I had an encounter with a New Zealand Tunnelweb Spider. To anyone who knows me, it's a well known fact that I am more or less terrified by most anything of the arachnid variety. It's entirely an irrational fear, this I know, but I can't seem to get over it for whatever reason. Thankfully, I think spiders are about the only things that I am afraid of.
Of course I also think most anyone would be afraid of a tunnelweb.
The Tunnelweb
 A tossed a quarter next to the spider to give it some perspective
Once I calmed down a bit, I ran to get my camera and though I usually get pretty close to the subject in my nature pics, I kept my distance for this one. These were zoom lens all the way. I tossed an American Quarter on the ground near the spider to give it some perspective. FYI: an American Quarter is just under an inch in diameter. This spider clearly spawned about 2.25 of them.
A Peaceful Spider?
Is there such a thing? Though the Tunnelweb is about the size of a Tarantula, like the Tarantula, it is not poisonous. Don't confuse it's name with the Australian Funnelweb spider. The Funnelweb, on the other hand, is quite deadly. Also like our Tarantula, however, this spider can inflict a very painful bite if provoked to do so. If you look between the small front two legs, you can see the very large black fangs touching the ground below.
After this whole encounter (with death itself), I did a bunch of research on the particular spider. Though I had seen them around outside, I had not seen one in my bathroom, but that is apparently somewhat normal. As I read, every so often a Tunnelweb spider will find his way into a house and when it does, it becomes severely dehydrated (usually to the point of death). The spider will immediately seek out a source of water with it's sensing tools and this usually lands it either in the bathroom or the laundry room. Apparently sometimes they are able to sustain themselves for awhile in the bathroom as they can live off of the leftover humidity from showers, and drops of water on the floor. Usually though, they wither and die pretty quickly. This one was obviously somewhat resourceful.
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I would just like to say to anyone who has told me New Zealand 'does not really have spiders', you are wrong or a liar. For the past few weeks now I have been watching the so called Black Tunnelweb spiders make funnel like nests in front of my flat. Today I came home around 11:00pm and headed into the bathroom only to be staring at one of these monsters stretching perhaps 2 - 2.5" across. This is not my idea of 'no spiders' much less even 'small spiders'. It was huge to say the very least. I have read that they can be typically found inside of bathrooms as they seek the water when straying inside - but I am left to think that spiders aren't smart enough to know where the bathroom is. This would leave me to conclude that these things are crawling around in my house and eventually stumble upon the bathroom. I am hoping not to come across any others.
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Wanted to say CONGRATULATIONS to Anne and John for finally getting engaged! I will be looking forward to that wedding whenever it may take place.
On another note, I am currently working to get some music files online. I have been recording some stuff via my digital camera's microphone so while the quality isnt all that great, it will still work. The camera saves as .MOV files and so I am working to extract the audio into .MP3 - this is turning into somewhat of a nightmare but I imagine I will have it done in a few hours.
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The Versace Murder is hands down the worst movie I have seen in months.
The script flows fairly well except for the fact the FBI always seems to be just one step behind, and I mean ONE step. It gets pretty corny when FBI agents are literally supposed to be 20 foot away but 'Andy' manages to run away.
The acting is just plain horrible. I don't like to poke at specific people, but Shane Perdue has not done another movie (according to the DB) and I think it will stay like that. Even Steven Bauer, who plays the FBI agent, also doesn't deliver the best performance in this flic though I generally have liked his work.
If its on TV - take a look but you'll most likely find yourself deciding who delivers their lines the worst.
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The gallery has finally been restored fully. There are now all 978 pictures online that have been taken in the last 6 months or so around New Zealand. Sorry it took so long to get the older ones back online but now that I don't live with anyone, I have been able to tie up the phone lines all day long. And yes, to those interested, I am in fact using dialup. It was a hard set-back at first, having been used to broadband for so many years, but I have adapted to it well.
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