photo credit: Sappymoosetree

Let me start this article off by admitting how petrified I am of spiders. Every man in my life has been transformed, at some point, into an all-powerful spider warrior.

It goes like this: my fiancé will be working quietly in our home office when, suddenly, he’ll hear a shriek from the kitchen; he’ll fall out of his chair and come running with a penny loafer, our 180-pound mastiff galloping alongside him, fur flying. I’ll be in the kitchen when he gets there, pointing wildly and jumping furiously in place.

So, I’m writing this article to spare both my fiancé and me increased potentiality for cardiac arrest in our mid-twenties (no need to worry about our mastiff – he needs the exercise). From everything I’ve been reading, there’s a bunch of reasons not only to get rid of arachnophobia, but to actually embrace spiders (not literally…dear god, not literally) as a wonderful part of one’s natural –– and sometimes home –– environment.

Here are a few that have impressed me as viable reasons to love/tolerate spiders:

1. Spiders have been revered in hundreds of really awesome myths and folk stories the world over. Sometimes they’re cast in the role of Creator, sometimes as gods and goddesses. Check out some of the stories, if you ever have time. They’re fun reads. Here’s one about Anansi the West African spider god: http://anansi-web.com/anansi.html
2. In North America, at least, only two kinds of spiders are truly harmful to humans – the brown recluse and the black widow (and, by all means, get rid of them). The rest actually just eat other insects we usually find pretty scary, including mosquitoes carrying malaria (the world’s #1 fatal disease) and flies carrying cholera.
3. The presence of spiders in your house is a sign that 2,000 fewer bugs per spider will be there every year.
4. In your garden, spiders eat those bugs that love to damage your plants! In fact, they’re used in organic cotton farming for exactly this reason.
5. It’s actually rare for most spiders to bite humans, unless they feel threatened in some way. A spider will probably not find its way into your bed more often than once or twice a year, and on those occasions, will most likely not bite you. It doesn’t want to suck your blood – it just wants to eat insects. Most spiders are unfairly blamed for bites when mites, fleas, and bedbugs are the real perpetrators.
6. Spiders love to eat mosquitoes. That’s a terrific reason to keep them around. Mosquitoes actually want to eat you; spiders are terrified of you, and only want to run away from you.
7. Like I said, spiders generally don’t want to bite you. A spider can’t even see you until you’re about a foot away from it, since spiders have horrific eyesight. Thus, it’s not going to aim for you when it falls from the ceiling (it’s probably just lost its grasp) or when it sees your foot on the floor.
8. Spiders are generally a sign of good luck in many cultures the world over!

Okay, and one incredibly cool fact that I discovered while on my quest for spider awesomeness: Spiders can’t die of natural causes and there are apparently these spiders living in China that were hatched in the Mang-Tsun dynasty 2,800 years ago; they’re known as “holy spiders”!

Now, if you still can’t stand your 8-legged friends, videojug offers a lovely instructional video on how to delicately remove the little monsters from your house:

Random Hilarity:
How To Catch A Spider

by Vic Shayne
Entertainment Reporter: citylightsguide.com

It sounds so romantic, stolen kisses in the night. You can see the words in a brilliant but sensitive and heartwarming novel of star-crossed lovers who were reunited at the end of WWII …

There we stood, alone and breathing hard like two school children full of expectation and hope. The others were laughing gaily as the orchestra played our song. Under our own gazebo of stars, for the first time, we held one another and gazed into each other’s eyes. It was magic, but not the kind involving a rabbit and a hat, or even a girl being sawn in half. No, this was love. No, better than love. Beyond earthly description, like Orion’s Belt. The entire evening swirled around us and we were alone in a sea of people, drunk on foolish romance. Not the people, I mean us. Dorothy and I. Alone for perhaps a minute, but not before sharing those unforgettable stolen kisses in the cool autumn breeze of the inky inky night.

I wrote these words in a book I entitled “In a Sea of Your Love,” and was told by no fewer than fifty editors that it was sappy, cliché and amateurish, yet in places spotty with an unconscious intent to be altogether droll. Moreover, ten of the editors chastised me specifically for invoking the phrase “stolen kisses.” What do they know? They sit in their offices on piles of manuscripts and critique the works of others. Is that any way to make a living? I’ve had it with them all, especially that creep Lenny Birnbaum from Simon and Shusters in Manhattan. I doubt that’s even the name of a real publisher.

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Anyhow, between you and I, separated now by fifteen years since I wrote that novel, though it’s not easy for me, I have to admit I don’t even know what “stolen kisses” are. I’ve read about them, but the phrase confuses me to no end. How can you steal a kiss? See what I mean? Doesn’t make sense. You can’t even borrow a kiss, let alone steal one. You can give one and maybe take one, but you can’t steal one. There’s no quantitative way to prove that a kiss is missing, proving that it can’t be stolen. Ask any police detective. It’s not even a crime to steal a kiss. Why? Because it’s not possible.

Nor can you have one out on loan.

image: julianrod

Have you ever had the urge to kiss in a bed… of flowers? Our research team has uncovered that if you’re in the deep south and are looking for a great place to plant a big wet one it’s in Atlanta’s Botanical Garden. If you’re looking for your love to flower, or your lover’s flower, or something like that, you may be interested to know that the Garden has been twice chosen as “Atlanta’s Most Popular Place to Kiss.”

The curator of Atlanta’s Botanical Garden has in past years transformed the institution into a lover’s paradise on Valentine’s Day night, with candlelit paths, misted green foliage and soft music. If that’s not enough to get you in the mood, the Garden serves up rich desserts made of chocolate, specialty coffee drinks, bubbly champagne and martinis.

While you’re kissing your beloved you can breathe the sweet aroma of orchids and be carried away by a man-eating, rare Amazon fern.

Okay, everything’s true except for the part about the fern. Sex is strongly discouraged within ten feet of the cactus display.

image: glitter feet

What do Octopus look like when they kiss? The tech company A-Data solves that question rather adorably with their T806 Kissing Octopus Couple USB Flash Drive.

The blue and pink pair have already won the iF 2009 Design Award and are available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB varieties.

Check them out here.

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Americans are Prep Course Crazy!

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With the abundance of test prep being done nationwide for the SAT, LSAT, ACT, MCAT, GMAT and HAZMAT, is it any surprise that couples are taking a prep course for their New Year’s kiss this year?

You do only get one shot at your midnight kiss after all. (Though I still contend that like the LSATs, a weighted average of past kisses should factor in to the final score, but I don’t make the rules.)

Today 50 New York City couples are meeting up in Times Square for a massive make-out practice session. Organizers are hoping that New Year’s will be the world’s biggest group kiss and claim that it could potentially be the longest in history.

“That is up for debate”, says the Fox News Team. “We’ve been working hard to kiss-up to the Bush Administration without a break for over 8 years now.”

Kissing expert Andrea Demirjian, author of the book “Kissing — Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About One of Life’s Sweetest Pleasures,” will be on hand to help guide the couples as they practice for the lip-lockdown to take place when the famous Waterford crystal ball drops in Times Square on Dec. 31.

Photo: Walmink

Our headline is partially true. In an effort to attract more wi-fi freeloading students, CoffeeCompany in Holland changed it’s WiFi menu to reflect items from the cafe’s actual menu as well as directives to customers.

Some wifi menu items include: “Mmm Yummy Muffin Only 2 Euro,” “Buy Another Cup You Cheapskate” and Our Favorite (and excuse for posting this) “BuyCoffeeforCuteGirlOverThere?“

I’m for any marketing idea that sells its product and fosters flirtation at the same time.

Read more at DirectDaily: link

A British man spent 15 years reassembling 2,000 pieces of love letters he had written to his late wife. She had torn up the letters when she caught someone reading them.

Ted Howard, 82, ended up with 98 letters that he had written to his wife Molly during the seven years he spent abroad – traveling Europe as a farm worker.

When Molly found someone reading them in 1953, she tore them into more than 20 pieces each – over 2,000 scraps – some smaller than a thumbnail.

Mr. Howard began reconstructing the letters in 1993 and just completed the last letter – 3 years after his wife died. He worked tirelessly at the task – separating corner and center pieces and slowly putting them back together – for roughly an hour a day for over 15 years.

The letters were written on hotel stationary as he traveled the UK, France, Ireland and Holland in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Full Story: BBC News link

18-year old Elizabeth (Lizzy) Frisinger was super-excited to lose her virginity. So excited in fact, that after doing it on a beach during a class trip, she immediately fired-off a text message to a friend raving about how it was “gr8.”

Unfortunately for Lizzy, a slip of the finger sent the message not to a friend, but to her Dad. He immediately booked her a return trip back to Cleveland. Class Trip over.

Somehow this seems like a great marketing opportunity for Delta. I can see the ad campaign now:  “Delta Air Lines: Rushing Home America’s Deflowered Daughters since 1924.”

Inventor Le Trung, 33, has created Aiko – a female robot with “with a stunning 32, 23, 33 figure, shiny hair and delicate features.”

They often go on drives together, she reads him newspaper headlines over breakfast and works in his home 24 hours a day. Aiko (her name means ‘love child’) also reacts to human touch and can be tickled.

Le claims their interaction has not strayed to the bedroom, but does add that a few “tweaks” could easily turn her into a sexual playmate. He further explains, “Her software could be redesigned to simulate her having an orgasm.”

For right now though, Aiko is programmed to aggressively reject all sexual advances

leaving us to wonder if perhaps Le based Aiko a little too closely on his own interactions with real women.

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The best part is around 1:10 when she slaps him and says “I do not like it when you touch my breasts.”

There’s definitely some psychological trauma coming out here between inventor and creation. I don’t think Doctor Frankenstein ever had this particular problem.

photo: Barcroft Media

full story: UK Sun – link

A middle school principal made good on a promise to kiss a pig this Monday.

San Benancio Middle School principal Gina Uccelli had vowed to pucker up for the porcine pet if her students raised $17,000 in a magazine fundraiser.

They ended up raising $18,000 in all and she fulfilled her committment in front of the whole student body.

When asked to comment, the pig remarked, “Eh. It was okay. I’m just disappointed they didn’t raise enough for the next prize up at $25,000. Now that would have been something to see.”

photo: Vicky TGAW

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