If you are in The Blogging Game and not just doing it for fun, you heard about Google's recent extortion. They slapped PayPerPost and all its members with severe Page Rank penalties for participating in the program (that's alotta Ps, ain't it? it's called alliteration and all the long-A sounds coupled with it is called onomotopeia - now you know... STAR). A lot of people, myself included, who had PRs of 3-4 suddenly found themselves with a big, fat goose-egg because Google got upset that we were using an advertising program other than AdSense.

Hey you nerds (in my best Grimm from Grimm Adventures of Billy & Mandy voice)! How are things?

Well, I stopped by to give you The Rundown on a new contest I just learned about that will actually pay you to blog for a year. And when I say "pay," I mean BIG TIME pay! This is not another sponsored program or anything like that - it's a contest where the winner gets paid an annual salary for one year to blog as usual:

Duane "Dog" Chapman was on CNN's Larry King Live tonight to discuss his recent flap with the press regarding his drug-addicted, ex-convict son's illegal taping of a private conversation in which Dog repeatedly used a racial slur. The A&E Channel's top-rated TV star of the show, Dog the Bounty Hunter, was sincere and repentant for his use of a word which is in common usage throughout America, specifically by the very people who pretend to be so offended by it. But I've already covered the reverse-racism inherent in the word in my earlier post.

You should have seen this friggin' "girlfriend"...

Well, I guess you've heard about Duane "Dog" Chapman's latest scrape and oddly enough, this one is more threatening than the possibility of his going to Mexican prison (he isn't, by the way - they dropped the charges): this one could literally end his career, not just interrupt it! But interrupt it, it already has.

Hey guys! I hope all is well with everyone. I haven't heard much from anyone lately and thought I'd drop by since I finally have some news. I come by and read other folks' blogs about once a week or so, but I have been so busy with my other blogs and The Weirding that I haven't left many comments. I take that back, I have left a few here and there, but then forget where I posted them and never read the replies...

And with all the legal problems I've been facing lately with the outright, Southern corruption in Decatur County, TN, I have been a complete mental and emotional wreck.

Yup. Today marked the 1000th post over to The Rundown. We done gone and made a speech and shit.

You know, I first got on a computer in the 2nd-grade. Back then, they were Apple IIe - looked exactly like ET in that movie. We used to play Oregon Trail, but I was in the advanced classes and Oregon Trail didn't cut it for me. By grade 7, I had hardcoded (that means, written BY HAND) a full-written history of The Uncanny X-Men... hey? I was a seventh-grader, for goodness' sake! I wasn't curing cancer, but I was able to cut classes because they'd just go to the library and pull me off the computer and the librarian would talk to them and smile at me and I'd go back to class...

As I've posted here and like a dozen other places, I don't know exactly what happened to keep some people from being able to log into The Speakeasy over the weekend. We'll call it a Raid and things had to cool off for a bit so the bulls didn't come creeping back around, but in all honesty, I'm busted. I dunno.

Still, I found that you should see a button at the top which says Restore Session. When you click it, it says, "Your session has expired," then prompts you for your confirmation. In your profile, you can change this to whatever you like - from yo mama's maiden name to whatever, but if you choose to (or simply didn't set it), it's just your password.

I had a few folks try it lately and they've had no problems, but...

I know a few weeks - maybe months - back, I heard some folk talking about Writing Up had lost several posts or something. I guess this was about the time everyone started coming over here to hang out. But I hadn't posted there in months, so I didn't mess with it.

Well, after nearly a year of false-starts, empty promises, and more excuses than Paris Hilton, I am all too pleased to announce that The Speakeasy is finally, actually - REALLY - open!

Seriously!

Grocery prices are supposed to rise up to 7% across the board over the summer, and everyday items (eggs, milk, cheese, fruits and veggies) will double, even triple! Of course, they're saying this will happen; I paid $2.29 for 1/2-gallon of milk this morning!

Last month, I spent right around $150.00 on groceries the entire month, and ate (well, generally) the entire month. I've spent that much this month so far and I am pretty much out of food...

Check it out: I just joined Helium the other day and weighed-in on our favorite heiress-cum-pornstar, and woke up to find that my little missive is a featured article today and is on the front page!

I posted earlier on how I needed to move from where I live, but I was specifically referring to the immediate vicinity - e.g., out of the apartment complex. But I have wanted to move out of The South (technically, it's most often called Tha Souf or Da Souf) for pretty much my entire life.

I loathe The Bible Belt for so many reasons, but the main one is the overwhelming hypocrisy which drives this whole thing. These people aren't real Christians - far, far, far from it! These people pay lip-service to Christianity and, much like The Spanish Inquisition, use their bass-ackward, drawn in crayon "religious beliefs" to justify all sorts of human rights offenses.

Here then, are two cases in the news right now:

Can anyone believe this?

Pick up your remote (or clicker, depending on where you are) and flip through the news channels. Flip through every last news network on the tube:

The whole world is waiting for Paris Hilton to walk out of her frigging house!

So most of us know that I live in an apartment complex. And most of us know I want to move - no, need, need to move. But we might not all know exactly why I need to move, so I'm here to "vent" and, in so doing, answer that question...