stormsworder's definitions

school

A place where it is now impossible, in the UK at least, to get a decent education thanks to New Labour dumbing down the UK's schools, making exams easier than ever and generally ensuring everyone grows up stupid enough to vote them back in again. NL MPs go on about how everyone should be bottom equal in everything, despite sending their own children to the finest private schools in the land. They are also banning anything which encourages children to be competitiveness. The teachers are no longer allowed to so much as raise their voices, meaning teaching is even more impossible. Before long we will have an uneducated generation, aside from the super-rich elite. The founders of communist China and Russia would be proud of Tony Bliar and his puppet-masters.

The 'A*' grade was invented to con people into thinking children are coming away from school more intelligent than ever, and children who can hardly read or write are being awarded A* in English. Still, as long as the children of the rich do well, that's all that matters according to the New Labour despots.

by Stormsworder November 14, 2006

scorpion

Arachnids with lobster-like pincers and tails bearing stingers. Scorpions have existed for a long time (the oldest known fossils are 400 million years old, and some early scorpions were much bigger than those of today - the fossilized Brontoscorpio and Gigantoscorpio are estimated to have been a metre long each in life). Scorpions possess a pair of feather-like forms under their stomachs which they use to 'feel' the ground for vibrations which could tell of nearby predators or prey. When mating, the male scorpion grasps the female by the pincers, deposits a 'package' of sperm onto the ground and then pulls the female over it, so she can lower herself and absorb it through an opening in her body. Despite their fearsome reputation, scorpions are not all dangerous. In fact many, like the Emperor Scorpions from West Africa and Black Forest Scorpions from Asia are harmless. A way of determining as to whether a scorpion may be dangerous is to look at its pincers. Harmless scorpions like Emperors and Black Forests have large strong pincers and relatively small tails. At the other end of the scale are the dreaded Fat-tail Scorpions, which have small, slender pincers and large muscular tails which can drive their deadly stingers through shoes. Scorpions exist in tropical, desert and scrubland environments.

Emperor Scorpions, Redclaw Scorpions, Black Forest Scorpions, Egyptian Gold Scorpions - all harmless, as I can assure you since I've kept them as pets in the past.
I'd just like to mention Spike, the grandmother of my family of Emperor Scorpions (now sadly all deceased). RIP Spike.

by StormSworder August 14, 2006

Plushophile

Someone who has some kind of relationship with a plush (a furry toy). This person is not automatically perverted. They may just be unable to mix with other people socially. I'm sure there are some such people who do nothing more than look after their plush, care for it and cuddle it in front of the TV as though it was a person. On the other end of the scale, however, I think the 'inflatable doll' mentality is taken to severe extremes. Plushophiles who have full-sex relationships with their cuddly toys make a hole between the toy's legs and....well, you can guess the rest.

A certain type of plushophile seems to have misunderstood what 'taking a cuddly toy to bed' means.

by Stormsworder May 30, 2007

justice

Something only people who can afford it ever get. This generally involves lawyers in court playing word games and generally twisting everything the accused/victim/witness says. That's assuming the case even reaches court. Thanks to the Con party, the UK legal system is burdened down by the CPS (that's Criminal Protection Service) who tie the police up with red tape, give them countless pointless forms to fill in and generally make sure as few cases as possible reach court.

Mother: "It's about time you stopped believing in Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy, fairies at the bottom of the garden and monsters under the bed".
Son: "But they're all real!"
Mother: "And then there's justice".
Son: "Oh come on. I stopped believing in that when I was about four and a half.

by Stormsworder November 23, 2006

Daddy's Little Girl

A girl (teenaged or older) who is basically still tied to her father's apron-strings (or whatever the male equivolent of apron-springs are). She is usually a spoilt brat, owns nice clothes, maybe a car, has her hair done every five minutes, all on Daddy's credit card. Dates boys she thinks are good enough for the likes of her, but if they do anything wrong then Daddy will basically be after giving them a stern talking-to (or a good hiding, depending on what sort of person Daddy is).

"There's that Daddy's Little Girl again. She just pulled up in her brand new car and has strutted in wearing designer clothes and with her expensive hair-do. Do you think she ever wonders what it's like to earn anything in life?"

by StormSworder August 19, 2006

arachnid

Surely one of the most successful groups of animals in the history of this planet. There are arachnids on every continent (except Antarctica, obviously). Arachnids include spiders, scorpions, mites, ticks and the like. Though it is very rare for soft-bodied animals to survive, in fossil form, the oldest known fossil spider is 380 million years old, and there are even older fossil scorpions and sea scorpions known. Whenever I watch a tarantula or scorpion I can't help feeling I'm being given a viewpoint on an early age of life on this planet.

An example of an arachnid: a tarantula, a member of the oldest group of spiders which did not spin webs, merely used silk to line their burrows.

by Stormsworder November 16, 2006

tarantula

Originally the name 'tarantula' was given to a species of wolf spider in Italy which was blamed for venomous spider bites which locals tried to cure by performing a dance. In fact the spider bites were inflicted by a species of widow spider. But the widow spiders are small and look insignificant, whilst wolf spiders are bigger and hairy, so the wolf spider was blamed. To this day many people judge how venomous a spider is on its size, which is completely inaccurate. Wolf spiders are harmless. These days the name 'tarantula' is used to describe any spider of the Theraphosid family. This family has something like 800 known species in Africa, Mid and South America and Asia, with many more no doubt still undiscovered. The tarantulas (or Theraphosids) are the giants of the spider world, the biggest with leg-spans which could cover a dinner plate (a Goliath Birdeater with a 12-inch leg-span I think is the record). Though some tarantulas live in trees, most are ground-dwellers and the live in burrows. They line the entrances of their burrows with silk. Though tarantulas have no senses of hearing or smell and very poor vision, they have a very developed sense of touch. The hairs on their legs can detect the slightest air or ground vibration, and the lines of silk they lay down around their burrows are almost like extentions of their legs. Any small animal touching one of those threads will instantly alert the tarantula. Tarantulas feed on anything from crickets, locusts and cockroaches to rodents, small snakes and small lizards. Despite the fact they are often known as 'bird-eating spiders' in the US, it is probably very rare for a tarantula to eat a bird, though tree-climbing tarantulas can easily help themselves to a chick when a parent bird is away from its nest. With their basic webs they are thought to be the earliest form of spider, date back over 350 million years. When threatened or annoyed, tarantulas rear up on their back legs and bare their fangs. Some can even make a hissing/rustling noise by rubbing bristles on their jaws together. Tarantulas do not eat solid food. When a tarantula feeds, it injects a digestive fluid into its prey through its fangs. The prey is then gradually liquidised and absorbed into the mouth in a similar way to water being absorbed into a sponge. Tarantulas breathe through gill-like openings in the underside of their abdomens called 'book lungs'. When tarantulas mate, the male inserts sperm from his pedipalps ('feelers') into an opening under the female's body. Female tarantulas are larger and stronger than the more spindly-looking males, can live anything up to ten or twenty years, maybe longer depending on the species. Once the male has reached full size he can't hope to live eighteen months at the most. Despite the hooks on his front legs (for holding the female's fangs) he maybe be eaten after (or even before) mating. Tarantulas shed their skins, on average once a year. They can cast off a damaged limb but re-grow it gradually, the new limb becoming bigger every time their shed their skin. The tarantula skin is an exoskeleton, made of keratin (the same material human nails are made of). Despite the fear and horror they install in so many people (who've learnt most of what they know about tarantulas from the movies) tarantulas have venom which is unable to endanger human life. In fact, there is no record of anyone being killed by a tarantula bite. Some New World species have hairs on their abdomens which they can flick off with their back legs. These can cause an itching/burning sensation if they come into contact with human skin. But let's be honest, tarantulas are probably more afraid of us than we are of them, and they are a major controller of destructive pests like cockroaches and locusts. In fact tarantulas make excellent pets. They are more likely to run away rather than attack, unless they are cornered. Tarantulas are certainly not made of rubber, as some movies would have us believe. They are just as much flesh and blood as we are.

A tarantula bite dangerous? No. Its barnet's worse than its bite.

by StormSworder August 15, 2006