ACK!

Speaking of "Arachnoleptic fit" (which we weren't really, its just my pick of terms from the previous post), I just experienced one at lunchtime today.

I had just gotten into the car and rolled the window down prior to starting the engine, when a Huntsman SPIDER started running around and around in circles on the windscreen. I don't know why, it just was. It was a hot day, perhaps its feet were burning on the glass.

I instinctively lept for the window winder to crank the window back up again lest the spider got into the car, only to remember I have electric windows.

You have NO idea how slow electric windows are when you are in a hurry to close the windows. I was "fitting" the entire time. Fortunately the spider kept running in circles.

Once I had the window safely wound up, I switched the window wipers to "frantic" and managed to catch the spider on an up-swoop where it was flung off the car entirely, and disappeared.

The problem now is I don't know if it fled back to my car or the car I was parked next to. It was just gone.

Needless to say the car is now at the fumigators for the afternoon.

UPDATE: I've been trying to find a picture of a Huntsman that properly shows how big they are. Haven't found the one I'm after yet, but I did find THIS, which could well have been me, such is my aversion to them.

UPDATE UPDATE: Aha! Found it:














UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: Bis has kindly also provided this photo, bless his nasty socks *shudder*:

Humour at its most intelligent : Neologisms

Once again The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

This years winners are:

1. Coffee (n) the person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted (adj) appalled over how much weight you have gained.

3 . Abdicate (v) to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade (v) to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly (adj) impotent.

6. Negligent (adj) describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

7. Lymph (v) to walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle (n) olive-flavoured mouthwash.

9. Flatulence (n) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash (n) a rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle (n) a humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude (n) the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon (n) a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster (n) a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism (n) (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent (n) an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are this year's winners:

1. Bozone (n) The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

2. Caterpallor (n) The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

3. Cashtration (n) The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

4. Giraffiti (n) Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

5. Sarchasm (n) The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

6. Inoculatte (v) To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

7. Hipatitis (n) Terminal coolness.

8. Beelzebug (n) Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out .

9. Karmageddon (n) its like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

10 Decafalon (n) The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

11. Glibido (v) All talk and no action.

12. Dopeler effect (n) The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

13. Arachnoleptic fit (n) The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

Training video for guys

They never had this stuff available when I was growing up.

For those that protect us

Its perhaps a little early for Christmas, and a tad late for Rememberance Day, but a friend sent me this, and I thought it was worth sharing:

A Different Christmas Poem

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard into a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.

A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.
"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"

For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.
I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.

Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."

"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."
Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

PLEASE, Would you do me the kind favor of sending this to as many people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to our U.S. service men and women for our being able to celebrate these festivities. Let's try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us.


LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
30th Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum, Iraq

If you liked the last laughing babies.....

.....you'll love this one even more.

The things kids say....

While walking along the sidewalk in front of his church, our minister heard the intoning of a prayer that nearly made his collar wilt. Apparently, his 5-year-old son and his playmates had found a dead robin. Feeling that proper burial should be performed, they had secured a small box and cotton batting, then dug a hole and made ready for the disposal of the deceased. The minister's son was chosen to say the appropriate prayers and with sonorous dignity intoned his version of what he thought his Father always said: "Glory be unto the Faaaather, and unto the Sonnn .. And into the hole he gooooes."

This is a fun game...

...particularly if you have kids that you want to teach how to type: QWERTY Warriers.

Everybody hates earworms....

...and we all know how mind destroying they can be. It appears the military are taking an interest.

(thanks to neo for finding the site)

Extreme Housework

You may have already heard about Extreme Ironing, but what about Extreme Blending?

Something about the boy in me likes this site almost as much as this shredding machine site.

I don't care who you are...

...if you can watch this without at least smiling, there's something very very wrong with you.

Old, but good, advice....

....for prospective parents:

Preparation for parenthood is not just a matter of reading books and decorating the nursery. Here are 12 simple tests for expectant parents to take to prepare themselves for the real-life experience of being a mother or father.

1. Go to the local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet on the counter, and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper. Read it for the last time.

2. Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels, and how they have allowed their children to run riot. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior. Enjoy it - it'll be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

3. To discover how the nights will feel, walk around the living room from 5 pm to 10 pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 lbs. At 10 pm put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, till 1am. Put the alarm on for 3am. As you can't get back to sleep get up at 2am and make a drink. Go to bed at 2.45 am. Get up again at 3 am when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark until 4 am. Put the alarm on for 5 am. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

4. Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish finger behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

5. Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems: first buy an octopus and a string bag. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this -- all morning.

6. Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a pot of paint turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet tube. Using only scotch tape and a piece of foil, turn it into a Christmas cracker. Last, take a milk container, a ping pong ball, and an empty packet of Coco Pops and make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations. You have just qualified for a place on the playgroup committee.

7. Forget the Miata and buy a Taurus. And don't think you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that. Buy a chocolate ice cream bar and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a quarter. Stick it in the cassette player. Take a family-size packet of chocolate cookies. Mash them down the back seats. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect.

8. Get ready to go out. Wait outside the toilet for half an hour. Go out the front door. Come in again. Go out. Come back in. Go out again. Walk down the front path. Walk back up it. Walk down it again. Walk very slowly down the road for 5 minutes. Stop to inspect minutely every cigarette end, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way. Retrace your steps. Scream that you've had as much as you can stand, until the neighbors come out and stare at you. Give up and go back into the house. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

9. Always repeat everything you say at least five times.

10. Go to your local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child - a fully grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your week's groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goats eat or destroy. Until you can easily accomplish this do not even contemplate having children.

11. Hollow out a melon. Make a small hole in the side. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a bowl of soggy Weetabix and attempt to spoon it into the swaying melon by pretending to be an aeroplane. Continue until half the Weetabix is gone. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor. You are now ready to feed a 12-month old baby.

12. Learn the names of every character from Postman Pat, Fireman Sam and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When you find yourself singing Postman Pat at work, you finally qualify as a parent.

A small lesson in morals....

....about copying somebody else's work:

A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand.

He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.

The head monk, says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."

He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years. Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot.

So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing, "We missed the " R" ! , we missed the "R" !"

His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably. The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?"

With a choking voice, the old abbot replies, "The word was...

CELEBRATE!!!"

e-Mail Disclaimers

I was going to adopt this one for my signature block:

"This email is a totally natural product. Any spelling or grammatical variations are not defects but rather a reflection of the uniqueness of this product."

...but then someone sent me this one:

"IMPORTANT: This email may contain information that is confidential, privileged, or unsuitable for overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humour or irrational religious beliefs. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email is not authorised (either explicitly or implicitly) and constitutes an irritating social faux pas. Unless the word absquatulation has been used in its correct context somewhere other than in this warning, it does not have any legal or grammatical use and may be ignored. No animals were harmed in the transmission of this email, although the mutt next door is living on borrowed time, let me tell you. Those of you with an overwhelming fear of the unknown will be gratified to learn that there is no hidden message revealed by reading this warning backwards, so just ignore that Alert Notice from Microsoft. However, by pouring a complete circle of salt around yourself and your computer you can ensure that no harm befalls you. If you have received this email in error, please add some nutmeg and egg whites and place it in a warm oven. If you are the intended recipient, you may forward this e-mail, it wont breach any copyright of mine."

Are You Pink or Blue?

THIS is a web site pointed to by the Government Department I work for.

Personally, I think the questionaire was written by someone who is entirely Pink, and loving it.

My result was (and deep down I'm not sure I'm entirely happy about it):

"You lean toward pink.

Congratulations! You're a pink. Famous pinks include former President Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Cameron Diaz.

As a pink, you put importance on making a personal connection with a person. You love expressing your feelings--whether it be telling someone how much you like their outfit, or planning an elaborate surprise birthday party for a loved one.

Blues on the other hand often like to skip all the chitchat and focus on getting specific tasks done. When dealing with blues, you may be thrown off by their lack of enthusiasm for sharing the details of their personal life--but just remember, you can't change a person's stripes! It's okay if a blue doesn't want to socialize before the start of a meeting. Blues value getting down to business, so let them take the lead--there will be plenty of time to share pleasantries afterwards."