I learned about those because it was the title (and featured in) a British crime drama. Waking the Dead, I think.

Huh. Nope it was just called The Scold's Bridle and had Miranda Richardson.

But while looking for that, I found this QI [link]

Aw, yeah, now I feel productive. I just got off the phone with my parents and they are giving me a back fence for my birthday because they are awesome (and because my current back fence has holes that the dog goes right through) and while I was talking to them I got a reply from the company that made my worm bin and it sounds like they will send me the parts I am missing free of charge. Yay.

The book The Scold's Bridle was the basis for that movie, and one of Minette Walters' first. Really good.

-t, very practical gift! I love it.

JZ, here is a picture of one of the Rattlers Steve and I found on one of our dog walks in the Oakland hills: [link]

PSA for anyone considering getting one of those "i've fallen and can't get up" push button alerts...DON'T get Lifeline. Their employees are consistently poorly trained and apparently unable to think. They frequently have difficulty finding the address of the subscriber. Seriously, how much help is it to not know where to send the frigging ambulance? It's very frustrating to get call after call from a professional monitoring service whose employees can't even provide the most basic information.

LifeAlert, OTOH, seems a viable alternative with much better service. And by "service" i mean competence. I have no idea how they compare re: pricing and customer service, but i know that if i'm having a medical emergency and can't manage anything other than pushing a necklace button, i want the folks on the other end to know where i am. Darnit. This rant brought to you by Monday.

That California snake site has a page [link] that includes how to tell the difference.

Poor rattlesnakes. They're very shy and only bite if something steps on them or right after someone says, "Hold my beer and watch this!" Their venom is rarely lethal except to very small people (Thank goodness Matilda had the sense not to pick the snake up, whatever it is.) and people who are very unlucky in where they're bitten.

Moccasins, on the other hand, are mean SOBs. A snake expert I was interviewing told me, "This is how you tell the difference between a harmless water snake and a moccasin. The water snake is running away; the moccasin is coming after you."

What about the ones that are from the security service, like Brinks or whatever?

And what do you think about OnStar, as it applies to your job?

Just curious.

The basic advice I give visitors out here about snakes is: the gopher snake's defense is to make you think it's a rattler. Let it. You don't need to be messing around with either one.

You want the Navajo thing about rattlers? If you see one, it means someone has been talking about you behind your back. If you see a bunch, there are rumors abounding. During the time when our local Navajo church was breaking up, dissent between the families? There was a whole nest of baby rattlers out behind the church. They were everywhere, all the time. Yeah.

Oh, and

Liese, sometime how similar we are scares me!

Hee. Our thirst for vengeance is as one.