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

Hope I have your attention, because this is telegraphese.

Gary Farber of Amygdala just made my 14 year-old dog (that’s 112 in dog years) pee on the dining room rug.

What are *YOU* going to do about it?

Gary is one of the first bloggers I found, read, blogrolled. The quotes in his sidebar are worth the price of admission, all by themselves, and that price (if you will be guided by me is $55 in personal check made out to Gary and sent to an address in Boulder he’s hidden in the comments on his blog.

Gary just ran out of money. Well, not just, days ago, but I didn’t know because I just got a new job and am now time-challenged as never before.

When I just found out–his cyberbegging is way up on Popdex, I was very upset, and stopped running around doing my own stuff and started running around finding a card and envelope to stick a check in, and writing a blog post….

And I was ignoring Marianne’s dog dances, which instead of the usual “Biscuit Time Dance” turned out to be the “Pee Time Dance.”

And now my internetless new neighbors just phoned to ask if they can come do email, so I’m racing to write this.

The first 10 people who send Gary the $55 I suggest, and tell me about it in my comments here, will receive a limerick on the topic of your choice.

If you don’t send him something, I’m bringing my dog to your house so she can pee on your rug. And now my neighbors are here. If this is misspelled, well, tough.

Send Gary some money, ok?

Uh oh! Halley is coding her own new RSS app to tell the world how we spend our Saturday nights. Terrifying!

We who snug down on Saturday for cozy reading don’t want you to know we’re so un-scintillating.

OTOH, the 2.47 people who spend Saturday Kama-Sutra-ing Central Park don’t want to show up on Halley’s webcam either.

Halley, you’re giving a whole new meaning to Saturday night “Outing”. Where do I subscribe to the feed?

Got to run now, though–make sure I have enough champagne–Saturday, y’know. And charades always make Catherine Zeta-Jones so thirsty…

Wait, let me get my breath here–it’s Ahnuld and Tricky Dick–no, wait, damn, I’m trying to type here. Sorry, I have to go peek at it again.

C’mon, you know you love Jeneane Sessum over at allied.

Or if you don’t, you must not know her–then I have just done you a favor.

I love Jeneane because Jeneane really gets it. grief

Multiple choice, please mark your answer clearly:

• A. Conservative voters say the many accusations against Schwarzenegger upset them as much as those made against Bill Clinton.
• B. Liberal voters say the many accusations against Schwarzenegger upset them as little as those made against Bill Clinton.
• C. Schwarzenegger reached into the crypt mummy’s shirt–photos on eBay.
• D. After the California recall election, political news will be less ridiculous.
• E. None of the above.

I’m betting on E, but A or B would be nice.

Did the Bush team have a constitutional right to pay telemarketers to ask South Carolinians if they knew that John McCain “has a black child”?*

Luckily for George Bush and others like him, they can still exercise that right without restraint by your signing up for the pesky new “Do Not Call” list–political calls are exempt.

Not good enough, says the ATA lobbying group (that’s American Teleservices Association to its friends). They have filed suit to block the
“unconstitutional” Do Not Call List.

A recent Dave Barry column suggested that readers exercise their own right to free speech by calling the ATA with their comments on this. Thousands of readers did so, prompting a hurt response from the ATA, as reported by Yahoo:

“It’s difficult not to see some malice in Mr. Barry’s intent,” said Tim Searcy, executive director of the ATA, who said the added calls will be costly to his group because of toll charges and staffing issues.

Barry hardly sounded apologetic.

“I feel just terrible, especially if they were eating or anything,” he said. “They have phones like the rest of us have phones. Their attitude seems to be if you have a phone, people are allowed to call you.”

Surprisingly, Dave Barry is mistaken. When Slashdotters took up the story, they quickly learned that the ATA had added its own number to that wicked “Do Not Call” list. Shocking.

The number Dave Barry printed is now disconnected. And of course it is illegal as well as wrong to make prank phone calls. The law stands firm against the kinds of jokes played by 9 year-old kids!

But surely it’s a fair use of free speech to call the ATA’s legislative branch, whose toll-free number is listed on their contact page as (866) 500-4272, and urge them to lobby for better Do Not Call laws.

”The secret of life is to have a task,
something you devote your entire life to,
something you bring everything to,
every minute of the day for your whole life.
And the most important thing is–
it must be something you cannot possibly do!”

British sculptor Henry Moore, when asked “What is the secret of life?” by NH poet Donald Hall, quoted in Life Work, (1993, just reissued)

About 40 years ago, Julia Child brought French cooking to American TV. Julia was more than 6 feet tall, sublimely obsessed with her own area of expertise, and not in the least what the general public agreed all women should look like, sound like, or act like.

We loved her. She was herself and we recognized this and we loved her.

My pal Halley is getting some flack for her praise of Girlism.* Hey, I enjoy reading Halley’s praise of thong undies, because I have as much fun watching Halley be Halley as I do watching Julia be Julia. And didn’t we feminists march so that women could be free to be the people we want to be?

In a world where women are forced to do French cooking, or wear thong undies, or (worse!) do both together–boy, I would really be in big, big trouble. But I sure don’t want a world where women who thrill to French cooking while wearing thong panties and kicking the butts of bad guys have to shut up and pretend they like something different.

The new Harry Potter is still pretty good, but….

Fortunately, the magical buzz of goofy summer reading lives on in the new Christopher Moore I was lusting for.

Fluke : Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings turned to out be just as fast and funny and sexy as Moore’s earlier Bloodsucking Fiends and The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove.

A book by Christopher Moore is like a huge umbrella drink served with double fruit and extra vodka–it may not be quite what you ordered, but….Wow!

What does it mean to the digital-body debate when Gollum receives a major film award and then makes an acceptance speech? I think this is somehow a win for David Weinberger, at least I hope so.