fido friday 5

AGB reminded me: Boynton's dog got "smiled at" by a rotty*.

I saw the rotty the other day actually, 3 years on, in situ, same old park, same old man walking her, his kindly-gentleman appearance belying the fact of his being in possession of a dangerous canine weapon, the dog itself impersonating a more benevolent labrador from a distance. The only give away is the lack of an otter tail, the lack of a tail at all.
When Bronte got biten by rooti on hunches, I'd almost led her into the jaws of faux-labarador myself, not dissuading her as both dogs advanced across the oval. Next thing there was the sound of dog fight, which for certain reasons I was determined to hear as a mere skirmish and not a serious biting which could have been fatal, according to the vet. The certain reasons involved Flo, of course, whose inclination to nip white dogs (not bite, if there are degrees of these things) was sometimes greeted with great alarm. This was a rather lax attitude on my part, I concede, harking back to some imaginary golden age when dogs had minor spats and skirmishes in public and people moved on. I concede belatedly that there are no degrees in these things*, a nip is as good as a bite, and Flo is never off the lead now - has never been off the lead for years.
So when Bronte got biten on hunches,and the kindly looking old gentleman shouted an enquiry of sorts across the oval, I shrugged and waved in an exaggeration of casual acceptance, in an effort to signal minor skirmishes between dogs are fine; they sort it out...
It was only after he drove away with his rooti (did I wave?) that I noticed the extent of her injuries, which were not at all minor. We limped back home in shock.

* well, who wants to think of a severity spectrum in such moments, or the objective assessment of the severity of biting problems based on the evaluation of the wound pathology




cattle dog in sulky



I'm a great fan of the unsolicited comment from strangers as you walk your dog, daydreaming about horticulture.
Last week as I walked Flo, the unsolicited comment yelled across the street was simply: Ritalin...
 

correct

the correct way to punch a football

 

wordle

 
Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide.

A couple of takes from the current b.esque mix.




 
Could I have thought of such a fine string as labrador hoodie shrinks, or Karenina Doncaster/just knew mention?
 
via Hooting Yard
 

misadventures

Like Beau Geste or King Kong or Anna Karenina, the saga of Greg Norman's misadventures when leading a major golf championship with 18 holes left to play has had more rewrites - most of them with the same old endings - than absolutely necessary. source

A party of passengers
 

unsuccessful

Character note:

Her daughter, now in her 30s, for many years unsuccessfully tried to meet (with a view to marrying) an elite footballer. The Age

(I think the parentheses got her)
 

unsharp

A Friday sort of search request:

how to unsharp the tooth of labrador

(Is puppy. Is sharp. Do not touch.)
 

east

the way eastlink shrinks your long-held sense of distance.

One minute you're driving along at Doncaster
you go through the tunnel and next thing you're at Cadbury Canterbury Road?

Not to mention what the roadscaping does to your until now reasonably stable mental map.
Who knew Ringwood would ever look this?





So anyway, suddenly being in Bayswater North, we thought we may as well go to Bunnings to source shower rails
Just before I entered the store I saw I was wearing Bunnings colours.
I don't normally dress like a Leprachaun, but there you go.
In that vast cold barn was I paranoid to think Security was tagging me, with my ploy to impersonate a shop assistant and snaffle screws under my crismon hoodie?
(At least I didn't get asked about stationery lines as I did once when I accidentally wore Royal blue into Officeworks.)
 

dolittle

Harris writes with a wit that's sly, not show-offy. He can encapsulate the woes of shooting "Doctor Dolittle" in four words: "The rhinoceros got pneumonia."

Charles Matthews, Washington Post
Amazon review of Pictures at a Revolution

recommended by Self Styled Siren
 

barbie birds

The Birds Barbie Doll

via As Above
 

update: psycho We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.

 

book care

Last Fri I met Zeppo B to take in the manuscripts on display at the SLV.
Along with many many Melburnians. So many that the queue stretched out the door and onto the steps, with that strange weather thing happening that we Melburnians have almost forgotten - the unfolding of the umbrellas.
Inside, there were so many people in the room we were advised by the sentry to forget the linear journey and navigate via available space over the glass encasements. (This is often my preferred pathway as it turns out)
And it was beautiful.


And this is not especially related, but it did occur to me as we talked about the remarkable feat of history and preservation. I mentioned that recently I had seen a technique demonstrated very soberly on an instructional film from the fifties, Books and their care (see 03:24)
The ms in question is The World of Pooh

(And for ZB and others sans broadband, the technique is explained lo fi here - Opening a new book - along with the Improper use of a paperclip.)
 

mov 2 live

Elsewhere, my musical taste has been questioned.
I took this to heart and sought out one of my top ten fave live hits of the 1790's for consolation.
 

oranged

6. ORANGEMEN: Forget the Big Three. The most eye-catching grouping on Friday at the U.S. Open was Miguel Angel Jimenez, Shingo Katayama and Boo Weekley.

Strictly by coincidence, each player stepped to the first tee with an almost identical bright, burnt orange polo shirt.

Commenting on the colorful triumvirate, ESPN anchor Mike Tirico, a Syracuse Orangeman himself, came up with this gem: “Are they rooting for the Dutch?”
Golf week

I think I caught a glimpse of this phenomenon on TV over the weekend, but there is no trace of it anywhere online. (Well, if you search through getty images for CA: U.S. Open - Round Two * you can see the ensemble but not the ensemble.)

See also: Bad jumpers, dodgy strides
The Very Worst in Golf Fashion
A look at golf fashions through the years
 

metres

 

hitching

This was one of the photos I found through searching for Muriels + wedding at Picture Australia. The hitching appears to be an accidental pun...

Anyway, after this, an email from Ann O'Dyne * inspired me to go browsing for more:

Hampton
Trehare (Treharne, Trahar, Trahare ?)
Tallangatta
mandolin
marquee
methodist H & C
 

blog wars

There's a comment over at Troppo on old blogwars*, siding with the
people who neither know nor care about the history of this matter

One thing that's been interesting to observe in the recent great big blogwar shakeout of the cyberbullies of old* is how quickly people forget. Even with with google. Or maybe your google-fu is only as good as your inclination to remember.
It used to seem that the blog in question was one of the major blogging players, here to stay. I witnessed the rise and rise of it, and was always baffled and dismayed that its essential nastiness, that for me negated any cleverness, drew such a big crowd. I always suspected that Snark would run its course - in the end it's a reductive slide to a place where everything is meh. But I didn't predict this ending. Also, I could not have predicted the extent to which people forget, blogs disappear, communities move on.
So we're all ephemeral, and blogs feed off the present despite the permalink that presumes a record of the past.
And I suspect that a history of oz-blogging (if it ever gets written) will be a fairly standard chronicle of clusters and stats that will forget the gossip and the various spats and brain-snaps of maverick voices.
Does anyone care? Yep - I think it's all fascinating, and as always history is enlightening.
And maybe it is more fascinating because of the sense of historical proof that permalinks provide, it strengthens the inklings of memory into a gotcha.
 

something good

About 20 years ago a friend observed:
We've given up on op-shops now. Dimmeys is cheaper.
Well if you're talking best of popular music CDs, he was right.
Herman's Hermits Greatest Hits for a dollar was pretty good.


and this is good too
 

outdo

comments policy update
 

sagas

well, we love the Aga Saga woman.

(along with with Pru and Trude, we're surrounded by 'em)
 

the searchers

Your Search is Over
Fed by birds responds beautifully to the googlers.



(see also the Tugboat files)



meanwhile this might be the best answer to my most requested...
 

football stories

Via Brownie, in a comment at AGB



"The Goal Umpire’s Assistant (Leitchville)


Football Stories from Country Victoria
21 Films by Malcolm McKinnon