More creepy crawlies

NOTE: Click here to read the update to this post.

So I'm helping my Supermodel Wife with the laundry Sunday evening. I get out the drying rack (one of those expanding wood ones) to hang up some clothes when I find I have disturbed someone's new home.

The eight-legged tenant of the laundry room in my basement had, by the look of the dried bug corpse in her web, just finished dinner.

Let me just say that I'm not especially a huge fan of the little buggers, but spiders freak me out a lot less than they used to. I used to have a huge phobia of spiders stemming from a childhood incident when I somehow found myself alone in an abandoned campground shelter -- one of the walls shimmering with thousands millions of long-legged dancing arachnids. I had to walk through a foot-thick layer of cobwebs to get out.

Writing about this now, I can still feel the sticky strands of spider silk clinging to my hair and skin.

Anyway, I'm much better now. I'm much more tolerant of spiders. The way I see it, they're keeping down the rest of the insect population that I have a much bigger issue with. No, spiders and me have an understanding these days. They stay at least six feet away from me at all times and don't inhabit public spaces, and I don't crush them out of shear abject terror.

So you can see my dilemma when I found this particular spider had reneged on the deal. I don't want to be unreasonable and smash the thing on general principle, since the drying rack was put away when she decided to live there. But surely you can see that I can't allow the use of the drying rack for a spider home, especially on laundry day.

I was standing there pondering my next move when I took a closer look at the specimen. It had interesting markings on it's back and belly (do spiders have bellies?).That's when the thought struck that I might have something special here. Given the radon levels in our basement, this quite possibly could be the kind of radio active spider that gave Spiderman his powers. How cool would it be to go to work the next day fit and trim and casting webs all over the joint.

So I put the thing on my hand and tried to get it to bite me. Unfortunately, it wasn't feeling very aggressive (I think because it had just gorged itself on a cricket or housefly or whatever the corpse in its web was). So alas, no superpowers.

But I am curious about what kind of spider this is. I know that there are some bloggers out there who are into biology and entomology, so if you could be so kind as to take a stab at identifying the thing in the comments I would appreciate it.

After all, I feel like I should have a name for the thing I ended up smashing.

tagged: spiders, spiderman, creepy, arachnid, arachnophobia

3A.M. Poll: Your favorite movie villain

Sure, we all love the heroes, but it's the villains who really make the movie happen (or not).

So who's your favorite? If it's not on this list, just choose the last option and let me know your (wrong) opinion in the comments.



tagged: movie, villans, poll, vote, pop culture

Check out this big cock

I saw it at Suburban Lawn and Garden last weekend. I'm thinking about buying it to put out on my patio for the express purpose of being able to say to house guests "Would you like to go out on the patio to see my cock?"

You can fill in your own jokes in the comments.

tagged: rooster, statue, yard art, landscaping, humor, joke, cock

Uninvited guest

"Just don't tell my Supermodel Wife about this," I said to Bill as we drove back to the house.

I needed to give this one a few days to blow over before breaking the news to the wife. After all, we still had a two and a half hour drive home and I didn't need her worrying about this.

Bill (my way hip step-father-in-law) and I were helping my sister-in-law with some home improvements. Her husband Nick is serving a tour in Iraq, dodging IEDs, so this seemed like a meaningful and fitting way to celebrate Memorial Day.

And part of building the new fence in the back yard required us to make a trip to the local hardware store in Junction City. The trip was uneventful, just needed to pick up a few lag screws, washers and L-braces for the project.

But as we returned to my car, from across the small parking lot, we saw what looked like a thin shadow floating across the pavement toward rear passenger side of my car. As we came closer, we saw a rather large, thick black snake slithering toward the protection of my car.

It was about four feet long, about an inch in diameter in the middle and black as fresh tarmac.

There was no rattle, and it didn't have the triangular head of venomous snakes so I wasn't worried about being poisoned. I was content to let it crawl away, or if it didn't, I would just run over it when I pulled out of the parking space.

But Bill, who was on that side of the car, saw that the reptile had other ideas.

"He crawled up into you wheel well," Bill said.

Clerks from inside the store had seen the events and were now approaching with a broomstick.

"Was that another snake?" said the clerk with the 'Rachel' name tag. Evidently, this sort of thing was a regular occurrence.

The brave Rachel bent down to poke the handle of the broomstick under my car. But by now, Snakey (I had named him) had taken up residence inside the wheel cavity, or bumper, or my tailpipe, or someplace else out of sight but still in my car. There was nothing to do but go back and finish our projects.

"I know where I wouldn't be parking tonight," joked Bill. And he was right. The car would stay parked in the driveway, not the garage.

For the rest of the afternoon, I kept wondering if Snakey were still in my car. If so, where? My fear was that when we left for home, he would be coiled up on the floor when we put our 4-year-old in her seat in the back.

And during the two-and-a-half hour drive home I worried that as the temperature cooled during the night, the serpent might climb higher into the engine to seek warmth, there to be chewed up by the various pistons and belts of the car's mechanics. Am I going to wake up to the smell of rotting snake carcass on my way to work one morning?

But the biggest question I have is when will it be safe to tell my supermodel wife that she may have shared the car with a 4-foot long snake yesterday.

So to any of you biology experts, how long does a garden-variety snake go without eating? Could he still be in there? Could he have survived two hours at 75-mph?

Maybe I'll go to Midas for a quick brake inspection/snake removal.

tagged: snake, serpent, reptile, animals, Memorial Day, car

YouTube Tuesday: "You spell 'honour' like a Brit"

It was painfully obvious over the weekend that all of the good TV shows were on hiatus. But luckily, we have the emerging art of short-form Internet 'webisode' serials to scratch out pop culture itch.

Previously, we've featured the Chad Vader series, and God, Inc. among others.

One of my favorite new series is Tiny Plaid Ninjas. In the first of the three episodes, two mortal enemies must work together to defeat a common foe.



tagged: tiny plaid ninjas, YouTube, video, TV, animation, humor, satire, argyle

Son of Hogzilla

By now you've read about the rather largish wild pig killed by an 11-year-old Alabama good old boy with a pistol.

If you haven't read the link. You can also check out posts by XO and ElBorak and a host of other bloggers.

Why would you want to do that? Well, if you're like me, it's because you have nothing better to do than mouse around on the internet reading other peoples' thoughts.

And, like El Borak, I think what people are saying (writing) about this story is as interesting as the story itself.

There are those who don't like to think about where the meat on their table comes from, who think all animals are doe-eyed fluffy unicorns in the land of the Peppermint Princess:

that's disgusting. i don't know which is worse the fact that you shot the innocent creature for three hours strait or that you where smirking in that picture. I wish i could beat that smirk right of your face you dick head. i cant understand why anybody would kill a poor animal. You people disgust me, I hope you rot in hell.

Then, there are those who think parents have no business teaching their kids how to kill monstrous swine -- at least with a hand gun.

Our own Xavier Onassis falls into this category:

I cannot imagine teaching a 5 year old to kill or handing an 11 year old boy a .50 caliber pistol and watching him shoot a half-ton pig eight times an then spend 3 hours chasing it through the woods to kill it and turn it into sausage.

That is definitely not the way I would want to raise any son of mine.

Sure XO, you say that now. But when the oil runs out in a couple of years, and the apocalypse comes and we're living in a Road Warrior-like dystopia, it's going to be kids like that who are feasting on the entrails of their enemies.

Learning to kill giant mutant omnivores? The way I see it, that's just good parenting.

tagged: pig, giant, hogzilla, Jamison Stone, Alabama, PETA, hunting, oil, Road Warrior

The Case of the Missing Pants

Xavier Onasis makes a solid point about a lawsuit filed by the father of a drunk driver who was killed because of his drunk (and possibly high) driving.

But believe it or not, that's not the most ridiculous lawsuit in the news these days.

Consider this story from (big surprise) the Washington, D.C., area:

A customer got so steamed when a dry cleaner lost his trousers that he sued for $65 million. Two years later, he is still pressing his [law]suit. ...

..(T)he problem began in May 2005 when Pearson became a judge and brought several suits for alterations to Custom Cleaners in Washington. A pair of pants from one suit was missing when he requested it two days later.

Pearson asked the cleaners for the full price of the suit: more than $1,000.

Now, we've come to expect this kind of idiocy from the Jerry Springer set. But the idiot plaintiff in this case was a freakin' JUDGE!!!

And it gets better...

... (T)he cleaners have made three settlement offers to Pearson: $3,000, then $4,600, then $12,000.

But Pearson was not satisfied and expanded his calculations beyond one pair of pants. Because Pearson no longer wanted to use his neighborhood dry cleaner, he asked in his lawsuit for $15,000 -- the cost of renting a car every weekend for 10 years to go to another business.

Manning said Pearson somehow thinks he has the right to a dry cleaner within four blocks of his apartment.

The bulk of the $65 million demand comes from Pearson's strict interpretation of Washington consumer protection law, which imposes fines of $1,500 per violation, per day. Pearson counted 12 violations over 1,200 days, then multiplied that by three defendants.

But a week later, the Chungs said the pants had been found and refused to pay. Pearson said those were not his pants, and decided to take the Chungs to the cleaners and sue.

I'd like to give this judge the benefit of the doubt. I'd like to think he's doing this to set an example of how bad these frivolous lawsuits are becoming.

But as a judge, he should know better. There is enough abuse in the legal system already, and everybody knows it.

Thankfully, a large segment of the public is behind the real victims in this case. Attorneys for the South Korean immigrant owners of the dry cleaners have been inundated with donations to help the Chung's pay their legal defense costs. A defense fund has been set up at www.customcleanersdefensefund.com.

Now, how do I donate to the fund to get that judge disbarred?

tagged: South Korean, cleaners, judge, Jin Nam Chung, Roy Pearson, frivolous, lawsuit

Friday Blogthing: Hasslehoff

The other day, a friend told me to "hasslehoff" during a bit of good-natured ribbing. After having a good laugh at the expression, I decided I'd better figure out how I would, in fact, "hasslehoff" if the need ever arose.

Luckily, the interwebs once again came to the rescue.

Cult Icon Hasselhoff You are Hasselhoff, the Cult Icon. You revel in your enigmatic and confusing popularity – moreso in the positive aspects of it than the confusing or unclear parts. You are the shining star of the world: more specifically, of Germany. Someday, you will be featured in a ticker-tape parade. Someday! Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

tagged: quiz, David Hasslehoff, humor, Friday

Gastro congressional disorder

While they're hard at not-work not-proposing a plan for dealing with Iraq, our new reps in the House have passed legislation to distract us with a useless investigation into gas prices.

The bill is sponsored by the dramatic Bart Stupak, D-Mich.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., said the legislation would help stop "the truly outrageous prices we are seeing at the gas pump," The Detroit News reported.

"Today, every member has a choice," said Stupak. "Side with big oil or side with the consumers who are being ripped off at the gas pump."

The "us v. them" black and white view point makes for good copy and emotional rhetoric. But like the legislation itself, is merely a distraction.

First of all, the prices aren't "outrageous."

A diagram in the June issue of Wired Magazine shows that "even when prices hit near-record levels in the US, American drivers get off cheap compared to European motorists."

Londoners, for example, were paying $6.65 and gallon for petrol when the article was written. Parisians pony up $6.52 a gallon, and Romans forfeit $5.62 to fly around in their Fiats.

What seems to be getting stuck in Stupak's craw is that companies are making money from selling gasoline. Can you imagine!?! A corporation profiting from doing business! The impudence! The shear audacity!

Look, the reason petroleum companies are charging more for gasoline is because they can, because consumers are paying for it. There are signs that we (consumers) may be reaching our limit, but I still see hundreds of people commuting to work in SUVs and giant pickups with nobody but the driver inside.

Americans don't really care about the price of gas. Not yet. Sure we may grumble. And Stupak and other politicians will try to score political points off that grumbling.

But the way to beat high gas prices is to change our behavior. When we really start to care, we'll buy more efficient vehicles and use more public transportation or maybe ride a bike once in a while.

A congressional investigation sure as hell won't do any good. I suspect Stupak knows this. This looks more and more like a wedge issue. A way for Stupak and Co. to make a meaningless gesture and then point to political enemies as being "in favor of big oil and against the little man."

So tedious.

tagged: oil, gasoline, gas prices, peak oil, Stupak, drivers, petroleum

Wired on the Bloch

In case you haven't seen it yet, Wired magazine features the the new Bloch Building at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in its June issue.

Sonia Zjawinski gives a two paragraph overview of the challenge of the design and the solutions that architect Stephen Holl came up with.

Of course, burying a gallery under 8 inches of sod could make for a dark, dungeon-like environment. So Holl came up with an innovative skylight system: five giant cubes of glass that jut above ground, channeling natural light into the 840-foot-long gallery (equivalent to a 70-story skyscraper laid on its side). These light boxes, along with strategically placed partitions and computer-controlled window screens, ensure the 220 permanent pieces look their best — and are unharmed by UV rays and the greenhouse effect. Jackson Pollock's paintings are drippy enough.

For those who haven't been in, or seen pictures of the interiors, there is a good illustration of the way the shape of the interior walls redirect natural light to the galleries below.

You can also review pictures I have previously posted. Also, the opening of the new building is only about two weeks away. Check out the schedule of planned activities at the museum's blog.

tagged: Nelson-Atkins, museum, art, Bloch Building, Stephen Holl, architecture, Kansas City, culture