condensation

Of course it will not do for the ordinary, person to attempt the extreme condensation practiced for example by foreign correspondents of the larger newspapers who, because their cable tolls are high and words are precious, make use of a variety of ingenious combinations which are interesting merely as phenomena peculiar to the handling of cable dispatches for newspapers.

For example, a press correspondent might ,first write this dispatch:

"The enemy has not yet been met or even seen on account of the entanglements thrown up during the night," etc.

Revised for the cable, this dispatch might read:

"Enemy unmet unseen account entanglements upthrown night."

Needless to say, this form is unsuited to the ordinary business or social telegram.

Eliminating Small Words -- HOW TO WRITE TELEGRAMS PROPERLY
A Small Booklet by Nelson E. Ross, 1928

via daily jive

mascot

This is firming as one of my favourite images from the State Library of NSW ...

Mascot arrivals greeted by Philips' Diplomat Philishave promotion for their electric shavers

new home

The old home and the new house ...


After some two-and-a-half years of enjoying free space at Upersportingpundit courtesy of the generous Scott Wickstein, boynton heads back to Blogger - at least for a short time.



relaxing...


Not that I think the old template is wonderful, but I've tried to achieve a sense of continuity with the old white space and Haloscan Blue happening.
All the old ubersporting comments can be seen in their rawness and stripped of html by clicking on "Uber comments" at the end of the archived posts.

In the meantime, please partake of some savouries and party like it's Popular Mechanics

crunch time

Crunch time: TypePad or back to Blogger?

The latter has improved vastly since I last posted, but does that je ne sais cachet of subscription count?

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Comments: crunch time

You'd have to get lots of people to move links over; you being around the blogosphere a little while I guess you probably have hundreds of linkers.

I get tempted from time to time to leave blogger, mostly for the better layout on other sites. But that's increasingly becoming redundant with feeds.

But that fancy french stuff sounded good, so that may sway you!
Posted by armaniac at February 22, 2006 02:54 PM

Well, armaniac, you sprung this deleted post out of the closet via bloglines ;)
(Thought it fell into the musing-to-myself genre, so deleted it. Temporarily)

Alas, I have to move, so it's either/or, but probably not to the most blog-cred move: mydomain with wordpress...

From what I've seen I like TP - but am wondering if it's that relatively superficial thing of layout (which can be tweaked in blogger fairly simply) that makes people pay for alternatives?
There is the Blogger commenting thing - but most people have adjusted to the registration process...
apart from that Blogger looks smooth to me.
Posted by boynton at February 22, 2006 03:22 PM

Typepad, Blogger, I like the free-ness of Blogger. I like it very, very much.

It does everything I want it to do. Actually no, that's not quite true - I can't ban particular IP addresses. Maybe that's a good thing.
Posted by Laura at February 22, 2006 03:47 PM

Ah - I was wondering about that last point, Laura.

I have done that only once. No regrets.

Everything but categories and some spiffy comment coding, but we await the hacks...
(And if I go that way I might try the deli-ci-ous/category route - if I'm as clever as you and can figure it out )

Blogger circa 02 was a different fish to the googleblogger of 06 I think. I like the dashboard.
I like the wysiwyg editing. Yes I like the Free
(although I must say I've had Free here due to the ongoing generosity of Scott Wickstein)

It's a perception thing mainly isn't it - I don't think many Go Back To Blogger...
Posted by boynton at February 22, 2006 03:57 PM

Free is good. (at last a post I can understand-I think.)
Posted by Link at February 22, 2006 11:18 PM

Please not Blogger! It takes my dial-up a bloody long time to load the comments, and half the time it doesn't work. Incidentally, Laura, that's why I never comment at Sill's Bend any more :-(

Need I say that Wordpress is pretty good and hosting rather easy and cheap(er than Typepad)?
Posted by Kent at February 23, 2006 05:29 PM

Oh dear - today I'm leaning back to Blogger and all...
I was surprised that there wasn't that great a difference in the hosting/wp alternative and TP's medium plan. So this and something about the "pre-fab" (thks Gummo) appeals to me.
Posted by boynton at February 23, 2006 06:13 PM

I was thinking of changing to WP, but it seems much easier and free! to find one of the squillions of free templates out there and play with it.

New one for mine should be ready about mid 2007 at the current rate. I've taken over Haloscan comments, but only because I don't want to lose the ones already made that I cherish. If I was starting now, I'd keep the blogger comments, which have improved tremendously from 18 months ago.
Posted by Zoe at February 24, 2006 09:36 AM

crazy and sillsy alone do a lot for the cachet of Blogger, Zoe.
Yeah I lost all my Haloscan comments from Blogspot days...I try not to think about it.


(btw I had put "state-us" instead of 'cachet', but ubersporting-comment-bot rejected that spammy word correctly spelt. I will certainly miss the creative spelling tasks required to beat the bot)
Posted by boynton at February 24, 2006 12:13 PM

If I hadn't moved about a gazillion times already, I would move back to typepad. I love the option of messing with templates. :)

Posted by: michelle at February 26, 2006 09:21 AM
- but Blogger seems pretty good, and fairly easy to mess with...?
(well I've certainly messed up my template I think)

I've decided to go back to Blogger and see how it goes...

Posted by: boynton at February 26, 2006 04:26 PM

delay ill

Anagrammed Tube Map
(via As Above, Kevan)

With due acknowledgment to the creator of the London (Non Old?) map, I tried my hand at the local Lilydale line, a section of railway much traversed in childhood and in dreams.

---

Comments: delay ill

The forecast for sidecar month is an echidna storm.
Posted by Tony.T at February 20, 2006 04:06 PM

not Monash Direct?

Matron Chides as Medics Thrown for not directing them to Modern Switch instead.
Posted by boynton at February 20, 2006 04:22 PM

Two reflection on the London Underground map: what a strange & haunting world it conjures up; somebody must have spent many, many hours composing it. Hmm...
Posted by Dick at February 20, 2006 11:19 PM

I suspect many Australian train stations of being anagrams already.
Posted by Kevan at February 21, 2006 03:34 AM

Yes, there's a kind of urban narrative there.

Actually some of the names read like good blog names. "Swearword & Ethanol" "Dully Hubris"...


You mean all the -gongs and - nongs, Kevan? ;)
Interesting that "Mooroolbark" didn't yield as many choices as the prosaic, English "Ringwood East"
I had to discard "Gradient Woos" and "Sweating Odor" before settling on "Organised Tow"...
Posted by boynton at February 21, 2006 02:29 PM

Craigieburn/ Broadmeadows Line:

Nice Air Burg
Dead Swab Moor
Can A.J.A.*
Long Rye
a.k.a. Pork
A love space
Homer's tart
Be reveling
Eden's son
No poems done
A lost cave
Newt-maker
Kong in nest
Let hormone burn*

(*Gummo T. contributions)
Posted by Zeppo Bakunin at February 21, 2006 06:58 PM

Wonderful.
Eddie should have said: "We have a saying in Dead Swab Moor..."
You always have to go to the end of the line to get the nice air, but I think "a.k.a Pork" is my fave.
Posted by boynton at February 22, 2006 10:01 AM

big tv

Big Picture Television 1949 Crosley Spectator

Vintage Television Ads


Flashmatic the first wireless remote
A flash of magic light from across the room...and you remain in your easy chair...


(after this site on the flashmatic via bifurcated rivets)

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Comments: big tv

There's no way to verify it now but I'm pretty sure this is my TV that once was.
http://tinyurl.com/9t3wm
It's a Stromberg-Carlson.
http://tinyurl.com/9bzpx
There's a metaphorical springboard in that woman's eyes, with the telephone on the demo in the ad.
They're historical.
http://tinyurl.com/ae48r
They made many other models.
http://tinyurl.com/79dhh
To get the full nuance you'd need to have been in a State-side world where there were only maybe four or five kinds of popular TV mfrs.
And S-C was not one of them. They were a sort of hobbyist's choice, something the TV-cognoscenti recognized. And then only mainly in the 50's and early 60's.
It was for sale on Craig'sList, a less-crass ebay thingie we have here in the US, I mean the image is from that, via Google.
I found it at a garage sale, a near-antique, many years ago now.
And sold it so also, long ago.
Posted by rollo at February 18, 2006 01:23 PM

The metaphorical springboard jumped out at me.
Tecnhology.
Busy.
Look at me.

I love that 9bzpx S-C. Showing window box. Could have been the best thing on the televsion sometimes.

One of my biggest regrets of this ilk is not grabbing a beautiful vintage TV off the nature strip when in a hard rubbish collection once.
Probably didn't work, but would always work as a table.
Posted by boynton at February 18, 2006 02:17 PM

re the crosley Spectator: Crosley made cars and gave their refrigerator a great name - The Crosley Shelvador.
Posted by Brownie at February 18, 2006 11:36 PM

Yes, a great name. Like Roll-a-door, they could have set a jingle to the Toreador song?

- and they also made the "Icy Ball"
http://www.refresearch.com/m-icyball.html
Posted by boynton at February 20, 2006 01:50 PM

beat repeat

I have had cause to revisit the archives over the last week.

This is a memorable image, once lost in the links*, good for today.

valentine

valentine

onlookers

---

Comments: valentine

Hope you got lots of valentines greetings today Boynton ?
Is a good day for love.
Posted by A Romantic at February 14, 2006 06:49 PM

Oh - is it Valentine's Day...
Posted by boynton at February 14, 2006 07:28 PM

Oh.....how sad !
Posted by A Romantic at February 14, 2006 08:29 PM

No...I was joking.
Just forgot to ;)
Posted by boynton at February 14, 2006 09:51 PM

Surely, it must have been a thrilling sight on Valentine's Day 1908, to watch a barquentine loaded to the gunwales with soft toys, heart-shaped balloons and long-stemmed roses bringing her cargo into port.
Posted by Gummo Trotsky at February 15, 2006 02:16 PM

They watched her sinking...

As wonderful as the image is, Gummo, I must confess to a distortion of history by placing these two images together. They are unrelated. Well at least superficially.

"On the 4th August 1908, the Falls of Halladale left New York bound for Melbourne. Captain Thompson, who was in command of the ship, was pleased with the general cargo he had secured for the journey. Valued at £35,000, it included 500 sewing machines, plumbing iron, 6,500 gallons of oil, 14,400 gallons of benzine, glassware and 56,763 beautiful American slate tiles."
http://heritage.vic.gov.au/page.asp?ID=243


"Spectators were apparently disappointed to find that the cargo (or booty) consisted only of rock salt"
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Victoria/Peterborough/2005/02/17/1108500207155.html


The spectators may have been hoping for a sewing machine, only to end up with rock salt.
Ain't love grand.
Posted by boynton at February 15, 2006 02:43 PM

;)
Posted by boynton at February 15, 2006 02:48 PM

songs for dogs

• 87% want to hear a song about a toy

PETA informally tested the CD on dogs who accompany PETA staffers to work and found that "Squeaky Deaky," a song about, you guessed it, squeaky toys, piqued dogs' interest while "You're a Good Dog" caused them to relax and close their eyes. But they quickly became alert again when they heard the barking dogs at the beginning of "Adventure Dog."

Songs to Make Dogs Happy via the Presurfer

Update: Hear samples at NPR


Portrait of Harry Bormann and his dog Bobby

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Comments: songs for dogs

'..renowned animal "medium" Dr. Kim Ogden..'

*blink*
Posted by peacay at February 13, 2006 02:16 PM

Don't know about dogs, but cats seem to be more attentive to Baroque than twelve-tone.
Posted by Gummo Trotsky at February 13, 2006 03:54 PM

"214 dogs were queried as to their preferences in lyrical content and music type"

"My Rottweiler Virgil loves the music so much that we had to get two CDs; one for the house and one for the car.
http://www.kimogden.com/id5.html


Don't know about all dogs, but this Jack Russell would be very attentive to baroque as long as it was squea-que.
(Should be a new CD: Squeaky Barokey)
Posted by boynton at February 13, 2006 07:03 PM

Ok - so this is embarrassing.
(After finding the link to the songs on NPR:)

"My Jack Russell loves the track Squeaky Deaky so much that she ran to the back of the computer, struck a classic HMV pose, and will not move"

This could well rival "Song about the Jay" (with its twin themes of Adventure and Toy) in her affections.
http://boynton.ubersportingpundit.com/archives/009141.html
Posted by boynton at February 13, 2006 07:19 PM

This sentence from
http://www.kimogden.com/id5.html
has been making me laugh:

"214 dogs were queried as to their preferences in lyrical content and music type"

(especially combined with
"• 87% want to hear a song about a toy")
Posted by boynton at February 14, 2006 06:01 PM

light blogging

I have a few geo-technical issues to resolve, so blogging will be light for a while.

 

(As if blogging was ever dark or heavy round these parts...)

---

Comments: light blogging

Have already seen the fillum of the situation to which you circuitously and cryptically allude, "The Unbearable Lightness of Blogging". A phyllum which Kundera afficondos will be well aware starred the gratuitously and somewhat clumsilly hyphenated Juliette of the Spirit-Boynton-Binoche.
Posted by Sedgwick at February 3, 2006 06:06 PM

I should probably read the famous airport novel "Blogging and Nothingness" too, while I'm in a sort of blog transit lounge.
Posted by boynton at February 6, 2006 12:37 PM

There's also that famous poem "Blogging Toward Bethlehem".
Finnegan's Blog.
The House of Seven Blogs.
The Blog in The Willows.
A Blog of Two Cities.
The Blog of La Mancha.
From Blog To Eternity.
Wuthering Blogs.
The Old Man and the Blog.
I have to stop now.
Posted by Juke Moran at February 7, 2006 06:28 AM

Wuthering Blogs sounds like a good name for a ...


Posted by boynton at February 7, 2006 01:41 PM

If Wuthering had a blog, would it from the sizes blow?
Posted by Gummo Trrotsky at February 8, 2006 05:57 PM

whither bluster
Posted by boynton at February 9, 2006 12:06 AM

Angela's Ashes the author was blog Irish.
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at February 9, 2006 12:09 AM

and what's the difference between blog Irish and 'lace curtain' Irish?
Posted by Brownie at February 9, 2006 10:34 PM

Barely a whisker if you're browsing in Windows...

Nothing to write home about anyway.
Posted by boynton at February 10, 2006 02:29 PM

Shifting sands? Tectonic disruptions (in Melbourne??)
Posted by Link at February 10, 2006 11:36 PM

Any of you punsters coming on Friday? If you let rip there and I feel overwhelmed, I can just secretly turn my hearings aids off.

Mr Holden, sadly, will be stuck in Bordertown with a car full of kids, trying to bribe them with bundy and coke to let him back in.
Posted by david tiley at February 12, 2006 03:08 PM

Shifting cybersands, Link.

Hope to be there at Lane Sedge, David.
Posted by boynton at February 13, 2006 09:55 AM