Random Thoughts

---“Cicadas set to overrun East Coast”…this summer is not going to be fun.

---It’s also known as the “Cicadapocalypse”.

---“Aught” means both something and nothing. I know I’ve mentioned this before. I just find it fascinating.

---“Woman arrested for slapping wrong child at school”. I don’t think you’re allowed to do that even if it’s the right child.

---“Big Newly Discovered Spider as Big as Your Face”. It also latches hold of your head and lays an alien in your chest. I assume.

---Seriously, as big as your face. AS BIG AS YOUR FACE.

---Verizon patented a cable box that uses infrared to watch people for specific activities while they watch television so they can target advertisements. The activities? Talking, laughing, singing, and playing an instrument among other things. Laughing I get. Talking—maybe, if the show’s boring or someone won’t shut up while I’m watching Criminal Minds, dammit. But who the hell sings or plays an instrument in front of the television?

---There are also apparently programs that try to detect how expensive your computer is and try to target ads based on it. Which explains why I’m always getting “Go back to school and earn more!” ads.

---China is now censoring the word “censorship” from its internet. So now they won’t know they’re being censored, I guess.

---The Founder of 99 cent stores died. I don’t like to make jokes about deaths, so I’ll just point out that he turned that idea into a billion dollar empire.

---A school in Washington state canceled classes due to the weather. That weather being sunshine. Perhaps they were afraid of the strange orb of fire in the sky.

While helping my mom move furniture (seriously, I hate when she takes vacations):

Her: This is impossible to move. There are no handles!

Me: It’s a desk.

…As big as your face.

It’s Tidy in the Large Sense

To the giant spider that somehow crawled up a pipe and into my bathroom sink: this is for you. Go die now.

Like this. Only bigger. Much, much bigger.

The Tidy, Mighty Spider

(sung to the tune of The Itsy Bitsy Spider, a title I believe to be a fallacy)

The tidy, mighty spider

Crawled out the bathroom drain

I turned the faucet and

Washed the spider down

I plugged up the drain and

When I returned again

The tidy, mighty spider

Popped out th’plug for its revenge

If only this weren’t what actually happened. It actually popped out the drain plug, that’s how big it was, is what I’m saying.

Now I shall retreat to my corner with the torch I use to burn all the spiders that are after me, you know it’s true.

They’re Out to Get You

Spiders I mean. People think they’re all innocent and helpful to the environment. But then you turn around and one is peeking around the corner at you. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Stephen King made the true form of IT a nightmare spiderfrom beyond time? As opposed to, say, a nightmare ant or nightmare puggle.

Still think I’m being paranoid?

The Top Five Reasons You Should Be Afraid of Spiders

5. Arachnomatricide

There’s a species of spider out there where the mother actually stays with her young to protect them, an unusual trait in an arachnid. She starves herself in order to feed them, does whatever it takes to protect them. And what’s her reward? They eat her. How can we trust a species that kills their own mother? (Answer: we can’t)

4. Super Powers

Compared to real spiders, Spider-Man’s powers are lame. Let’s see, there are species that can regrow lost limbsand flick poisonous hair on enemies. They can kill prey that’s larger than they are. Some can even run up to ten miles an hour, pretty fast considering its size (for that particular species, six inches…just think about that. Six…inches).

3. The Bird-Eating Spider

Yes, this is a real thing. It’s actually one of the ones I mentioned above. It’s a tarantula, which are basically the hairy big brother of the spider that beats you up when you go after its wimpy little brother’s lunch money. In reality, they rarely do eat birds, they are known to snack on rodentsand small snakes. And possibly people who happen to be out by themselves late at night where there’s no one around to hear them scream. Although I haven’t been able to find a citation on that. Like most horrors, it comes from the darkest corners of the mind of great Cthulhu by way of the Amazon.

2. Teamwork! Is How They’re Going to Get You!

The mythology is that spiders are loners, and most are. But one species isn’t. They cooperate in order to bring down larger prey. How many do you think it will take to come after you? A dozen? A hundred? I don’t even know which possibility is worse.

1. Come on. They’re freaking spiders. Black Widows, Brown Recluses (violin spiders), the Camel Spider. If you click on that link, make sure no one is around to hear your subsequent girlish scream. 

Be afraid. Be very afraid.