It had to do with stupid Earthlink Accelerator!

I now have "my" animations back.

I found an old post from someone about right clicking on this or that and so I began "right clicking" on EVERYTHING! LOL

I found that by clicking on the pics in the posts, sometimes I could make them appear if the Show Picture listing wasn't faded...

then I noticed that if it WAS faded, the activity level arrows for my ISP were working... so I wondered if it was just a delay... but I'd wait for hours it seems... yeah I would minimize this and it would never appear

ANYWAY I finally right clicked on the dog gone 5x icon on the task bar and found a list and clicked OPTIONS and started playing with what I found there... increased amount of space for graphics, decreased quality which increased speed etc...

hope this helps anyone else that has trouble in the future ... as the brainiacs keep upgrading our ISP programs ... I think they forget about telling us the simple things that make our lives easier.

<font color=blue> meditation is a true way to connect to the Source </font color=blue>