Build Date: Fri Jun 20 22:30:32 2025 UTC
Don't ever accuse me of been sensible. EVER.
-- Johnnie Royale
Terror in the Central Market
1999-06-08 21:12:58
An innocent trip to the Central Market resulted in a severe attack of arachnophobia (and a meal) when a depraved street kid set her vicious pet spider on an unsuspecting shopper.
The shopper, yours truly, was selecting a new book when his arm and heartstrings were tugged by a doe-eyed beggar child. With my wallet out to pay for the book, I couldn't really ignore the malnourished youngster and I gave her a few hundred riel.
Turning back to complete my purchase, the tugging on my arm continued so I turned round to see the child giggling from a safe distance and a gut-twistingly evil spider on my arm. It was black and hairy and its fangs were dripping with poison. Its mesmerising movement was taking it up my arm… towards my face!
I must have mumbled some confused, high-pitched babble in my panic, but it quickly became clear that the devious arachnid was in cahoots with that sly beggar-girl vermin and I had better watch my wallet while fending off the eight-legged monster. I braced for a sideways sweep of my free arm that would knock it off and simultaneously project it into stamping distance, but the urchin deftly picked it off me and ran off with it, no doubt to scare the pants off some other foreigner. My wits slowly returned.
Everyone nearby was looking. The woman I'd been buying the book from shouted something stern at the child which seemed to satisfy everyone: The event was over, so checking that my wallet was in place, which it was, I headed to the Foreign Correspondent's Club for a restorative.
The next time I went to that market there were stalls selling the same hairy buggers deep fried in batter. I savoured a moment of satisfaction knowing what fate had claimed the savage beast and allowed myself a fiendish cackle. Deep-fried hairy spider tastes of fishy cauliflower, and apart from the crunchy exoskeleton, is soft like Mr Whippy.
Oliver
T O P S T O R I E S
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff
"I'm mayor now" said write-in mayoral candidate and founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks Robert Ehrlich after losing the election for Mayor of Sea Cliff, NY. Then he tried to take over the Village Hall and fire everyone. (More...)
Musk claims Xitter security is staffed by idiots
Earlier this month Xitter experienced a massive outage. In an interview, Musk told Fox Business that he believes the attack came from "IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area." (More...)
The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
Ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
It was the night of the Leonid meteor showers -- the perfect opportunity to break out the evil opaline liquor, get madder than hatters, and test wireless ethernet hardware... Would the plunging meteorites interfere with the 2.4GHz band? What about our delicate brain waves? (More...)
My dear and close friend, Porn Maven Shannon Mariemont, sent me a titillating message the other day about her new project: the PornOrchestra. Her desire, at most, is to reinvent the porn soundtrack and, at least, to receive a cease-and-desist order like all her cool friends did last year. (More...)
Patient Joab's scientifick editorial discusses aspect of the space-time-beer continuum never before processed by sub-bush-robot minds!!! Too fabulantastic to contempulate! (More...)
What do Computers and Skateboards have in Common?
They both sprang from the mind of John Mauchly that's what. (More...)
What the hell is going on with Sony?
Is anyone else as confused as I am with what's happening with the Sony Playstation network hack? (More...)
It's that time of year again -- Burning Man Season -- and that means fresh SCIENCE! Here is a new lab experiment for the fruity hillbilly in all of us. (More...)