In case the cockroach wasn’t enough:
We went to the Post Office. About a block away from our house, we encountered a car that had stopped to let a snake cross a driveway.
The snake was about a meter long, brown, with diamond patterning. He didn’t seem to have a rattle.
He probably eats squirrels…
Update: probably an Eastern Hognose Snake.
Snakes On A Plane. You can just imagine the pitch meeting.
Turner: I have got this killer idea for an action horror movie.
Ellis: Sure, hit me.
Turner: OK, here’s the setup…there are a bunch of people on a plane. And the plane is carrying a load of, like, poisonous snakes. And the snakes are accidentally let out.
Ellis: Are you drunk?
Turner: No, listen, there’s more. Samuel L. Jackson is on the plane. He, like, kicks the snakes’ asses.
Ellis: I’m not sure snakes have asses.
Turner: Tails, then. But you get the idea…Samuel L. Jackson. In a plane. And the plane is full of snakes.
Ellis: So what’s it called?
Turner: Snakes On A Plane.
Ellis: I knew it, you’re baked.
Turner: No, it’s marketing genius. Nobody reads what it says on posters, we don’t need reviews, we don’t even need trailers—it’s, like, all there in the title. Snakes…On A Plane, man!
Ellis: Wow. It’s almost Zen-like in its minimalism. So outline the plot for me.
Turner: You’re still not getting it. I just did! It’s snakes…on a plane. Obviously I’ll get a few of my friends to help pad it out to an hour and a half, but it’ll practically write itself.
Ellis: OK, sounds good, get me a draft. Anything else?
Turner: Sure, and you’re going to love this. One word: sequels.
Ellis: Oh, yeah, I’m liking that.
Turner: There’s no telling where this baby could go. Snakes On A Boat. Snakes On A Train. Snakes On A Bus. Snakes In A Restaurant. Snakes In A Goddamn Movie Theater, and we drop rubber snakes on the audience half way through! It’s fuckin’ genius, man!
Ellis: Oh, yeah. I think I just creamed my pants. I’m taking this to New Line, Emmerich will green light this faster than Terry Gilliam can blow a budget. Let’s do lunch next week.
Let’s predict a few key bits of plot:
.
The other day I was playing Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow when I saw something move across the floor near the kitchen.
“Oh crap,” I thought, “Another cockroach.”
I got up and grabbed something to squash it with. But it wasn’t a cockroach—it was a tiny lizard. He was approximately floor colored; brown with light brown stripes. I carefully caught him in a spare perspex dish from the refrigerator. He turned out to have sucker feet, and crawled up the side of it. I let him out in the garden.
So, I think it’s time for an update on the local wildlife.
The temperature dipped below 26 celcius and the sky clouded over, which meant it was time to deal with the back garden. The builders had half-heartedly seeded the back of the house with non-native grass, which had gone crazy as soon as spring arrived. We had allowed it to become seriously overgrown, and now I was going to pay the price.
I started off by giving it a once-over with the string trimmer, getting rid of the worst of the large bushy weeds and thinning out the grass a bit. Clouds of insects were disturbed by this, so I set up the bug zapper to lure them away. Then I put the lawnmower together.
Things I found in the grass:
Things I was relieved not to find (this time):
We now have… well, I wouldn’t call it a lawn, but it’s a patch of grass you can’t lose medium-size objects in. I think we want to put down a proper lawn of buffalo grass anyway, I just wanted to get it to a state where it wasn’t completely shame-inducing.
I’ve also put up a squirrel feeder. The squirrels have found it, but I haven’t seen them lift up the lid and take food out yet. I could tell they were excited by it by the way their tails were twitching, though.