I have also watched way too many teevee shows. Some have great visual effects, excellent production values, but the story telling is so bad it makes the shows unwatchable. I want to watch muh stories but they really drag on way too long. On a more cheerful note, here is the third of three great composers born in 1685 - talk about an alignment of stars!
While dragging out enormous slabs of red oak that I have been drying for 17 years I espied a Dolomedes tenebrosus, also known as a fishing spider. She was a bit lethargic due to the recent cold weather, but I picked her up and moved her to a safe spot. Who knew spiders that large went fishing?
Here is a slab of red oak that I milled flat today. It is sitting on a monobloc chair, said chair being one of millions of what might be the most successful chair design in history.
Also, based on how shabby the lawn is looking I should drag out my paramour, for those of you who speak Baltimore.
22 comments:
I loved how the Lefties all looked down on movies and TV from when I was a kid, but today they can't hold a candle to those stories.
What makes spiders so terrifying? I can feel my heart shudder at the sight. They mortify me since childhood.
The little green ones are allowed to stay. They like water and live near the sinks and drains. Problem is they mass-produce.
The big icky scary furry ones give me the creeps.
Is that your puppy? he's super cute.
I understand that, DB@H, hence the page break. But if you can zoom in on the picture you can see the intricate pattern on her back and abdomen. Per Wiki: "The legs are banded with brown/black annulations on the femora and reddish-brown/black annulations on the tibia."
I was taught at an early age to allow spiders to coexist around the place - they eat insects, and around here that is a very good and necessary thing. But ones found inside my house are captured and released to the great outdoors. No reason to see things scurrying out of the corner of one's eye.
Thanks - that's one of my dogs - he has been a great dog - faithful, a fierce defender of the pack, loyal to a fault, and now sunning himself in his old age.
I went into Game of Thrones withdrawal. Amazon recommended The Rise of Catherine the Great. It was a Russian produced show. So far as I could tell, it was faithful to the actual facts of Catherine's life. It was filmed in Russian palaces and some care was taken with the costumes and furniture. The woman who played Catherine was quite arresting. She played the part as a mixture of Scarlet O'Hara and Michael Corleone. She holds your attention, but all the parts were well cast. The actor who played her husband, the hapless and fatuous Pyotr, was especially good. He made the role sympathetic and almost tragic.......It's no Game of Thrones, but Catherine played and won on the real life game of thrones. The actual events of Catherine's life were far more barbarous and melodramatic than anything that ever happened in Westeros. This was a pretty good recreation of them.
To buy and sell, to create and clean up, to warm oneself by the fire, to feel the warmth of the sun, to work and to walk, to meet and greet dogs, to spend time with a 15 year old dog who knows what is good in life, and to see what beauty nature holds and to be here enjoying the day.
Infinitive Gist (with apologies to David Foster Wallace).
Ed, leftist is like nuclear radiation, if you are exposed to it long enough your going to get mental cancer.
Sixty, i saw the picture of your doggie and it made me cry for mine who's been gone for a couple of years now. I envy you and i sometimes wish i had a buddy to be there with all the time, but my life just doesn't allow it right now.
I hear ya, Meth, dogs are great companions and 15 years is a long time in human and dog years, so needless to say, I have many great memories of the adventures that dog and I had together. Hang in there, you will get to a suitable place and there will be a dog ready to hang out at the Meth house. Wait, is that right?
Living in the moment should be everyone's goal. Sounds like Sixty has achieved it.
It's a gorgeous spider, no doubt. Still - creeeeeepeeeeeee
DB, I understand - I jump when I see a snake, for example - some things are difficult to countenance in one's field of vision.
And Spins, I try to be like my dogs - be here, be grateful for what I have and look forward to my next walk. Simple is good.
I just now binged Kantaro. Another Japanese subtitled so you have to read your way through. The main character is a publications salesman who's ace at this job then plays hooky to visit a Japanese dessert specialty shop somewhere in Tokyo, mostly. He plans his sales stops and his dessert place each day and runs a dessert blog on the side. There's character development with other salesmen, women in the office hot on his trail, and his boss. Each episode he teaches about the history of Tokyo neighborhoods, and each shop he virtually orgasms about every dessert. Each episode he turns into the dessert, his head becomes the dessert and he's transported to an imaginary realm where the nature of the dessert intermingles with an issue arising in the episode. It's well done. It's the opposite of unimaginative American productions constricted by American type mythologies. It goes nicely with the other Japanese food-related shows, where food preparation is mixed with storytelling, The Midnight Diner and the Samurai Gourmet. All three recommended. They're all very good insights into their culture treated with tenderness and with humor. In each episode of Kantaro the salesman quotes some western philosopher for some insight bearing on the episode's story. It's a bit weird, and it's lovely how they blend western thought and ideals into their unique islander ways. Most of their desserts are made of azuki beans. He gets into the exacting demands of precise azuki growing and preparation, as with rice, and chocolate and every element grown, selected and prepared with obsessive exactness. For decades and centuries. And how they evolve to incorporate the best that the west has to offer, and how they're updated, or how they stay true to their history and their own culture.
There is appreciation extended to the west and there is love for their own.
A friend was given a box of expensive Japanese sweets, packaged extravagantly. He contorts his face and he goes, "Look at this shit is all beans!"
He had no clue what he was given.
Dude, thanks for the recommendation - I will watch that as soon as I can. Midnight Diner and Samurai Gourmet were both excellent, and I would tell my dogs "Hey, I know that place - I was there!" And of course they thought "That's nice, what's for super?"
Japanese "sweets" are not sweet, at least to Americans. When I travelled to Japan I always brought home pastries I bought at Ueno station and the boxes alone were a treat. They really take pride in what they make over there.
I don't know of a single spider that would rather sting you than avoid you. The only danger is if you accidentally roll into when asleep or step on while walking a brown spider. I'll let that awkward sentence stand. I'm probably wrong but I think the brown is the only spider that poses a (slight) danger to the smart people like me who choose to live in the temperate zone.
Chip, i just started watching Kantaro the sweet toothed salary man last week. Hilarious and i learned a bunch of things from it too. I'll probably binge on samurai diner this weekend.
Sixty Grit said...
I hear ya, Meth, dogs are great companions and 15 years is a long time in human and dog years, so needless to say, I have many great memories of the adventures that dog and I had together. Hang in there, you will get to a suitable place and there will be a dog ready to hang out at the Meth house. Wait, is that right?
I love dogs more than most people to be honest. Nowhere in the universe will you find a more loyal companion who will love you without question than that of a dog. Meth house will become a brighter place when I decide to do it. I'm still heartbroken over losing mine, to be honest, and I can't stand the thought of doing it again only to have to say goodbye in a short amount of time. It would crush me.
I understand that sentiment completely. From 1972 until 2000 I didn't have any pets, then a dog showed up at my house, long story, but the short version is that she was a sweet, intelligent 5 year old Golden/Yellow lab mix who was already pretty well trained and just an all around marvelous animal.
She lived at my house for 9 years - and when she died at age 14 I was crushed. The grief was overwhelming. Then a couple of weeks later a friend showed up with a black and white ball of fur and I figured what the heck and took her home. That puppy was so intense that I had no time to grieve. I had to train that dog and in order to do that I had to be smarter than her. No small accomplishment that. Now, 9 years down the line that puppy has become the black and white dog I have posted here. Best dog ever. Cured my grief, insisted that I become a better dog trainer and like you say, she has become a great companion.
The more I learn about people the more I like dogs.
ricpic - one of the reasons I decided to learn more about spiders is due to working with a guy from Australia. He knew all the scientific names of the arachnids down under, but then again, that's a prudent thing to do - the ones they have there can kill you.
A friend was bitten by a brown recluse, spider that is, and eventually the necrotic tissue healed. Eventually.
Since I don't have netflick, I am not able to watch Kantaro. However I have been able to watch a somewhat similar show called Wakakozake at Crunchyroll. There are three seasons with pretty short run times, one season is actually a very short anime series. It revolves around a single Japanese woman who really really loves going out eating and drinking after work is over. Actual locations, drinks, and foods are promoted in a quick recap at the end of each episode. She has some pretty extreme reactions to what she is eating and drinking! There are some minor plot points mainly revolving around a favorite watering hole.
You do not have to pay for Crunchyroll if you are ok with less than HD and watching an occasional ad.
Who knew spiders that large went fishing?
Who knew indeed?
Another good post and set of comments! With a set up that sent me off and running, not away from the spider but toward more info on it in an attempt to find out how it came by its name.
I ended up with more than bargained for, almost as weird and unsettling to read about as watching the antics in the recent barrage of Rowan and Martin videos.
They hunt by waiting at the edge of a pool or stream, then when they detect the ripples from prey, they run across the surface to subdue it using their foremost legs, which are tipped with small claws; like other spiders they then inject venom with their hollow jaws to kill and digest the prey. They mainly eat insects, but some larger species are able to catch small fish. They can also climb beneath the water, when they become encased in a silvery film of air.
The method they use to fish for insects is to hold on to the shore with their back legs while the rest of their body lies on the water, with legs stretched out...they tend to be robust with thickset legs that allow them to tackle prey larger than themselves. They stretch out their front legs and wait, as if listening.
They're are covered all over in short, velvety hairs which are unwettable (hydrophobic). This allows them to use surface tension to stand or run on the water, like pond skaters. They can also climb beneath the water, and then air becomes trapped in the body hairs and forms a thin film over the whole surface of the body and legs, giving them the appearance of fine polished silver...They breathe with book lungs beneath their abdomens, and these open into the air film, allowing the spiders to breathe while submerged. The trapped air makes them very buoyant and if they do not hold onto a rock or a plant stem they float to the surface where they pop onto the surface film, completely dry.
With this as the final fact: Mating always results in the death of the male by self-sacrifice, with no obvious involvement from the female.
Wonders in tiny packages, that's for sure, a.k.a. raft spiders, dock spiders or wharf spiders with the genus name Dolomedes derived from the Greek word "dolomed" which means wily, deceitful.
Which also means someone was watching them work years before there were cameras to record their marvelous methods and clever ways to cope.
May you continue to enjoy more goodness, Sixty G with good dogs at your side and crossing your path. Your dog stories are almost, but not quite enough to convince me to open the door and allow another to enter our house and hearts.
Thanks, MamaM - my dogs and I are a fine pack, just sayin'. And if you get to the place that you can have a dog, go for it - they are fun _and_ useful.
Post a Comment