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

As I drank morning coffee, still half asleep, I heard Frank upstairs simply roaring with laughter at his email, which (I later discovered) included this YouTube video of live-action bloopery.

Making a
long story short, a grad student or taxi driver (I’ve seen two versions) named Guy Goma was whisked into a BBC studio where a young woman interviewer informed her live TV audience that they would now be hearing from technology expert Guy Kewney.

Guy Goma’s expression, as he hears himself thus introduced, goes from pleasant acceptance to surprise and shock at amazing speed.

But what’s more remarkable is his grace and good humor, as he responds in French-accented English (he’s from the Congo) to the interviewer, to avoid embarassing her while in front of the camera.

Being put on the spot in front of live cameras is the kind of thing that happens in nightmares. Thanks to Guy Goma, I now have a warm-hearted, dignified role model for what I ought to do next.

Heh. So on top of the usual holiday madness including a brand-new “baby” with Frank, I got Scott Johnson’s hilarious and impossible invitation to Ookles.

Ookles, in case you’re confused, is a project to develop a product (which won’t be named Ookles), something we’ve all sworn on our grandmothers not to describe yet.

Except to say that it’s great, which of course it is. Still, it’s just a little bit tough to blog Ookles.

Okay, how about this? Ookles (to me) is like that secret treehouse you helped to build when you were maybe ten. (Only this time nobody will fall out and fracture his coccyx. At least, not once Scott and Mike and Colin get a few more bits of it nailed together.)

And showing people how to work its rope ladder and secret compartments (once it gets built) is something I’m really, really looking forward to.

But figuring out how to blog about Ookles was hard enough that I kept on putting it off–until
Adam Kalsey scooped the story today.

See you all in the treehouse–soon I hope…

Is this the first-ever delivery of a job offer via RSS? In one of my “vanity feeds,” in my-favorite-boss-ever (at Feedster) Scott Johnson’s blog….

We likely need to bring in someone to shamelessly work the community. Hm…I wonder if I can convince Betsy The Devine to join up. After all she already knows what Ookles is (Betsy is smart, she’s a family person (and this is all about family) and when I had the idea and needed a sanity check I called her; no NDA, no legal paperwork just “Betsy here’s the idea – mumble mumble mumble – do you have this point of pain – YES – Cool”. Talk to me if you’re interested Bets — real founder stock this time not just options you might never get the legal paperwork on..

You’ve got to, got to, got to notice that Scott Johnson really, really gets the web. And my off-the-cuff response showed up in his blog comments:

Heh. Well, this is a fast way to communicate your message, and to expose me as a subscriber to vanity feeds on the URL of my blog. I loved working with you, Scott, and I’m confident that Ookles will be a huge success. OTOH, I might need a sanity check for thinking about adding even one item to my incredible schedule. Hmmmm, founder stock, you say? I’m definitely thinking about it.

One thing for sure–in 2006, we’ll all hear lots more about Ookles…

Not just a Legal Sea Foods paper placemat–Frank and I each got a Legal Sea Foods paper placemat inscribed at length with a Legal Sea Foods”pledge.”

I was still pretty shell-shocked after my long day in court and the drive back home–Frank, bless him, had the energy to take me out for a dinner of crabcakes, and then to read his placemat and burst out laughing.

Here’s what set him off–the eighth of nine separate pledges:

“We pledge…To respond in a rapid, sensitive, and non-confrontational manner to requests that will enhance your dining experience.”

My spirits revived as we tried to imagine a restaurant where the waiters are confrontational:

• “Just water to drink? Oh well, if you’re that stingy…”
• “You spilled that cup of chowder–you clean it up!”
• “No dessert menu for you–you’ve eaten enough.”

Finally Frank said, “I guess that might be the kind of treatment you’d get…at ILLEGAL Sea Foods.”

Leadership can feel so cold and lonely…meanwhile, the little ducks at the back of the line are asking impatiently why things aren’t moving faster…

“…not as smart as he thinks he is. There’s a lot of that going around.”

Another awesome quote from Frank Wilczek. (He was talking about somebody who will *never* read my blog, so I can just about promise it wasn’t you.)

“…washing down a handful of Oxycontin and a dozen Krispy Kremes with a pint of Jack Daniel’s and only then slathering on the baby oil and heading for the beach…”

…to quote Miss Conduct, whose advice column really peps up the Boston Globe.

Delicious, sugary, yeasty Krispy Kreme memery is popping up in some very strange dimensions, including math lessons in the Annals of Improbable Research.

Meanwhile, in real life, Miss Conduct and Annals editor Marc Abrahams (he’s also the IgNobel Igurehead) are (to coin a new-fangled phrase) wife and man.

As my German-speaking friend Diane would say, “Sweet!”

Cold chocolate pudding inspires Lisa Williams to blog about “unsung and unnoticed happinesses.”

She has this to add about unsung grouchinesses:

If I’m in a bad mood someone could give me a pound of gold and I’d probably say, “Dammit, don’t they know how cluttered my house is?”

I completely agree…

But I’m sure I could always find room in my house or fridge somewhere, if somebody gave me a pound of chocolate pudding…

I didn’t know many people at the Ig Nobel cookout, so I started chatting with two people wearing identical Sponge Bob shirts and tailored black shorts. “Yes, my husband and I have worn identical outfits every day for the past 27 years,” Nancy Featherstone told me. “Before that, we wore identical outfits only on weekends.” Nancy and husband Don are Ig Nobel old hands — Don won a 1996 Ig Nobel Prize for inventing the pink plastic lawn flamingo. I’m devastated that I won’t be able to go to this year’s Ig Nobels — we’re booked to be in Vienna on October 6 — but I’m helping with the slide show, and it will be awesome.

More than 40 years ago, artist Don Featherstone capitulated to reality and accepted employment with Union Products, hired to render a white duck and a pink plastic flamingo in three dimensions. The rest is cultural pop history: the Featherstone flamingo was born.

Throughout history, people have loved statuary. There’s plenty of evidence, in old paintings, in carvings, even in ancient hieroglyphics, that people have always loved to decorate their surroundings. In early America, for the longest time, there was no lawn ornamentation. Around the turn of the century, the Europeans started bringing over lawn ornaments in the form of bronze statuary. They were beautiful, and very popular, but few people could afford such things. Keep in mind that, before plastics, only rich people could afford to have poor taste.