Thank goodness human respiratory viruses don’t travel through the web, otherwise you’d be a mouth breather right now—just like me—with wads of tissue wedged up your nose so you wouldn’t drip on your keyboard.

But that’s what’s so great about the Internet. Not only is my web page not contagious, but the moment that I throw open the doors to my virtual Mexican restaurant, the mountain of used-up Kleenex by my side magically disappears.

My nose dries up, I lose 30 pounds and develop a lovely tan. The laugh lines and the dorky reading glasses vanish, too, although I can’t do much about my wardrobe as I have no head for fashion, even in my dreams. Let’s just say my virtual wardrobe doesn’t contain a single Honors label in it.

Before I start today’s Super Sabado, though, I’d like to highlight a post that should put all of our lives in perspective, cold-free or not:

This is my daughter. She is 18, and attends Dawson College in Montreal. This afternoon a gunman entered the school and started shooting students.

—Feith, of Dear Leonard.

We don’t have cable or network TV, so I don’t know what the U.S. television coverage was like, but in our local newspaper and radio stations the outing of LonelyGirl15 got more coverage than this school shooting in Montreal did. (I got 99% of my news on the subject from the Internet.)

Feith’s daughter is okay (thank you, God!) but my heart goes out her as well as to the other victims and their parents.

Today’s Super Sabado is about making things over, starting afresh, reassessing our lives and reaching our goals. Perhaps it was the anniversary of 9/11 or the shooting at Dawson College, or maybe it is because fall is coming—or possibly it’s just my cold medicine—but I definitely feel a sense of wanting to live our lives to the best of our abilities. Don’t you?

Let’s lift our margarita glasses and toast to Feith and her daughter, and to those of us whose lives are changing.

This one is for you, Mark. (Read the rest of “Super Sabado: on habing a bad code”)

When a neighbor suddenly looks thinner, you want to compliment her, right? Tell them how great she’s looking, ask her what diet she’s been on, or at the very least, make sure all is well in her life and she’s not sick or anything.

But what if the neighbor is one of those stand-offish types, you know, with eight legs?

BEFORE	AFTER

You can really see a difference, can’t you? I mean, she’s practically svelte in the AFTER photo. (By the way, that cloudy stuff in the BEFORE picture is her web.)

So I wondered, what would cause a spider to lose so much weight all of a sudden?

BONNIE: My, you’re looking slim! What’s your secret?

ARGIOPE: If you were smaller, I’d paralyze you with my spider venom, wrap you up in silk, and suck you dry at my leisure.

BONNIE: Ultra low carb, then?

And then I noticed this, about six inches from her web:

(Click on the picture to get a really big image, suitable for the ultimate gross-out!)

According to this site, the eggs inside will hatch this fall. They won’t leave their playpen, however, until the weather warms up in the spring.

And if any of you urge me to do some spider squishing, I’ll remind you that these spiders LOVE flying insects. And since Hubby and I hate flies, the bloodthirsty Mrs. Argiope and her children get to stay.

So there.

ARGIOPE: Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I could take you. Come a little closer.

BONNIE: Um, no.

argiope, spider

Ooh, this is cool. “Finger Frenzy: How fast can you type the alphabet?”

Pretty darn fast, if I do say so myself.

Why, in my prime, I was the queen of the secretarial pool at 110 wpm. So let me give this sucker a try.

Heh! All you so-called geek types think you’re fast? I cut my typing teeth on a Smith-Corona manual. Observe how I blow you out of the water!

Hmmm. Maybe I could do a little better, after all, that was my first time.

Not bad, not bad. Still… breathe deep… relax the fingers… and GO!

That’s what I’m talking ABOUT!

Now I think I’ll just file my high scores where all the baby geeks may read them and weep!

Wha—? Wait a minute! The top 15 scores are…

Move over, you baby geeks. Make room for the old lady about to pass out over your keyboards.

Via Digg

… will return next week.

It seems to me that the worst thing about PMS is that you’re suddenly considered incapable of rational thought.

I mean, you make a logical and reasonable observation about how NOBODY ever bothers to rinse off their plates, much less put said plates into the dishwasher, and how you’d probably fall over dead from SHOCK if anybody ever decided to RUN said dishwasher without being TOLD to, since they’d rather just load it up with dirty dishes and expect the MAGIC DISH FAIRY TO APPEAR and wave her wand and not only wash the dishes but PUT THEM AWAY, TOO…

…and no matter how rational or practical you are, your so-called Soul Mate just says you’re starting to get all wacky on him and goes back to reading T-Nation.

Does that sound fair to you?

No, really. I want your HONEST opinion.

Today’s Super Sábado is (Read the rest of “Super Sabado: and yup, she’s a Potential Murder Suspect”)

SCOTT: You know what would be neat? Having a tail. I would like to have a tail just like a monkey. I could hold my drinks with my tail.

SQUIRT: Wait, wait, WAIT! Would you rather have a TAIL? Or WINGS? Think about it! You could fly anywhere!

SCOTT: Yeah, but with a tail, you’d be so great at climbing stuff. If you had wings you still wouldn’t be very good at flying. And you wouldn’t be so great at climbing stuff, either.

SQUIRT: Yeah. I guess I’d need something like a special bird tail to stabilize myself for flying.

(they think this over)

SQUIRT: Crap, that really sucks, needing a special bird tail.

BONNIE: Just a little closer…

TIGER: What, and take my life in my hands?

BONNIE: The ruler isn’t even in the picture!

TIGER: You want me to die just so you can get a ruler in the picture?

BONNIE: You won’t die! They aren’t poisonous.

TIGER: Easy for you to say! How about I hold the camera and YOU hold the ruler?

BONNIE: Um, no.

argiope, spider

SO MUCH FUN.

No pieces to set up or put away, no lost little depth charges that disappear—until the vacuum cleaner sucks them up, anyway—and you never have to worry about your opponent peeking at your layout and then saying it was just your imagination when you tell him to stop, either.

First, you arrange your ships the way you want them. I prefer to use home design principles that emphasize the proper flow in a living space, but that’s just me. Feng shui might be applicable here, as well.

Then you and your opponent start dropping depth charges. Dark blue squares mean you’ve checked that area already. Orange squares represent hits. And your hunky first officer pops in every now and then to give you helpful updates, like, “Allright!” “Okay!” and “Our frigate has been sunk!”

Battleships General Quarters Game.

UPDATE 11/12/2006: I’ve updated the links to direct to the official website, which should always have an updated version of the game. Thanks, James “MacManX” Huff!

You might think this is the look of love. It’s not.

It is the look of a bulldog who seconds ago was fast asleep upstairs—his nose buried deep in a pile of stinky teenager laundry—when a human hand lightly brushed against a plastic pail kept in a kitchen cupboard, causing said bulldog to launch himself free of gym socks and boxer shorts, hurl himself downstairs, skid across the living room floor and slide into the kitchen/family room.

Behold, O Dog Owner, the only thing greater than yourself—in your dog’s opinion, anyway:

I’m telling you, if Timmy’s mom had a bucket of these babies in the house when it caught on fire, Lassie would’ve dragged it out first and that would’ve been the end of the television series.

Hubby uses the treats to try to help Mojo learn some self control around food. I say good luck with that. When it comes to liver treats and our bulldog, there is no self control; there are only massive puddles of drool all over our laminate flooring.

MOJO: He’s headed for the cupboard! He’s—YES! LIVER TREATS LIVER TREATS LIVER TREATS LIVER TREATS LIVER TREATS LIVER TREATS LIVER TREATS LIVER TREATS…

HUBBY (puts treat on floor) Mojo, sit!

MOJO: Hooray! (lunges at treat)

HUBBY: NO! SIT!

MOJO: Sit?! But a liver treat IS ON THE FLOOR!

HUBBY: Stay!

MOJO: It moved! (lunges)

HUBBY: NOPE!

MOJO: It moved again! (lunges)

HUBBY: NOPE!

MOJO: It’s running away! (lunges)

HUBBY: NOPE!

MOJO: It’s escaping! (lunges)

HUBBY: NOPE!