The Blogger comment form

Google has tinkered, unannounced, with the settings for the Blogger comment form. Thanks, Google. Your choices as a Blogger blogger:

~ With “Full page,” it’s impossible to see a post while commenting without switching between tabs.

~ With “Embedded,” comments look (to my eye) godawful. The line spacing is too tight (and, as far as I can tell, cannot be altered), text is awkwardly justified, and clicking on a Comments link takes the reader to the bottom of the comment form. Dumb. “Embedded” does have the advantage of allowing a comment to nest as a reply to a previous comment. But that detail doesn’t offset (for me) the ugliness.

~ “Popup window” provides decent readability and keeps the post in view. That’s what I’ve chosen for Orange Crate Art. [And as I discovered after writing this post, “Popup window,” too, allows a comment to nest as a reply to a previous comment.]

In all three formats, the option to preview a comment before posting is gone. Proofread carfully!

Why not comment today and take “Popup window” for a spin? Watch that window pop.

[“Proofread carfully”: in my teaching days, something I liked to include on pages going out with essay assignments.]

Domestic comedy

“His /ant/ or /ahnt/ was there — I’m not sure which.”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

A transcription tip

If you’re watching TV and want to get down what someone is saying, you can, of course, rewind, pull out a phone, record, and hit play, pause, play, pause as you transcribe. But with a small stretch of text, there’s an easier way. Just write down the first letter of each word:

o b o e w s c o b w i t g n o e i a y n f p o t u s

Which you can then expand into:

“On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on earth, I accept your nomination for President of the United States.”

And then you can still rewind to check that you have it right.

Actual NYT opinion column

[The New York Times, August 26, 2024.]

It’s by Rich Lowry, editor of National Review.

And what does that photograph signify about the DNC? That it was entertainment? Or garbage? If I hadn’t unsubscribed from the Times last Wednesday, I think I’d be unsubscribing today.

Recently updated

A lost Clipper Now with 1950s film footage of the strangely shallow building on Doyers Street.

Curb your introductions

Larry David is widely credited as having introduced Cheryl Hines and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

[Scene: An upscale restaurant. Wanda Sykes appears in the distance, walks toward Larry David. ]

Sykes: Larry David, you should be ashamed of yourself.

David: What? What did I do?

Sykes: Don’t act like you don’t know what you did. Why’d you go and introduce that little girl to that anti-vax worm-eaten bear-pranking whale-beheading no-account plug-ugly drug-addict conspiracy-ass Trump-flunkie?

David: Because it seemed like a good idea at the time?

Sykes: A good idea? That’s your idea of a good idea, Larry? Shame on you, Larry David.

[She begins to walk away. ]

David: [With stentorian patriotic fervor. ] But he’s a Kennedy! He’s a Kennedy!

[Cue “Amusement.” ]

Related reading
All OCA Larry David posts (Pinboard)

Clickbait

Why does macOS dictation capitalize clickbait?

Allow me to dictate and demonstrate:

I am baffled by the way macOS dictation capitalizes Clickbait.

More fun Dictation failures
“The nut free version” : “I mode the front lawn” : “Wrath scholar” : Spelling Glenmorangie : “F--k music” : “A concluding truck for belated pubs” : Edifice and Courson Blatz : Eight ways to spell Derrida : Nine ways to spell boogie-woogie : Stop and chat = Stop & Shop

[I italicized Clickbait by hand.]

A lost Clipper

[Doyers Street, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

This morning we find ourselves in Chinatown, right off the Bowery. Doyers Street has a substantial history. Here’s some more. And still more. I chose this photograph because of the strangely shallow building to the left, looking almost like a facade from a movie set. And then I noticed the sign to the right, at no. 3.

[“Real Chinese Dishes.” Click for a larger view.]

The China Clipper Restaurant has some history of its own. It was one of three restaurants owned by Wah Sun Choy, or Watson Choy, a restaurateur fascinated by aviation — more specifically, by the seaplanes or “flying boats” built in 1935 and 1936 for Pan American Airways: the China Clipper, Philippine Clipper, and Hawaii Clipper, first used for transpacific airmail service from San Francisco to Manila. Choy’s other restaurants were in Jersey City: a second China Clipper (menu included!) and the Plaza Tea Garden. It seems that the design of the Jersey City Clipper was meant to give patrons the feeling that they were aboard an airplane.

In 1938, Choy embarked on a flight from Alameda, California, headed for Honolulu, the Midway Islands, Wake Island, Guam, and Manila. Choy was — allegedly — carrying $3M in U.S. gold certificates, raised by his own efforts, to be delivered to Chiang Kai-Shek to aid China in the Second Sino-Japanese War. His plane, the Hawaii Clipper, disappeared on July 29, 1938, en route from Guam to the Philippines. No trace of the plane, its six passengers, or nine crew members was recovered. But the considerable speculation about what happened lies beyond the borders of a tax photograph.

“Distinguished Men on Board Clipper.” The New York Times, July 30, 1938.

*

A reader found a bit of film from the 1950s in which the strangely shallow building is visible, with a 7 Up advertisement on its side. Thanks, reader.

Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard) : More about the flying boats : More memorabilia from Wah Sun Choy’s restaurants

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Stella Zawistowski, is another Stumper that I thought would have me beat. I started late Friday afternoon and had the puzzle less than half done when we went to our favorite (Thai) restaurant for dinner. We were lucky that we arrived shortly before a table of fourteen did. When I went back to the puzzle after dinner, the rest of the it fell into place. Thank you, pad woon sen and panang curry, both “spicy number three.” The scale goes from zero to five.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

5-D, six letters, “Phone battery saver.” Never heard of it.

6-D, eleven letters, “Unoriginal writing.” That’s pretty strained. I know, it’s a Stumper. But it’s pretty strained.

17-A, ten letters, “Circular skill.” Just one example of this puzzle’s obliqueness.

24-D, eleven letters, “Early target for Edison electrification.” Makes sense.

25-A, thirteen letters, “They act as a pair.” So not obvious, at least to me, and so clever.

25-D, four letters, “Transparent flute feature.” Nicely defamiliarizing.

30-A, five letters, “Ring figures.” ZEROS? Is that the plural of zero?

32-D, four letters, “European cardinal that sounds sapped.” I thought it had to be some four-letter bird.

38-D, four letters, “Hog’s grunt.” Ha!

39-A, five letters, “Word from the Hebrew for ‘one who understands.’” Surprised that this is what the word means. I thought it referred to would-bes.

40-A, thirteen letters, “Acquisitional power.” Lordy.

45-A, four letters, “Story starter.” My first guess was ONCE.

50-D, four letters, “Minor diamond.” I was thinking of baseball, or trying to.

My favorite in this puzzle: 11-D, ten letters, “Capital an hour’s drive from Vienna.” Because I knew the answer (thanks to music) and because the answer opened up a whole bunch of puzzle.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Pocket notebook sighting

Aleksandr Ivanovich Luzhin (John Turturro) uses a tiny datebook as a notebook to record chess games (or, at least, lines of play). Notice the partial cigarette saved between pages. From The Luzhin Defense (dir. Marleen Gorris, 2000).

[ Click any image for a larger view.]

Related reading
All OCA pocket notbook sightings (Pinboard)