44/365 - Spiderweb

Another rainy day.

Zombies, Spiders, & Snakes (Oh My)

The news is depressing, lately.  ("But when is it not?" you ask.  So true.)

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An odd jumble of things I was thinking about yesterday (the London riots, music from zombie movies, etc.) led to an exciting night of vivid dreaming about zombies.  (I am now about to relate that dream, in part.  Those who dislike reading about other people's dreams should consider themselves warned.)

We were living in a beautifully dreary (green-on-the-verge-of-autumnal, almost perpetually cloudy-skied) English neighborhood.  Zombies roamed the world-- had done so for long enough that people had moved past the freak-out stage of reaction and now just accepted them as a threat.  That threat kept people tethered to their own personal safe zones, but we were afforded some small comfort by the fact that the zombies were mostly only mobile after dark.  (Yeah, subconscious.  Way to mix zombies with vampires...)  For some reason, we ended up moving in with the family next door. (Consolidating resources? Safety in numbers?)

There was a fair bit of mundane interaction with this family-- conversation, routines, making do, repairing things.  One day, while we worked on something outdoors during the relative safety of daylight, the wife/mother spoke of how she came from New Zealand, originally, and wished she could go back home, though she was afraid of what she'd find.  I sympathized, of course, but commented wryly that at least the weather here suited me well.  She was tired of clouds, and on cue, we glimpsed a fleeting patch of blue sky.

We and the family had plenty of safety measures in place and were doing as well as could be expected.  We even discussed the possibility of putting up some sort of makeshift, protective passageway between our two homes, so that we could travel between them at night, in an emergency.  But despite our planning, I had a gloomy sense that these things-- zombie scenarios-- never end well.  Something always goes wrong, eventually, no matter how careful you are.  Someone always has a moment of thoughtlessness, of stupidity-- wanders off too far-- or for reasons beyond his control, comes face-to-face with the monster when least expected.  And, of course, since it was my dream, where I have the most amazing ability of prediction, that's exactly what happened.

I'll spare you the gory details.  ;o) 

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I've seen a couple of large spiders on the outside of the house, lately-- not the exotic, alien-looking "banana spiders" that come later in the year and turn a woodland path into a creepy, crawly obstacle course of giant webs and palm-sized arachnids that seem to be invisible until they're dangling mere inches from your face.  These are probably somewhat smaller than banana spiders, but they're darker and fuzzier to make up for it.  There's something sinister about them--  but then, I don't like any spiders very much.  It's this type of thing that makes me so unique, which is why I bother mentioning it at all. 

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This weekend, we found another skinny snake stuck in the silicone (?) caulking around the exterior of our kitchen window.  It's so bizarre, the way that keeps happening!  That's at least the second one we've found in that window, alone.  (There have been more in the bay window.)  We can't be the only ones having that particular problem-- but a quick Google search yields no relevant results, so I'm not sure what's going on, really. 

The ones that get caught on the kitchen window have a better chance of survival, since we're more likely to spot them and try to free them before it's too late.  Donald managed to get this one loose and drop it outside the fence.  It was another of those corn snakes, I think.  I'd much rather have them around than something worse, so live, little snake, and eat up all the food before your big, bad cousins decide this is an attractive location. 

Spider's Web

This foggy morning, there were many dewy spider webs to choose from. . .

Of spiders, dreams, and "sweded" movies

We may have found our first brown widow spider, last night. I spotted it building a web in the kitchen window over the sink, which I'd opened in the afternoon. (Another brief cool spell. It's so nice to have the windows open! Especially if there aren't spiders building webs in them.) We couldn't tell for sure whether or not it was a brown widow (it was hard to get a good look at it), but it definitely seemed a possibility, so Donald did away with it. (Thank you!) Great. Another venomous pest to keep an eye out for. . . !

Maybe it's time to get out the general purpose de-buggifying spray. It's been a while since the last treatment, anyway. I don't really enjoy spraying poison, but I guess I'd rather spray small amounts of poison from time to time than have lots of bugs and spiders in the house. (Maybe that makes me crazy.)

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I've been clearing up some papers from this desk, and on one of them, I found notes about one of Donald's dreams. I meant to write about it back when it was "new", but I forgot. Why bother taking notes on someone else's dream? He doesn't often remember his dreams, and this one struck me as funny. So, the dream--

We had just gotten two new dogs, but each of them came with "issues". We discovered that the first had a warrant for its arrest, so we had to take it to the police station to sort it all out. (Can a dog have a warrant on it? I mean, I know that if a dog has been making attacks it can be confiscated by the law or even euthanized, but would there ever be an actual warrant?) The second dog turned out to be wearing two separate layers of furry "clothes" that made it appear to be different colors than it really was. Not sure why. . . Maybe it (or its owner) thought one color was more desirable than the other.

Well, I thought it was funny. (g)

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I was recently introduced to the concept of the "sweded" movie. To "swede" a movie, you just refilm it yourself-- usually in an extremely shortened format, hitting on various high points of the story. You can enlist the help of friends or do all the roles yourself. If I understand correctly, the key to a good sweded film is a very limited budget, cheap "FX" and the use of common household items as props. The sillier the better!

If you're curious about the name-- which, I'll be honest, is what interested me to begin with-- it comes from Be Kind Rewind, a 2008 comedy. The premise of the film is that a guy working in a VHS rental store somehow manages to erase all the tapes. He and some friends embark on a mission to remake the ruined movies using an old camcorder and their own cheap versions of special effects. According to the wikipedia entry for the film (because I haven't actually seen it myself), they tell their customers that the movies are from Sweden to explain the higher prices of renting them and the delay between request and arrival of the "sweded" film.

I think this sounds like fun! Definitely an amusing way to spend a day or two with some friends-- especially for older kids and teens.

You can find a selection of sweded films by searching YouTube. Obviously they're only fun if you've seen the original movie. (If you've seen it multiple times, that's even better.)

Here's one for The Lord of the Rings:



I think the best part of that one is the bit that starts about six minutes in, but there are several other "LOL" moments (such as the "barking" at the "Council of Elrond"-- it does kind of sound like that in the real film!). Note that some people think this one shouldn't count as a sweded movie because the production values are too good. (g) Purists! They pop up everywhere! ;o)

(On a tangential note, LOTR fans, have you seen this? I had to laugh, because Donald and I have actually discussed this before. Wouldn't have been much of a saga, but it does make more sense! Evidently there's a whole series of these "how ____ should have ended" videos. They even have their own domain.)

The first sweded film I saw was this "no budget", 5-minute version of Princess Bride:



The fire marsh and the "rat"! (g)

Well, that's it for now! Hope the week's off to a good start for you all. :o)

~~shudder~~

While refilling the dogs' food bowl (outside, on the back porch), I just found a black widow, lying belly-up not far from the bowl. I don't know if it was dying or just stunned by the cool weather, but it wasn't completely dead yet, as I discovered when I was trying to slide a piece of paper under it. (As for why I would so such a thing-- I wanted a closer look at it, but of course dogs always have to be right under your nose, and I didn't want them seeing it and nosing it-- or accidentally stepping on it.)

Anyway, at the first sign of motion I panicked and squashed it, so it's certainly dead now-- but I have to wonder if there are more (or an egg sac) in some nook or cranny of the porch. I guess I need to go spider hunting. Always lots of fun. ;o)

Dewy morning

Fog this morning left behind dew, which made every tiny spider web in the area something worth looking at.


I took a few photos (and then got sidetracked by Photoshop's "glowing edges" filter), if you care to visit my Flickr photostream. :o)