Picnic 2006-02-08

Today's picnic basket of items from my blogroll.

• Vince Aut Morire has a family emergency
• Agent Bedhead asks "Why is this news?"
• Lost In Lima Ohio has a response for Duncan
• MacStansbury posts a picture of his girlfriend
• Pirate's Cove looks at the budget
• Chris (Dangerous Logic) gets a couple of thoughts off his chest
• Vivi (SubTerfuge) addresses the spying
• The Nose On Your Face lists signs your religion might not be a peaceful one
• The Therapist reruns a classic
• Preston Taylor Holmes (Six Meat Buffet) likes to huddle
• Area 417 takes Sharpton to task
• Riehl World View figures out the left
• Bluto (The Jawa Report) says someone has the nuts to face the nuts
• Raven (And Rightly So!) finds the answer to a question
• Mean Ol' Meany looked at the Medgar Evers murder
• Feisty Republican Whore finds racists are everywhere
• Merri Musings looks at the Koso sentencing
• The Steel Deal has a cartoon
• Stupid Random Thoughts wonders about Iran
• Rightwingsparkle wasn't happy with the Wellstoning of Coretta Scott King
• Miss Beth (MVRWC) finds that Wascally Wabbit has been on our side the whole time
• Peakah's Provocations won a Best Of (So Far) award
• Elephant In My Coffee looks at a world run by moonbats
• More interviews information is available here.

Dieting

I been to the grocery store lately 'cause the old lady is working long hours over to the club. And I've seen lots of stuff that just don't make sense.

First of all, everything's coming in 100 calory calorie sizes.

I noticed over on the cookie ile isle aisle I saw Chips Ahoy packs of 100 calories. I picked it up and looked at it. Turns out they ain't really Chips Ahoy. They is something called "thin crisps." Which looks to me like they are to real Chips Ahoy what Pringles are to real potato chips. You know, sorta, but not quite.

They also got like Oreo cookies the same way. Those thin crips things. Not real Oreos.

I kept shpping and found 100 calorie bags of chips. Again, they weren't the real things, but they was chips of some kind.

And over on the coke ailse, i found new cans of co-cola that said "100 carlores calories" on the can. Now, it was real cocacola. Not that coke zero crap or that C2 stuff. But real Cokacola classic.

Now, why is all thsat that 100 calorie stuff out there? Why are there so many?

People's on diets.

Every son of a gun I know is on a diet.

The old lady is doing that Atkins thing. My girlfreind at work is doing South Beach. This girl I used to know is doing "Curves." And this other girl I know does Weight Watchers. And she used to do Nutrasystems. And one or the other has Richard Simmons tapes lying around somewhere.

Dieting.

Heck, to me a balanced diet is having a beer in each hand.

I probably ought to go on a diet, but I don't know that I will.

My brother that next door is a good size boy and ought to be on a diet for sure. He's so big, when we was little, he could only play "Seek."

He's a big boy, that's for sure. But he says he's not fat, just big boned. He's got a huge bone in his ass, that's for sure.

I tried dieting one time. I did the Slim Fast thing. Didn't work. I drank two or three of them with every meal ... and actually gained weight!

Them diet's is a rip-off, that's for sure.

---

More White Trash Wednesday:

Agent Bedhead
And Rightly So!
Area417
basil's blog
BOBO BLOGGER
Cranky Neocon
Dangerous Logic
Feisty Republican Whore
HECTOR VEX
It Is What It Is
Lost In Lima Ohio
MacStansbury.org
Mean Ol' Meany
Merri Musings
MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
Pirate's Cove
Riehl World View
Rightwingsparkle
Six Meat Buffet
Sortapundit
Stupid Random Thoughts
SubTerfuge
The Ebb & Flow Institute
The Jawa Report
The Nose On Your Face
THE STEEL DEAL
The Therapist
Vince Aut Morire

Headline News 2006-02-07

From ABC News:
One-Eyed, Hook-Handed Radical Gets 7 Years
Testimony by Peter Pan, Wendy Darling sealed Capt. Hook's fate

From ABC News:
Mass. Was Asked to Take Beaten Girl Off Life Support
Michael Shiavo looking to adopt

From ABC News:
Kangaroo Has Lip Surgery After Bite
Steve Irwin arrested

From ABC News:
Blog Universe Is Expanding Every Second
Oliver Willis expected to collaps into black hole soon

From ABC News:
Uma Thurman Honored by France
She's the new Jerry Lewis

From ABC News:
CIA counter-terrorism chief steps down
Jack Bauer now second in line

From CNN:
Four more Alabama churches burn
Bush blamed

From CNN:
Japan's Princess Kiko pregnant
Bush blamed

From CNN:
Four presidents honor King
New film, "Four Presidents And A Funeral," in theatres soon

From KGTV:
Cop killer sentenced to death
Ice-T to appeal ruling

Picnic 2006-02-07

Today's picnic basket of items from my blogroll.

• WuzzaDem has McCain's letter to Obama
• Myelectionanalysis says it doesn't look good for Baldacci in Maine
• Pros & Cons says some folks are just hard to get along with
• The Right Nation has a picture with a message
• Jay Tea (Wizbang) finds another reason to dislike Jhimmy Carter
• Camp Katrina has another example of U.S. troops terrorizing Iraqis
• Kira Zalan hasn't given up on Hamas ... yet
• Mister Snitch says bloggers have found a new way of writing
• Glenn Greenwald wasn't happy with the NSA hearings
• Citizen Smash reports they held a protest and no protesters came
• Peakah's Provocations hosts Bonfire of the Vanities
• Deb and Cat (Elephant In My Coffee) review the weekend
• More interviews information is available here.

Alternatives To Blogger, Part 1

Lately, I've been asking bloggers who left the Blogger platform why they left. Now, I should mention here that this little blog used to be on Blogger. Then we left.

But, I was wondering why others left. So, I asked what people didn't like about the Blogger platform.

We got several responses to our query. There were many of the same complaints in many different responses. The primary problem with Blogger seems to be service disruption. But there are many things different people don't like about the service.

The Primary Problems

Here's some of the reasons people left Blogger or don't like Blogger:

• It's annoying to have to republish the entire blog for small edits
• Not supporting categories
• No built-in Trackback support
• Not offering extended entry functionality ("More..." or "Click to continue...")
• Lack of variety in Templates or Template selection is limited
• Unhappy with the general appearance of Templates
• Fixed width Templates
• 300-post limit on the edit page
• No ability to moderate (as opposed to delete) comments
• Inability to schedule posts for future publishing
• Difficulty for beginners to edit the Templates
• Service disruptions
• "Second class blog" stigma / must have a "blogspot.com" URL
• No window-esque, drop-and-drag interface to use when creating a blog

Former Problems

Others left Blogger in the past for other reasons:

• No hosted photos (functionality since added)
• Must have a Blogger account to comment (no longer required)
• No comment spam features (simple feature has now been added)

If you have have left Blogger, if you are still on Blogger but are dissatisfied, or if you looked at Blogger and passed because you didn't like something about it -- and if it's not already listed above -- leave a comment and let us know.

Requirements for Alternatives

We're going to look at other platforms that address one or more of these issues with Blogger. But there's a catch: They will have to be free.

The other platforms won't have to have all the same functionality as Blogger, but we're going to note where they don't have some of the same functionality.

Over the next few weeks, we're going to be addressing different free alternatives to Blogger. Not every day, to be sure. But once a week. Or twice sometimes.

Next time: WordPress.com

Questions?

If you have a question for phin or me, drop us a line. Or, if you have a free platform you'd like to make sure we check out, leave a comment or send us an e-mail. My email address is basil.thinks.he.is.so.smart@gmail.com

Headline News 2006-02-06

From ABC News:
The French Are Getting Taller and Fatter
Still as smelly as they ever were

From ABC News:
Chappelle Says Stress Caused Him to Leave
Bush blamed

From ABC News:
Iran Ends Voluntary Cooperation With IAEA
Voluntary ass-kicking to commence

From ABC News:
Notorious Bad Driver Gets Year in Prison
Kurt Busch to miss 2007 season

From ABC News:
Attack Stirs Calls for Broadening Hate Crimes Law
Love crimes penalties deemed sufficient

From Aftenposten:
Moose Surfed on Chunk of Ice
Bullwinkle leads Wattsamattu U. surf team to victory

From ABC News:
Italy's Frozen Mummy May Have Been Sterile
Being dead, it hardly seems an issue now

From ABC News:
Report Suggests Cancer in Tasmanian Devils
Wile E. Coyote, Foghorn Leghorn to get checkups

From ABC News:
Robert Blake Files for Bankruptcy
Woman he killed left him nothng in will

From WEWS:
Coach pleads guilty to sex with cheerleader
Authorities suspicions raised by cheer: "Give me a 'P,' give me an 'E,' give me an "N-I-S"

Happy Birthday To My Gay Son

Yeah, that title ought to garner some attention. And I don't just mean from my son, either.

No, I'm not talking about my flesh-and-blood offspring. Rather, I'm talking about my adopted blog-son, aTypical Joe.

Joe's not my actual son. In fact, Joe's a couple of years older than me. About seven, actually.

And today's not Joe's birthday. It's his blog's birthday. His Blogiversary, if you will.

I discovered Joe's blog a while back when I was looking for other blogs in the area. He's located about 90-100 miles from me. Which, at the speed of blogs, isn't all that far.

And when I first saw his blog, my thoughts were "A Gay New Yorker Living In The Rural South?" Okay, I thought that because that's what it said across the top. Up in the banner. But that said it all. And it said to me: A Liberal.

Now, if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm not a liberal. I'm a conservative. Extremely conservative. But I decided to see what this Yankee Liberal had to say.

And his views are the same as many of the liberal views. But he did something that I don't see a lot: he thought his positions through.

Okay, don't make the assumption that liberals don't think their positions through. Some do. Some don't. You usually hear the loud ones. They are the ones substituting volume for reason. It's those that use reason that you don't always hear.

Joe's one of those. And while I disagree with many of the positions he reaches, I respect his process for reaching them. And I respect him.

So, I took a liking to Joe. Not because he's a thinking man's liberal. But because he's a thinking man. The world needs more thinking men.

Anyway, from time to time, Joe has consented to blog for me during absenses. And it's always fun or thought-provoking to read what he writes, here or at his blog.

Like I said, Joe's blog turned one year old today. And he paid me the ultimate blogger's compliment today:

If I have a blogfather, it is Basil.

I'm not actually Joe's blogfather. That is, I didn't inspire him to start a blog or anything of the sort.

Now, for me, my blogfathers are actually Frank J. and RightWingDuck from IMAO. They inspired me to blog. They don't know that, but they did.

But, my spiritual blogfather is Harvey from Bad Example. He's taken the time and effort to help me though this journey called blogging. So blame him.

As my mentor and spritual blogfather, Harvey is a man I greatly appreciate and respect.

And the thought that Joe might have some of the same thoughts towards me is quite humbling.

It's Joe's Blogiversary. But I get the presents.

Thanks, Joe!