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

Please, weatherpersons–February is over!

The Boston Public Garden isn’t supposed to look like this. We’ve all really had enough of ice and snow.

Happy birthday to George Friedrich Handel, seen here looking pierced and modern, who was born February 23, 1685. You’ve probably sat through his Messiah oratorio at least once (“Hallellujah! Hallellujah! Hallellujah! …” I’m sure you remember.) I’ve always loved Handel’s kind of music, as well as this complete diss of it, penned in 1765:

the Pleasure Artists feel in hearing much of that compos’d in the modern Taste, is not the natural Pleasure arising from Melody or Harmony of Sounds, but of the same kind with the Pleasure we feel on seeing the surprizing Feats of Tumblers and Rope Dancers, who execute difficult Things… Many Pieces of it are mere Compositions of Tricks.

That (and much more) was the very scathing opinion of Benjamin Franklin.

Great site I found via del.icio.us:
Lots and lots of movies of plants in motion–just what my eyes need to rest up from snow and/or computer-screen blindness.

I could spend hours here watching the flowers blooming, especially these star lilies. This movie condenses 8 days of slow awakening into one feel-good minute.

If only we could do that to the rest of February!

These movies were created by Roger P. Hangarter of Indiana Universty, and are “intended to serve as a resource for non-profit educational use.”

So don’t forget to look for those vine nutations, which are filed under nastic movements…

Hop on your own mental motorcycle for a great Sixties/Seventies spin with free spirit MontaukRider’s brand-new blog…

You too can

• Share that first hit of motorcycle mania with 15 year-old Ogunquit surfer “Ernie Tanaka” (who got re-christened to match the name on his secondhand surfboard)…
• Follow MontaukRider’s Triumph 650 (“bike of legends”) through Seventies Europe, the Mideast, and India…
• Enjoy photos of classic motorcycles, not to mention a meteor shower and Jack Kerouac…

What’s this blog about? The tagline explains it this way:

The chapters of a lifelong love affair with motorcycling, touring, travel, and fascinating people along the way. That fact that the chapters are autobiographical is purely accidental and intended.

Wow, too much real life going on and not enough blogging! But, since my
real life includes lots of time on the web, here are a few great links
I recommend.

• Tommaso Dorigo wants to fund experimental physics with a particle lottery. (The great thing about a quantum lottery is that, in some alternate universe, everyone wins!)*
• Via Susan Kitchens (2020 Hindsight), the Media History Timeline
  is a useful resource for the chronologically-challenged.
• Another great post from Wil Wheaton about the fun of working at CSI.
• Monty Python’s “Dead Parrot” sketch comes to life (thanks for the link, MakeOutCity!)
• Jeneane on fire safety for first graders. This one’s not worksafe, because it could make you cry.

Like 94.7% of academics in Cambridge, Frank and I have no TV. But that doesn’t mean we’re CSI-deprived! We started hanging out with Gil and the gang in September, and there’s now only one show un-watched left in our fourth-season DVDs.

Today, thanks to Scobleizer, I discovered a new way to stave off CSI-withdrawal symptoms. Wil Wheaton, formerly Ensign Wesley Crusher, just got hired by the show and he’s blogging it! Check out his

• Audition
• First rehearsal
• Scary photo

I love CSI, but it can only get better if it adds everyone’s favorite supergeek Wil Wheaton.

It has been estimated, says BBC News, that “one in 10 Europeans are conceived in an Ikea bed.”

This statistic may explain the recent chaotic scene in North London, as fans of IKEA furniture–7,000 of them–overwhelmed 40 security guards and entered the store as a kicking, screaming mob in response to an ad for cheap sofas and bedframes.

The store remains closed and a 10% population drop in Great Britain is likely to follow.

Britain’s Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles shared a first, ahem, kiss back in 1970. Now, 35 years and just a few headlines later,  this long-running couple is planning to get married.

Just how do you suppose he popped the question? My guesses:

• “This is a bit awkward, but, oh, dash it all! Could you pencil us
  in for some time together on April 8? Why? Well, ahhhh…. ” [and so on,
  Hugh Grant ad libitum…]
• “D’you know, I seem to have been putting you in a damn sticky
  wicket for, what is it, 35 years now? I say, let’s get married, so the
  tabloids will really have a heyday.”
• “I say, Camilla, it can’t have escaped your attention that we are both
  approaching retirement age, and my job comes with a rahhhther good
  pension thingummy…”

Poor dears, I wish them both luck. No time like the present to make up for lost opportunities.

Can you believe that Wikipedia didn’t have an entry for “Flags of convenience“?

Well, now it does.