Australians, what is WRONG with you?

We've been having lots of unseasonal rain this past week and creepy crawlies have been looking for dry shelter, which means houses. A huntsman spider who spent the last couple of weeks living above my apartment building's entrance dropped onto the head of a neighbour late one night this weekend. Apparently everyone home at the time was awakened by a din of shrieking and nearly called the cops. As a result I got an email this morning about pest control coming later in the week, so there won't be any more pictures for a while.

(I took a photo of said spider last week intending to PM it to Elyscape but dark corner + camera phone flash left me with an indistinct smudge. And now he's gone. Sorry mate!)

Have I mentioned lately that I hallucinate spiders at least once a week. *shudder* I hated the fuckers even before I went nuts, but now... Fuck.

As Nietzsche put it, "He who fights with spiders might take care lest he thereby become a spider. And if you hallucinate spiders for long, the spiders also hallucinate you."

Can they hallucinate me stepping on them, and thereby become scared shitless? That would be awesome.

Last year after the floods this happened in some places:



That white stuff covering everything? Spider webs. It was thought that millions of ground-dwelling spiders did their best to create their own versions of cities in the sky as the water got higher.

Oh, and it was although thought that they flew around a bit by 'ballooning' aka 'using some silk as a parachute'. So there you are: millions of flying spiders.

Sweet dreams.

Oh hai, brett! Welcome to The Thunderdome.

I don't have a problem with creepy crawlies that keep to themselves, but once they come into contact with any part of my body I tend to lose control of my limbs in an apparent attempt to sever that contact.

I don't understand a fear of daddy long-legs. There's nothing of them.

Try standing in front of a light trap in a really well populated area for while. Imagine insects landing on you faster than you can brush them off... fun times !

I just walked through a spider web that was right by the back door when I went outside to bring the cat in. I can feel it all over me. If this is my last ever post on Broken Forum.... try not to think about what happened, okay?

Giant spider!

I almost walked through a massive banana spider web coming out of my apartment in Florida few years back, and seeing the size of the beast (despite its non-lethality) I probably would have screamed. Their webs can be anywhere from 10 feet in diameter to the largest I've seen, between two trees over a road.

This is my spider theory. It has so far withstood significant peer review.

Spiders are actually the remnants of a prehistoric alien invasion force which is why they so often elicit revulsion and even fear - deep down our lizard brain knows they don't belong here. They came from another, much larger planet where creatures were much smaller, through some reconnaissance errors they ended up invading the Earth where they found that the dominant life forms were too large to eat/subjugate. Since then they have been reduced to a life of scuttling around and pretending they don't care.

Other members of the family arachnidae also arrived with the main invasion fleet. Scorpions for example are not creatures at all but are armoured fighting suits for spiders. If it were possible to cut one open without triggering the self-destruct systems, you'd find a spider in the central cockpit operating it like a machine.

Every so often you'll be walking down a street with fallen leaves being blown around and you'll see the occasional leaf moving in the opposite direction to the others, this is no leaf but a scout craft from the mothership trying to make contact with the beachhead.

Congratulations, you've just written a Doctor Who episode.

Yeah,not watching that one.

Every time I see this thread pop up, I think, "You know, maybe don't click on that. It's probably spiders."

But what if it isn't?

EVERY DAMN TIME.

STOP HITTING YOURSELF RYAN

Me too, Ryan. Me too. Siiiiigh.

We're not just all about spiders, we also have lovely Kangaroos.

Brazil is making a show at giving Australia a run for its money.

What's worse than raining frogs?

I have learned my lesson: I moused over that link and I'm not gonna click it.

To properly give Australia competition, by this point I think it would have to be raining spiders that are ON FIRE.

...Wait. That's not normal February weather?

And now I'm reminded that I need to keep an eye out for the brown snakes that are breeding nearby. I've already had to kill a couple of juveniles that attacked me, I really don't want to get caught out by something with a mouth large enough to bite me.

I found a spider in my motorcycle helmet once. I was overtaking at 50mph at the time.

Australians already have a word for this event. Wednesday.

Ive always wanted to visit australia, almost did a year there as a foreign exchange student when I was in high school. This thread makes me very happy I did not, and has taken from me any want to visit as well.

Wait until you get a bee in your helmet. A bee that panics and stings you in the ear. At 75 on the freeway.

what a bunch of babies you guys are. You know Australia isn't all deadly creatures. There is also this:

Yeah, be careful qmanol

There was one guy that came into work the other day having been bitten and envenomated by a brown snake, the floods certainly amplifying the risk as they find all sorts of areas to escape the water. As one might expect, it really fucked him around enough to go straight to ICU. And here I see people getting worried about little itty bitty spiders. They've got nothing on the snakes :)

Come to NZ instead! We are like Australia only better in every possible way.

I would definately do that if trying to use my flight benefits on other airlines didn't make my brains hurt so much. (Sadly my airline doesnt fly to NZ, only Australia.)

Inconceivable!

Irredeemable!

I don't care how cute and whimsical the music is, baby bats will never not be creepy. They are just waiting for their caretaker to let her guard down so that they can bite her neck and give her rabies.

What's rabies?

Bat Burritos!

I can assure you 100% that none of those bats have rabies.