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

Can you tell from this June 2003 bloggraphicthat I’m a big fan of Vespa? (And not of Segway?) Before the first Segway ever collided with Slashdot, its PR gaffes had lots of people annoyed. First, there was a huge, content-free hype prelaunch (“Ginger will change the world!”) Then, there was a sneaky push through state legislatures to pre-define Segway as an “EPAMD” legally entitled to compete with pedestrians for sidewalk space. My point, and I do have one, is to congratulate everyone’s favorite micropersuader Steve Rubel that his agency Cooper Katz just got the Vespa account. I look forward to seeing original, interesting, and amusing blogs about Vespa emerging soon from the collaboration.

Excellent feel-the-wind-in-your-hair spring motorcycle blogpost from MontaukRider…

How readable is your blog? If you think a good answer would include decimal points, plug in your URL here.

I found this blogtest via Kevin Drum, than whose blog mine was more readable….at least until this post!

My great-grandfather,Hugo A. Dubuque–his 1928 obituaries described him as “a credit to his race,” said race being French-Canadian. He put himself through college, trained for the bar, and ultimately became a Massachusetts Superior Court Judge, spending many days riding the circuit far from his home and family in Fall River. And, late in 1918 he became something very like a blogger. My sister and I discovered his “blog” tucked away in the pages of our father’s baby-photo album–a series of short letters, written almost daily, that Judge Dubuque mailed home from his travels, addressed to his brand-new grandson. The series begins with a letter to his daughter Marie. The judge, clearly shaken by his youngest and dearest daughter’s delivering her first child in her girlhood bedroom: …I cannot tell you how glad we all are that you came through the ordeal all right. How pround Frank will be when he gets the happy news, and his folks also. You can now see, better than you ever realized before, why a mother is the center of such sweet and tender affection. The explanation is that she has earned it by going through the great trial and suffering for, and devotion to, her offspring. Suffering purifies and ennobles all things…. May God bless you and your dear little son, and bring back to you safely his father home [from the World War I battlefield]…

Here’s a characteristic “post” from January 1919:

I envied you this morning, my boy, nice and warm in your cozy bassinette. It was very chilly for grandpa — the wind was North and snowing — the walks were very slippery, but Gaga is always careful so he did not fall down.
There is no heat at all in the Elevated cars in Boston on account of the influenza.

What was that I heard this morning? that you gave an unearthly shriek, like a sort of Indian war whoop, because you were so hungry? That is very rude for a little boy to do that, and scare his Mamma and Atta Paul [Aunt Pauline]. But, of course, when a young man is hungry he cannot always repress his feelings. So be a good boy and we will all love you dearly.

Two weeks later, the proud grandfather has something new to blog:

It is the first time, yesterday, that my voice as a singer was ever appreciated. And you, sweet little grandson, were the one to do so. Nothing pleased me better than to see you apparently enjoy grandpa’s singing. You evidently could stand it with delight, on the ground, presumably, that any noise will do as an amusement.

Wait until your Dad gets home, he will sing “lullybys” for you. It will be great for you to be carried around by a hero of the greatest war in the history of the world, that of 1914 – 1918.

Springtime is a great inspiration to bloggers–even those of March 1919:

You missed it, Murray, in not getting up at 5 A.M. the same as your Gaga did this morning– There was a nice white frost, the harbinger of spring, spread over the trees and ground. The air was so sweet and pure. It is a real delight to be out early.

The spring will soon be here, and by the way this is your first spring. While you have seen flowers in the house, they are much nicer on their own stems in the sunlight outdoors.
Gaga expects to have a garden this spring, back of the house; so you’ll see things grow and you will learn farming and horticulture — garden and flower production — And you will sleep surrounded by flowers and vegetables, which will form a background to the picture of my little grandson–I hope your dad, when he takes you to Manchester, will have a little garden, if it is only to grow some flowers and a few of the ordinary vegetables like lettuce, tomatoes, rare-ripes, and the like…

I transcribed only a few of these letters–of course I now wish I had copied out all of them. A good excuse to go visit my sister again…

“The big thing is to combine punctuality, efficiency, good nature, obedience, intelligence, and concentration with an unawareness of what is going to happen next, thus keeping yourself available for excitement.”

Sir John Gielgud, whose birthday is April 14

Schiphol, pronounced “S*%@*ip – hol”, is my favorite world airport, and would be my favorite world airport even if it weren’t next to Amsterdam, one of my very favorite world cities. And now Schiphol has a new feature in its favor–besides cleanliness, access to fast trains, and sensible shops including a supermarket. That new feature is happy memories of meeting the famous Niek of Shutterclog.

Niek has been charming blogreaders for quite a few years now, so I was honored that he left his home on the beach to come visit with us. And how did he ever find chocolate bars named “Divine”?

One couldn’t imagine a better companion for tiptoeing through the tulips…

“When John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry developed the first digital computing machine at Iowa State University in 1937, little did they know that their invention would become an integral part of a sophisticated worldwide cat picture distribution system….”

That’s from How to blog good, which I discovered thanks to tipperography. More linky goodness from the world wild web…

World’s creepiest ever musical instrument?

via Gizmodo

Where is the hole in the pipeline for women in physics?

From Inside Higher Ed, a competitor–free!–to the pricey Chronicle of Higher Ed.

Super-simple electric bicycle mod from Neodymics

Frank Wilczek, “personal communication.”

Does your (written-good) blog have a snowball’s chance of whuffie?

I’m used to reading Suw at Chocolate and Vodka, but she’s also at HeardSaid and Strange Attractor and now at “infinite monkeys.” Suw, blog where you want, but give us one “Suw” RSS feed!

Hey, get your own blog-neighborhood map* from Feed Map. I just got mine…

I found this toy via Scoble, who has 100 bloggers in his Redmond neighborhood–but according to BlogMap we’ve got only 36 in the Boston area?

Now just a dad-blamed minute…

Steve Garfield (“no ordinary blogger”) is here, but where is Halley? Where is Lisa Williams? Where are the other 8 zillion bloggers I know here?
Where, for that matter, is the super-famous and hyper-local David Weinberger?

Still, I shouldn’t complain–BlogMap is a brand-new work in progress. Furthermore, it did introduce me to one local blogger who deserves lots more readers: Ben Brophy of MIT.

* On a much bigger blog-mapping scale, I liked the
WorldKit by Mikel Maron — here, for example, is Phil Wilson’s UK blogger map.

Look what I just got! The unique Nobel-Prizewinner-and-spouse DNA-containing glasses I
won on eBay, where they were being auctioned by Swedish Space High School students.

So, whose DNA will be seen on eBay next? Could this be the magic bullet blog-revenue model? Just traces of genius DNA should do the trick…

• …a mousepad once used by Scoble?
• …a press release touched by the hand of Steve Rubel?
• –a ski pass thrown away by Halley?

Maybe Dave Winer could auction his Dave Winer glasses….

One thing I’m pretty sure of–eBay plus Airborne Express will not replace the good-old-fashioned method of DNA transfer.

Mojtaba and Arash are two Iranian bloggers who got thrown in jail for blogging about Iranian bloggers getting thrown in jail.

Thanks to Rebecca McKinnon and Tim Jarrett and BoingBoing and others for reminding me that February 22 is the day for the rest of us to help pressure Iran to set Mojtaba and Arash free.