I have decided that I am not going to read another article discussing about intellectuals or anything that is intellectually stimulating. I have had enough and my brain has exploded from the sheer pressure of trudging through verbose bogs. And that, my friend, is never a good thing.

I am also at a crossroad. I have worked long and rather hard at making Richard Sommer - now Joseph Stokes - a functional story, but I think I might have ran out of steam and I might just have complicated things by starting off with an expectation. I know some of you will just glower at me and say that I never finish my story, but the truth is I did already, just that I am not satisfied with it hence the second version of the story - yes, there is a second version of that dreaded series. But I am just tired and I can't seem to make it work no matter what.

Just for statistics, for Richard Sommer, I have in mind at maximum 6 chapters, and of the original story, I collapsed chapter 2 and 3 together to produce Veterans, which I have to say I am quite happy with. The two version I am working with now scrapped the entire third chapter - 'A Burnt Shell' - and started anew from thereon. It was rather smooth sailing until the midpoint of the fourth chapter, the very point where I am stuck at now. So far, I have drafted that chapter twice, but neither one works well and I am really dreading to work on it. In fact, I am beginning to believe that the entire story is a flop; I am not going anywhere with it despite working on it.

But such is life.

Some of you are members of so hence you know what inspired the Ararchnophilia theme. I don't hate the little things, but I don't really love them too.

So what happened to Charlotte? (I kept thinking Phoebe, but Phoebe is a sea flea who lived in a teepee that doubles as a heehee serving freebies so that is another story altogether).

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Redbacks: Neutralising the threat in the bathroom. A proposal of action.

Introduction

The Black Widow spider (Genus Latrodectus) frequently occurs in disturbed habitats in Australia (Random name, Random year). The spider is extremely adaptable to the changing environment and has since recolonised much of its former habitats lost to the urban sprawl of Melbourne (Personal observation). As such, there has been many confrontations with the venomous spider in suburban households (Mr X., 2006a).

Known for its fatality rate of 0.1%, the redback's neurotoxin is <insert long and boring clinical description here so as to mark up the total word count to 1,500 words. In short, it would be just> deadly. <Continue with long and boring account of the neurotoxin. All you need to know is this: it is boring, but dangerous.> (Random name II,Random year II)

Our aim in this study is to standardise a method of neutralising the threat of the redback (read: KILL THE DAMN BUGGER) in the common household. Blah blah blah blah. <Add more blahs to satisfy your hunger for blahs>

Methods

The bathroom is of a small to medium sized bathroom. It is a normal toilet equipped with a washing machine, a dryer and a shower stall. The shower stall itself is furnished with a bottle of Herbal Essence shampoo and a bar of Cussons Imperial Leather soap in the soap dish. There is also an Orange scented Shokubutsu showering liquid in a basket on the floor. But they are inconsequential.

The spider is on the edge of the sink.

<So I will digress here to talk about the model of the dryer and the washing machine and their make, and how often we use it, along with the types of washing detergents before going back to point on saying>

The spider is on the edge of the sink.
And her name is Charlotte. She told me so.

<Omission: I jumped up, cleaned up, splashed water onto the spider, shot shaving cream at her, sprayed hand soap and watch her scuttle into a crack behind the sink. I then ran out and got Mr. X and returned with the backup.>

The spider was then surrounded by a variety of aerosol insecticides, which were quickly put to the test. <Omission: Mr. X and I were armed with 3 insecticides between us. We then filled every nook and cranny of the toilet with insecticide mist.>

<Omission: Mr. X then went on a spider crusade throughout the entire house, depleting one can of aerosol.>

Results

There was no Charlotte to be found and the result was found to be significant (t=-19.89, df=0, p<0.01). <Omission: I was informed that my housemate later nearly died in the toilet. Also, we found daddy longlegs dangling from every possible corner we could find. Mr. X omnipotent insecticide did it.>

Discussion

We can draw several conclusions from the results. The first is that we had subjected the toilet to a sufficient level of insecticide potency as to affect human beings <omission: it is either that or my housemate is as I had suspected, a cockroach> and therefore adequately neutralised the redback's threat. The second is that insecticides smell funny because they have funny pictures of mosquitoes and ants on it (Personal observations). The third would be Mr. X has good insecticides (Mr. X, 2006b).

Reference

Mr. X, 2006a, 'Lecture on how to deal with unfavourable intruders (read: GODDAMN INSECTS)', unpublished.

Mr. X, 2006b, 'I have good insecticides!', unpublished.

Random name, Random year, 'The Random Algorithm', Random House, Random

Random name II, Random year II, 'Something that is related', unwritten.

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Don't ask. It has been a crazy week.

Balhaza is :

Quicksilver - Neal Stephenson
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

<sub>Read
Deadeye Dick - Kurt Vonnegut
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Truckers - Terry Pratchett
The Madman's Tale - John Katzenbach
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
The Book of the New Sun: Shadow and Claw - Gene Wolfe
The Reunion - Sue Walker
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Shadowmarch by Tad Williams
Written in Red - Todd Keisling
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Burglar who liked to quote Kipling - Lawrence Block
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
Brave New World - Aldour Huxley

To be read
Geomancer - Ian Irving
The Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, the Unbeliever - Stephen Donaldson
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Moby Dick - John Melville
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake
Bulfinch's Mythology - Thomas Bulfinch</sub>