17-year Cicadas coming... [link]

I'm (half) watching a thing on the History channel about the history of punishment, and they just said that somebody (the Romans, I think) used to execute condemned criminals by throwing them in a river tied in a sack. With an ape, a dog, and a snake in the sack, too, so that the animals' panciked attempts to escape imminent drowning also sped the condemned to their doom.

This was also a popular way to get rid of unfaithful harem denizens. I dunno about the animal additions, but the sacking and the drowning were a medieval Arabic go.

Sean, I hope S is doing better.

I was a grounds crew worker when 17 year cicadas came up.

We played our worst game ever today. The slaughter rule was invoked. Emmett walked a bunch of people and gave up 7 runs. Then everybody else did worse. Very discouraging.

Fortunately, afterwards I went to a get-together with an online writing group I've joined recently and it was really cool. Everybody was fun and interesting and accomplished and writing for magazines and things. So it was a good networking experience for me as I try to finesse the periodic book writing career into a more frequent freelance career.

We saw the pandas splashing in the water, and somewhere billytea felt a cold shudder as a woman said, "Is that a wallaby?" and her friend said, "No, it's an oryx."

The hell? Incidentally, my last Chinese lesson involved a dialogue about a zoo visit. The Mandarin for panda means literally 'bear-cat'. A kangaroo is a pouch-rat. There's also a pouch-bear, which is not strictly a koala but a wombat. (A koala is a tree-wombat.)

what's the most graceful way to avoid a hug?

Ninjas!

"You shove a living snake up his ass!"

There's a word, 'feague', that referred to the practice of making a horse for sale look more lively and spirited by shoving ginger up its arse. Or, if you were out of ginger, a live eel would do. Buyer beware indeed.

Wait -- did people who were committing the particide kill their father via the ape/snake/dog/drown method, or was that the method of punishing the person who killed his father?

That was the punishment for the patricide perpetrator, though now imagine if someone did kill their father that way. Then the authorities would have to come up with something even worse to teach him a lesson. "Ok, so we stuff him in there with a lion, an ostrich and a rhino..."

There's a word, 'feague', that referred to the practice of making a horse for sale look more lively and spirited by shoving ginger up its arse. Or, if you were out of ginger, a live eel would do. Buyer beware indeed.

THAT'S my Billytea!

So let's see...last night was the show. Lots of fun. OMG crazy. More on that later. Went to bed around 4AM. Got up before 10AM to go to the brunch, which was very tired and hungover for everyone. Me, I felt like someone had secretly replaced all of the spaces in my head (including my brain) with sand.

Then I took a four hour nap.

Now, I am not sleepy.

Tomorrow, I fly to Texas. Have I packed? Or done laundry? Of course not.

Ooo! The board is back early! Whee! The downtime was making my procrastination very difficult.

hugs board tight

Can you give me the phonetic for the Mandarin for "pouch-rat," billytea? WOMBAT appears to be already taken for a license plate.

(yes, I'm obsessing about the plate. What?)

Late to work this morning - Mallory turned on the TV and there was Oz, on the phone, asking if his niece (cousin?) was a werewolf. I miss my show.