Sidebar Issues

Hey everyone,

On my website’s blog: https://www.kimstewart.ca/blog/
I am trying to get my “Recent Entries” on my sidebar to show the dates in this way so that they line up nicely:

10.28
09.21
09.20
09.10
etc..

Also, I would love to be able to have a maximum character count on the Recent Entry links so that a “…” could appear in the links that are too wide for the design. Hope this makes sense!

Here is my code in sidebar.php:

<div id="sidebar">
	<ul class="sidebar_list">

		<?php if (!function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar()) : ?>

		<li class="widget">
			<h2>Recent Entries: <a href="/feed/"><img src="/img/gbl/rss.gif" alt="Subscribe to RSS" title="Subscribe to RSS" border="0" class="rss" /></a></h2>
			<ul class="sidebar">
				<?php query_posts('showposts=10'); ?>
				<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<li><span class="recent_date"> <?php the_time('n.j') ?> <a>"><?php the_title() ?></a></span></li>
				<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

         <li id="search">
           <h2><?php _e('Search:'); ?></h2>
           <form id="searchform" method="get" action="<?php bloginfo('home'); ?>">
            <div>
                <input type="text" name="s" id="s" class="text_input_small" />
                <input name="submit" id="submit" type="image" class="submit_btn" src="/img/gbl/empty.gif" title="Submit" alt="Submit" value="<?php _e('Search'); ?>" />
            </div>
            </form>

		<?php if (function_exists('get_flickrrss')) { ?>
				<li class="widget">
			<h2><span class="flickr_blue">Flick</span><span class="flickr_pink">r</span></h2>
			<ul class="flickr_stream">
				<?php get_flickrrss(); ?>

		<?php } ?>
		<?php endif; ?>

</div>