Dog's Balls and Elizabethan Collars

We're not quite sure what make of dog Chowderhead is. Obviously he's got a lot of Chow in him. But he also must have inherited the retriever gene. He seems to really enjoy running after thrown balls and bringing them back after slobbering on them. He produces lots of slobber.

Here's a filmstrip of Chowderhead and his ball in our backyard. The pictures enlarge if you click on them. Especially the last one with his purple tongue and dirty ball.


You'll notice Chowderhead is wearing a fetching plastic collar. This is to prevent him from trying to lick his balls and I don't mean his rubber ones.

Of course if he didn't have the collar he couldn't lick them anyway - because they've been removed by our vet. The operation is called an orchidectomy and the collar is called an Elizabethan Collar (not a "lampshade collar" as I might have guessed.) I suppose it reminds people of the collars worn by people when an Elizabeth was Queen of England. Like this woman, who would have called it a "Ruff" (which is what Chowderhead calls it.)


Poor Chowderhead. I felt his pain. Well. I imagined the pain he would have felt if he had the slightest notion of what had happened to him.

Strangely I couldn't find a single woman who would agree with me when I expressed my empathy for Chowderhead's loss. Men and women seem to view the issue differently.

This man started a successful business (and won a prize) by allowing male dogs to keep up appearances. I bet a huge percentage of his clients' owners are male and most of the Ignoble judges are not.

Anyway, the last picture is of Chowderhead's little head -- which we aren't likely to be seeing quite as often in the future. (This was taken in his indoor cage. You can click to ... oh forget it.)


Want to see more penis shots? Here's the website of the Phallological Museum in Iceland. (Just go straight to the Images section.) Here's a link to a tourist's photo of some specimens from that museum. (Leslie sent this to me.)

Read previous Mixed Meters mentions of the word penis here (several have a little bit to do with music.) Here's a post entitled Gender Marketing (it's about driveways.)

Here's a good page for pictures of Elizabethan ruffs.

And here are pictures of contemporary Elizabethan ruffs by artist Jesse Mathes

The Neuticles website.

The picture of Countess Frances Howard, born 1590 who managed to divorce her husband on the basis of his impotence, comes from Sex in Elizabethan England by Alan Haynes

Ball Tags: Chowderhead. . . rubber balls. . . testicles. . . neutering. . . Elizabethan collar. . . Elizabethan ruff. . . neuticles. . . penis

The New Point and Shoot In My Pocket

In Autumn 2002 I purchased my first digital camera - A Canon PowerShot S200 Digital Elph. (Elph?) I bought it before a trip to New York City to hear the premier of The Transmigration of Souls by John Adams.

I've carried it in my pocket constantly ever since and taken twenty thousand pictures - more or less. Here it is, still working fine, looking a little like a flat fish with both eyes on one side of its head. It's a total antique now with a mere 2 megapixel resolution, but the vast majority of my original pictures on this blog were taken with this camera. It's somewhat the worse for wear. Notice the duct tape holding the memory card slot closed.



Next is a self portrait I took with the old Elph several days ago. In the mirror panes you can see an auto body shop, some trees, the San Gabriel Mountains and white clouds behind them. Click any picture to enlarge it.

We're having a heat wave. Not Iraq hot. Not even Barstow hot. But plenty hot. The sunlight is intense and painfully bright. Southern California is a beautiful place in such light. I see possible photographs everywhere.


The third picture is my new Point and Shoot (photographed with the old one of course). It's another Canon, the PowerShot TX1. But it's not an Elph, whatever that means. It was a birthday gift from an anonymous admirer who somehow knew just what I wanted. Thanks Leslie.

The new one is virtually the same size as the old one with the same basic features. But 5 year newer technology means higher resolution and better video capability. The lens protrudes from the body in a unique way. This gives the camera a 10X optical enlargement instead of a piddling 3X. There are lots of things I want to do with that extra zoom when I take it out of my pocket.


On the LCD screen above you can see the fourth picture, another self portrait. I call it "Man wondering if it's working." This was the second picture I took with the new camera.



Elph Tags: Canon TX1. . . Canon S200. . . Elph. . . Point and Shoot. . . digital photography. . . pocket camera

Mixed Meters Celebrates Its Bi-Sesquicentennial

The first Mixed Meters post, entitled In Which David Fails To Find An Interesting First Comment, was on September 16 2005. No one ever read it, so here it is again:

Every new adventure begins with the words "Why am I doing this?" It would be so much easier not to bother trying new things.

If you, future person reading these words, discover that this blog hasn't changed in months . . . years . . . then you'll know I couldn't find a good answer for the question.

My philosophy will be . . . keep it short.

This is the 300th Mixed Meters post. Or maybe the last one was. Hoo-ray! I must have found a good reason for blogging. I wonder what it is.


Obviously keeping it short is not one of my talents. Except maybe over at Mixed Messages - which is much more what I initially imagined for this blog - short throwaway bits.


On April 13, 2006, in honor of the 150th post, I misspelled Mixed Meters Celebrates Its Susquicentennial which featured several cool pictures of a dead tree.


Looks like I've got a tradition started here. Expect a self-congratulatory Mixed Meters announcement every 150th post. It's just like doing it every 100th post, but also divisible by 3, in honor of my three readers. You know who you are. Yeah. Yeah. I know.

The next in the series will be the tri-sesquicentennial which this web page tells me could also be called the semi-nonacentennial.


I've been working behind the scenes lately trying to clean the Mixed Meters code kludge - sweeping the virtual dirt under the virtual rug as it were. Trying to make it easier to find things, to make things look good even on pre-millennial video displays and forcing all the music links to work. I'd also like to create a footer, a section at the bottom to catch objects which fall off the screen.

It's all uphill work for this clueless web developer. I had hoped everything would be ready for this momentous celebration. Vainly hoped, as it turns out.


I'm gratified that the Mixed readership has been increasing over these (nearly) two years. although I still get only a small percentage of the hits which The Rest Is Noise does. That's the biggest music blog. But what can you expect? Alex Ross lets you read his blog for free.


Sincere thanks to all who check out whatever new non-sequiturs I come up with - and extra thanks to those who post occasional comments, gently pointing out when I overlook the obvious. If you're in the neighborhood, drop by sometime. I'll even get out the good scotch.


And, of course, this wonderful person deserves the most thanks of all.

Tricentennial Tags: blogs. . . sesquicentennial. . . skylights

A New Rhapsody in Blue

I turned on the car radio last month to the strains of Rhapsody in Blue. Ah, I thought "I must be listening to KUSC, LA's (one remaining) classical music station." Rhapsody in Blue, for all its jazzness, is part of the classical repertoire. It seems to be played by every symphony orchestra and every piano soloist over and over, each performance pretty much identical to all the others. Audiences appalaud dutifully.

After a few seconds I realized this was no ordinary Rhapsody in Blue