problem blogging... mcb keeps the essential question going which she often explores graphically with the questioning ant (why blog) and links to this post. Indeed, the curse of blogtime is something that Boynton is learning to deal with. If one goes down this track: " a committed infovore, I need to eat roughly six times my weight in information every day or my brain starts to starve and atrophy"...the monster of blogtime starts to consume not only book time but other recreational pursuits.
(Of course sites like boing boing raise the bar enough to motivate infovores anon.) Procrastinations observes the time gap involved in all this global reading . Meanwhile we might wonder who has time to follow all the links on the hundreds of sites in an ever-expanding blogrolling... blogosphere . One has to be increasingly discerning or perhaps totally random to cope.

More verse...The Presurfer posted a great poetry site. Boynton had a ramble around the links and found this site . Among many good things there are a couple of wonderful flash poems The Braille of Rain and Jellyfish Child. When it's done this well, poetry and the web seem made for each other: a screenful of substance that preserves (enhances?) the one-on-one relationship of reader and text. This is often lacking in formal readings according to this New York Times article (via aldaily) which claims that the poet's own rendering can interfere with what you hear in your head, that infinitely nuanced thing Wallace Stevens called ''the poem of the mind,'' audible only in ''the delicatest ear of the mind.'' .
and lo, a whole antholgy of random poem generator machinery is embedded into a poem at bluejoh

Writerly... Some how to articles of the practical/earnest variety(via Microcontent) for journos but applicable to other forms. On loneliness, narrative thinking, and good tips (carry 2 notebooks).
Boynton has often baulked at the "how to's" but she endorses this
and for a good automated poem go here and click on the "o" in "work". (of course everything else there is worth looking at too)

Boynton got $lugged bad for data overkill during November which may cause a slight rethink. Rethinking the linking anyway – and the costs of sourcing. Just when she stumbled upon an inspiring example of a kind of found hypertext. (There was an earlier example of this imaginative form at bluejoh)

When we saw this (via The Presurfer) Boynton thought of a scene in the novel Hide and Seek by Dennis Potter:
Aged seven, he had examined the bottle of Camp Coffee on the kitchen table, mentally trying to hold a label against a label, his small white face trying too hard to understand etermity…
Words almost out of control, the boy was delving down into the scarcely discernible third and indecipherable fourth layer before his mother picked up the remaining cup and saucer and clanked them together in the washing-up bowl...

The scene builds until “Trapped in halls of mirror, tunnels of word he started to scream. His screaming continued until she hit him in panic" And we remembered the famous Droste effect

‘It goes on and on,’ Daniel raised his voice trying to call her back.’It goes on and on for ever and ever and ever’
“It’s only a bloody picture!’

More on Droste and Escher here

When Mnemonics fail... Boynton received an email from one of the trivia conquering theatrebods who claimed his only contribution had been
"to recite the school chemistry mnemonic "Hey Hello Little Bertie Brown Counting Nuts On Friday" in an attempt at determining the tenth element of the Periodic Table. Needless to say the mnemonic was deficient by one. My position as science consultant was ruined!"
While we don't believe this for a second, Boynton has been there, stumbling over fragments of Lear-like couplets, racing to recall these displaced sub-sub literary scraps. Perhaps the trouble was that our "mnemonic enhancers become too complex or unwieldy - maybe after using three or four enhancers together you find that the system breaks down"... A google trawl revealed a few good general sites, the student specialist (ribald) type, an intriguing nautical page and famous mnemonists. This medical emergency page is rather scary: especially the one for Osmolar Gaps "Me Die" - or suicide risk factors "Sad persons". The need for medical mnemonics seems to be particularly pressing, but now you can download them into a (sweaty) Palm pilot. Which is another take on the whole memory machine. When we put "anti-mnemonics" into Google (as you do) we got this interesting tangent, with Coleridge's obeservations on the distractions of periodicals, and the implications of the digital data overload out there

Don't go there Avril Boynton has to fess up to absent friend (is that ex friend) that she weakened and watched the last 2 minutes of 24 (thanks to Max). So definitely don't go here (the best plot summary of this strange show)...or here (a related interview with 'Bride')...Boynton shares a few concerns aired in forums about the anti-woman-ness of it all now, but how seriously can you take a show that lapses into temporary amnesia etc anyway?... And Avril - the big "last 2 minutes" party is still going to happen. We have the tape.

" if you have animals, a carpeted room is basically a Petri dish" says Dave Trowbridge talking about how to cope with the great divide of home beautiful and shedding perpetual (or with moulting labs anyway). Boynton has worn black for 13 years now to disguise Doug's coat floating about clothes and cars and couches. Luckily it's the Melbourne thing. And at least he's black and not a "yellow" fellow. White hair is a nightmare...
Anyway Boynton has always subscribed to that recently endorsed theory that too much hygeine can stuff you up, and that a dog's affectionate slobber is a tonic.
On matters canine Textism had a nice post, only one of Boynton's charges is guilty of this behaviour, (and it's not the noble lab but the shameless Jack Russell)

Election day in Victoria. Hope the candidates have been put through their paces, done the hard yards and are ready for the verdict. And then of course there's the aftermath
(Images from a fabulous catalogue of burlesque stunts and paraphenalia for freemasons. via boing boing)

whoops we forgot it was buy nothing day. (via mcb) Does buying a couple of books and a jacket from the op shop count? I hope being ( a constant) part of the "recycling" loop is jamming enough? Anyway- it's dollar day. Nothing can keep Boynton away...
More retro delight. Hostesses at Expo 67(via Portage)

2 links for 2 friends
Nora this one's got your name written on it (via Lindsay Marshall)


A friend whose name shall be Max
Likes his facts
I hope whenever he’s next logged on
He’ll see I’ve thrown in a bit about Ogden
(We were recently talking round the time-line of that popular poet
Only we didn’t know it)

When worlds collide... Boynton was anonymously enjoying a quaff and another game of trivia when she noticed an adjacent table-full of writerly theatrebods (who won by one!) Methinks it was the fizz and not the old dramaturg talking when she proclaimed:"blogs are the future"... but anyway guys, here's the chess article that I mentioned. (via aldaily)

Some time ago Boynton spent hours (in surftime) trying to track down an image of a retro supermarket, with a rocket, of the kind she grew up with in outer suburban Melbourne. Now she's not only got the whole site devoted to supermarket history (via Pop Culture Junk mail), but belatedly discovered the terminology for the architecture and ethos. Until today we thought Googie was an actress with an Australian husband. Now we see it's the post-war style that Boynton has always had a thing for. When she was a child it was the old Sunseeker motel sign on Phillip Island that seemed to be the epitome of exotic holiday. She heard BarryHumphries on 774 on Tuesday saying that to remember landmarks past is not to mourn, but simply (and importantly) to "note". Applied nostalgia. Boynton wishes she lived in LA so she could visit this B&B, drink cocktails, listen to Sergio and play Stockmarket! Memo to colleagues: see my old business idea for a "retro caravan park" was not so dumb afterall! Boynton used to share this dream over dinner with actors who talked up worm-farms, and was always greeted with a glazed, bemused silence.

Boynton was walking with her four year old nephew around the Botanic gardens this morning. Last time he wanted every sign read out in full, with the Latin, and no fobbed off paraphrasing. This time he wanted to monitor the vistor map, and our relative place on it. This was easier to fake. The signs told us we were heading for the Separation Tree. Try explaining that colonial concept to a 4 year old. "It's a special tree" Boynton suggested limply, as we reached the sign. "It says congratulations!" he announced. As she laughed, Boynton wondered how many couples have been married in the vicinity of this old gum.

No actually not an ex of Boynton's, just the Xmas bloke. (Ho ho ho. via Plep) A nice blast of christmas past and it's not even December yet. Boynton noticed the bon-bons blossoming in Safeway around Cup Day! While that's of course customary, the Salvos had their tree up in the local op shop a day or so earlier. You kind of think they'd know their dates. We sang Silent night very quietly last Tuesday at niece's school, the teacher apologising for premature carolling. The stretching of the consumer fest seems to create an un-season. Here's a sort of virtual Chris Chringle going (bah humbug) In this spirit, Boynton has already chosen suitable gifts for her personal wish-list cart.

On blogs. (a fully-closed media ecosystem. An "engine of addiction". John Hiler) Good report on recent Yale conference on blogging. More threads at Public Opinion.. And Deckchairs on The Titanic points to an article on finding blogs.

Update: How's this for nice little Hardy twist. Bomb out of pub "puzzle 'n guzzle" and miss the last five minutes of 24...tape ran out...we're staying tuned...marooned...

Tough call. Whether to stay in and watch final 24 in real time, or contest pub trivia in beer time? If the latter prevails, Boynton's team should be studying the periodic table. A whole cafeteria/nest/antique showroom (of tables) is on offer here. (via The Presurfer) Among Boynton's faves - poetry and haiku versions

Yesterday whilst searching for Thomas Hardy stumbled upon this site. Que? Why does the animated gif of a campfire seem not quite conducive to some casual literary chat? Would a Wessex style background with some rustic furnishings help? Boynton was going to compose an appropriate Hardyesque post, all unhappy fate and undelivered messages, when she happened upon a genuine posting of this type.

Douglas didn't want to get up today. Just couldn't see the point. Didn't remember breakfast until he could see it. We've both got to work on our respective mind-sets. He's got to do more word games and puzzles, and Boynton's got to attend to her fatalism. Came across an article on Hardy's brand of fate by chance. The journal is Brick edited by Michael Ondaatje and Linda Spalding. Also here was a good article on digital poetry. Boynton had been reading one of her favourite Ondaatje poems last night, found it was on the web (but one should of course buy the book. )