random scotto factoid – Somewhere near my apartment is a nesting area for green parrots. I saw about a half dozen of them fly overhead coming in today. I wonder if they’re native, or escaped pets?

I missed Calle Ocho last weekend, not that I’d have been up to go. Great Music and food. A huge block party.

I *still* have to get that stuff put in the mail. Drat. Nothing time intensive, but I’d like the stuff to be where it’s going, not where it is now. *note to self, find out the preferred chain.*

Isaac Asimov Died of AIDS? He contracted the disease from a blood transfusion during open heart surgery, and allegedly his doctor advised him to cover it up.

Dave’s Birthday is this Thursday… I wonder what to hook him up with? Maybe a blockbuster gift card… he’s a daddy now, no time to go out to movies anymore.

“Presently they were under the shadow, and there in the midst of it they saw the opening of a cave. ‘This is the way in,’ said Gollum softly. ‘This is the entrance to the tunnel.’ He did not speak its name: Torech Ungol: Shelob’s Lair. Out of it came a stench, not the sickly odour of decay in the meads of Morgul, but a foul reek, as if filth unnameable were piled and hoarded in the dark within.”

The Lord of the Rings, Book IV, Ch 9

Thumbing through an old paperback novel called Lycosidae. It’s the Pride and Prejudice of giant spider stories. A nice popcorn book between more serious study (not available via amazon! must be out of print).

Spiders are great. Freaky, furry web-spinners with poisonous bites and a love for killing the peskier bugs. Mandibles! A bunch of eyes! They’re just super neat… they’re so thoroughly alien, yet they’re everywhere. Heck, there could be one dangling above your head as you read this! Lowering itself closer and closer to you on a line of silk, preparing to land on your shoulder… *evil laugh*

The movie Eight-Legged Freaks comes out this summer. I want to see it.

Speaking of things with eight legs… Cephalopods are even more spiffy. Squid, octopi, that sort of thing. Totally weird.Tentacles with suckers. And inside the suckers, hooks. many can change color with their surroundings, or just to show moods…and they have venomous bone-crushing beaks!