Australia has been an amazing trip, and I saw and experienced things I never thought possible. Here is a quick summary of things I liked, memorable moments, things I didn’t like, and things I want to do in the future when I come back… because I will.

Some of the things I liked (can’t fit them all):

• Melbourne
• Perth
• South W.A
• The “Rocks”
• Sailing to Rotto
• The beach and the sunsets
• The accents and use of words such as “I reckon” and “heaps”
• The nature
• The animals!!!

Some memorable moments:

• Petting the kangaroos and koalas
• The 12 apostles
• Seeing wild koalas, kangaroos and cool-looking birds just hanging out
• Seeing quokkas, the happiest animals on the planet!
• My mom screaming: “Watch it!” in Sydney in the most hilarious voice and slow motion
• Me mistaking cows for kangaroos
• My sister and I jumping off everything and rolling down hills

Things I didn’t like:

• The flies, seriously!
• The plane ride (20 hours…)

Things I want to do in the future:

• See the wild penguins
• Snorkel more and not chicken out with the stingrays (yeah, right.)
• Visit Northern Australia
• Move there.

When we prepared to take off from Melbourne, we turned on the “Skycam” which is a camera on the tail of the airplane which allows you to see outside of the plane, and this was on the screen! Clearly he wanted to leave Australia and poison Canadians. No escaping them!

Welcome back to Toronto. I just want to take a minute and thank a few people. Firstly to my family who made this trip possible for me, I will forever appreciate it and remember this experience. To my aunt and uncle for taking us sailing and around Perth and southern W.A. To my cousins who took me out and showed me Perth night-life, chilled, jumped in the sunset and put up with my constant talking. To my sister for being crazy with me and keeping me going on long days (8-hour walks…). And finally, to your my dear readers for all of your support!

And, in case sunsets, the beach, cute animals, cool architecture and statues, factories, and nature did not entice your desire to come to Australia, maybe this YouTube video will!

Hehe. And they don’t even talk about the heat and the bush fires!

Tiger shark close to the shore! So go on Dorthy, come to Oztralia!

The only poisonous spider in Pennsylvania.

I found this really amusing! The other day I wanted to sit outside. The grass was damp so I brought a towel with me. I spread it out and lay down on it and I had been lying there less then two seconds when I felt this pain in my leg like a bee sting. I roll over and there is this small spider lying on the towel wriggling around on its back pinchers working furiously. I freaked out instantly jumping to the conclusion that I had been bit by the only poisonous spider in Pennsylvania, the brown recluse. I ran inside to tell my mom who jumped to the same conclusion without any prompting and we went down the hall to google images of the spider because neither of us actually knew what it looked like. I hadn’t captured the spider but it looked quite similar to the brown recluse so my mom got scared. My response, “How poisonous is it?”

My mom, “Its poisonous that means you could die from getting bit!” Melodramatic much. I was curious so I decided to look up the symptoms. How to know if you have been bitten by a brown recluse:

1. Initially it is hard to tell if you have been bitten by a brown recluse spider. The bites are usually initially painless although in some cases the victim will feel a minor burning sensation like a bee sting.

2. Symptoms usually develop within two to eight hours.

3. There is severe pain at the bite site or it is severely itchy.

4. You are experiencing muscle pain.

5. You are nauseous.

If you don’t want to have nightmares for the next couple months I would advise against looking up brown recluse bites on line. My sister’s boyfriend was showing me horrifying pictures during the first couple hours after getting bitten when I was waiting to see if my skin would slough off. Luckily none of this happened to me. It was probably some other spider, maybe even a harmless one within the same family. And if you were wondering no death after brown recluse bites is very uncommon, like with most mild traumas the only cases of death have been among the very young or the very old. Either way watch out for brown recluses and don’t jump to conclusions!!!

An ominous, hairy spider crawling inside my wardrobe door! It’s dark and menacing body is in stark contrast to the white of the wardrobe, disturbing my reason for opening the door. I better kill it before it kills me.

I quickly bend down to take my shoe, all the while not letting the creepy-crawly out of my determined sight. Raising my arm and aiming, ready to slap it dead; but it looks like no spider I have ever seen; my hand and mind pause. It has a fat ass and lanky hairy legs. Spiders are supposed to be flat-assed, right? You know the flattened body that would be easy to slap and kill without splattering it’s possibly equally dark, slimy and gooey insides on the unblemished wardrobe door. Or worse still on me!

OMG! Imagine its poisonous insides splattering on me, causing god-knows-what on my skin! Will my skin erupt into life-threatening, un-bearably painful and ugly-looking blisters that have no cure?! Worse still, what if the splatter lands in my eyes and renders me permanently blind?! It will be a while and many items later before my not-so-developed sense of touch gropes and feels for that shape that remotely resembles my phone, so I can alert somebody, anyone that I had been blinded by a spider’s insides. That’s if I find it in time before the battery runs out. Obviously, I can’t make my way to the charger, let alone get the charger plugged into the charging slot.

In a sign of defeat and nerve-numbing fear I drop the now offensive shoe and as quickly gently push the wardrobe door closed, taking care not to dis-lodge the spider and risk it falling onto the floor. For now, I want the spider to stay in-doors and not creep over to my bed while I am sleeping.
Somewhat satisfied that there’s no way it will crawl out and make its way to my bed to do un-imaginable harm to defenceless me, I take my shaking self to bed and self-assuredly recite a million, sleep-inducing reasons why the spider cannot possibly sneak to where I am- including that its thin, long and spindly legs cannot make it down the wardrobe door, onto the carpeted floor, over the hill of rumpled clothing and climb the mountain that is my bed.

It’s the spider again!

It crawled up and bit me! My wide-eyed stare shifts between the angry bite on my ample breast – the softest part of my body and undoubtedly the most gullible – and the spider, I see a gloating in its eyes and it says to me, “You hurt me and now I hurt you more, you asked for it.”

“But I just closed the wardrobe door, I didn’t hurt you. I saved you!” I respond, with a fear-induced stammer.

“You had the intention to hurt me and kill my off-spring into extinction. A deadly intention is as good as a deadly deed. I was only doing what every mother will do to protect her young.” Ms Spider flatly retorts.

As an after-thought, “Even those she hasn’t seen yet.” she adds with a smirk knowing that it is only a matter of time before I succumb to its venomous sting, trailing its way into my blood stream and to my heart, which is closest.

“I would never have killed you; I can’t even hurt a defenceless and miniature ant!” I say.

“Not to mention not yet laid spider eggs!” I reiterate.

So it was a pregnant spider and not big-assed one. I almost apologise for thinking it had a fat ass.

My thoughts are foggy and my tongue seems to have ballooned in my mouth, I can’t scream or let out any sound. I am paralysed by the fear and all that seems close to the active being I was moments ago are my thoughts. My brain is still working and like film reel, whirls around my mind forcing me to watch but not to react.

The film shot takes me to the part that reminds me that I am all alone in the house; my neighbours are just that, never have been friends and a feeling of regret and melancholy pours over the film frame, shadowing the thoughts and vividly portraying the regret of my not having been so friendly. I should have smiled more, and talked more maybe now I would have help on hand.

The calming regret is quickly replaced by a bright scene, bathed in an awful stench of rot. My body has begun its decay process and I am still all alone; only now may someone come because the smell will be unbearable and people at the office will wonder why I ran AWOL. My friends and stalkers will begin to question my absence from social networks. They will wonder why my phone has been off without any word from me. It dawns on me that it has been weeks before anyone finds my badly decomposed body.

Will they wonder what killed me? Will they do a post-mortem and find spider venom that dis-integrates my dried blood? Or will they just bury me and continue to wonder?

In its decomposed state, will they take my body back to be buried or cremated in my home country? Or will they decide it’s not worth the cost and just bury me in Cape Town somewhere in a deep grave, perhaps at the Maitland Cemetery? Is there a cemetery near Parklands that they might perhaps decide on?

Will it be an ornately designed and crafted casket or splinters of wood hastly nailed together, or will they decide on black refuse bags? Will they put white orchids, trimmed with pink and yellow on the mound of dirt that covers my remains? Will anyone remember that I adored orchids even though I never had any?

With a start and a stifled scream, I wake up bathed in a film of sticky sweat. My eye reflexes dash to my breast, examining its rhythmic rise and fall at the shallow breaths I take; it is comfortingly whole and plump without any spider bite or suspicious mark. A sigh of relief washes over me, I feel the urge to pee.

I reassuringly massage the soft mound of flesh that is so much a part of me but has not always been. It was all a dream, albeit a vivid one. I am shaking all over again in fear at this dream. Do dreams come true? Or are fat-assed spiders poisonous?

If that’s not scary I don’t know what is. So we captured it and took outside and killed it. I thought that would be the end of the spider scare but as you can tell by the title of the post that was not the case. I woke up and during my trip to the bathroom I spotted something in the corner, yes another black widow. So I killed this one on the spot. I wasn’t taking any chances. And let me tell you there’s nothing like a good venomous spider kill in the morning to get the adrenaline flowing. So since I was fully awake I decided to search and make sure I wouldn’t have any other surprise run ins with any spiders. Well much to my dismay I discovered another one in the 2nd half of the bathroom. This discovery was the worst and probably the most ominous, because not only was I not able to kill this spider but it took it’s EGG SAC back into the hole in the wall. Great.

Yeah not okay.

So that was my morning, and all seemed to be going well throughout the day until dinner came around. No it wasn’t another eight legged creature but a series of discoveries and malfunctions in the kitchen that plagued me this time. I decided to have a lovely turkey burger meal. But when I went to turn on the stove to cook the burgers I realized that the fan over the stove top doesn’t work. This normally wouldn’t be a problem if the smoke detector wasn’t directly over the stove. Who planned that one? College students cooking, and we can’t get the smoke detector in a reasonable place. So it looked like that wasn’t happening, but after a phone consult from my sister I decided to attempt to cook the burger in the microwave. Well I couldn’t find the right technique, the first one was cooked too long and ended up being a brick, while the second one disgusted me enough to throw away. So back to the drawing table. After seeing a post from another amazing blog with the recipe to make fluffernutter cookies I decided to attempt to bake. Well this was another kitchen blunder, I didn’t have a bowl to mix the ingredients in but since i’m resourceful I used a pot from the stovetop. All was running smoothly until I greased the pan when I wasn’t supposed to,  I didn’t realize my mistake until afterwards, needless to say those turned into thin crisp fluffernutter sheets. But the day was still young, and I didn’t really want to eat those cookies anyways.

The kitchen of blunders.

So by this time I was pretty hungry and was about to resort to the ever so faithful PB&J but decided to make a scrambled egg and pinto bean combination. Nothing really went wrong here except for the bland and unsatisfying taste. No I take that back, I could not open the pinto beans, BOTH of my can openers broke while attempting. So I was forced to clamp the can opener about 30 times and pry the can open. I was frustrated to say the least but there was one last hope for the night……..Funfetti Cookies. I know I had never heard of them until I saw them in the store. And I was in a cooking mood during that time. I may or may not have promised some teammates cookies too, and since the first attempt failed I had one last hope. I wasn’t about to mess this one up so I triple checked everything and finally to my delight I had a success in the new kitchen. So at least I can say that I ended my day with success. Now just wish me luck in dealing with this black widow problem and I can start school on a good note. Has anyone else just had one of these days?

success at last

The Valley of Fire - The Severn Sisters

Valley Of Fire State Park Sign

We ended up missing our flight home from Las Vegas, but Virgin Atlantic were very good and allowed us to transfer our flights home for the next available flight. There was some sort of holiday weekend going on, so the next day’s flight was already fully booked, as were many of the hotels. In the end, we opted to stay at Caesars palace in one of the deluxe rooms at the top of the taller tower (69th floor).

We quite literally managed to get lost in Caesars palace as it’s mind bogglingly huge. Even though we paid for one of the more expensive, newly refurbished rooms, it was not nearly as nice as the standard room in the Bellagio, but we opted to stay there as it was decidedly less expensive and was conveniently just next door.

Valley of Fire - Atlatl Rock

Since our stay gave us an additional 2days in Las Vegas to explore… We decided to use it to visit The Valley of Fire which we had flown over in the helicopter on our way to visit the Grand Canyon… It looked bizarre from the air, as the muddy coloured dessert and mountains suddenly gave rise to and area of dramatic and unexpectedly different looking deep fiery-red mountains, that looked like they didn’t belong to the surrounding area at all. These red sandstone formations, formed from great shifting sand dunes during the age of dinosaurs, and they are the centerpiece of the park’s attractions, and get their name since they appear to be on fire when reflecting the sun’s rays.

The Valley of fire is the oldest state park in Nevada, covering an area of 34,880 acres, and was dedicated in 1935

The Valley of Fire - Rainbow Vista

So we extended our car hire and drove the hour or so out to The Valley of Fire National Park. It was about $10 to enter the park, but we both agreed that the $10 gave us one of the most special days our holiday (and possibly one of my favourite memories to date of quality ‘us time’ that I have shared with my guy, as I really enjoy hiking through areas of natural beauty with him).  It was really lovely, and I cant recommend a visit enough! It was possible to camp in the national park too.

Complex uplifting and faulting of the region, followed by extensive erosion, created the present landscape. These rock formations actually used to be under the seabed! The rough floor and jagged walls of the park contain brilliant formations of eroded sandstone and sand dunes more than 150 million years old. Other important rock formations include limestones, shales, and conglomerates.

The Valley of Fire - Rainbow Vista

The first thing we saw was the Arch Rock, which is a naturally formed arch of rock that is quite startling when you first see it, we then came to an area with a large rock called Atlatl Rock, which you can climb to see (3000 year old) ancient petroglyphes (drawings in the rocks made by ancient Pueblo Peoples tribes).

Our favourite part of the day came when we parked at the Rainbow Vista area, where you can see starkly contrasting colours in the rock formations that give a rainbow effect. We hiked down a trail, and ‘talked’ to a little mountain goat that was bleating at us from the top of a rock formation high above the valley we were exploring, and also saw quite a few lizards. It was a really lovely walk, though I am glad we did visit the visitor’s centre before we hiked through …As Brits, I think we tend not to think about the danger of snakes and large spiders, and this area has quite a high rattle snake population, so it’s worth being mindful of that, and wearing proper shoes rather than flip flops etc.

One of my favourite memories from the hike was being startled by a noise that sounded like a loud belch echoing off the hilly walls of the valley we were hiking through… At first that is what I thought it was-perhaps a teenager being a jerk… When it happened again, I looked up to the source of the noise to see a mountain goat looking right down at us, and trying to communicate directly with us!  My partner “BAAAAA-ed” back at him, and he moved forward, right to the edge of his rock, and started engaging in a full on ‘conversation’ with my partner.  Utterly hilarious! Check back later and I will upload the video into the post for you tonight.

The Valley of Fire - Bendy snaking roads

The Valley of Fire area is apparently used as the setting for quite a number of adverts, and it’s easy to see why! …Aside from the obvious beauty of the landscape and the backdrop of vivid colours, and strange looking rocks and arches, the roads themselves are also worth photographing, as they snake their way through the hills and valleys. This was our favourite picture of the roads through the area.

I would probably go out of my way to visit this area again, and cannot stress how great this place is for a visit if you are vacationing in Las Vegas for any length of time.  We left at about 11am and had plenty of time there, although I would have liked longer to hike around the area called the White Domes.  The other thing I would say is take a packed lunch!  We did not realise that there would be nowhere to buy food nearby, and were starving by the end of the day!

I’m SO glad we managed to squeeze this experience into our trip, as it is so unlike anything I have seen in the past, I could imaging this being the shooting location for a film set on Mars!  Also, if you’re staying in Las Vegas and you’re hiring a car, it’s very easily accessible. Probably the best thing about this is that it didn’t cost a fortune… I felt extremely lucky to have seen this, expecially as it wasn’t something that featured highly in any of the tourist reviews that I read when doing my research on Las Vegas and the surrounding areas.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Valley Of Fire Experience rating – 10/10 – It was easily one of the most memorable places we visited, and I preferred this day out to the day we spent visiting The Grand Canyon… It was lovely to escape the glitz, glamour, lights and fakery of Las Vegas and see something of natural beauty that has stood here for millions of years unspoilt and more or less untouched.  Our day hiking around The Valley of Fire will stay etched into my memory as one of the most lovely, spontaneous memories I have to date.

Useful Tips

• Be aware of the dangers of hiking through a the area, there are rattle snakes, and poisonois spiders and scorpions in the area… We didn’t encounter any of the above thankfully, but it is something to be mindful of.
• Taking the above in mind-wear sensible shoes.
• Take a picnic with you, there are no cafes or shops in the Park (certainly none that we encountered).
• Although it is hot during the day, it can get very cold at night in the desert. I wore a vest, a long sleeved tee-shirt and a fleece and I was still cold!
• Do not climb on the rocks, some are maked into walking routes, but it is easy to see that these rocks are made from very porus rocks, and are easily damaged… Many of the rick formations (especially near the natural arches look like they could be snapped like a stick of chalk.
• Do take WARM clothing if you sra staying past sunset in the desert. It can get extremely cold at night.

LAS VEGAS

Zip-Lining from the top of Red Mountain, Nevada

Visit Hoover Dam

Helicopter Tour of the Grand Canyon, and a Night on a Working Ranch

I have pet peeves.

One of them is when people refer to “venom” as “poison,” or vice versa.

I don’t know why this bothers me, but apparently it’s enough to write about.

So I’m going to explain the difference, and then you can take this handy information to your next dinner party, and all the guests will think you’re sooo smart. Or a dork, as I’ve learned from personal experience.

Poison is absorbed. Poisons may be absorbed by the lungs via inhalation, or absorbed through the lining of your stomach or mucous membranes (eyes, mouth, nose). A lot of “poisonous” animals must be eaten or licked in order to deliver their toxins. There are a number of different poisons in the world: manmade chemicals (like bleach), plant poisons (like Poison Hemlock), and animal toxins (poison from glands in a Cane Toad). All of these must be inhaled or ingested to have effect.

Venom is injected. Venom requires a tool with which to do said injecting. Venoms are protein and enzyme cocktails that typically come in three flavors (some animals mix for efficiency): cytotoxic, hemotoxic, and neurotoxic. Cytotoxic wounds stay localized, but can result in severe tissue damage (and potentially amputation), shock, and vomiting. Hemotoxic bites lead to problematic blood clotting and attacks the heart tissue. Neurotoxic venom attacks the nerves and brain. Vipers and rattlesnakes, spiders, scorpions, bees, and wasps are venomous.

So, when you’re wondering if an animal is poisonous or venomous, just think about its method of delivery. Snakes, spiders, and wasps are venomous, and all are equipped with a syringe-like tool for injection. Dart frogs, toads, and salamanders are equipped, instead, with skin coatings or glands that possess the toxins.

Remember: Poison is typically ingested, while venom is injected.

Now, how about a pop quiz? See how many you can guess without looking them up first and I will post the answers tomorrow!

Poisonous, Venomous, or Non-Toxic?

Portuguese Man o’ War “Jellyfish”: P or V or NT? *

Male Platypus: P or V or NT?

Fire-bellied Newt: P or V or NT?

Blue-ringed Octopus: P or V or NT?

Gila Monster: P or V or NT?

Monarch Butterfly: P or V or NT?

The Hooded Pitohui, a New Guinean bird: P or V or NT?

Black Widow: P or V or NT?

* The Portuguese Man O’ War is not actually a jellyfish.

The  fact that he saw a daddy-long-legs wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.  Nor is the fact that the spider was swiftly carted out of the house and into the garden anything unique.  He’s seen them plenty of times, and they have never really seemed to bother him.

That is, until M asked my mom if daddy-long-legs could bite.

A simple “no” would have been sufficient.  It might have eased M’s mind, and he could have continued what he had been doing when he first spotted the spider: blaring the demo song on the Cassio keyboard at full blast and dancing like a maniac.

But my mother, bless her knowledge-loving heart, decided to share some additional fun facts with M:

“Daddy-long-legs are actually one of the most poisonous and deadly animals on the planet.  But since their mouths are so small, they can’t bite us and hurt us!”

I had actually heard this little tid-bit once or twice but had never shared it with M (3 1/2 years old) .  Because I knew he would only hear the following as I spoke:

“blah blah blah blah POISON blah blah blah blah DEADLY blah blah blah BITE blah blah HURT blah.”

And I’m guessing this is why M came into our bedroom at 3:30 the next morning to ask Tim and me (as if he had been engrossed in a conversation with us), “So, if a daddy-long-legs bites me, will it make me die?”

Will it make you die?!

Tim and I spent the next half-hour convincing M that daddy-long-legs did not, in fact, pose any threat to him and did not harbor any evil desire to inject the world with their fatal poison and take over the planet and turn puppies into slaves and decapitate Big Bird.

I exaggerate.  But only a bit. 

Because there’s whole lot of worry and fear that needs to be calmed the frick down when a three-year-old thinks that there’s a horde of killers lurking in Grandma’s basement just waiting for their mouths to grow just a wee bit bigger so that they can  MAKE US DIE!!!

If only I could have directed M to snopes.com, which denies that there is any scientific evidence demonstrating that the venom of daddy long legs is fatal to humans.

But perhaps I’ll just have to settle for directing his grandmother there.

(You know I love you, Mom!)

Knowing that I LOVE nature, imagine my reaction when I saw this headline, and this picture:

Giant spider snapped eating bird in backyard near Cairns

Yup.  I freaked the eff out.  This will no doubt appear in my nightmares.

Despite my fear of spiders, I went to a school where the mascot was a spider.  SPIDERS EVERYWHERE ON EVERYTHING.  AHHH.  Yes, I am a proud Richmond Spider.  And devastated that I will not be able to make it to Homecoming this weekend.  Miss me.  GO SPIDERS!  (But only the nice ones.  That go to Richmond.)

[Posted by Kathleen]

I’ve been surprised by the variety: Big spiders, little spiders. Light spiders, dark spiders. Thick-bodied spiders, spindly-legged spiders. Poisonous spiders, harmless spiders. We have them all.

About a month ago, I decided to conquer my phobia of black widow spiders by capturing one and keeping it in a jar. I deemed it a “therapy spider” that would help both of us by eliminating some of the fear of the unknown. When it’s trapped in glass, the black widow really is a beautiful spider. The delicate symmetry and the depth of the black coloring in sharp contrast to the vibrant, red hourglass are quite impressive.

I told my sister Kaytee about the spider in a letter, and she named it Ms. Spider. I fed it insects from outside, mostly moths, to sustain it. At one point, I dropped in a large, black stink-beetle. The next morning, the beetle was eaten and the spider had tripled in size. The day after, the spider was curled up into a ball and was pronounced dead by Liesl. It stayed that way for three days, then was suddenly alive and moving around the jar again.

At one point, I dropped in a small, brown spider for it to eat. It was a spider that was already inside the house and, as such, would have been consequently squished, so I decided to make good use of it and offer the small spider as food to Ms. Spider instead. Sure enough, the next morning, the small spider had been consumed. It worked so well that the next evening, when Liesl found two more brown spiders inside the house, I added them to the jar as well.

The next morning, horror of horrors, Ms. Spider was quite dead and half-eaten. Black appendages were strewn about the jar. And the two small, brown spiders were dancing around the jar victoriously. That was the end of my pet black widow spider.

Our spider-keeping adventures might have ended there if not for the efforts of my lovely wife.

We were informed pretty early upon our arrival in New Mexico that October is Tarantula Season out here. I kept my skepticism to myself. Where I come from, the only way to find a tarantula is in a pet store for a good $40-80, or at the zoo. I figured that if there were, indeed, wild tarantulas running around the desert here, they were probably quite small, more “spidery,” and less “tarantulan.”

My wife spotted one outside a few days ago. She assured me that it was quite similar to the tarantulas we’ve seen in stores and zoos, but Mr. Skeptical here was still fraught with skepticism.

And then yesterday she caught one.

Don’t ask me how a woman who is in her third trimester of pregnancy manages to successfully capture a tarantula, but she did it. And it is an extremely cool spider.

The kids made me promise to go to the store on my way home today to pick up a proper enclosure for their newest “pet.” I’ve been researching this morning to learn the correct way to house a tarantula. Imagine my surprise to learn not only that there many avid tarantula owners out there (with entire websites devoted to their proper care), but also that some tarantulas can live as long as 45 years! This goofy spider, depending on how old it is already and whether it is male or female, could potentially outlive our dogs. That is, if we’re successfully able to learn to care for it and end up wanting to keep it for an extended period of time. Too crazy.

So somehow, over the course of our time here in New Mexico, I have gone from a spider “rescuer” (in Colorado, I used to take them outside if I found one in the house), to spider hater (I got so tired of them crawling on me here in my sleep that I became a spider stomper, even ones that were outside), and now to spider keeper.

Weird.

Sec of State Condi Rice is now officially a lesbian. Well, sort of… She shares ownership of a home in Palo Alto with a liberal progressive documentary film maker. The woman is single, never been married and is considered Dr. Rice’s closest friend. Oh…and the woman’s lasts name is “Bean”. Obviously, the home’s mailbox proudly says; “Rice and Bean’s“.

Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and John McCain (R-AZ) were on Meet the Press on Sunday. When the fight was over, McCain had a broken arm, a wrenched back a bloody-lip and one tooth was missing. Kerry walked away as the declared winner with only a black-eye.

The Flying Nun has a foul mouth – But thankfully, FOX was there to protected us from the profanity. Click here if you want to hear the uncensored version, but remember: Jesus will hate you for it.

Minneapolis’ famous bridge remains collapsed. No money has been received from the feds, no agreements on rebuilding the bridge, no contracts to the bridge and the Mayor leaves for US Conference of Mayors embarrassed and ashamed. Said Minnesota’s Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty: “So what? The mayor has plenty of other roads available! Why are these Democrats such jerks! Gimme Gimme Gimme! That’s all they whine about…!!!”

Update: Another bridge in Minneapolis has been closed. It’s been discovered that the foundation, built in 1905, has shifted about eleven inches from it’s original position. The decking of the bridge was last replaced in 1958. Note: MN DOT isn’t doing anything about this bridge – it’s a county project and the Governor kept making “whiny” noise-imitations when he was told about this bridge closing.

The Chinese have generously given Hawai’i a boat load of poisonous spiders, which they didn’t want in the first place. US Customs officials, understaffed and under paid aren’t sure of what to do about it. Perhaps killing them would be appropriate? Said one Customs official: “Thankfully, al Queda hasn’t figured out the shipping industry yet.”

Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney uses St Vincent’s Hospital in New York City to explain why Hillary Clinton’s health care plan is stupid and how much the Mormon church hates sick mommies and daddies. St Vincent’s Hospital objected to being used as a prop for political reasons, and Romney’s team shot back: “Who cares what St Vincent’s thinks?”

CurentTV’s Super News has a new issue out that’s fun. It accurately depicts the Republican Party’s young people in a timeless episode spoofing the movie “The Hills“.

Jim Ramstad (R-MN 3rd CD) has just announced (less than an hour ago) that he will not be running for re-election in 2008. When asked why he said; “Two reasons! One ..! Because Michele Bachmann keeps hitting on me and whining that her husband is gay. Two..! Because I don’t want to be representing the minority party in Congress for the next twenty years!”

Update: Minnesota’s GOP Chair, Ron Carey, has announced that auditions for Congressman Ramstad’s Republican replacement will be held at a Mens Room at the Minneapolis/St Paul Airport…which is now a tourist trap.