stormsworder's definitions

Jar Jar Binks

An attempt to create a 'comic relief' character which backfired badly, turning the Star Wars film Phantom Menace into little more than a cross between a farce and a special-effects laden episode of Love Thy Neighbour. Binks is an alien who, for reasons I'm sure won't be apparent to anyone but all-seeing higher beings, talks like a dated black stereotype. Ah, but C3P0 and R2-D2 were comical characters, the fanboys point out. Yes, but they actually served some function in A New Hope, and if they're comic characters then why do we need yet another 'comic' character.

Jar Jar Binks, just one of the many things wrong with a film with was nothing really more than one long advert for toys, video games, happy meals and various other tat. But it's still worth mentioning that Jar Jar Binks is a shit creation and a total wanker.

by Stormsworder August 2, 2007

dateline

A take-the-money-and-run online dating agency who cancel your account whenever they feel like it, refuse to answer your e-mails and never refund your money. On-line frauds.

"Dateline have just terminated my account, despite the fact I've paid for another five months of membership yet, and the snotty fuckers won't even answer my e-mails to tell me what is going on".
"Don't worry. Dateline is for Russian immigrants trying to claim citizenship by marrying someone in this country, stuck-up bitches who think only someone with the looks of a film star is good enough for them, and predatory perverts who are only out for what they can get".

by Stormsworder September 25, 2007

slut

A cock (bird) wakes up and shouts: "Cock-a-doodle-do!"

A slut wakes up and shouts "Any-cock-will-do!"

Slut said to me: "The guy I went with last night insisted on caning my backside before he had sex with me. It reminded me of being sent to the headmaster's office back at school. The only difference was the headmaster never bothered with the caning bit".

by Stormsworder March 9, 2007

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

fouling the pavement

1: What people continue to let their dogs do despite so-called laws.

2: What the council do by putting up all those hideous new lamp posts (usually featureless metal posts with shapeless lumps of plastic on top of them, resembling giant golf clubs). Thanks to carefree, penny-pinching councils, we now have old town and village centres looking like football pitches full of floodlights. We also have landfill sights struggling to cope with the thousands of perfectly good lamp posts which have been removed due to pointless rules and regulations.

Howcome the council don't get fined for fouling the pavement. Go away and take your cheap rubbish with you.

by Stormsworder October 25, 2006

daddy longlegs

Despite popular belief, a daddy longlegs is a spider with a small body and long, spindly legs. What most people think of as a daddy longlegs is actualy called a crane fly. Spiders like daddy longlegs are most common in summer, especialy during hot summers when there are a lot of insects about.

Don't kill a daddy longlegs, or any other kind of spider. They eat household pests.

by Stormsworder April 22, 2007

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