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

Biker chicks banner

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

This morning I almost got fined $200 for packing undisclosed broccoli!

Yes, Frank and I are in transit again. Out of Boston at 8 a.m. Saturday to San Francisco (6 hour flight, 7 hour layover) to Auckland, New Zealand (13 hour flight, 4 hour layover), and soon onward to Massey University in Palmerston North.

I’m sitting typing this blogpost in Auckland Airport, where, as we picked up our baggage to go through customs, a cute little bio-contam-sniffing beagle got very excited about my carry-on bag!

I couldn’t imagine what she was sniffing–the past aroma of Frank’s lunch sandwich of lox? The beagle kept begging to look inside my mini-suitcase, and her very nice female handler had to check.

And guess what? I had packed our toothbrushes in a used plastic grocery bag that had still inside it two fragments of broccoli!!!

The beagle got several treats for finding my broccoli, and they very kindly let me off with laughter and warnings.

Travelers everywhere, do you know where your broccoli is?

A bit more “wisdom” if you should ever follow in our crazy footsteps:

1) Both BOS and SFO airports have TMobile wifi. I bought a 24-hour Tmobile pass in Logan and was able to keep using the same pass in SFO. Better yet, I was able to put my computer to sleep and then let Frank use the account to go online with his computer.

2) Among the things New Zealand wants to know about if you have them–hiking boots or other camping equipment. They worry about your bringing in dirt on the treads.

3) A 13-hour flight is much more comfortable than a 7-hour flight in some ways–you have real time to sleep, for one thing. And I love Air New Zealand!

1958 dog party, part 2.

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

“My phone doesn’t have a business model. Neither does my porch. I still like having a phone and a porch because they help me meet new people and communicate with people I know. Same with my blog and podcast.”

That’s a quote from Dave Winer…thanks, Dave, and not least for sending me back to this old Flickr porch photo of mine, a dog birthday party, 1958 or thereabouts. Here’s a better photo of the same party.

My mother holds a tray of raw hamburger to treat our neighborhood dogs, because my mostly-spaniel Suzy was having a birthday.

Yes, in those innocent days before Big Agriculture discovered that cows could be fed plastic pellets and ground-up carrion, nobody had yet invented “mad cow disease.”

I guess that’s a digression–but hey, that is my blogging model!

Comcast goes out to lunch asks me to hold

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

I have been waiting online two hours for a Comcast chat service person.

Fortunately, I have lots of work to do at my computer while I wait.

Higher than usual service times? I hope so. I started off as “No. 2 in the queue” and after an hour graduated to my current status as No. 1.

La la la. Still waiting.

Comcast customer service is “No. 2” in my book!

Powdered-sugar world

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

These NH trees got covered with a dusting of powder snow. The air is so cold that any breeze blows up a puff of fine snow from tree branches. It glitters in the sunlight like Tinkerbell’s fairy dust.

Wish my picture could show that sparkle and shine.

Any rational person knows that this stuff is going to end up on the road as dangerous brown slippery goo. But oh, when that powder flies, the effect is still pure magic.

It won’t be in bookstores for another week but that didn’t stop two “reviewers” last week from posting low-ball reviews on Amazon. The book is How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative, a colorful, profane, and surprisingly frank memoir of sleazy politics.

Media mentions of Allen Raymond’s book have mostly talked up his phone-jamming, for which his RNC pals threw him under the bus. The book details many stunts more colorful. Deceptive robocalls to Democrats from “scary black men” or “actors putting on thick Spanish accents” worked wonders at keeping them home on Election Day. Swapping soft money for hard–funneling GOP dollars to leftwing splinter candidates–engineering repeat contributions from donors who had already given their legal limit–Raymond names names and shows how each trick works.

Adam Cohen in the NYT says that this book may finally force Senate action on the long-delayed Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act. I hope it will.

I got an advance copy just a few days ago in response to my longtime phone-jamming blogging, and just posted my own review on Amazon too. It would be quite a job to track GOP lowballers around the two-way web but you may find it an interesting hobby. (On Barnes and Noble: “Pitiful and poorly written,” some prescient reviewer claimed on Christmas Day.)

Probably the biggest reason that GOP insiders want you not to read this book is not the rude first-person memories of Bush, Rove, Feather, Synhorst, et al. but the way showcases in-crowd contempt for their freeper supporters — “the Jesus-loves-guns crowd” — “the knuckle-draggers, the gunnies, and the committed ideologue nuts.” “The mouth-breathers who who decide GOP primaries might allow people to steal their money and send their children to impossible wars but they’ll cut no such slack for baby-killers.”

The book’s quite a read, and it could just make politics better.