Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Taking a break from quantum chromodynamics, Frank and I spent a day in autumn’s multiple colors.

Frank spotted this tree with three colors as he returned from a few miles of country dirt-path running. I enjoyed the non-relativistic time-shift of the first morning of Daylight Savings Time. As the farmer who delivered animal breakfast explained to me, “Sheep don’t take an extra hour of sleep, the way we do.”

I’ve started Flickring those Kentucky photographs (e.g. hadron tree and happy sheep), if you feel like your own quantum-autumn excursion.

While reading Liz (MamaMusings), I caught (kerchoo!) the latest funny search-meme. Search for your own name plus “needs” and blog some results.

Here’s some of what Google thinks a Betsy needs:

1. Betsy needs a family who will be understanding of her limitations
2. Betsy needs to develop an efficient method to find her information
3. Betsy needs to be trained before she can score essays
4. Betsy needs to be in a family where she can be watched pretty much 24-7
5. Betsy needs to understand that everyone believes that they act rationally according to their own worldview

At MSN Search, Betsy’s needs are more colorful :

1. Betsy needs a show name
2. Betsy needs to be switched to reserve on 200kms
3. Betsy needs a new title
4. Betsy needs a fenced yard
5. Betsy needs your help, support, and to hear from you!

Betsy’s needs at Yahoo add a touch of mystery:

1. Betsy needs to tell Amber some positive things about Kathy
2. Betsy needs to know asap
3. Betsy needs to see him when he’s green [????]
4. Betsy needs a break
5. Betsy needs extensive roof work done

Thanks to all you search gurus for helping us get in touch with our less-known needs–though I sure hope that “roof work” one is not prophetic, at least for this Betsy!

The scariest ghost you can meet on Halloween is your very own. Princeton was full of those ghosts, for the past three days.

Blue-jean clad students strolling past the Woodrow Wilson School–do these kids still call it “God’s bicycle rack”?
That’s what Frank and I called it, back in our grad student days, as we hiked past the very same fountain and magnolia trees, maybe at midnight, off to get coffee before going back to the lab.

Or are these laughing students the doppelgangers of later students, pre-meds of the early seventies, who worked so hard in the bio labs I TAed that I got in trouble when their median grade came out a B+. (And one student who got a B+ was close to tears at that terrible grade.)

Students lugging big ludicrous backpacks could also, in another era, have been friends of my children, headed off to some ultimate Frisbee occasion.

Or maybe some of those kids we just met this spring, when Frank joined in a Princeton student Frist filibuster.

As I morph these lively present-day students back through my multiple memories of Princeton, I feel myself shifting and sliding around in so many different past tenses. Halloween black and orange will stand for Princeton, this year.

p.p.s. We’re spending tonight in Harrodsberg, Kentucky. The Shaker Village hotel has restful charms but most likely not wifi.

The non-news of people waiting for Plamegate tidbits is getting sticky–e.g. this from Wonkette:

… the [FOX News] doughnuts had pre-arranged blanket immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony. Their hot, delicious testimony.

Breaking…Wonkette has now added a new category, “Politics/Doughnuts.

Hotel breakfast rooms–I’ve seen a million, but each new one can still surprise. A big plus-plus to Princeton’s Nassau Inn, which is supplementing its meager free Continental breakfast with three huge TV screens, tuned to three different channels, delivering silent news to us coffee drinkers.

Yes, Frank and I are on the road again, this time spending three days in our old hometown Princeton, NJ.

This morning’s surprise was even bigger than usual, as subtitles spelled out the news that Harriet Miers has withdrawn from contention for the Supreme Court. That ought to knock the potential indictments of Rove and Libby off the airwaves for maybe fifteen minutes.

Back upstairs in our hotel room, I told Frank something I then realized this brilliant guy didn’t already know. So, I am sharing this useful wisdom with all my blogreaders:

For the latest news, cnn.com is very good. But you want the latest *rumors*–that’s wonkette.com.

Scooter Libby, who told prosecutors he learned about Valerie Plame’s CIA connection from “journalists,” in fact got the information from Dick Cheney.

Plamegate is giving some journalists a bad name, but….the name “Dick Cheney”? That’s going too far!

Brand new, from Scott Adams, just started October 24. Scott’s first post already has 27 comments–and I love its category, “Dilbert Stuff That Got Me In Trouble.”

His number one entry here? “Dangerous donuts”! At least he doesn’t blame that Krispy Kreme meme….

…though I clearly can’t can’t resist…

“…washing down a handful of Oxycontin and a dozen Krispy Kremes with a pint of Jack Daniel’s and only then slathering on the baby oil and heading for the beach…”

…to quote Miss Conduct, whose advice column really peps up the Boston Globe.

Delicious, sugary, yeasty Krispy Kreme memery is popping up in some very strange dimensions, including math lessons in the Annals of Improbable Research.

Meanwhile, in real life, Miss Conduct and Annals editor Marc Abrahams (he’s also the IgNobel Igurehead) are (to coin a new-fangled phrase) wife and man.

As my German-speaking friend Diane would say, “Sweet!”

My pal Bert claims it’s making and understanding puns. For example, he offers these ten pun-contest winners:

1. A vulture boards a plane with two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, “I’m sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.”

2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says “Dam!”

3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too.

4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says “I’ve lost my electron.” The other says “Are you sure?” The first replies “Yes, I’m positive.”

5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.

6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. “But why?”, they asked, as they moved off. “Because,” he said, ” I can’t stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer.”

7. A couple has twins and gives them up for adoption. One goes to a family in Egypt and is named “Ahmal.” The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him “Juan.” Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth parents. The mother says, “I wonder what his brother looks like.” Her husband replies, “They’re twins! If you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Ahmal.”

8. These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to “persuade” them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he’d be back if they didn’t close up shop. Terrified, they did so,— thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.

9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (Oh, man, this is so bad, it’s good)….. A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

10. And finally, there was the person who sent ten different puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

People are puzzled by Tom DeLay’s smirking perp walk…not to mention his beaming mug shot.

Just who the heck does he think he is — Bill Gates?

Here’s what my magic mind-reading hat says Tom DeLay is thinking:

• “La la la — I am soooo much richer than the cop taking my photo.”
• “This expression looked just great on my campaign flyers.”
• “Things could be way worse–at least I’m not Scooter or Rove!”