No, you can’t.

But you can go back to your old blog. That’s friggin’ easy.

I came here in the first place because my old blog host was having all sort of technical problems, ones that made blogging very frustrating. Their attitude towards their customer added to the frustration. So I came here.

Here I was greeted with a much easier blog to post on and maintain. The utilities at WordPress are a breeze compared to those at Blogdrive, as the latter isn’t too forgiving of those that don’t learn the sacred code. However, I quickly got frustrated by the lack of control I had over the look of the blog. The pictures I wanted couldn’t be made to fit. While the blogroll was simpler, the rest of the sidebar wasn’t as easy to modify. I couldn’t even change the font and type size, which really started to bug me.

This morning, I started a post with a picture, which I centered. After centering the picture, I could not align the following text to the right. I’d had enough.

So I’m going to give the old site another go.

I think the decor fits me much better there, and I can go back to having polls, so the lurkers can once again participate as well. I may miss some conveniences, but I’ll enjoy having more control over what the whole thing looks like. The blogroll is no longerin alphabetical order, which I’m sure will please O’Tim no end. The order it is in is pretty much just the order in which I met and blogrolled you, so if you moved down, it’s nothing personal. No one was intentionally omitted (that wasn’t already omitted a week ago) except those no longer blogging, so if I missed you, send me a note.

I already have a new post there to greet you, and a new poll on the sidebar to the right. Hey, I’ve been busy.

Come join me here.

- Bold all of the following TV shows which you’ve ever seen 3 or more episodes of in your lifetime.
- Italicize a show if you’re positive you’ve seen every episode of it.
- If you want, add up to 3 additional shows (keep the list in alphabetical order).*

24
7th Heaven
8 Simple Rules
Absolutely Fabulous
Adam-12
Aeon Flux
ALF
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alias
American Idol
America’s Next Top Model
Angel
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Arrested Development
Babylon 5
Babylon 5: Crusade
Battlestar Galactica (old)
Battlestar Galactica (new)
Baywatch
Beavis & Butthead
Bewitched
Beauty and the Beast
Beverly Hills 90210
Blackadder
Bonanza
Bones
Bosom Buddies
Boston Public
Boy Meets World
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Bug Juice
Caitlin’s Way
Chappelle’s Show
Charlie’s Angels
Charmed
Cheers
CHiPs
Clarissa Explains It All
Columbo
Commander in Chief
Coupling
Cowboy Bebop
Crossing Jordan
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Dallas
Dancing with the Stars
Danny Phantom
Dark Angel
Dark Skies
Davinci’s Inquest
Dawson’s Creek
Dead Like Me
Deadwood
Degrassi: The Next Generation
Designing Women
Desperate Housewives
Dharma & Greg
Different Strokes
Doctor Who (1963)
Doctor Who (2005)
Dragnet
Due South
Earth 2
Emergency!
Entourage
ER
Everwood
Everybody Loves Raymond
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Facts of Life
Fame
Family Guy
Family Ties
Fantasy Island
Farscape
Father Ted
Fawlty Towers
Felicity
Felix the Cat
Firefly
Flash Forward
Forever Knight
Frasier
Freaks and Geeks
Friends
Futurama
Get Smart
Gilligan’s Island
Gilmore Girls
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Green Wing
Grey’s Anatomy
Growing Pains
Gunsmoke
Hannah Montana
Happy Days
Hart to Hart
Heroes
Hogan’s Heroes
Home Improvement
Homicide: Life on the Street
House
I Dream of Jeannie
I Love Lucy
Instant Star
Inuyasha
Invader Zim
Invasion
Hell’s Kitchen
JAG
Jackass
Joey
John Doe
Just Shoot Me
Keen Eddie
LA Law
Laverne and Shirley
Law & Order
Law & Order: SVU
Life With Derek
Little House on the Prairie
Lizzie McGuire
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Lost
Lost in Space
Love, American Style
M*A*S*H
MacGyver
Malcolm in the Middle
Married… With Children
Matlock
Melrose Place
Miami Vice
Mission: Impossible
Monk
Monty Python’s Flying Circus
Mork & Mindy
Murder, She Wrote
Murphy Brown
My Life as a Dog
My So-Called Life
My Super Sweet 16
My Three Sons
My Two Dads
NCIS
Nip/Tuck
North Shore
Numb3rs
One Tree Hill
Oz
Perry Mason
Phil of the Future
Pokemon
Power Rangers
Prison Break
Profiler
Project Runway
Psych
Quantum Leap
Queer As Folk (US)
Queer as Folk (UK)
Red Dwarf
ReGenesis
Remington Steele
Rescue Me
Road Rules
Rome
Roseanne
Roswell
Salute Your Shorts
Saved by the Bell
Scarecrow and Mrs King
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
Scrubs
Seinfeld
Sex and the City
Six Feet Under
Skins
Sliders
Slings and Arrows
Smallville
So Weird
South Park
Spaced
Spongebob Squarepants
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate SG-1
Superman
Supernatural
Surface
Survivor
Taxi
Teen Titans
That 70’s Show
That’s So Raven
The 4400
The Addams Family
The Andy Griffith Show
The Apprentice
The A-Team
The Avengers
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Bionic Woman
The Brady Bunch
The Cosby Show
The Daily Show
The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd
The Dead Zone
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Famous Jet Jackson
The Flintstones
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The Golden Girls
The Honeymooners
The Invisible Man
The Jeffersons
The Jetsons
The L Word
The Love Boat
The Lucille Ball Show
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mighty Boosh
The Monkees
The Munsters
The Muppet Show
The Mythbusters
The O.C.
The Office (UK)
The Office (US)
The Pretender
The Real World
The Sentinel
The Shield
The Simpsons
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Sopranos
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
The Twilight Zone
The Waltons
The West Wing
The Wonder Years
The X-Files
Third Watch
Three’s Company
Top Chef
Top Gear
Twin Peaks
Twitch City
Two and A Half Men
Ugly Betty
Veronica Mars
Welcome Back, Kotter
Whose Line is it Anyway? (US)
Whose Line is it Anyway? (UK)
Will and Grace
Wings
Without a Trace
WKRP in Cincinnati
Work Out
Wonderfalls

I learned two things while doing this……. first, I learned that I watched a lot of stuff as a kid that I don’t entirely like admitting to as an adult, like Gilligan’s Island and The Bionic Woman. Eeek. Second, I learned that in adulthood, I let a lot of shows go by without even noticing. There were a lot of shows on this list that I’d never heard of.

Who has the time and inclination to watch all of it? Eeek once again.

1 – In Memory

2- Ebony and Ivory

3 - Lies and the Lying Parents that Tell Them. 

4- Swallow Your Pride

5- Never the Twain Shall Meet

6- Googletrolling

7- Zen Blogging (recently made appropriate once again, especially the comments about not messing with comments)

8- Are You Ready?

9- 13 of the Stupidest Things Politicians Have Ever Said

10- Crime in the City

11- Diamond Dust

12- Rope

13- Mom

Who says Thursday Thirteens have to be work????

AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.

Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions.

God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.

I am such a strong admirer and supporter of George W. Bush that if he suggested eliminating the income tax or doubling it, I would vote yes on first blush.

I believe that global warming is a myth. And so, therefore, I have no conscience problems at all and I’m going to buy a Suburban next time.

If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being.

My problem is not with the intentions of the Bush presidency. My problem is where it might go under his successors.

The idea that religion and politics don’t mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.

The whole global warming thing is created to destroy America’s free enterprise system and our economic stability.

There’s been a concerted effort to steal Christmas.

 ”I heard lots of good men out there who believed the Bible and who were giving Biblical support for segregation

The line I like best came from Jayne Bray of the Pro-Life Action Committee: I am personally opposed to the destruction of property, but I respect the rights of those who do it where babies are slaughtered.

I hope I will live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!

AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh’s charioteers.

Most of these feminists are radical, frustrated lesbians, many of them, and man-haters, and failures in their relationships with men, and who have declared war on the male gender. The Biblical condemnation of feminism has to do with its radical philosophy and goals. That’s the bottom line.

Modern U.S. Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the founders had in mind in the First Amendment of the Constitution… [W]e must fight against those radical minorities who are trying to remove God from our textbooks, Christ from our nation. We must never allow our children to forget that this is a Christian nation. We must take back what is rightfully ours.

Adios, Jerry. Don’t let the gates of Hell hit your fat, intolerant, segregationist ass as you enter.

The rules:

1. Add a direct link to your post below the name of the person who tagged you. Include the city/state and country you’re in.

Nicole (Sydney, Australia)
velverse (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
LB (San Giovanni in Marignano, Italy)
Selba (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Olivia (London, England)
ML (Utah, USA)
Lotus (Toronto, Canada)
tanabata (Saitama, Japan)
Andi (Dallas [ish], Texas, United States)
Todd (Louisville, Kentucky, United States)
miss kendra (los angeles, california, u.s.a)
Jiggs Casey (Berkeley, CA, USA! USA! USA!)
Tits McGee (New England, USA)
Kat (Ontario, Canada)
Cheezy (London, England)
Paula (Orange County, California, U.S.)

Joe the Troll (Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.)

2. List out your top 5 favorite places to eat at your location.

Crazy Fish – Sushi joints are springing up like sage all over the city, so who knows if this will still be on my list come next year (or next month). This place is great, though. While they have all the traditional rolls, they also get creative, and the chalkboard next to the sushi bar always has some new invention that sounds (and probably will be) great. The service has always been good (for me, anyway. I’ve had friends say otherwise) and the portions are terrific. They don’t skimp on the slices. They also have a house creation called the Crazy Fish roll. You only get 2 pieces with this roll, but it’s about 5″ across, with thick slabs of about 5 different fish!

Sadie’s – There’s no dearth in this town of Mexican or New Mexican fare (and yes, the two differ). When considering it, there are a bunch of really great places to go to. Sadie’s is just really great. The place is huge so there’s usually no wait. The food is terrific, and the portions are almost ridiculous. Whenever I leave there I feel like I could just be rolled out to the parking lot like that blueberry kid from Willy Wonka. Red or green, their chile is top notch, and their delicious salsa can be found at every grocery store in town, although it always tastes better at the source.

Buca di Beppo – While good New Mexican is easy to find here, good italian is a different thing (and we won’t even discuss the local pizza). This place is the exception, but it has one problem. It really is a place for parties of six or more. That’s because it is a “family style” restauant, which for italians means “enough food to feed all of Verona piled up on one table.” Instead of ordering individual meals, the party orders the dishes that they want, and all are brought out in gigantic serving dishes, and you serve yourself as if you were at home. The last time I ate there, I brought home enough food for three meals, and I was only one of several people bringing food home! Everything I’ve tried is delicious, and they have a good wine list, too. For a couple, I suggest eschewing the dinners and just having the hot antipasto platter – MORE than enough food for two people!

Golden Crown Panaderia - This is the little bakery at the end of the street in my old neighborhood, the one that I didn’t even know was in business until they started redecorating. By the time I noticed they were in business, they had already been featured on the Food Network and was shipping food overseas! The best breakfast for a lazy (or hung-over) Saturday morning is a few of their empanadas (basically a mexican fruit tart with an awesome crust) and a cup of their coffee. I’m sure they’ll send some to you, and they’ll be delicious, but they are at their absolute best if you get them hot out of the oven.

Papadeaux – The only thing better than seafood is seafood cooked Nawlins style, and that’s what I get whenever I’m there. I’ll have the Blackened Anything. It’s a bit pricy, so I don’t go often, but when I do I make a heavenly pig out of myself and leave happy – and that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

I’m a doer, not a tagger. If this looks like fun, feel free to consider yourself tagged.

Dorothy: If you don’t have a brain, how can you talk?

Scarecrow: I don’t know, but it seems that people without brains do an awful lot of talking!

BTW: While searching for this pic, I found a Wizard of Oz “fact and trivia” site. I found their cast/character list fascinating, and I think you will too!

Congradulations go to Byron Perkins. First, you were a mere convict. Then you moved up into the ranks of “America’s Most Wanted.” Now you’ve hit the heights for your profession – you are, indeed, Asshole of the Month for April, 2007!

Don’t scoff, now, this is NOT an easy accomplishment. Just ask Alberto Gonzales, the “Susan Lucci” of AA.

Now, my voters will usually go for a candidate whose assholiness affects multitudes, but this time we went “down home.” Perhaps because you did something so utterly rank that I can’t even honestly say I’d expect it from Dick Cheney.

In case you’re not familiar, Byron Perkins was a prisoner in Kentucky who was temporarily released because he convinced the warden and his family that he intended to donate a kidney to his son, who expected to die otherwise. As soon as he was released, he and his girlfriend (who obviously does NOT have that ol’ biological clock ticking away) skipped town, leaving his son to die. Well, he fooled them by getting a kidney from someone else. Here’s what he thinks of his dad.

Meanwhile, Byron and his slut-thing have been captured and are back in Kentucky, and if that isn’t punishment enough, they are also in jail. It’s easy to wish for them to stay there, live the rest of their lives there, and be fed to the german shepherds after they die. Or maybe just before.

American Asshole will be back at the beginning of June. If you see something in the news that you think qualifies, you are welcome to suggest it to me, either in a comment or at riograndejoe@yahoo.com .

* I was a little surprised that George Tenet didn’t get any votes, after helping sell a war with “intelligence” that he knew was false, and then trying to claim that he was victimised. I hope you are victimised, George, by the ghost of every soldier and civilian you got a medal for helping kill.

Name a CD you own that no one else on your friends list does.

Are You All Reet? – Cab Calloway
Name a book you own that no one else on your friends list does.

The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas, 1905 hardcover edition!!
Name a movie you own on DVD/VHS/whatever that no one else on your friends list does.

N.B.T. (Never Been Thawed)
Name a place that you have visited that no one else on your friends list has.

The Railway Museum in Union, Il.
Name a piece of technology or any sort of tool you own that you think no one else on your friends list has.

An ignition for a WWII warplane, I don’t remember offhand which model.

Oh come now, he does not. Hitler was way more evil. Now, I do believe that Bush is evil, and I also believe that when he talks to God, God throws up in his mouth just that little bit, but Bush is nowhere near being in Hitler’s league. Besides that, Hitler chose far more competent people to fill his cabinet, was able to give the entire world a run for its money while Bush has had his hands more than full with Iraq, and the biggest difference – HITLER HAD A PLAN. An entirely vile, evil, and downright naughty plan indeed, but a plan nonetheless.  We’ve got nothing.

2-  “It’s that liberal media.”

Stop whining already! If you aren’t hearing what you want to hear about the war, about the President, about what- ever, here’s a radical thought; Maybe what you want to hear isn’t happening!!! Stop pretending that they didn’t help you circle Bill Clinton like vultures for eight fucking years. Stop pretending that the media didn’t help you start this war.

It’s especially pathetic when I hear someone single out CNN, then turn on CNN to hear Glenn Beck ranting about “liberal hippie communists” or hear the panel of experts predicting doom if we leave Iraq. How is this pushing the “liberal agenda?”

3-  “And this is what happened last night on American Idol.”

You know, if  gave a fuck, I would have watched the goddam thing. I don’t, so I didn’t. If someone missed it and didn’t Tivo it, their loss. Why would you even think for one second that it’s news? Happy Days used to be immensely popular, too, but the AP didn’t recap it the next morning for the benefit of those who missed it. Why do so for this musical crapfest?

4- Hyperbole

If someone says “I think Israel did this one thing wrongly”, that is NOT the same as “Hitler was right!” “I think Bush is a lousy President” does not equal “Clinton was the best President in history!” And being critical of America’s policies is nowhere near “I want America to lose this war!” If you cannot argue against what is actually being said, you might consider the idea that there is no valid argument against what is actually said, or that you simply don’t know what that answer is. Changing someone’s argument to suit what you want to argue against only shows that you have limitations to both your intellect and your honesty. And it’s rude, too.

5- “THOSE (Republicans/Democrats and/or conservatives/liberals)!!!”

Has America been this divided since the Civil War? Possibly, I don’t know. I do know that vilification of those people has replaced actual thought in America. And the assumption that EVERYONE is like that just slays me. I’ll say certain things about Bush, or about our current administration, and some people think they’re going to get my goat by bashing Clinton. Well, I never voted for Clinton, and I’m not a democrat, so that “You Democrats yadayadayada” crap falls limply at my feet. Then again, there’s those who brand me a neocon immediately because I don’t jump on the gun ban bandwagon, or because I suggest that we might want to watch that southern border. Once again, people don’t have the facts it takes to build a cogent argument, so they simply attack anything they can assume about the speaker.

Look, we’re all Americans, we all pay taxes, and we all live in the same country with the same problems. Maybe – just maybe- some of those problems could be solved, or at least lessened, if we spent as much effort working together and talking to each other as we do vilifying and slandering each other. America is supposed to be about freedom of thought, not the freedom to conform.

6- “They do it, too!”

Okay, suppose you have a 6 year old who is caught stealing candy. Knowing that he’s caught, he looks at you and says “Johnny and April stole candy, too!” Are you going to tell this child it’s okay, then, as long as he wasn’t the only one?

I didn’t think so. So why do adults do it every day?

“These Republicans in the administration have told a lot of lies.” “Well, Demcrats lie, too!”

So that makes it okay?

“Those liberals are just hounding Bush because they hate him and want him out of office.” “And that’s exactly what the Republicans did to Clinton!!”

And that is your argument? I think there are more compelling reasons for wanting Bush out than that, but I digress. The simple fact is that just because someone else did something wrong, that doesn’t make it right for someone else to do it, too. I mean, if we elect a Democrat to the White House, and he (or she) tells a pile of whoppers to get us into a war, are we going to say that it’s all good because Bush did it, too?

As a rule of thumb, if you won’t accept a given argument from a 6 year old, you will sound no more mature or intelligent than that same child when you use the same type of argument, and you should be treated as such. Your kids should also see you as a hypocrite, and smother you in your sleep. So there.

7- “Democrats don’t believe in Jesus.”

This usually comes from people who think that Jesus likes war and wants homosexuals executed. This usually comes from people who think that Jesus will reward you for stockpiling as much cash as you can, and doesn’t like those Mexican kids getting free healthcare at our expense. In other words, people who have created Jesus in their own selfish, intolerant and unsympathetic image.

Fuck those people. I don’t speak for Jesus (boy, it would be refreshing to hear one of those jerks say that!) but if anything in that book about him is true, he’ll flush these people down like yesterday’s Raisin Bran. When I went to church, Jesus was about loving and helping people, not about hating foreigners and keeping taxes low.

8- “You’re giving aid and comfort to the enemy!”

No, blankets and muffins are aid and comfort. Debate and dissention is as American as hot dogs and apple pie.

Have you come up with any new ones?

(BTW, folks, if you haven’t voted for the American Asshole: April, scroll down and do so. For every person who doesn’t vote, Bill O’Reilly get another year on his contract!)