The Pavilion of Innocent Pastimes

Ignorant Ornithology: the Roadrunner

2012-02-19T13:40:00.000+13:00

Meep meep.

Ignorant Ornithology: the Gannet.

2012-02-17T17:14:00.002+13:00

The Gannet. My second favorite bird.

“My favourite bird's the gannet:
It's the best bird on the planet.
It's better than knots
And guillemots
And beats razorbills by lots and lots.

“Yes, my favourite bird's the gannet:
It just can't be beaten, can it?
It hatches on ledges,
Where it stays till it fledges
And grows a physique
With a fabulous beak.
Then it takes to the air
And soars way up there,
Till it reaches a summit,
Whence it dives in a plummet
And down with a S W I S H !
It catches a fish.

“Yes, my favourite bird's the gannet
(Apart from my girlfriend, Janet!).”

― Julian Date

[Thanks Richard!]

An Innocent Pastime: The Tuck.

2012-02-17T17:12:00.000+13:00

I do this in winter. I've considered sewing The Tuck permanently into my duvet, but now I've seen this cartoon I know I'd be cheating myself out of a nightly moment of joy.

(We're living in a Golden Age of stick figure cartoons. I wish I knew who was responsible for this one, he or she may have had even greater wisdom to impart.)

Hooting Yard Lost Property: Zeitgeist, Fritch

2012-01-28T19:42:00.002+13:00

Where do they come from?

2011-12-22T18:54:00.000+13:00

Now you know.

A Sudden Enthusiasm: A Glimpse Inside the Mandelbulb

2011-12-14T22:25:00.000+13:00

There just should not be these ornately decorated machines standing outside time and space.

I've been looking through Mandelbulb visualizations on DeviantArt all evening. The software has improved incredibly since I looked last. There is so much in the Mandelbulb, it looks like a totally different thing depending on what the artist/explorer's eye hones in on, and I suppose their taste, skill and patience in adjusting the parameters. HalTenny has a talent for finding the bizarre machinery. (Look in his Favorites menu to browse other Mandelbulb artists' discoveries.)

Skype filled my Android's Contacts list with read-only entries, but I lived.

2011-12-05T17:27:00.000+13:00

When I set up my Android phone, the first thing I did was imported my Skype contacts into its Contacts list. I ended up with entries for everybody on Skype. Great, I won't have to type those names in, I thought. But I could not add phone numbers to those entries. Android said they were "read only".

WHAT HAVE I DONE?!

What was happening was this: after "importing" the Skype list, Android shows you two sets of entries in the same list: the regular one is for entries that you have typed into the contacts list, those you may edit; the other one is what Android can see by peeping into Skype's address book, those you may not edit. Normally that's not a problem because Android joins regular and Skype entries up like Siamese twins, and you may edit the regular half. If I had entered all my phone numbers first, then imported the Skype contacts, Android would have done the joining for me automatically. But since I did it the other way around, I ended up with an address book full of read-only Skype entries to confuse the hell out of me.

Once I knew what was going on, sorting things out wasn't a problem. I just made fresh entries for each contact, and joined the Skype entries to them manually, using the Join option in the Edit Contact screen's menu.

Right. Done.

2011-11-26T12:50:00.000+13:00

A Sudden Enthusiasm: London, 2011 A.D.

2011-11-20T21:28:00.002+13:00

I was very impressed with this photo Outa_Spaceman took with his ~~Dick Tracy watch~~ cellphone:

I knew immediately where it belonged:

Converting Google Reader Starred Items to Firefox Bookmarks

2011-11-02T13:14:00.000+13:00

[Starred Items has not been removed from Google Reader.

I think that I wasn't seeing stars after the changeover because I was using Firefox 3.5 as my browser. Google no longer support versions lower than 3.6. It's either that or I have UI fatigue. That's a real thing, isn't it?]

Google made many changes to Google Reader yesterday. It was unexpected and unwelcome to the many of the people who use Google Reader as their main portal into the Internet.

The big change was Google replacing Reader's Sharing feature with the Google+ one, that seems like an improvement. But they simplified Google Reader while they were at it, ~~and one of the simplifications was to remove the Starred Items feature.~~

I had been using Starred Items as a bookmarks folder for feeds. I had 413 Starred Items.

Google have given us the option of downloading our Starred Items data. Look in the Import/Export tab of Reader's Manage Subscriptions page. (You will have to be logged into Google reader to follow that link.) The Reader JSON file contains full data of the posts that were in your Starred Items. But since there is no program that can convert the raw data in that file into a usable form, it is not the mercy it seems.

I wrote myself a Python script to convert my Reader JSON file into a file that could I import into my Firefox browser's bookmarks list. So I now have all my bookmarks back: a Starred Items bookmark menu folder, with a subfolder for each blog, and the bookmarks themselves lead to the original posts in those blogs.

I've appended my script in the box below. If you know how to run a Python script, you will find it useful. If you know how to program in Python, I encourage you to convert it into a form that a non-programmer can use. If you desperately need your Starred Items, and they are not personal, I can convert them for you - leave a comment.

# firefoxize-starred-items.py
#
# Reads a Google "Reader JSON" file exported from Google Reader and
# outputs an HTML file suitable for importing into Firefox's 
# bookmarks menu. This rescues you if you have been using Google 
# Reader Starred Items as a bookmark file for feeds.
#
# See http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2011/10/new-in-reader-fresh-design-and-google.html
# and, when logged in, http://www.google.com/reader/settings?display=import

import json, time, codecs

InputFile = '/home/glyn/Desktop/starred-items.json'  #download this
OutputFile = '/home/glyn/Desktop/starred-items-bookmarks.html'  #import this

with codecs.open(InputFile, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as f:
    GooglesItems = json.load(f)['items']

FeedURLs = {}
FeedItems = {}

for item in GooglesItems:
    feedTitle = item['origin']['title']
    feedUrl = item['origin']['htmlUrl']
    itemDate =  item['published']
    if item.has_key('title'):
        itemTitle = item['title'].split('\n')[0]
    else:
        itemTitle = feedTitle + ', ' +  time.strftime('%x', time.localtime(itemDate))
    if item.has_key('alternate'):
        itemURL = item['alternate'][0]['href']
    elif item.has_key('enclosure'):
        itemURL = item['enclosure'][0]['href']
    else:
        itemURL = feedURL
    FeedURLs[feedTitle] = feedUrl
    feedItems = FeedItems.setdefault(feedTitle, [])
    feedItems.append((itemTitle, itemURL, itemDate))

with codecs.open(OutputFile, 'w', encoding='utf-8') as b:
    b.write('''<!DOCTYPE NETSCAPE-Bookmark-file-1>
    <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
    <TITLE>Bookmarks</TITLE>
    <H1>Bookmarks Menu</H1>
    <DL><p>\n''')
    b.write('<DT><H2>Google Reader Starred Items</H2>\n\n')
    b.write('<DL><p>\n')
    for feedTitle, feedURL in FeedURLs.items():
        b.write('<DT><H3>%s</H3>\n' % feedTitle)
        b.write('<DL>\n')
        b.write('<DT><A HREF="%s">(%s)</A>\n' % (feedURL, feedTitle))
        for (title, url, date) in FeedItems[feedTitle]:
            b.write('<DT><A HREF="%s" LAST_MODIFIED="%i">%s</A>\n' % (url, date, title))
        b.write('</DL>\n\n')
    b.write('</DL>\n\n\n')
    b.write('</DL><p>\n')

"FUTULINGUISTIC extrapolations"

2011-10-28T21:13:00.001+13:00

In Imaginary Magnitude and The Futurological Congress Stanislaw Lem satirizes futurologists by having them automate the process of creating neologisms:

“Meanwhile, studies have shown that people LARGELY say SILLY THINGS, Therefore in order to simulate a typically human mode of expression in an Extrapolation of more a quarter of a century, we have constructed IDIOMATS and COMDEBILS (COMBUNGLES)—that is Idiomatic Antomats and bumbling computers Débiles—and it is they that have just constructed the PARAGENGRAM, the paralogical generative grammar of the Language of the Future.”
— Vestrand's Extelopedia, Stanislaw Lem.

Markov word generators produce words like these; given statistical information calculated from a dictionary they output strings of letters that are likely to follow each other. There is one such generator at Fourteenminutes.com. On my first go it gave me Zingthings, Vacatects and Duraphon, all of which will mean something in 2046. The very silliest word was Bobbins. Here's the second list it gave me:

Inhateguariled
Relikes
Forection
Cluted
Gees
Gie
Maning
Gallint
Way
Fining

Ron
Denoonalbestabse
Fran
Pres
Alysusewarvalustan
Int
Sprefron
Ples
Chappratics
Latreeisions

I tried something simpler, I took the 3,038 verb/noun pairs in the Useful Phrases section of Grenville Kleiser's book, split them up and recombined them at random:

import Phrases, random
A = []
N = []
for p in Phrases.Useful:
    a, n = p.split()
    A.append(a)
    N.append(n)
for i in range(0,10):
    print random.choice(A) + " " + random.choice(N)

The results weren't quite so weird, but the quaint 1917 vocabulary produces a very Hooting Yard air:

proverbial track
maidenly consolation
unutterable generations
fitting gloom
galvanic relations
murderous recollection
ravishing multitude
repeated evasion
unaffected antagonist
titanic lamentations

Tell me that you did not hear Frank Key's voice just then.

I wasn't able to push my Lemian FUTULINGUISTIC extrapolations past the year 2012, but I did uncover some Useful Phrases for the current day:

Royal digression: a polite euphemism for the opinions of the Prince of Wales.

Algebraic vengeance: justice administered by Anonymous or LolSec.

Altruistic touch: charity based on the principals of Healing Touch.

Enthusiastic proletariat: this is making a come-back.

Mobile courage: the belief that cellphone communications are private, see flashing magnitude.

Flashing magnitude: calculated by Facebook, a low but non-zero flashing magnitude is desirable.

Technical consanguinity: companies with a shared patent portfolio are technically consanguineous.

Irregular Era: the early 21st Century.

Phraseological Supercollider

2011-10-25T12:21:00.000+13:00

I have collected Grenville Kleiser's Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases into a database that can be manipulated by simple Python scripts. Have a read of the introduction and an impatient scroll up and down the book, and you'll see why the idea amused me.

I'm not sure what to do with this Phraseological Supercollider, but Frank Key is excited and says "plans are afoot". I've not been informed of any plan, so I'll assume that it is Richard Carter's idea of replacing Hooting Yard's regular commenters with the output of the Supercollider. I think this will work out fine.

from Phrases import *
from random import choice
a = StrikingSimiles + LiteraryExpressions
b = Conversational
print "• %s, %s.\n" % (choice(a), choice(b))

• She sat eyeing him with frosty calm, that is what I call intelligent criticism.

How to remove a weta from your finger.

2011-10-21T16:36:00.000+13:00

Antipodean Death Cricket.

If you have discovered this post by Googling one-handed, hi! You are quite safe for now; if you were highly entomophobic then the awkward situation you are in would already have killed you. Ignore the other pages Google found you, they contain only dispiriting information. Keep reading.

The weta attached to your finger (or perhaps your face) is not quite strong enough to break your skin, but it is too strong for you to pull off. You will not win a wresting match against a hexapod with barbed legs, not one-handed. Keep reading.

The usual thing to do with an annoying insect is to think of it as a soulless, reflex-driven machine, and coldly smash it to bits. But you will already have observed at least one emotion in your weta: tireless, berserk rage. Perhaps it has finer feelings to return to when it has done with you. You are no longer a person who can depersonalize insects. You have learnt something from your weta. Keep reading.

Also, smashing it to bits would drive its barbs into your finger. Keep reading.

If you do not release your weta back into the wild (perhaps you were trying to do this when you picked it up), you will go to Hell. If you kill your weta, you will go to Hell. If you pull any of its legs off, you will go to Hell. If you have looked your weta in the eye, you already know that it can arrange that. If you have not looked your weta in the eye, best you don't. Keep reading.

Here we go.

Enter the wild you intend to release your weta into. Wetas have modest requirements, your neighbour's doorstep will do.

Slide two wooden kebab skewers under your weta's knees on both sides, as you see above. If you do not have any on hand, whittle some, or take the bus home and rummage around your kitchen.

Recall how when you were little you were told the best way to pull a bandaid off was fast. That advice was bullshit. But it's the approach you must take now. Take hold of the far end of the skewers and flick.

Run.

Ignorant Ornithology XXXIII

2011-10-20T20:42:00.000+13:00

Ignorant Ornithology in Colour II

2011-09-22T17:38:00.000+12:00

Ignorant Ornithology: the Pelagic Zone

2011-09-16T18:47:00.001+12:00

Another fish of this Complete Bullshit Zone.

When scientists bring these to the surface to show us,

they very conveniently explode.

Ignorant Ornithology: the Pelagic Zone

2011-09-15T18:46:00.001+12:00

The Composition of the Ocean.

Complete Bullshit.

Ignorant Ornithology: Zebra Colt.

2011-09-11T19:44:00.001+12:00

Who put this in my bird binder?

Ignorant Ornithology: the Moa.

2011-09-10T19:27:00.000+12:00

Big, heavy and dead.

“Bereft of my binder, I am lost, like a blind man stumbling in fog, in danger of plunging down a crevasse, at the bottom of which are piled the bleached and brittle bones of long dead Elephant Birds and Upland Moas and Kangaroo Island Emus and West Coast Spotted Kiwis and Korean Crested Shelducks and Amsterdam Island Ducks ... [God Almighty] ... and Hooded Seedeaters and Arabian Ostriches and Bering Cackling Geese, so many dead birds, so many bird bones, piled high and white, it is a wonder I could name so many, without the aid of my bird binder. Therein lies the beauty, the dazzling beauty, of actually existing ornithology.” — Frank Key

[By the way, I drew this as carefully as I could, I did not run out of paper at the bottom of the page. Moas really did wear their knees that low. I cannot picture how they walked.]

Ignorant Ornithology XXXII

2011-09-09T19:24:00.000+12:00

Ignorant Ornithology: Mackerel III

2011-09-08T19:23:00.000+12:00

Every other fish in the sea is some kind of mackerel.

They are either very prolific or all that is left.

┌─┘

2011-08-30T14:53:00.000+12:00

★

2011-08-26T16:44:00.001+12:00

→⌂

?↓

A Glorious Person: Christopher Strachey

2011-08-25T16:53:00.001+12:00

“The trouble, I think, is that so many educational processes put a high premium on getting the correct answer the first time. If you give the wrong answer on an examination question, you lose your mark and that is the end of the matter. If you make a mistake in writing your program—or indeed, in many other situations outside a classroom—it is by no means a catastrophe; you do, however, have to find your error and put it right; maybe it would be better if more academic teaching adopted this attitude also.” — Christopher Strachey

Hooting Yard Lost Property: "Zoologically improbable"

2011-08-18T23:02:00.000+12:00

"This object has been temporarily removed as we revise its facial expression, which was deemed zoologically improbable and/or terrifying to small children"

The improbable object was based on a lion ineptly taxidermized for King Frederick I of Sweden, from a pile of bones and field sketches by Frank Key. Steel yourself:

Lion

I Do This For My Health

2011-08-04T17:39:00.000+12:00

An object designed for contemplation.

Hooting Yard Lost Property: Balloonists.

2011-07-30T11:50:00.001+12:00

"Auguste Piccard (right) photographed with Charles Kipfer after a balloon ride into the stratosphere that took them up nearly ten miles up. The height of fashion in 1931 seemed to have been a chapeau patterned after a balloon gondola. The young man with the droopy sock is Professor's Piccard's son, Jacques, who would go on to set the depth record for a descent into the ocean."

[I wish I could tell you more, but this picture is from a photocopied page I found stuck to a wall.]

Ignorant Ornithology: "Found Dog"

2011-07-27T22:34:00.000+12:00

Look!

It brings tears to my eyes. It is a gem of the art!

And it's a fine piece of Reality Intervention.

Ignorant Ornithology: a Fish of the Intermediate Zone

2011-07-16T22:41:00.000+12:00

Ignorant Ornithology XXXI

2011-07-16T22:38:00.000+12:00

Ignorant Ornithology: Chicks of Some Sort

2011-07-07T19:39:00.000+12:00

Ignorant Ornithology: the Pied Stilt

2011-07-07T19:30:00.000+12:00

[I had what I thought was a good scanner setting, now I've lost it. Does anyone know how to scan artwork, or know of a guide to it?]

A Giant Elephant-like Being

2011-07-03T15:21:00.000+12:00

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT.

(BibliOddessy has just posted about the Iconographia Zoologica Collection, which has wonderful, wonderful illustrations of fish, birds and animals of varying grades of dubiety.)

Ignorant Ornithology in Colour

2011-07-02T20:34:00.000+12:00

The Lockdown

Someone coloured it in for me.

Ignorant Ornithology: Bird Facts

2011-06-17T13:38:00.003+12:00

A nest in my mother's barn.

My bird notes, so far:

are animals (Birds ⊆ Animals)
have twigs for legs
live in almost every country on the Earth
can break a man's leg with their wing, you know
the Sacred Ibis plays a vital role in pre-industrial societies
no electrical know-how

An Innocent Pastime: Practicing the Enhanced Wallingford Method.

2011-06-15T16:03:00.021+12:00

[If this is a picture of a bridge then they've
been stuffing around with the cameras again.]

The Wallingford Method is to be performed in an excellent fast food outlet. I go to the Garden Place Cafe. They startled me once with a blueberry muffin full of blueberries. The number of blueberries goes up and down with their sense of prosperity, but they are never stingy and never resort to poking the blueberries onto the top of the muffin. And everything about the Garden Place Cafe is just plain pleasant. So there's the excellence. I can help myself to a pie out of a warmer there, so I may count it as a fast food outlet.

I order one of those blueberry muffins and a flat white.

“Considering that a Sami tribesman standing on the leeward side of a rock, in a blizzard, considers himself ‘comfortable’, find the most comfortable place.” I choose a table, noting which placed am attracted to and repelled from and to and why. Public places do indeed feel like blizzards to me.

I cannot launch straight into the Wallingford Method because of it's origins in Extruding America. I can ruminate for hours over that story of friendship between the perfect talker and the perfect listener, full of obscure information and insights into depression and anxiety. So I use an auto-hypnosis method from a photocopied sheet given me by a sincere psychologist. It is copyrighted, so I could be risking my life revealing this to you:

I focus on five things that I can see, sub-vocalizing their names and counting them off on the fingers of my right hand. I do the same for five things I can hear, and then five things I can feel. Sound is the most interesting. Then I do the same for four of each, dropping the least pleasant ones first and maybe choosing new ones. I begin to look at people. In the back of my mind I'm on the look out for new sights and sounds to focus on, but that's okay, it's mindfullness. I repeat this until I've counted down to one. If I have time left I count the sounds I can hear. There's usually more than ten.

My flat white arrives.

Now it is time for the Wallingford Method. I've assigned meaning to the quietudes:

generally quiet, I stop thinking about things I plan to do;
simply quiet, I stop thinking about things I've done;
really quiet, I stop thinking about things that have been on my mind;
completely quiet, I finish my coffee.

Now I get up and have a stroll. I keep my eyes level with the horizon. I look people in the face if their faces are in front of me. I try to stay aware of my depth perception, of myself as an object in a large three-dimensional space. I measure my success with the Enhanced Wallingford Method by the number of blocks I can walk without casting my eyes down or losing one of the quietudes. I usually get three blocks, half a block on a bad day.

The image above is the live HamilOnline HamilCam. On Thursday the 16th, at 12:00pm (Wednesday the 12th 12:00am, GMT) I'll be under the umbrella with the vague fugitive clouds of roseate vapour curling up from underneath.

❧

[Update Thu 16, 04:50pm: I really, really didn't want to do it this time, which meant it was an ideal time to go do it. The flat white (Drink of Blokes) was better than usual. I got two blocks. The only working HamilCam is showing the Claudelands Showgrounds at the moment; if you were seeing any sort of vapour you should have called the fire brigade.]

Ignorant Ornithology: the Anchovy

2011-06-13T10:59:00.004+12:00

“Anchovies are fished from the Dead Sea by Italians

and are thus an Offense unto God.” — The Tsar

Hooting Yard Lost Property: The Names of the Cones

2011-06-11T18:48:00.003+12:00

Interrupted Cone,
Ladder Cone,
Alphabet Cone,
Nobility Cone,
Lucid Cone,
Zoned Cone,
Glory-of-the-Seas.

[I need to add that these are real names of real cones, that I read in a book about ~~birds~~ fish.]

Ignorant Ornithology: Mackerel II

2011-06-10T18:44:00.000+12:00

The permit mackerel. See also lockdown.

A Sudden Enthusiasm: Space Pirates!

2011-06-07T20:49:00.008+12:00

They've been on my mind because the Drabblecast broadcast* a Lewis Carrol / H.P. Lovecraft themed space pirate story last month, which I've only just listened to. It's great! Boojum by Elizabeth bear and Sarah Monette: Part 1, Part 2.

* Is that what podcasts do?

A Sudden Enthusiasm: Space Pirates

2011-06-04T22:21:00.002+12:00

Hate the Future: “PLANET RINGED BY HUMAN BONES

Possibly not safe
We’ll get a closer look at the bones to make sure”

It's bloody obvious how those got there:

[A cover illustration by Kelly Freas for Analog Magazine.]

Ignorant Ornithology: The Sacred Ibis

2011-06-04T19:10:00.000+12:00

In Egypt they are venerated, in Australia they sort through rubbish tips and loiter around zoos waiting for tourists to mistake them for free-roaming exhibits.

Least favorite bird so far.

Ignorant Ornithology: Basic Bird Facts.

2011-06-03T18:59:00.000+12:00

Slowly I'm learning.

Ignorant Ornithology: a Duckling

2011-06-02T17:57:00.005+12:00

“I only eat fish.
And duck.
Well, they're nearly fish aren't they?”
— Bill Bailey

Ignorant Ornithology XXVI

2011-05-19T18:14:00.001+12:00

Hooting Yard Lost Property: Ostriches terrified into impotence by passing blimp.

2011-05-18T16:49:00.007+12:00

The terror blimp.

“... Plaintiff's further allege that the [loud noise and frightening appearance of the blimp's] fly-over so scared the [ostriches] that they ceased exhibiting the amorous behavior associated with the onset of the breeding season. The males did not puff themselves up and strut around the pens, announcing their romantic intentions; the hens did not extend their wings and drop, fluttering, to the ground, as they had only one day before the fly-over. Plaintiffs allege that the birds' apparent lack of interest in procreation for the remainder of the 1992 breeding season was caused by their unnerving experience with the airship. In 1993, however, the birds' courtship resumed...” — U.S. District Judge Terry R. Mean

Ignorant Ornithology XXIII

2011-05-16T20:26:00.003+12:00

Tekeli-li, tekeli-li.

Ignorant Ornithology XXII

2011-05-12T18:47:00.001+12:00

Ignorant Ornithology XXI

2011-05-07T18:10:00.000+12:00

The Hepatitide's Ibis

Ignorant Ornithology XX

2011-05-06T18:00:00.000+12:00

The Crested Curassow: Nature's Teddy Boy

The May Cure

2011-05-05T17:38:00.003+12:00

I've discovered the Open Sesame of press release and/or alternative medical reporting! There's not a dud among these:

http://www.google.com/search?q="may+cure"

Don't waste time either listening to or scoffing what scientists say, take the month off to seek this perpetually potential panacea!

Ignorant Ornithology: the Pelican

2011-04-30T14:04:00.001+12:00

They can break a man's leg with their wing, you know.

Ignorant Ornithology on the Beach

2011-04-09T12:09:00.002+12:00

Now you know the sign that wards off evil pelicans.

An Innocent Pastime: The Wallingford Method.

2011-04-01T14:14:00.020+13:00

Om.

Extruding America is a wonderful mock-podcast, a story of the friendship of Gerard Armbruster, avuncular, washed-up radio host and rapid-fire active listener, and Stetson Tudd, Gerard's mercurial polymath correspondent, a man with a lot to say, but able to project at least half-a-dozen forms of significant silence. I recommend listening to the whole lot front-to-back until there is room for nothing else in your life, but the Wallingford Chronicles story [parts 16 , 17, 18] is a fine place to jump in. In the Wallingford Chronicles Gerard and Stetson meet face-to-face for the first time and practice Sven Lindrom's Wallingford Method, "meditation for the busy American".

The Wallingford Method, as I understand it:

Considering that a Sami tribesman standing on the leeward side of a rock, in a blizzard, considers himself "comfortable", find your most comfortable place.
become generally quiet;
become simply quiet;
become really quiet;
finally become completely quiet, or silent.

Although it is not stated, there is a strong implication that the Wallingford Method is to be performed with a friend in a restaurant that serves excellent fast food.

How is being quiet on your own different from the Wallingford Method? Because there is a good chance that you will not have chosen the most comfortable place. And what are all these quietudes? That's never explained, but as Stetson Tudd says, "It's the Wallingford Method, you ought to figure it out on your own."

Doctor Sven Lindrom recommends Bob Merton's Book of Aphorisms to practitioners, because, despite Bob Merton's charlatanism (Bob is not the love-child of Thomas Merton, for example), it contains many kernels of truth.

Selections from Bob Merton's Book of Aphorisms:

If the shovel's in the tool shed the spoon is in the drawer;
You must deal with adversity because time marches on;
You only think about electricity when the power goes out.

Bob Merton on running a business:

When the register rings, money flows;
A customer not noticed is a lost sale;
Customers pay if they get their way, the corollary to this is make them think they got their way!

Bob Merton on owning a pet:

Remember who's boss;
Four legs or two, they're waiting for you!;
If something's alive in your house, other than yourself or other people, take a moment upon wakening to any sound before doing anything. The sound may be caused by yourself, a family member or a pet. If you own a gun keep it locked in a safe or, at the more dangerous extreme, at least keep the safety on. Usually the last thing you want to do is kill a pet or family member. This I know from experience.

There. Now, why am I bothering you about this? It works, it works very well. The only time I've achieved greater mindfulness was in a moment between falling off my bicycle and hitting the ground.

Ignorant Ornithology XIX

2011-03-30T17:06:00.000+13:00

The xix.

Ignorant Ornithology XVIII

2011-03-28T17:03:00.000+13:00

A gannet. I know that much.

[I think I'm starting to see the sense in using art paper.]

Hooting Yard Lost Property: Giant Imaginary Airships

2011-03-27T17:06:00.001+13:00

The Giant Imaginary Airships that Bring Our Weather.

Ignorant Ornithology: Mackerel I

2011-03-26T16:51:00.002+13:00

According to my notes this fish is called a lockdown.

[ I've been trying to draw these in less that five minutes, on photocopier paper. The idea behind it is that I won't get snarled up over details or worries about the expense of the paper.]

Hooting Yard Lost Property: the Scandanavian Menace

2011-03-25T16:58:00.004+13:00

(Coming up next: The Giant Imaginary Airships that Bring Our Weather.)

The Blue Spring

2011-03-24T11:13:00.003+13:00

I've signed up for volunteer work and a I got an email asking me to help build a track around this:
"...the upper reaches of the Waihou River, where the water is crystal clear and pure, and has a 'got-to-be-seen-to-be-believed' blue colour. The Blue Spring is internationally acclaimed, with the ground water from the Mamaku Plateau taking over 100 years to re-emerge in the spring."

But I know from experience that anything that involves tramping then log lifting is not for me. Weeding gardens is more my speed, so I'm doing that instead.

Ignorant Ornithology XVI

2011-03-23T15:43:00.002+13:00

Om nom nom.

Ignorant Ornithology: Walrii

2011-03-20T19:59:00.003+13:00

O. rosmarus divergens

A Sudden Enthusiasm: Music

2011-03-19T18:14:00.002+13:00

Mspaintadventures has been keeping me sane for years, so I did this supportive thing where my credit card goes in one end and MP3s come out the other. It felt good, it felt like this:

Ignorant Ornithology XIV

2011-03-15T21:32:00.001+13:00

An Innocent Pastime: Bird Huddle

2011-03-15T20:10:00.001+13:00

BIRD HUDDLE.

Ignorant Ornithology XIV

2011-03-14T21:34:00.001+13:00

An Innocent Pastime: Cardboard Reality Intervention

2011-03-14T17:00:00.005+13:00

The thought that's been most on my mind recently has been "this is complete bullshit." So I'm trying my hand at Cardboard Reality Intervention.

Looks like a good spot.

There, intervened.

Ignorant Ornithology XIII

2011-03-13T21:29:00.001+13:00

Ignorant Ornithology: a Shag

2011-03-12T21:36:00.000+13:00

These are my favorite bird, I have one now. There's colony of Little Shags in the local duck ponds. They eat the carp, sunbathe and practice synchronized swimming. They don't trust anyone, but when they swim away underwater they breathe out bubbles halfway to where they plan to come up.

Ignorant Ornithology: A Gannet is Commencing to Dive

2011-03-11T21:26:00.000+13:00

Ignorant Ornithology XI

2011-03-10T21:25:00.003+13:00

Snarley Bob, Son of the Grunty Man.

2011-03-10T20:19:00.000+13:00

“Farmer Perryman was rich, and it was Snarley Bob who had made him so. Now Snarley was a cunning breeder of sheep. For three-hundred-and-forty years he had applied his intuitions and his patience to the task of producing rams and ewes such as the world had never seen. His system of ‘observation and experiment’ was peculiarly his own; it is written down in no book, but stands recorded on barn-doors, on gate-posts, on hurdles, and on the walls of a wheeled box which was Snarley's main residence during the spring months of the year. It is a literature of notches and lines—cross, parallel, perpendicular, and horizontal—of which the chief merit in Snarley's eyes was that nobody could understand it save himself. But it was enough to give his faculties all the aid they required. By such simple means he succeeded long ago in laying the practical basis of a life's work, evolving a highly complicated system controlled by a single principle, and yet capable of manifold application. The Perryman flock, now famous among sheep-breeders all over the world, was the result.”
—L. P. Jacks, Mad Shepherds and Other Human Studies

[I was extremely excited by this passage the first time around, but my mind had added a word. It wasn't the same when I re-read it carefully. But you won't have to share that disappointment, because I snuck that word back in for you. See this also.]

What you learn from living around here.

2011-03-09T16:36:00.002+13:00

With enough ducks anything becomes a duckpond.

Hooting Yard Lost Property: my new favorite newspaper clippings

2011-03-08T19:58:00.004+13:00

I found these pictures on my fish-and-chip wrapping. I have no idea what is going on in them.

Ignorant Ornithology IX

2011-03-05T19:56:00.000+13:00

Here is an interesting fact:
Did you know that the whale is not really a fish?
It is an insect.
— Peter Cook

Advanced Punctuation

2011-03-04T13:10:00.006+13:00

I've been exploring my computer's Unicode Character Map application, I've found a Wonderland of obscure symbols and advanced punctuation:

The diple periestigmene is used to mark dubious passages in the Bible; it should never have fallen out of use.

The editorial coronis is the most majestic and demanding of punctuation symbols; not for people who make haphazard stabs with the semicolon.*

Ideogram B240 is evidence that the ancients discovered the Dymaxion car four-thousand years before Buckminster Fuller.

But I doubt the authenticity of Unicode glyph U+1203B. It has Frank Key's footprints all over it: "Ash over ash. Tug over tug, tug over tug. Pap."

☙

* Americans: if your computer cannot display the editorial coronis then its manufacturer is preventing you from correctly filing the UCC Forms that would make you a Sovereign Citizen and allow you to reclaim your Strawman Account. Complain to your Congressman.

Ignorant Ornithology: the Shag

2011-03-03T19:50:00.002+13:00

The common shag sports Nature's Bouffant.

A Sudden Enthusiasm: Zot Ball

2011-02-26T11:15:00.012+13:00

I've just got the flier for Hamilton's Summer in Garden Place festivities and, God, I'm excited. For example, there's this:

Sat 5 March 10am-2pm STAGE DAY
Watch Zot Ball athletes, buy potions from crazy doctors, enjoy Garden Place!

Zot Ball! I've spent 30 seconds on Google looking up Zot Ball, and I feel I've learnt all an earnest blogger needs to know:

Google I Feel Lucky. Zot Ball players discuss their sporting equipment:

i am having a problem with my zot ball triggering system ET 2001 on my amf 82-70's w/ frameworxless scoring. the problem is when i have a out of range and you reverse the sweep the sweep will not stop at 0 degrees like it should it runs back down and clears the pins until it stops at about the 4-5-6 pin line, then after a few seconds the sweep runs back to 270 degrees and table spots 10 pins and everythings back to norm. funny thing is when i unplug the zot system this problem goes away. any ideas what is wrong ? why this is doing this ?

(That makes my eyes glaze over, but I can take along my FM radio and listen to the Zot Ball commentators.)

Google Images. This here must be a famous Zot Ball athlete, she's all over the Web:

So this would be her in her Zot Ball uniform on the Zot Ball court:

(What is that? Lycra? Teflon?)

If I can't fight my way through the cheering Zot Ball crowds on the day, I'll retreat and watch the match on the HamiltOnline HamilCams:

Camera 1.

Camera 2.

Camera 3.

I hope this isn't going to be another big letdown.*

* It was wet, so I didn't go.

Ignorant Ornithology VII

2011-02-24T19:10:00.001+13:00

Phlogiston Variations CD Cover

2011-02-19T23:16:00.005+13:00

“Unwrapping the cellophane from this handsome boxed set took me the best part of an hour. Such was my excitement that the word ‘butterfingers’ might have been coined for me, and it was only by dint of a pair of extremely sharp scissors that I eventually succeeded. That was not the end of my troubles, for I had the devil of a job to discard the shredded wrapper into my wastepaper basket; gleaming strands of cellophane stuck resolutely to my fingers, however desperately I flapped my arms around like a conjurer casting a peculiarly inept spell. Is this relevant? Well, yes, I think it is. The tactile struggle to extricate the box from its packaging was nothing compared to the auditory struggle I then underwent, listening, at one sitting, to the nine hours and forty-seven minutes of the quite majestic Phlogiston Variations.”

☙

[The rest of the story is in Frank Key's book We Were Puny, They Were Vapid]

Ignorant Ornithology

2011-02-18T13:32:00.005+13:00

Pointy birds,

pointy, pointy,
anoint my head,
anointy nointy.
— Steve Martin

More Ignorant Ornithology

2011-02-11T17:53:00.002+13:00

I do not know what this is.

But I do know what this is now! It is the Sacred Ibis. They are venerated by Egyptians and make their nest in the baobab tree.

I Do This For My Health: Yet Another Fish

2011-02-07T21:06:00.002+13:00

Nom.

I Do This For My Health: Another Fish

2011-02-03T18:00:00.003+13:00

Herp derp derp.

I Do This For My Health: Fish

2011-01-31T22:13:00.000+13:00

These are delicious after you pick out the tens of thousands of tiny, needle sharp bones.

Podcasts

2011-01-30T21:10:00.003+13:00

I've just added Google Bundles for the podcasts I listen to, they are the lists at the bottom of the right column on this blog. I don't know if it was worth doing, I didn't know about "Bundles" until I pushed the wrong button on Google Reader this evening, and I've been using Google Reader for years. The podcasts marked "♥" are ones I love and never miss, the podcasts marked "☢" are podcasts to listen to with some trepidation. About half of them are broadcast very infrequently, so the lists aren't as big as they look. (But, no, I still don't manage to listen to them all in a week.)

I Do This For My Health: Coelacanth

2011-01-27T19:18:00.012+13:00

My new plaster coelacanth, floating disconcertingly in my living room. He is held in place by his powerful bomba.

The colour and body shape are realistic, although there seems to be a lot of natural variation, and great variation in the way they are depicted. I went for the cheeriest colour. Those muscular fins allow the coelacanth to swim backwards, sideways or upside-down.

Its face isn't quite anatomically correct, I used it as another excuse to feed my googly eye addiction.

My mother volunteered to finish its paint job with some sort of painters' texture paste. It took her one-and-a-half years of brief guilt-trips to apply all those little scales. I think it was worth the wait.

The Comoros Islands National Coelacanth Park. I can picture Dobson on holiday here, kicking a stone down the beach.

An Innocent Pastime: Droving

2011-01-27T15:48:00.003+13:00

I saw this happening just a few blocks away, at the edge of town:

(The lush, green look is a camera artifact - it was blinding, boiling hot out there.)

Hooting Yard Lost Property: The Ruins of Detroit

2011-01-03T13:53:00.003+13:00

The Bodger's Spinney Variety Theatre

"Walk with me down memory lane as we recall some of the enticing acts who appeared at the Bodger's Spinney Variety Theatre during its golden age ...."

☙

[Photo from Detroit in Ruins at How to be a Retronaut.]

"What a Scoop!"

2011-01-02T14:43:00.004+13:00

This is the funniest editorial cartoon of the century,
but it will never find its way into a newspaper.

[From Andrew Hussie's web comic archive.
For God's sake, don't look at the "Humanimals" while you are eating.]

Yet More Ignorant Ornithology

2010-12-23T23:19:00.004+13:00

Bird 8.

Bird 9.

A Temperance Drink

2010-12-14T19:50:00.002+13:00

This has a prized place in the Tsar's kitchen cupboard. Needless to say he found it in a supermarket bargain bin. It's probably sarsaparilla (an olde-tymey drink for washing down your succotash.)

More Ignorant Ornithology

2010-12-12T10:50:00.001+13:00

More ignorant ornithology. These are quick sketches of birds that I drew on photocopier paper, confronted with a 50-cent sheet of high quality sketching paper I'm paralyzed by the idea that I might waste money.

I don't know what most of them are. A name that bird competition is open to anybody who is still aware this blog is here, and Hooting Yard listeners. No pressure — this stuff is hard.

Bird 1.

Bird 2.

The bufflehead. Everybody knows this.

Bird 3.

The swanndri owl.

Bird 4.

Bird 5.

Bird 6.

Bird 7.

Hooting Yard Lost Property: Deep-Sea Euphophonists

2010-12-10T18:57:00.005+13:00

Deep sea euphophonists drain their euphoniums.
1955 Festival Of Argumentative Music At Ülm

All Too Real: M.C. Escher's 'Print Gallery'

2010-07-14T20:14:00.006+12:00

Look at this:

Now look at this bridge (you might need to zoom out one step):

View Larger Map

So, if you want to visit the site of M.C. Escher's Print Gallery, 1956, you now know where to go .

[Map thanks to Google Sightseeing, who also broke the news on the Horrid Three -Leggèd Man of Hewes.]

Hooting Yard Lost Property: More Ignorant Ornithology

2010-06-29T12:11:00.001+12:00

I do not know what is happening here.

I do not know what this is.

Build-a-Home & Subdivision Set

2010-06-27T11:55:00.004+12:00

"Construct subdivisions of as many as six houses at a time." They were handing these out to the bright children of 1962. Suddenly New Zealand's 21st Century real estate market makes sense to me.

"...as things stand at the moment if you’re not a real estate agent, then you’re probably being a fool to yourself and a burden to others." — Fred Dagg

[I saw this in Dark Roasted Blend.]

Hooting Yard Lost Property: a Blodgettesque Farmyard Scene

2010-06-09T13:50:00.003+12:00

Don't forget to shut the gate / On the forty-third of spate

An Innocent Pastime: a day on the beach with Kraftwerk

2010-06-04T19:37:00.002+12:00

Semi-formal attire.

An Innocent Pastime: A meeting of the Xul Solar Fun Club

2010-06-01T17:37:00.002+12:00

(Well, okay - it's a drawing by Don Kenn. His art is immediately comparable to that of Edward Gorey, Maurice Sendak and Tove Jansson, but I think favorably so: unique and right up there with them.)