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

Graffiti tempts the juvenile offender,
Or sentimental lover on a bender–
But my brief love notes I’ll immortalize
With sugar, beer, and moss bits in a blender.

Sorry, this story from Kottke’s linkblog just energized my inner Omar Khayyam…

I can’t wait to try this!

Frank and I got into the elevator and pushed a button for floor “-5”.

Barcelona’s science museum CosmoCaixa–which just reopened after a huge expansion–is
celebrating the World Year of Physics with lectures in praise of its most beautiful equations–That should give some idea of their energy and ambition.

And how about… A flooded Amazon jungle, on display from its rain-forest canopy to fish swimming in between tree-roots “Over 90 tons of rock in a single exhibition” (to quote their English website) Six iguanodon skeletons here on a road-trip from Belgium An enormous Foucault pendulum that knocks things over with satisfying clunks, which was built by the very kind man who also solved 97 computer complications for me. And 50,000 square meters of more of the same…

It’s more than enough to wake anyone up from jetlag!

The Hotel Neri is beautiful–I love the rooftop garden and even the Flash-y website.

And I’m sure Keats would have been very inspired by the magical, laughing groups of twenty-somethings who keep passing just under our window as they head for what will no doubt be a wonderful party.

On the other hand, it’s only 3 p.m., so I can’t very well wish they’d all go home to bed…

Less dozey and more informative blogging later.

And a sleepy, happy birthday to Dave Winer!

…not to mention concise ways to describe such concepts as “fear of beards” (pogonophobia), “fear of prolonged waiting” (macrophobia), and “fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth” (arachibutyrophobia).

Want more? I’m afraid I can’t list them all (“myxostrophilophobia” — and, yes, I did just invent that one), but here are a few:

Aboulomania: pathological indecisiveness.

Cacodemomania: pathological belief that one is inhabited by an evil spirit.

Catapedamania: obsession with jumping from high places.

Ecdemomania: abnormal compulsion for wandering.

Eleutheromania: manic desire for freedom.

Enosimania: pathological belief that one has sinned.

Habromania: insanity featuring cheerful delusions.

Lypemania: extreme pathological mournfulness.

Metromania: insatiable desire for writing verse.

Opsomania: abnormal love for one kind of food.

Pteridomania: passion for ferns.

From the morning Internet wanderings of Frank Wilczek and The Phrontistery, though Frank says he found the first reference in the New York Times somewhere…

Princeton students planned a protest “filibuster” outside Frist Hall for a couple of 12-hour days–but 90-plus straight hours later, the Frist Center Filibuster continues.

Rush Holt dropped by to read from Aesop’s Fables. When we showed up, a student was reading from the last book of the Talmud. And recent Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek, recruited to speak April 29 at 8:30, read selections from Einstein’s early papers on relativity, earning frequent applause from the evening’s crowd.

“I’m amazed by the level of enthusiasm,” says biology post-doc Teresa Leonardo. “People keep coming back, to speak and to listen–and they keep getting more empowered, more forceful, more eloquent.”

Senator Bill Frist, whose family donated millions for the Princeton University building that bears his name, has called for “the nuclear option” to stop Democrats from using the filibuster against anti-abortion judicial nominees.

Check out the Daily Princetonian for more–and I’ll be watching the filibuster webpage for photos of Frank–and Einstein–in action.

“This is about preserving our democracy from a lust for power that seems to have no end. Our message is that people will pay attention if you tinker with checks and balances to perpetuate your one-party rule.”

Jason Vagliano, history major at Princeton

See also blogposts by Kos, Liberal Oasis, and Josh Marshall…hey Josh, can Frank get a “Privatize This!” Tshirt?

We are on the road again tomorrow–Princeton, Barcelona, Madrid, and then Oxford–so I’m glad to know our airports are secure from avian terrorists wearing tuxedos.

But I’m taking a break from packing to play games with Google’s language tools and the lyrics of some of my favorite traveling songs. For example, here — translated into French and then back into English–is one of my favorite songs by Willie Nelson:

On the road still,
like a band of the gipsies, we descend the road.
We are best friends, insistent on the fact that the world is turnin ‘ our manner, and our manner:

Is on the road still:
Just cannot wait to still obtain on the road.
The love of life I is music of makin ‘ with my friends,
and I then not to wait to still obtain on the road.

Nancy Sinatra’s standard became even stranger after a three-step translation(English to German, German to French, and French to English again.)

You to hold to say something for me that to have you.
Something to name with loves, to admit you however.
They to confuse, where you not a one to confuse to have
and now somebody the other gettin ‘ your better entirety.

These loadings are formed to go,
and that is right what they do
With of these days which will go completely these loadings on you.

Okay, back to packing some more.

Are you ready, loadings? I then not to wait to still obtain on the road…

Thanks to Chris Marcum for this new lyrical tool.

Take it off–take it all off!

…your hair, that is…

May Day is coming to Harvard Square, and the big May Fair promises to make this Sunday afternoon, May 1, a wonderful outdoor party.*

Food, crafts, merchant displays, buskers, the strolling crowds–and something special and wacky from Diego Salon–“a haircutting event to raise money for breast cancer and to donate hair to be made into wigs for children who lose their hair to chemotherapy.”

Don’t you absolutely love Cambridge, MA?

Last year, Diego’s event collected $3,000 for Mt. Auburn Hospital, from pledges made by friends of 30 participants. This year, they’ve got lots of pledges and want some more.

You don’t need to get a close shave to participate–anybody who donates 10 inches of hair to Locks of Love gets a free Diego haircut and makeover. Considering that Diego Salon has been voted “Best Haircut in Boston” for the past ten years, that’s a pretty good reason to cut your old ponytail down to size for summer.

Sign up by email at Harvard Square Charity Shave.

* Rain date May 8–and since everything on the Internet is immortal, let me specify that I’m talking 2005.

If you’re a bad bargainer–like me–here is a great discovery!

After test-driving a car that I want to buy, I told the nice salesman the truth: I printed out its entire New Car Price Report ($12 download from the
Consumer Reports website)–and then left it at home by mistake. So, I said, we’ll have to talk price after I go home and look at my printout.

“Wait a minute,” he said–then he went to talk to his manager and came back and offered me about 10% off the sticker price of the car–even more than Consumer Reports claims the average buyer saves!

I’m not a good bargainer–but the salesman assumed I was, and then he bargained with himself on my behalf.