h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That's bad news ab. Did you have a good day apart from the disappointing score?

Yeah! Saw some great bowling, Vasbert Drakes (WCcc/W/Indies) tore out M.N.Goodwin' middle stump 2nd ball of the innings, and nearly took out the wicket keepers eye with it!!!! I was sat down on the 3rd man boundry surrounded by and cheering Warwickshire fansone of them even bought me a pint so I can't complain how was your day?
ab

Sorry to hear about the game ab Still, at least you got a free pint out of it That must have been quite a delivery Yorker was it?

* runs in to everybody before going to bed *

Goodnight!

Night!

Night!

*Sound of crickets chirping*
Ahhhhhh. I like it when there are a lot of people here, and I like it when it's quiet and peaceful, like it is right now.
*Listens to the crickets, looks up at the stars, watches a big ole tarantula scuttling by (well, this is Texas after all )

Cool, hairy s...

I really don't know why people find them so . I used to have one as a pet. Kept it in a big aquarium and fed it crickets. Last week my boss said that his wife ran into the bedroom as they were getting ready to retire, toothbrush in her mouth, shrieking "Mmmllfflgggffffmm". After he got her to remove the toothbrush, she said "Great big tarantula on the bathroom floor". Apparently they're quite common where they live, just out of town, scorpions too. I think it's too urban around here for them to really thrive, but I did see a little black spider the other day. "Ooh, how pretty, it's got a little red mark on its back" The wife suddenly jumps to attention! "Is it shaped like a violin or a figure of 8?" "Well, kind of". "Oh sh*t, that's bad". "Why?" "Black widow" After some research on the net, it turned out that it prolly wasn't - wrong shape. Phew.

A little black spider with a red mark on it's back? That'd be a red-back spider over here (we're pretty imaginative ), which tend to hide under toilet seats and are pretty damn dangerous...

Yes, I did see lots of mentions on the various websites of Redbacks and Brown Recluses. The one I saw was either a totally different species, or an immature specimen. This is all very disconcerting for a bloke like me who comes from a place where there are no poisonous creatures of any kind except for the politicians

I'm pretty sure you don't have red-backs over there, but I could be wrong, I don't watch Croc Hunter after all... And I'm sure more people get killed by politicians every year than by poisonous creatures of all kinds combined...

No, we don't get redbacks here - all the references to those were that they were only found in Australia. I think. You ever had an encounter with anything like that? Or a snake?

Well, ther're spiders all over the place, but I haven't had any particularly traumatic experiences...snakes I've had a couple of close shaves with...the closest one was one time I was in Queensland, I was running along a path and ran right over a brown snake...fortunately not stepping on it as I went by...

Queensland - now, there's a place I'd really like to visit. And not just to visit the Croc Hunter's zoo I haven't seen any snakes here yet, but again, you don't really get those until you travel out of the city. I was prolly in amongst them when I visited the Joshua Tree National Monument in California a few years ago, and again at the Saguaro NM in Arizona. I can't begin to describe the buzz I got both times out of seeing the plants I used to grow in pots in a greenhouse, in their natural habitat

No, probably not... But you do often tend to ignore things like that...the things that I see every day...well, perhaps not *every* day, I *do* live in the suburbs......but can see quite often, which are unique to Australia, especially in terms of floræ and fauna, which people from all over the world would love to have the opportunity to see in a natural setting...

Absolutely Pf, couldn't have said it better myself...

s!

The only poisonous animal in the UK (apart from the politicians) is the adder, and I've yet to see one. We don't really have any very fierce creatures - unless you count the mysterious 'large cats'.

Sorry about the blank post - I was so jittery at the thought of tarantulas and red-backs that I submitted by mistake.