NOW THAT I'M BACK, HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED

Yer Bunche: back with more rambling blather after over a week in the internet limbo.

NOTE: much of this post was cobbled together and updated from stuff found on my backup site, THE TEMPLE OF BUNCHENESS, but for those of you who did not see it there, read on.

Dear Vaulties-

as you have no doubt noticed, THE VAULT OF BUNCCHENESS and all my other blogs mysteriously vanished from the internet about ten days ago, following my announcement of needing to take some time off due to being stressed out for a number of reasons. Many of you have contacted me via phone, Facebook and email to express concern, but I assure you that I did not take my blogs down (or commit seppuku). That questionable act was performed by Google/Blogger itself because it appeared that one or more of my blogs got flagged as a possible porn or spam site and as such needed to be reviewed for content.

The yanking of said blogs was done with no notification whatsoever, which is apparently the right of the blogs' host, and in investigating what the fuck happened it was discovered that the same thing has happened to many of this site's users. I've read many accounts on various forums where Blogger users have had their sites yanked for no reason, including one memorable example where a woman's site got pulled but she appealed that action and got her site restored, only to have it taken down again two days later. What was at first unclear was if this was a sudden glitch in the system or a sudden Big Brother-esque wave of mindless mass-censorship, but whatever the case I made my case to Google/Blogger, clearly stating that I have been blogging with them for over five years and never had any problems or complaints from anyone, and that I found the yanking of the sites — including one as innocuous as a collection of recipes — to be quite distressing.

Upon the reviewing of my sites it would become readily apparent to whomever was tasked with doing it that my blogs are neither pornographic or used to disseminate spam, and while the content's language and some of its images have certainly veered into R-rated or even NC-17 territory, I do not post wide-open "ham sandwich" gynecological visuals and the like. Sure there are those who would classify THE VAULT OF BUNCHENESS and its sister movie site FLICK YOU as "adult content" for some items, but I also know for a fact that several of my regular readers have encouraged their kids or other under-eighteens that they know to read it because it's informative, honest, funny and (allegedly) well-written, so if responsible parents are directing their kids to what I put out there, is there really a need to excise sites that are hurting absolutely no one?

Anyway, the whole situation has took more than a little bit of the wind out of my sails during my unwilling absence, but then my friend Big Mikey, a lovable Totoro of a human being, just wrote in with this bit of info found on a forum discussing the situation with Google/Blooger, from a Google staffer identified as Gatsby:

Hey folks,

Just want to pop into this thread real quick and let everyone know that the team is currently working to sort this out, and we want to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

The suspensions have nothing to do with blogs that aren't making money to be clear, and rather was just the unfortunate side effect of a spam clean-up. We promise that all non-spammy blogs will get restored very shortly. Stay tuned to this thread for more updates.

Thanks for your patience,

Gatsby

With that info finally had, I was willing to buy that this whole thing as a colossal fuckup, and sure enough it was. The Vault was restored by 8PM last night, and while I await the restoration of my other blogs I'm just glad this one is back from stasis. When my pal Suzi the Cyber-Goddess returns from an international business jaunt, I'll be using her sweetly volunteered expertise and taking steps to make certain such a shutdown never takes place again. More on that as it happens...

Lastly, I would like to extend my warmest and most heartfelt thanks to all of you who expressed your concern and support. That will not be forgotten and the love shown was quite heartening.

Aah, enogh of this mushy stuff! Time to get back on track and keep yer asses informed and entertained! There will be a few items transplanted from the now-on-standby TEMPLE OF BUNCHESS and a few new items, so once more into the thick of it!!!

-Yer Bunche