Showing posts with label apocalypse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apocalypse. Show all posts
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Spiders and their webs
Spiders get a lot of leeway around here. We don't use poisons of any type, so they are our primary form of insect pest control (rodents stay away because of the cat, but I doubt she could effectively catch one anymore). The yard is pretty much free reign for them, and the non aggressive ones are welcome in the house as well.
There have been a few times when they've had to go. We've had a couple of hunter spiders charge us (despite the fact that were about 50 thousand times bigger then they are), and we shuffle those off this mortal coil. What is more frequent is the comedy and tragedy of web placement mishaps.
My favorite was the web built between the trees next to our driveway and the car from a few weeks ago. Some spider had spent the sixteen or so hours between my parking the car and driving the car away building a fairly intricate web, and I'm sure it was a great place to catch bugs, both coming off the trees and flying around the car. I'm sure the spider worked very hard, and maybe she was crest fallen when this indestructible force of nature (or giant web wrecking yokel, or whatever else spiders perceive us as) came along and nonchalantly backed the car out of the driveway to run out for cat food.
Bad web placement happens all the time: Across the back door, between the garbage can and the posts on the porch, on ceiling fans, on lawn mower blades, and hundreds of other tragic and/or hilarious circumstances. They should hold web building seminars, so thousands of lives can be spared, and millions more insect pests can meet their spidery doom.
There have been a few times when they've had to go. We've had a couple of hunter spiders charge us (despite the fact that were about 50 thousand times bigger then they are), and we shuffle those off this mortal coil. What is more frequent is the comedy and tragedy of web placement mishaps.
My favorite was the web built between the trees next to our driveway and the car from a few weeks ago. Some spider had spent the sixteen or so hours between my parking the car and driving the car away building a fairly intricate web, and I'm sure it was a great place to catch bugs, both coming off the trees and flying around the car. I'm sure the spider worked very hard, and maybe she was crest fallen when this indestructible force of nature (or giant web wrecking yokel, or whatever else spiders perceive us as) came along and nonchalantly backed the car out of the driveway to run out for cat food.
Bad web placement happens all the time: Across the back door, between the garbage can and the posts on the porch, on ceiling fans, on lawn mower blades, and hundreds of other tragic and/or hilarious circumstances. They should hold web building seminars, so thousands of lives can be spared, and millions more insect pests can meet their spidery doom.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
The Machine Jihad
Our machines have turned against us.
You all know our tale of major appliance woe from the last couple of months, but now there is more.
It started a few days ago when the lawn mower just up and died. No warning, just stopped. No big deal, we just borrowed the neighbor's for the time being and moved on with our lives.
Today, the car died, and not just the little deaths that cars sometimes have and recover from, but a big scary death with gushing oil, smoke and what is most likely a cracked block. We can not afford to buy a car, but we must have a car. It is a conundrum, to say the least.
We do have temporary transportation for a couple of days (thank you, thank you, thank you Erich & Sara), but we need to figure out what's next beyond that.
This many things going belly up in the last two months can only mean one thing: Jihad.
The mower was only two years old and showed no hint that it was about to fail. The car, while a bit past it's prime, has given us no trouble. It was a bit overdue for an oil change, it's true, but no lights came on, no warning was issued, it just blew. Thankfully we where pulling up to a friend's house when it went south so we were in no real danger, but that doesn't change the fact that we now have no car.
The machines are out to get us in some Matrix/Terminatoresque fashion. Fear for us, and for yourselves, for they will strike when you least expect it.
You all know our tale of major appliance woe from the last couple of months, but now there is more.
It started a few days ago when the lawn mower just up and died. No warning, just stopped. No big deal, we just borrowed the neighbor's for the time being and moved on with our lives.
Today, the car died, and not just the little deaths that cars sometimes have and recover from, but a big scary death with gushing oil, smoke and what is most likely a cracked block. We can not afford to buy a car, but we must have a car. It is a conundrum, to say the least.
We do have temporary transportation for a couple of days (thank you, thank you, thank you Erich & Sara), but we need to figure out what's next beyond that.
This many things going belly up in the last two months can only mean one thing: Jihad.
The mower was only two years old and showed no hint that it was about to fail. The car, while a bit past it's prime, has given us no trouble. It was a bit overdue for an oil change, it's true, but no lights came on, no warning was issued, it just blew. Thankfully we where pulling up to a friend's house when it went south so we were in no real danger, but that doesn't change the fact that we now have no car.
The machines are out to get us in some Matrix/Terminatoresque fashion. Fear for us, and for yourselves, for they will strike when you least expect it.
Friday, April 11, 2008
New Furnace, but...
A nice, new super efficient furnace is resting in our basement, taking the chill out of the house as we speak. The rub is, that apparently, gas appliances have empathy or each other.
It seems that as the old furnace breathed it's last, it's dear friend the water heater couldn't take the loneliness, and went into renal failure. It's not dead yet, but it doesn't have long. We're hoping to send it to be with it's friend before it has a stroke and gives up the ghost entirely.
It seems that as the old furnace breathed it's last, it's dear friend the water heater couldn't take the loneliness, and went into renal failure. It's not dead yet, but it doesn't have long. We're hoping to send it to be with it's friend before it has a stroke and gives up the ghost entirely.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
You down with MOD? Yeah you know me.
At the Big Local Bookstore, there are a lot of people working. I am but one of the two newest of the 250 some odd souls that make up it's central location, or 01 in BLB parlance.
Few wield as much power or responsibility at BLB01 as the MOD. Is there is a problem with a cash register? Call the MOD. Customer pitching a fit? Call the MOD. A toilet needs to be plunged? Call the MOD. The floor in the gold room has cracked open, allowing demons to enter our fragile world and tear it asunder? Call the MOD.
01 is huge and sprawling (oh, you who have not worked there have no idea), and I was kind of intimidated by it's sheer size and complexity. I knew it would be nothing like old job, but it still sort of rocked me back in my shoes a bit.
Well, I'm off to start my second exciting day at BLB. Now armed with a padlock for my locker, a better idea of what to expect, and a story to tell my new boss about how another BLB location called me for an interview yesterday (I'm flattered, but I'm sure that BLB has rules against poaching)
Few wield as much power or responsibility at BLB01 as the MOD. Is there is a problem with a cash register? Call the MOD. Customer pitching a fit? Call the MOD. A toilet needs to be plunged? Call the MOD. The floor in the gold room has cracked open, allowing demons to enter our fragile world and tear it asunder? Call the MOD.
01 is huge and sprawling (oh, you who have not worked there have no idea), and I was kind of intimidated by it's sheer size and complexity. I knew it would be nothing like old job, but it still sort of rocked me back in my shoes a bit.
Well, I'm off to start my second exciting day at BLB. Now armed with a padlock for my locker, a better idea of what to expect, and a story to tell my new boss about how another BLB location called me for an interview yesterday (I'm flattered, but I'm sure that BLB has rules against poaching)
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