wombat Central, as our mysterious login ailment with Typekey was keeping the new version the grapes to our fox.

A shout-out also to Lisa at Six Apart, who eventually suspected that the pop-up blocking function in both IE and Firefox might have something to do with my woes, even though it didn't present as that kind of problem. Sure enough, the addition of the typekey domain to my "allow popups" list solved the problem.

But it's now far too late to go mucking about with an application upgrade, so I'm afraid we're in for one more Friday of the comment-less 'bat. Which means no quiz tomorrow.

However, Quiztacular players should me your snail-mail addresses, as the special all-players prize is now ready for shipping (as is Scott's grand prize). Best of all, each comes with a special UNIQUE bonus prize (just like the interminable bonus questions), your own personalized little memento of the experience. You'll weep, I swear.

The all-competitors prize for last month's Quiztrapalooza is now in production. All those who played might wish to provide an address at which physical objects can be received.

Why haven't I fixed the comment problem that's been plaguing the Wombat File? Because I can't get MT 3.2 to download. I'm in a one-question-one-answer ("Try clearing your cache" "OK, now try deleting your cookies") per 24-hours cycle with the courteous people at Sixapart, because I'm only on my personal email and computer in the later part of the evening.

I should clarify -- my problem is that Sixapart/MovableType want me to log in via TypeKey -- which I do, over and over again, only to be put into an endless "you must log in to TypeKey" loop. It doesn't tell me it didn't accept my login - on the contrary, it does. But when I try to do anything it just sends me back to a "please click here to log in" page. Firefox or IE, day or night.

Some questions for the web-application savvy among those of you keeping up with our pathetic little drama:

1. Am I cursed?

2. Is there another way I can get ahold of the blessed 3.2? Or -- and I fear that this is likely -- is Typekey account access going to be part and parcel of maintaining said version? If so, there's not much point in going that way until this is resolved.

3. Is there another application I should be considering? WordPress? Should I suck it up and get something unfree?

4. How, in my new world, should I deal with comment spam? The Typkey authentication route? Renaming my directories in such a way that the bots don't find them?

I welcome any and all input. Since the comments are not likely to be working (though I'll leave them open and hope), I'll have to ask you to email me as well with any kind suggestions.

I was all set to upgrade my Movable Type application last night (or at least attempt to), but Six Apart wants you to log in to TypeKey to get MT 3.2, and although I have a valid account, I'm stuck in a login loop whenever I try to access it. Still waiting on a reply from their help desk.

In the meantime: Slate's Dahlia Lithwick reminds us of the connection between the continued defiance of the law at Guantanamo and Dick Cheney's recent attitude: regardless of the cost, this is an administration that shoots wildly at the wrong target, and then does whatever it deems necessary to avoid the admission of error.

I listened to an absolutely disgraceful interview last night on BBC World Service, in which a U.S. State Department spokesperson delivered a defense of our detention policies, and an attack on the U.N. report that was so entirely devoid of reference to fact that I found myself spitting a stream of Tourette-like invective back at the radio. An embarrassing lapse, but only because I'm silly enough to report it here.

Unfortunately, I can't find audio or transcript anywhere on the BBC's website. If you can, give it a listen, but not if blood pressure elevation is a medical issue for you.

Look for a repaired wombat next week. Look for the rule of law somewhere other than here.

OK, I'm going to try to upgrade this puppy to MT 3.2. Things may be a little slow around these parts until I get that functional.

what's up with the comments. But I'll leave these open and hope for the best. In the meantime, for those of you in winter-deprived regions, let me offer you Blizzard '06 as seen from Windsor Terrace.

Still haven't worked out the comment weirdness. No quiz today.

I seem to be having tremendously weird problems with Movable Type and the comments, and they keep getting worse. The last two posts suddenly had pre-existing comments eaten, and the new comments wouldn't show in the system.

I saved the content, deleted the entries, and rebuilt. Posted a new test post. All OK. Then I posted a comment. Still OK. Posted a second comment. And suddenly the test post had the same problem.

Deleted the test post...and discovered that the post BELOW the test post (ie the last post on Quiztastical) was affected similarly.

Older posts, curiously, seem to be OK.

Something is rotten in Denmark. I am going to leave comments off on this one for now. But if you have some advice, email me or add some comments down here.