Shrek The Third, Diggs, Jerry Falwell

I am rather pleased with the title of my blog entry for today.

1. First, I have removed the "Digg This" button from my individual blog posts as not one single person ever used it. The master button remains. StumbleUpon buttons also remain as sometimes a kind soul takes a liking to what I've said and decided to share it. Digg has become a wasteland and it's time I wash my hands of it.

2. The infamous Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church is picketing Jerry Falwell's funeral according to a Fox News article. Apparently Mr. Phelps (the "God Hates ...." guy) thinks Falwell was far too liberal. No, I am not making this up. As stated in dozens of online news reports: The Westboro Baptist Church says it intends to state a protest at the funeral of Rev. Jerry Falwell.The funeral will be Tuesday at the Thomas Road Baptist Church, the church Falwell founded, in Lynchburg, Virginia. On its Web site, Westboro says it will "preach" outside the funeral "of the corpulent false prophet Jerry Falwell, who spent his entire life prophesying lies and false doctrines like 'God loves everyone.'" I have previously blogged the joyful passing of Mr. Falwell, but let the record show, I'd rather have Falwell than Phelps. Phelps make Falwell and Robertson look like raging liberals. They are all hateful bastards and I'm sure I shall have the opportunity to spit in their face when I meet them in Hell. Ain't none of us going to heaven.

3. Today I saw Shrek The Third with Adrian, Pablo, and Timmy. My sister did a no show. I would love to tell you how the third movie was better than either the first or the second. The only thing I can say was it was a fast paced movie, and was (happily) over in around 90 minutes. This film will not win any awards, unless there's a category for unnecessary sequels. Sure, it had its moments, but generally speaking it just didn't do a whole lot for me. The animation was utterly fantastic -- the humans were realistic, which is considered the holy grail of animation. You could believe the characters were real. Unfortunately, they spent all their time on the animation and the clever jokes, forgetting any bit of reasonable plot. And they skimped on the music, a hallmark of the previous Shrek films. I just can't recommend this movie at current prices to anyone. Wait for it to hit the dollar theatre.

Why Blogger Beta Sucks

1. This was reported over one month ago via the Blogger contact mechanism. I never got any reply. I understand it's free, and I guess I'm getting what I'm paying for.
2. This problem happens only with New Blogger (Blogger Beta that is not theoretically Beta any more -- it was not an issue with the Original Blogger). I can FTP normally from any other service and with any FTP client. This issue ONLY affects New Blogger.
3. To publish a single (short) post takes 3 to 6 minutes or more. Prior to beta it took about one minute normally, sometimes two on a bad day.
4. I tried to republish my blog yesterday which used to take 10 to 15 minutes under Original Blogger. It has been over FOUR HOURS. Same result again today. Started at 1705pm and it's 2008pm and nothing besides the "taking longer than expected" error message.
5. I'd have switched to Wordpress but Blogger Beta doesn't convert properly yet using normal channels. I'm sure you may have seen my previous post about conversions. And there is now a solution, which I may try -- though I much prefer someone do it for me if there are volunteers. The problem is, I'd have to get my blog to republish for it to work and it's not working.
   

SOMETHING IS BROKEN WITH BLOGGER'S FTP PROCESS. My blog is hosted on my own website (Dreamhost is the hosting company) and I'm connected to Blogger via HellSouth DSL but that shouldn't really matter since Blogger connects to DreamHost directly and it's not actually through the blogger's computer.

I really would like some sort of answer and a fix from Blogger, another DreamHost customer, or anyone out there in the world who uses New Blogger. My frustration is enormous and Blogger has ceased to be fun or useful. Please, please, please help.

You can also contact me via e-mail at darsys (at) AOL (dot) com

(I was going to tell everyone how happy I was to have added Digg buttons but since everything is munged right now, I'll have to pass. Some pages have managed to work, though, so you might start seeing them eventually).