I always knew this. Comes from growing up all over:

Take the What American accent do you have? quiz

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As you can see, Blog Wranglers did a bang-up job in migrating my blog from Movable Type to WordPress. They even moved over my design and CSS. Reasonable rates, too. They’re pretty nice, especially considering they’re Yankees.

These fellas get the AlphaPatriot Stamp of Approval. Highest recommendation.

And you can take that to the bank.

Technorati Tags: Moveable Type, WordPress, Blogging, Blog Wranglers Rule

Posting will be light as the folks at Blog Wranglers help me move from Moveable Type at Speakeasy to WordPress at JBS Partners. Gotta iron out a couple of issues and then learn a whole new system. But they are making it easy on me so this shouldn’t take long.

Finally got a new battery for the garage door opener. That’s right, I’ve actually had to get out of the car and walk over to the keypad and punch a code to open the door, then get back into my car and park. Even in the rain.

Jeez, it was like I was some sort of cave man or something.

Yep, I’m headed out to the desert today to attend the 2007 Conservative Leadership Conference in Reno.

Then I’m going camping with my brother for a week from Tahoe to Death Valley.

Then we’re going to swing through Vegas to pick up my son.

Then the three of us are going camping for another week from the Hoover Dam to the Grand Canyon.

Then to Phoenix and a short hop home.

Damn, don’t that sound nice?

Maybe I’ll start blogging again after I get back.

Then again, maybe not.

1. 5 am is too early for functional human activity.
2. Early morning radio sucks more than morning radio.
3. Keeping at least one eye cracked open while driving to work is a very good idea.
4. Rammstein at full volume cures the above three items.
5. I need new speakers. Again.

MSNBC presents 20 of the “more difficult” questions that immigrants must answer on a civics test in order to become naturalized citizens. The only one that I missed concerned the name of an INS form (not something a citizen should need to know), though I will admit to taking an educated guess on number 8.

You answered 95% of questions correctly. Here’s your rating:

0-20%: Maybe you’re still thinking too much about the Old Country.
25-40%: Mmmm. Do you really want to be a citizen? This kind of performance isn’t going to impress those nice immigration folks.
45-60%: Not too bad, but you really need to break out the civics books again — word is, the INS is looking for an 80 percent score.
65-80%: Hey, you may make a good citizen yet! Look at your wrong answers and a little revision should do the trick.
85-100%: Welcome to the United States! (And, truth be told, you know more about this great land than most Americans.)

I believe that last one. Looking over this particular set of questions, I doubt that most Americans could pass. I know I couldn’t have before my great political awakening in 2000 as Gore tried to litigate his way to the White House.

Dear Dr. Robinson,

I am writing to you to convey my profound thanks to you for having entered into an agreement with The Teaching Company. I have just finished your 60-lecture series, The Great Ideas of Philosophy.

I must admit that I purchased these lectures with more than a little trepidation, as I am a middle-aged American conservative with some distrust of the academic world. But the lure of the subject was too much for me to resist and so I purchased your course.

My fears were groundless as I found you to be thoughtful, thorough and balanced. While your knowledge of philosophy is remarkable, I was more impressed by your perception. My favorite lectures were Justice and Just Wars (I listened to the whole thing twice) and your thoughts in God – Really? (I listened to the final two chapters three times).

I also enjoyed the smattering of dry humor that all too occasionally made their way into your teachings (my favorite, “God could have limited the creation to angels – or beagles, comparably delightful.”)

So thoroughly pleasant was the experience that I look forward with great anticipation to listening to your series, American Ideals: Founding a “Republic of Virtue”. Your students are luckier than they can imagine. If this were a just world then you would be more famous than a rock star. You are certainly far more interesting.

With Gratitude and Deep Respect

I urge everyone who commutes, spends a half-hour on the treadmill, or otherwise has a few minutes a day to immediately click over to The Teaching Company. A half-hour lecture is a rewarding way to spend otherwise wasted minutes of the day. The Teaching Company finds the most gifted educators and offers courses on everything from ancient history to particle physics for non-physicists. They even offer courses on fuzzy subjects like art and music.

Go now, there’s a bundle of courses currently on sale.

Now you will have to excuse me. On the theory that you cannot understand that which comes later without understanding the origin, I am about to start Introduction to Judaism. See ya.

Doctors offices. Who doesn’t hate them?

This one is new. Fresh carpet shows the footprints of the sickly that have tramped through today. The faux velvet covering on a chair’s seat clearly displays a perfect imprint of the previous occupant’s butt. Ick. Looks like the occupant was 350 pounds or more.

I wonder, what bizarre illness prompted the unknown waddler to come here? More importantly, what writhing organisms lived in the mucus that no doubt coated his hands as he sat clutching the arm of the chair in his illness-induced haze, waiting his turn?

I decide to remain standing. In my own stuffy-headed haze, I take a look around.

The usual pathetic attempt to cheer up the place consists of a few cheap appliques stuck to the glass of the sliding window behind which the nurses hide, safe from the diseases teeming outside. Brightly colored butterflies of green and purple fly amongst even more bizarrely colored flowers. The butterflies are pasted so that it appears they are fleeing from the center of the glass, as if seeking to escape the flower patch of death. Or perhaps they are preparing to attack, 2 contingents in perfect formation flying off in opposing directions on a mission of dire consequence, belying their cutesy appearance.

Predictably, my thoughts turn morbid again. Egad, how many door knobs did l touch on the way in here!? Just what was that slime that coated the buttons on the elevator? Have I been watching entirely too many Monk episodes?

It probably doesn’t matter, I feel like death anyway. What’s a few million additional deadly microorganism crawling over me?

Depressing places, these waiting rooms. Everyone craning around to look at the too-perky girl who randomly and seldomly pops out of the coveted door to the interior, hoping that it is their name that is called as she announces the next person to win the Waiting Game.

At last it is my turn. I feel the jealous eyes upon me as I am ushered into the labyrinth of austere tiny rooms. But I know that I am just trading the large, crowded waiting room for a more private waiting hell. Why is my time so little valued by those with M.D. following their name? Bastards. This one had better make me feel better.

I sit in the jet-black power chair, which is evidently on the default setting, “Maximum Discomfort”. But even ill I am restless, and so I get even for my second enforced wait, poking into drawers and playing with the chair settings. With a little fiddling it is soon as comfortable as a Barcalounger.

No wonder men wait so long to see a doctor. What with childbirth, raising vomiting, pooping, disgusting little aliens and putting up with men, women are used to pain and punishment. Not so the proud males of the species, inventors of microwaves, bass boats and the 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham. No, we men like our creature comforts and don’t have the patience to put up with those that stand between us and our happiness. It’s no wonder God gave women the responsibility of propagating the species. If it were up to us, mankind would have died out long ago.

As miserable as I am, I swear that it will be a cold day in Hades before I put myself through this again. Finally the doctor swaggers in and I silently promise myself that if this arrogant son of a bitch doesn’t make me feel better, I will hunt him down and kill him in the street like the worthless offspring of filth and scum that he is. Then, as he steps out, having summed up my reason for misery in a few brief moments, I wryly admit to myself that I would have to feel much, much better to trouble myself to hunt for belly button lint, so doc is probably safe no matter how incompetent he is. But I always remember that half of all doctors finished in the bottom half of their class.

You wouldn’t think that an online test could tell you anything about how you talk, but the What American Accent Do You Have quiz is actually pretty good.

AlphaWife and I both have the same accent — which is to say that we don’t really have one. I can see it for me ’cause mine came from the melting pot of military brats (although one of my siblings evidently has a Southern accent). But you’d think a south San Antonio gal would end up with a distinct accent. Maybe she’s been around me too long?

I interviewed an applicant over the phone one time before bringing her in for a second interview. After we’d worked together several months she told me that her first impression of me was that I should be in radio. All well and good, I just don’t think the money would have been there; I’m no Howard Stern . . . or Rush, for that matter.

* When I first saw the results of the test ,”The Midland”, I figured it was going to tell me that I talked like I was from Midland, Texas. Imagine my surprise when I found that I talk like those damn Yankees from north of the Mason-Dixon line!