Blogger and Graphics and Me...

...A volatile combination.

You may have noticed that there are much fewer graphics on DOUI these days, Stew's Life Magazine extravaganza notwithstanding. The reason is simple: Blogger won't let me publish graphics anymore.

I don't know whether it's the homepage is too large, there's some sort of secret security setting on my PC, the folks at Google got tired of me suggesting they were the Chinese Communists' "special boys" and passed along a tart memo to their underlings at Blogger, or all of the above. I have no idea. All I know is that everytime I try to post a picture, Blogger's graphics interface spins around in that faux clock manner it has, freezes midway like Elaine Benis dancing The Hustle in an episode of Seinfeld, and then leaves a blank, gaping hole where the graphic was supposed to be, mocking me the way a steak buffet mocks a recently-converted vegan.

I've had some good ones planned, too. For the baseball post last night, I had a graphic of Kenny Rogers hand, with the smudge, and a giant red arrow pointing from his ear to his hand. I also had his backup band in the background, playing Coward of the County.

For the Paul McCartney/Heather Mills marriage fiasco post, I had a lovely picture of Paul and Heather smiling daggers at one another. The alternate graphic was Sir Paul bathing in a bathtub full of 100 pound notes whilst Ms. Mills crawls along the floor besides him like a very uncoordinated "adult" dancer...fully clothed, mind you, after all, this is a PG blog, more or less. She was wearing a French Maid outfit.

For the Kofi Annan/Ban-Ki Moon post, I had a picture of Kofi and Ban recreating their triumphant performance as Bialystock and Bloom in Mel Brooks' Broadway musical version of The Producers. Boutros-Boutros Ghali can be seen as L.S.D. in the background.

For the flip-flop post, I had a picture of Godzilla, wearing giant flip-flops and stomping around the american Music Awards. DMX has a precious look of horror on his face as Godzilla tramples his bling underfoot.

Finally, for the Kim Ill Dong post, I had a picture of a giant ICBM (that's Intercontinental Ballistic Missle for those of you under 21) riding up Kim's polyester backside. The ICBM had a picture of Madeline Albright on it and the words, "Dance with this, creep!"

All for naught, I'm afraid. I suppose I shall have to give up the massive and detailed recreation of the Battle of Trafalgar with Neil Diamond as Lord Horatio Nelson and Chris Rock as Hardy. Pity, as I was so looking forward to sprinkling the Beatles amongst the crew, Sgt. Pepper-like.

Blogger needs to clearly spend less time tinkering with their "new" version and fix some of the bugs on the old one.

Not that we're going anywhere. Blogger does have one hold on us. The word "free."

Update: As I try to post this, Blogger goes down. The Chinese Communists are most definitely involved.