ALOT of Spiders

(Reposted from Mel's blog)

Notes:
1.This is taken directly from an email thread between me and ehbaba.
2."ALOT" and "Spiders" stem from Allie Brosh's blog, Hyperbole and a Half - please visit her site on my sidebar (and I will probably add more links when my battery isn't dying).
3.27bslash6 is another link on my sidebar--please visit!
4.ehbaba and her hubby HS ("Hamburger Smasher", as named by ehbaba) are currently residing in Australia.
There. I think the rest will make sense.
...

From: ehbaba
To: melody
Subject: Spiders

have you read the 'spiders' post on hyperbole and a half?

lubbed it (specifically "i'd be all...no" and "defects")

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From: ehbaba
To: melody
Subject: ALOT

ok alot is even better

am i giving you a play by play of my blog reading lunch hour?

yes.

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From: melody
To: ehbaba
Subject: Re: ALOT

LoL Awesome.

Spiders: that's why I liked the 27bslash6 post about AUS/US. "If I am reincarnated as a spider, I will bite myself and not seek medical assistance" and "In Australia, the presence of a spider involves combat gear and improvised weapons."

Did I ever tell you about Brodder and I killing centipedes at home? Centipedes are too big to be killed with a wad of tissue, but too fast/creepy to be left alone and ignored in a corner of the room. If the vacuum cleaner wasn't readily handy, then we would take a shoe and just smash the sucker flat in one swift swat...and then leave it. Just because it was dead didn't mean it stopped feeling gross to the touch through a wad of tissue. The idea was that after smashing it, we'd go and get the vacuum at our leisure and suck it up off the floor/shoe, but sometimes it was a while before we got around to it.

Word to the wise: if you ever see a shoe just chilling in a random place on the floor at my parents' house, chances are there's something squished beneath it.

LoL

I think I'm going to post that. :)

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From: ehbaba
To: melody
Subject: Re: Re: ALOT

Awesome. Post.

HS's way to combat cockroaches and things that look like cockroahces (e.g. a really dark/black grasshopper) is to hairspray it to death/an immobolised state.

(side note: our place is clean but cockroaches are just everywhere and come in from the outdoors...we actually walk by them on sidewalks and parks and shit and it isn't dirty or anything?!?!?!)

We always have to have some cheap no name hairspray on hand. Cockroaches are resilient and FAST so it takes 30s of constant spraying to do them in. One time in the old apartment, we caught one in the bathtub that just came up through the drain. He was cornered. HS sprayed him but didn't want to deal with picking him up and tossing him in the garbage (we were rushing to get out the door and go to work). Inexplicably, he thought pouring Draino on it would be a better way of dealing with it. When we got back that night, the cockroach LIQUEFIED. Fully made it worse to pick up.

Recently, HS tried to use some all purpose cleaner to discourage miniature ants from trying to get in through the window frame. It didn't really work. While the first batch of ants scurried off, more were coming back (or the same ones...ants all look the same to me). Maybe they liked the citrus scent? So I suggested using BAM bathroom/tile cleaner. That stuff is POTENT. Not only did all the ants scurry away, the chemical fumes burned the inside of my nose for about 5 minutes. So later the same night, when HS saw a grasshopper disguised as a cockroach, he attacked it with his entire arsenal. With his hairspray in one hand and BAM in the other, he double-whammied the poor sucker and it was dead in no time. Then instantly we felt bad because we only kill cockroaches and try to let moths, grasshoppers, and daddy long legs live. We didn't even realise it was a grasshopper until it was trying to jump away from the BAM sprays. But by then it was too late. :(

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From: ehbaba
To: melody
Subject: Re: Re: Re: ALOT

edit

the cockroach didn't liquefy
it turned gelatinous

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From: melody
To: ehbaba
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: ALOT

gggggrrrroooooooossssssss!

But in an awesome sort of way.

Apparently lines of talcum powder keep ants away. They won't cross it...? My cousins did it at their place...they'd just had a new baby so they had tons of baby powder to try it with. Tell me if it works. If not, I guess good luck with the BAM.

I like that you capitalized BAM every time. :)

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From: ehbaba
To: melody
Subject: Re: Re: Re: ALOT

good tip
i have baby powder...will definitely try that

Americans may find this the most awesomest map ever

Defining a Canadian

Regardless of whether the below editorial really exists, I still really enjoyed it!

***********

An Australian Definition of a Canadian
In case anyone asks you who a Canadian is . . .
     
You probably missed it in the local news, but there was a report that someone in Pakistan had advertised in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed a Canadian - any Canadian..
 
An Australian dentist wrote the following editorial to help define what a Canadian is, so they would know one when they found one.
   
A Canadian can be English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German,  Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. A Canadian can be Mexican,  African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, Arab, Pakistani or Afghan. A Canadian may also be a Cree, Metis, Mohawk, Blackfoot, Sioux, or one of the many other tribes known as native Canadians.   A Canadian's religious beliefs range from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim,  Hindu or none.   In fact, there are more Muslims in Canada than in Afghanistan. The key difference is that in Canada they are free to worship as each of them chooses. Whether they have a religion or no religion, each Canadian ultimately answers only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.
   
A Canadian lives in one of the most prosperous lands in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which recognize the right of each  person to the pursuit of happiness.
   
A Canadian is generous and Canadians have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return. Canadians welcome the best of everything, the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services and the best minds.
But they also welcome the least -  the oppressed, the outcast and the rejected.
   
These are the people who built Canada . You can try to kill a Canadian if you must as other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world have tried but in doing so you could just be killing a relative or a neighbour. This is because Canadians are not a particular people from a particular place.  They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom.   Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, can be a Canadian.

Is "multiracialism" just an excuse to be close-minded?

John Howard, an ex-Australian prime minister, shared his views on multiculturalism and multiracialism earlier this year. He believes that English-speaking countries should firmly assert their cultural identity upon new immigrants (multiracialism) rather than "[placate] alternative philosophies" (multiculturalism). He feels that multiculturalism breeds terrorism because "there was nothing fanatical movements and Islamic extremists despised more than weakness and lack of self-belief in the ideologies that they attack".

Aside: I don't know if his definitions of these two terms are accurate, but for the purpose of this post, I'll accept them as his interpretation of those two terms.

He lists the US as a country that practices multiracialism, which seems to be a poor example given the whole 9/11 fiasco. He also lists the UK as a country that endangers itself by practising multiculturalism, but it seemed to be doing fine until it stepped in to help its multiracial buddy across the Atlantic. I don't know what motivates the hate behind some of the fanatics, but from the little I know, it has more to do with the ideology of the target countries rather than their open-arm and accepting approach to new immigrants. More likely than not, the lack of terrorist attacks in Australia is due to its remote location and its absence in international news coverage.

It surprises me that in a city with as much diversity as Sydney, people with different backgrounds hardly mingle. Many Australians I've met do feel that immigrants should fully accept Australian culture. This is most evident during the holiday season when almost all cards read "Merry Christmas" and the shopping centres play "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". I think it's a good thing that Australians proudly celebrate its Christian heritage but their negative attitude toward the celebration of other cultures and religions is isolating immigrants and preventing Australians from learning to respect and coexist with people from foreign lands. For example, a friend of a friend was moving to Toronto and was looking for a place to stay. A condo listing included a picture of its courtyard with a black person sitting on a bench. When she saw the ad, she asked "does that mean it's a bad neighbourhood?"

No smoking on airplanes

Why do airplane bathrooms still have ashtrays on their doors? Have the airplane-bathroom-door-manufacturers made so many in exccess that they are STILL trying to get rid of their inventory or are the planes really THAT old?

-Edit-
Maybe they reuse those doors?

Happy belated birthday to MEEEEE!

While my past year was exciting, this year, instead of doing my normal year-in-review, I want to talk about what we TRIED to do for my birthday.

Steve's mom came to visit in late Feb/early Mar. We tried to cram as many day trips as we could on weekends because we didn't have enough time to do a lot during the work week. Weekend trips included...

...wine tasting at the Hunter Valley,

...going to the Sydney zoo, and

...visiting Melbourne.


In amongst out outings, we found some time to have a small birthday celebration. Steve's mom made tourtiere pie and chocolate bread pudding for the three of us and our friends Pattee and Niel. :) Since our kitchen is poorly equipped, she had to buy massive tin foil BUCKETS to use as baking dishes. This forced her to make twice as much food as we needed. Intending to have almost half the food as leftovers, she went ahead and made a fantastic meal.

Steve dished up and no one realised what was happening until we were all stuffed with our plates still half-full. He split up all that food in 5 equal parts, not thinking that the plan was to have food leftover. Somehow, we still managed to polish our plates and have most of the dessert.


We've heard that the Blue Mountains are fantastic and we were waiting for an opportunity to go for ourselves. As it happens, the only day that we had available was my actual birthday. Because it's a few hours' drive away and we were going to try and cram the trip into one day, we decided to take a bus tour. I had the pleasure of waking up at 5am on my birthday to catch the bus. En route, we stopped at a wildlife conservatory. We got to pet kangaroos and koalas, which was really neat.


We had braced ourselves for a wet trip. The forecast was rain for the entire day. We prepped ourselves by buying ponchos so we would be able to do the hikes/walks without worrying about balancing with an umbrella. What we weren't prepared for was nothing. Well, that's unfair. We did see something...and lots of it...

...fog fog fog fog fog. It was everywhere. To add insult to injury, we prepaid extra to dine in the 360 rotating restaurant for the pleasure of having lunch with "mountain" views.

The "Three Sisters" (rock formations) and the "Blue Mountains" (blue from the way light reflects off the oil given off by the eucalyptus trees) were hidden the entire time. This is what people see on a clear day. Since there was no point going to look-outs, we were told we could take a short 10min walk and at least see one of the mountians' many waterfalls. It took close to 20min each way because we tried to tip toe around the muddy track. We got excited when we caught our first glimpse.

Then, we turned the corner, and oh my goodness it was soooooo...

...WEAK! They should rename that to the "Katoomba Trickle". The only cool thing we got to do was ride the steepest railway in the world but the ride only lasted a few seconds and we didn't get to see much looking out.

We tried to salvage her remaining weekend in Aus with a quick trip to Melbourne. Steve was there for business so he was at meetings while I kept his mom entertained with shopping. Before leaving us to our own devices, he made sure I had my phone with me(he asks me this out of habit anytime we split up when we're out, but it was particularly important this time because his mom was having issues with her tooth and we were in a straunge city). We were out shopping for at least an hour. We stopped at a convenience store beside the hotel to grab some snacks. While we were waiting in line, I decided to check my phone. I had 2 missed texts and 18 missed calls from Steve within a 13 minute time span. I went to check the texts first and they read:
"Emergency. Please call asap!"
"I asked you to have your phone ready!"

Totally freaked out, I called him back right away but there was no answer. I kept calling and calling, hoping that he wasn't in so much trouble that he couldn't even answer his phone. When I finally got a hold of him, he told me "never mind". Not satisfied with that, I pushed him to tell me what the emergency was. He insisted that it didn't matter anymore. When I kept on asking, he finally yelled "I asked you to have your phone ready!" I calmly told him that he did not and reminded him that he simply asked if I had my phone on me. After we got off the phone, I confirmed with his mom that he never asked me to "have my phone ready".

As it turns out, he was in a line-up that his mom and I passed by while shopping. We didn't know what the commotion was and didn't care enough to cross the street to find out. Unlike me, he asked the people in line what they were waiting for. Jamie Oliver was in town promoting his new cookbook. The first x number of people who buy a copy can have it signed by him and get a picture taken with him. On the spur of the moment, Steve thought that this would make a great bday present for me. So he lined up and when he got close to the end, he called me so I could go meet him to get my picture with Jamie. In the end, Steve really said it best:

One Jamie Oliver cook book for your wife’s birthday - $79

Standing in line to get Jamie Oliver cook book signed for your wife - an hour of your life that you can never get back

Calling your wife to get her butt over to the book store so she can get her pic taken with Jamie Oliver - 25 phone calls to voicemail over a 30 min. period while standing in line

Having to get YOUR picture with the chef your wife loves, because she cannot get her butt over to the book store in time for the picture - priceless, but not really worth it.

Stormy 1991-2010

I didn't even want her when we were first given an opportunity to adopt her from a family friend. Taking care of a dog really goes against my creed of laziness...but she seemed like an ALRIGHT dog and she was happy once she stopped crying for her past owner. She grew on me in less than a week. From that point on, I was HOOKED.

In her previous life, she wasn't walked often. She was let out into the yard to do her business but that was about it. So when we took her for walks, she would pull and pull. It was hard to deny her the joy she derived from running 7 feet before the leash choked her and spun her around by the neck. She also spent a ridiculous amount of time at EACH bush, tree, hydrant, street sign, blade of grass, etc. Since she was well trained in all other aspects, we decided to spoil her and let her do whatever she wanted when she was outdoors.

I didn't realize that I didn't like dogs until well after I first met Stormy. I got used to her easy going and loving temperament. It annoyed me when other dogs tried to lick me or jump on me or got their hair all over my clothes. Stormy never did any of that. When she wanted company, she`d come over to see if you were in the mood to pet her and let her sit by you. If not, she went to bed. If so, she`d lie by your side until you get up and leave. When we wanted to play with her, she`d usually indulge us. Interestingly, the only time she played fetch was right after a bath when she became super energetic and developed a need to rip into soft toys! I really missed her when I moved out and was happy to see that she was always glad to see me when I visited (and vice versa)!

She remained so young and vibrant until May `09. Suddenly, she stopped eating, drinking, and moving around. There was swelling in her chest and it was feared that her liver was starting to fail. We had to prepare ourselves to put her down and had to start deciding when we should do it. Miraculously, she made a recovery, even though her joie de vie suffered slightly. I was so excited to see her over Christmas but was sad to see that while she was feeling better, her age was starting to catch up to her. She was completely blind (cataracts) and spent most of her time in bed. While she enjoyed going for walks from time to time and being treated to human food, she no longer bounced around or actively begged for food. She was never good with her nose so she had to depend on people to bring food to her (she knew there was food around...she just couldn't figure out where it was). The saddest thing was that she had little or no reaction when she heard me. I don`t know whether she recognized my voice or not (she used to before). She usually perks up and gets excited when she hears me call for her but she just seemed really tired and distant. Even though this was disappointing, I was happy that she was still relatively healthy.

When I touched down in Melbourne this past week and turned on my cell phone, I got numerous messages and emails asking me to call my parents - Stormy was in big trouble. They were at the vet and was about to put her down. She had what may have been a ruptured invertebral disc...it was causing her a tremendous amount of pain. She was panting and screaming constantly. There was nothing that could be done at this point. It was time to let her go. I was glad I got the chance to say goodbye over the phone and tell her that I love her. I hope she recognized my voice. Even if she didn't, I hope she knew that we all loved her.

Update: Just received a picture of Stormy in her final minutes. I was very happy to hear that her last moments were calm and peaceful. I didn't believe in puppy heaven until now. A dog as awesome as she was deserves no less! :)