i has a imac! yippee!this means i can get cracking on the 5674329 video clips of lucien and tiga that i have. :DHOWEVER. as usual, time is a problem.time is always a problem!i've finished my last project, which was AWESOME. i loved it. i got so engrossed in the plot that i had a hard time transitioning into my current project. my mind and heart are still lingering in the previous story. i'm just too darn sentimental for my own good!even the darn theme songs and mood tunes keep playing in my head!ok, things will get better when the series concludes. the final episode is airing tomorrow (saturday) evening. i guess i will then finally begin to get over it. new project is great as well. i love how i'm getting allocated all the stuff i enjoy doing. :)the kids are well. i gave them interior decor! each one of them now has a little fabric leaf to lounge on. i gave one to tiga first, because after his failed attempts to date lucien, he became a little more nervous than usual. the boys, tiga and scout, both do not build hammocks to sleep in like the girls do. so, they're always 'standing around'. looks rather uncomfortable. so, i gave tiga a leaf to make him feel better. he loved it! took to it like a fish to water. he even sits on it the way i planned for him to - i blu-tacked it down at an angle so there is like a little platform for him to sit on.after the roaring success of the first leaf, everyone got a leaf each. :) everyone's happy!not sure if i mentioned it, i probably have and am repeating myself for the 19th time - i'm putting them on a diet. so they haven't been feasting like they used to. this was decided after uncle moo and i had a discussion about spider lifespan. the better they eat, the shorter (but i'd like to think, fuller and happier) their lives. god knows how well i've been feeding everyone since they were bubs! haha. so, i hope it's not too late, but i'm trying to do a happy medium now. i dread the day lucien leaves me.hokay, back to the grind. random amusement i got a funny message through friendster the other day. it was from a girl i didn't know.Subject: ur pet needs a haircut!!!Emphasize in detail scissoring to bring out the best of your pet. We provide services such as mud spa, conditioning spa, herbal bath, chm treatment to cater to different skin conditions.Other services include de-ticking and dental plaque and tartar removal. We ensure a clean environment as we sanitize our equipments after each grooming session. Our lady groomers are also pet lovers, so no worries, your pet will have a stress-free grooming experience with us. BTW, our groomers also does cat grooming and small animal grooming as well. For appointments, pls contact our head groomer at XXXXXXX.after i had a good chortle, i replied her.hahahaha!!! my pets are spiders! i thought your message was a prank! :) they ARE quite furry though. :)she obviously wasn't as amused as i was. all i got in reply was:sorry tot u own dog n cat.oh well. at least i was amused. why are some people unable to laugh? why do some people take themselves so seriously? oops so. i tried to get lucien to meet tiga today.i remember writing about how i didn't want to mate lucien, because i noticed that after they start having bubbas, my girls tend to just become egg-factories until they die. so i was delaying this, even though i could tell lucien has already reached adulthood.then, one day, i suddenly noticed a very small cluster of eggs. non-viable eggs, obviously, because she has never been with any boy. she guarded them for a day, and then ate them.i told uncle moo about it and he said she needed to mate. she laid those eggs because she was probably bursting full of eggses. :pso. it was time for tiga to meet lucien.yesterday i bought some worms for everyone. this was part of the reason as well - i wanted to stuff them prior to mating, so nobody becomes dinner instead. worms were a good choice, fat and juicy. everyone had one except for bib, who kept hiding in her bed.today, i offered worms to tiga and lucien again. both of them rejected the offerings. this was my cue to introduce them.unfortunately, lucien wasn't receptive. :( i have a rather funny video clip of tiga doing his little dance, lucien watching warily, backing off, and then running away!oh well.uncle moo says, try again tomorrow.sigh. errant errands i was just thinking to myself what my errands are for tomorrow.1. collect clothes from tailor's2. pick up skincare supplies3. pay bills at axs4. pick up herbs5. buy some wormshehehe. i'm 80% normal. insomniac not me.lucien's sleeping hours are as screwed up as mine.either that, or she sleepwalks.possibly both.hehe! exhaaaaale it's been a tough week, which ended this morning at 7am. yes, my work week ends wednesdays. :Di'm trying to shift it by a day so i can make it to my yoga class more often. i guess it's my own fault for having a preferred instructor who only teaches on certain days. need to grab that yoga mat that i keep forgetting, so i can do it at home as well. am also seriously considering sleeping hours like those of kyle's - his are 9pm to 5am, which is pretty much impossible for me, but i'm thinking 11pm to 7am could be quite nice. even better if i can do 10pm to 6am, so i can have a quiet hour of yoga before the sun rises.i've had twice my usual workload this week. desk-bound round the clock for three days straight. normal weekly workload should resume from now. speaking of which, i'm quite enjoying my current project. there are lots of awesome CG scenes, during which no one speaks! heh. of course, other than the fact that it's easier to work on, the production itself is really quite enjoyable to watch. i'm glad i was assigned this one. :)on the sidelines, i've been drafting sample chapters for the munster book. not sure if it will happen, but i'll have a crack at it for sure! it would be awesome if munster can live on in the hearts of children all over the world. :) the velvet web i've been following the creations of a very talented jewellery maker, cherlyn, since the beginning of her brand - edynae. however, because she has a humongous following, it's no easy feat to buy any of her stuff unless you happen to be online at the split second when she posts new pieces. so, i've been happy to watch from afar. just looking at what she comes up with is a treat itself.until one morning, she made something that was really apt for me. something that most other girls didn't fancy because they were afraid of spideys. and so, i finally managed to get something of hers. it was really uncanny how she happened to make the collection 'first-time buyers only', and because i've been too slow to get anything of hers so far, i actually qualified. heh. :)thanks babe! keep up the awesome work.:) ididdit i did a tiga shoot. videos and peektures. :)i've not had tiga out on my hand for a long time because he has become so jittery as a big boy. both my boys, scout and tiga, move in a jerky, nervous manner, unlike the girls. i notice that this is true for all the jumping spiders i've had in my care.strangely though, tiga was the bubba i'd shot the most when they were all bubs. this was, of course, before their gender became apparent. as a baby, tiga had also once snuggled up in the middle of my palm, along a little fleshy ridge, and fallen right asleep. the icon for this entry was snapped when he was napping. :)when he started to grow into a big boy, the naturally nervous nature of males also began to show.the last shoot i did of him on my hand was when he first got his black colours. he still had his little tufts of hair then. he looked like a cute little devil. :) but another moult later, his devil horns came right off with his exoskeleton, and i suddenly found myself looking at a gorgeous specimen of the male hyllus diardi. hyllus diardi boys are so uncommon and rarely documented, and very little is known of them. the girls are so often photographed by nature enthusiasts, i guess because they're so much less shy and easier to spot.so. i've always wanted to do a shoot of tiga on my hand again. but i was so scared of losing him. now that all my bubbas are so big, their jumping prowess is also quite something. i thought about it all day today, and i'm not sure what made me decide to do it, but i did.he refused to budge, at first. he hid in his bed and peeked at me in such a cute and shy manner that i almost dropped the idea. but he has been less nervous these days, and i knew there was no better time to do it.so i gently brushed one of his web strings from afar, enough to alarm him only slightly so he'd move but not panic. i wasn't sure how readily he'd move onto my hand, because i knew that unlike lucien, he seems afraid of this 'fleshy' texture, even though he'd been so comfortable with it as a baby.he prodded me tentatively twice and walked onto my hand! but before i could get too happy, he freaked out and leapt off onto my desk. i picked him back up and he leapt off onto my desk again, and then onto the floor! it was the furthest any kid has ever got to.i picked him back up again, and he calmed down finally.so, after our first few seconds of panic (both him and i), we got re-acquainted with each other. he re-explored the hand he used to know so well, and there were no more attempts to be superspidey. he was a good boy and just wandered around on my hand, albeit slightly jerkily. i managed to get three short clips of him, which i didn't expect to. all i wanted was at least one good photograph. i got a few. :)i shall leave you all in suspense and post the pictures another day. ha!:)i know i'm so terrible, but i just wanted to record this moment. i still want to post their pics in progression. i know! there has been such slow progress... one day, one day we will get there!just so i seem a little less terrible, i'm working on a korean fantasy epic right now for work. it's pretty hardcore translating stuff that don't exist. will lose a bit of hair over the next two months i reckon! uhhuh lucien has got it all figured out.i've been wondering why she's been less active lately. instead of walking around her jar, like her siblings are doing in theirs, she's been hiding in her newly built, huge hammock. at first i'd thought she was gonna moult again. but she came out and had a cricket meal the other day, and that threw the notion out the window.she's now hanging out of her hammock, watching. just watching. like a little girl half wrapped in a cosy blanket, watching the world around her.i reckon she understands her jar space now. she knows that walking around in circles would lead her to nowhere. this is the first time i get the impression that any of the spideykids have ever thought this way, or reached this sort of conclusion.i wonder if this is even possible, but i can find no other way to explain her behaviour. and from what i've observed of lucien starting from the time she was a mere 2mm infant, she has always displayed superior intelligence and instincts compared to her siblings. the very first night i'd scooped her out of her mother's jar and put her in her own home, little lucien had immediately busied herself spinning a very miniature but amazingly beautiful hammock, in which she slept that very night. her brothers and sisters had either slept on the jar walls, or spun little haphazard hammocks as shelter.my little genius.:) the sequel here's lucien's sequel to her superstar debut! more cute flailing of arms, this time in focus. at the end of the movie, she finally reveals exactly what she is trying to do when she flails like that... one for the weekend comparing lucien's baby pictures and how she is today, she has grown so much! :)have a good weekend, everyone! hmm i have a dilemma.lucy's kids are now ready to move into bigger homes. they've outgrown their pink baby jars, and are now bigger than ever. lucien is almost lucy-sized, and tiga is rather errrm enthusiastic whenever he gets a whiff of the girls.they grow up so fast. *sniff*the thing is, they're still happy in their pink baby homes. they'll always be my babies. :) what's also holding me back is that i don't want them to start hiding from me. the initial plan was to move them into bigger jars with nice plastic greenery like their mother lucy had. i reckon the bubs don't hide from me now because there is nowhere to hide. hehe. okay, sadistic tendencies aside, these bubbas have been raised domestically. the nature of this species in the wild is to hide and hide and then hide some more. i have an inkling that once i put them in their natural (or whatever comes close) habitat, they will slip into their wild ways. i remember watching lucy perched on a branch all day, staying absolutely still thinking she was invisible, moving only when it was dusk (which gave her like an hour to walk around before it got too dark).lucy was a wild child and it couldn't be helped. but her babies are not!they walk around and watch me, like munster used to do. bib still startles easiest, with the boys, tiga and scout, on par in second place. so i have a little paper partition where my hands move the most on my ibook, and they seem happy with this arrangement. lucien has an almost full view of me, her jar being right next to me on my desk. she peers at everything i do, and is more curious than afraid of my movements.i'm happy with them being like this. i don't want them to suddenly become afraid of everything.i will chew on it some more. crunch time! four more days! mmmmmph! just handed in a batch of files.... one last submission to go before this project is over!hanging on by the skin of my teeth. spidey icons! making icons is addictive! especially when you have cute subjects! i made a whole bunch in one sitting! must make myself stop for now!!!! sisterly love well, choreographed by me.lucien had pounced on two crickets sitting side by side, in all her magnificence, and stepped away with one in her fangs... leaving the other cricket severely injured and flopping in misery. i ingeniously planted the disabled cricket at the entrance of bib's cocoon, tucking it halfway inside. she eyed it with much suspicion, and tried to prod it away to no avail. then, she went closer and took it in her fangs as if she was taking food off a plate gingerly. hehe. she is now enjoying her free meal from her big sister, in bed.i'm not sure if i've explained this before, but bib was named for her tendency to drag all her meals into bed when she was an infant. breakfast in bed.she stopped doing it after like the fifth insect. but here she is, living up to her name again.:) antsy about... ants i HATE ants! the tiny kitchen ones!they have been trying to attack the bubs. uncle john has put an ant chalk in the mail for me but in the meantime, i'm worried that something might happen while i'm asleep. damn these tiny ants that can wriggle through the air vents! in fact, i've once watched them wriggle in and out of an air-tight jar!two entire bubs had once totally perished (not even a shred of evidence) in the spiderlab while i was in hk. one happened to be a bub that i'd given to uncle moo. the other was little lucille. my guess is they were freshly moulted and the ants crept in before their exoskeletons could harden (usually takes about a day). two empty jars were left.so i'm especially nervous because bib has just moulted this arvo.i tried using some ant pellets (which kill colonies by being carried back to their queen as food... then bam!) but the ants didn't seem too keen on them. in fact, they seemed slightly repelled instead. so as a last resort, i've built a pellet barricade around the bubs for tonight. fingers crossed that the ant chalk arrives tomorrow! big boy! tiga is out from a fresh moult and he is HUGE! :D i just gave him a 3-course cricket meal and he has two in his fangs at once. :D he's almost the same size as lucien (usually boys are much smaller). must be all the cricket goodness he's had! interesting thing to note is he has lost his horns... i guess only the girls keep the cute tufts of hair. i tried to get a picture but he ran and hid in his bed. tsk tsk. the boys are always so much more timid than the girls. i'll get some pics eventually! some lucien aww-ness prior to these pictures, lucien hadn't been on my hand for about a week, as she was preparing for and carrying out her moult. the first day of her emergence, she was rather shy and stayed in her cocoon for most of the day... until i took her jar in my hand to hold for awhile. i sometimes like to hold the kids' jars to get them used to movements.the minute i carried lucien's jar, she came out walking right away. after a coupla turns around her little home, she sat down right where my finger pressed against her jar wall. as in, she literally sat by pressing herself down in a resting position as if she was in bed. said bed was, at that moment, directly opposite her in full sight. i was rather happy, and wondered if my efforts in domesticating her has really paid off. she took a nap indirectly on my finger like that, for a long while. i had time to take pictures of her and then wonder what do to next. she woke up from her little nap and walked off only when i moved my finger. :)isn't my little darling looking more and more like her beautiful mother, lucy? that's lucy in my icon for this entry.i was only going to post the two pics of her through the jar walls... but couldn't resist sneaking in one gorgeous picture to whet your appetites. as expected, i have loads of awesome pictures of her on my hand. but i shall try to post in some semblance of progression from their early infant days. there will be sneak peeks once in awhile when there are note-worthy bits i feel i have to say, like this one.;) work shtuff and lucy i've decided that i don't want to work nights anymore. things need to change.on a completely irrelevant tangent, here are some old pictures of lucy from last year. this was the day i made her move house into a nice, huge jar because she was freaking her babies out. i remember feeling a little bad for chasing her out... because she was obviously really, really scared. she leapt from her old jar into the new one with such a loud thud i almost jumped out of my chair. :( she then crouched on that leaf for a few hours...but as seen in the second pic, she was happily exploring her nice big home by nightfall. :) i miss lucy. may she rest in peace under that tree with munster, sonic, bobby, bobbette and slash. OMG lucien has moulted! i've lost track of how many moults she's had, but i think it's the 5th one now. she is HUGE, about twice the size of her little sister dot. which is interesting to note, because all the bubs eat the same food except that lucien readily accepts lots more. i think strong genes and weak genes exist in spiders as well.i've been looking forward to her having this moult because she's quite a good size and i thought it would be awesome watching her moult. but after spying on her sitting in her bed for a week, she chose to do it this morning when i was knocked out by some medication (to calm the nerves in my ear, apparently. i had a ear problem yesterday). i woke up to see her sprawled out with her new loooong legs, still resting in her cocoon. her bigass exoskeleton was already on the floor.i was also a little worried that she might get stuck during her moult, since bigger spiders have more trouble. uncle moo says they've had to amputate certain spiderlab residents to save them.anyways, she's all fine and dandy. :) i can't wait to fatten her up and take more videos of her. still have about 6-8 videos of her on hand right now. i've managed to clear some disk space so i might be able to do up a movie sometime during the week!:) lucy's firstborn i'm too annoyed with myself to work, so i did up the first set of pics of lucy's bubs.this is little liloo, the first one out of the cocoon. when lucy's first batch of kids hatched, there were some concerns as to why they were taking so long to emerge. then i transferred lucy to a new home, in case the bubs were afraid of the huge creature walking around (since if they were in the wild, lucy would have walked off elsewhere and the bubs should have been free to come out). that seemed to work, as i finally spotted one bub out on the ceiling one night. that was liloo. :)unfortunately, liloo didn't make it. according to uncle jeremy, bubs die for no apparent reason at all, so i was told not to dwell on it. i did notice that this bubba was really slow and quiet when i was shooting it, although i thought it was normal behaviour because munster's kids were like this when they first emerged as well. the next day, liloo passed on. :(what's great is that it didn't live its short life in vain. i think i have the first set of infant hyllus diardi pictures, captured in detail. liloo is immortalised forever. :) i'ma dumbass i was shocked out of bed by the sound of something crashing on my desk - lucien's jar had fallen over from a windy spot where max's jar had fallen over once before. the good thing is, being lucien, she was safely encased in her huge cocoon palace. if it was any of the other bubs, they would have been walking around on their walls and probably have taken a hard knock. the bad thing is, lucien is my favourite girl and i hope this fall doesn't affect her health. and the bad, bad thing is, why am i so stupid to let history repeat itself? i did think that max's jar toppling was an isolated incident.dumbass dumbass dumbass. a random update i'm so drowning in work. everything is spilling in at the same time. i guess when it rains, it fuckin' pours. i have two projects going on at the same time, and a third from hk waiting for my confirmation. i've not decided if i will take it yet...next month, one of my bosses is going to meet me to discuss longterm plans. this is something i've been gunning for for the past six months. during this time, i've been working my ass off on everything she has thrown at me. i guess i've passed the test. this is also the reason why i'm not saying yes to the third project yet. i don't want to compromise on the quality of my work.and also of course, i need some time for my kids. :)lucien is about to moult again. she's the biggest bub, and the most well-developed one. when i'd first scooped her out of lucy's jar, she was the biggest amongst everyone. that very first night in her own pink jar, she'd spun herself a very large (for a newborn bub) hammock almost immediately. the hammock was amazing well constructed for a newborn bubba. that was when i knew lucien was on to great things. :) she has proved that right. she eats well, and attacks everything with gusto. she is nice and fat, and is so well structured she looks just like a mini-lucy right now. a few days ago, she dragged her old hammock off the ceiling with her fangs. just when i was wondering what she was up to, she started to build herself a little palace, spanning half the height of her entire jar, complete with walkways! i handle her almost everyday, just to see if she can be domesticated, also because she is the most calm of the lot. she now seems to recognise my hand as a safe landing place, where she doesn't hesitate to jump on. she is currently standing at 2cm, including leg-span. i can't wait to see how big she gets after this next moult. :)next biggest bub is bib. bib is sporting girl-colours but behaving more like a boy - less enthused about food and spooks very easily. problem child, this one. i believe she's a girl though, the colours can't be wrong. bib has a strange habit of eating in the night. she would run away from the frisky food all day. then at night, when i sometimes sneak a peek at them sleeping, she would be standing outside her bed, with the frisky food in her fangs. she is much less developed than lucien, due to her irregular meals and intake of nutrients.tiga is a boy! my first confirmed boy. :) his previous moult was the one that did the trick - previously they all looked the same, with baby-colours. then one time, he took a really long time to moult. he was hiding for about a full week before finally moulting. rested in his bed for a day and a night. the next morning, i woke up to find him hiding on the floor behind his water filter - with the other bubs standing on their walls and staring at him! haha. it was rather funny. but i knew he was scared stiff and now everyone gets a paper divider between their homes. he was so obviously a boy and i knew immediately that bib was a girl (i was suspecting bib to be a boy because of her strange behaviour). tiga is almost 80% jet black, with obvious boy palps (those little 'arms' that they wipe their fangs and face with). he has been eating quite well, compared to bib, and sports a nice fat tummy. when he grows bigger, he will gradually stop getting so fat, as boys are usually skinnier. i shall be trying to fatten him as much as possible as a bubba, to get him to grow to his maximum size.dot is having her first day out after her recent moult, and her first meal as well. she's sporting lucy colours and looks very much like lucien's little sister. :) dot is a little like missy (munster's girl), a little prissy and is a little temperamental, but hunts well when she feels like it. but she is eating well compared to bib.last bubba is scout, from lucy's second clutch of bubs (the other four are from the first clutch). scout moulted last night, and i think he's a boy. because i have tiga as a reference, even though scout is still very very small compared to the rest, i can tell by his palps that he's going to take after tiga, even though he is still sporting baby-colours. previously, it was impossible for me to tell the gender at a stage where scout is currently at. now i know. :)i believe changing their diet has also made a tremendous difference. i'd been trying to hunt down pinhead crickets for the longest time (a few months) to no avail. the ones in the pet shops are humongous and would probably eat my bubs instead. besides, they really freak me out because they look just like roaches. finally, i put my foot down on the situation by getting my nephew to drive me out to the farms in pasir ris. got a few strange looks - what are two people in a flashy sports car doing in lalaland over there? we went door to door till we found a cricket farm, which was actually only the third place we tried. there were millions of crickets there! and of all sizes too! there was a lady feeding the cricks and i asked to buy a small amount of pinheads. she said, "how about 50?". I said, "okay!". she went and scooped about 200 pinheads from the nearest tank! i objected... and she was like, "it's okay, i give you all for $2". i guess it was more troublesome for her to pour them back.so, i had shitloads of cricks. hansel made sure i tied the bag well before we got back into the car. haha. anyway, to cut a long story short(er), this was the best $2 i've ever spent. cricks are great as food because i can gut-load them with good nutritious stuff (carrot, oatmeal, crushed corn). i believe that's what's making my kids develop well. especially obvious with scout - at this stage of growth, i shouldn't be able to guess the gender yet.the only problem the cricks have given me, was the one time they all busted out of the bag. haha. it was a disaster. for a whole month, they'd lived in the bag obediently, only to chew a hole through the bottom on the one night i'd gone out for dinner. goddammit. i was home for almost a whole month working, and they chose that very night when i wasn't home. mother rang me halfway through dinner and we laughed so hard i could hardly eat. friends are convinced that the cricks had planned the whole thing. salsarina came home with me to help hunt down the naughty escapees. the hunt lasted till 1am.that brings us up to speed on the current situation with lucy's kids. pictures (lots of them) to come when i'm breathing easier after this weekend's submission.:) farewell ah fook a good friend's best friend passed away on sunday morning, from a heart attack in his sleep. he was 30 years old, and would have been turning 31 this december. although i was never close to him, i'd known him for a long time. he was the only child his parents had. everyone knew him as ah fook (or ah fuk... but i prefer to spell it fook) and it was only after he passed away that i asked about his real name.rest in peace, chiam tashun. you were a good guy, even though not everyone realised it in the past. but today, those who weren't kind to you before... they came to see you too. and they were sad. your parents are such lovely folks. it's breaks the heart to see them so crushed. please watch over them, and your pals who have always stood by you. goodbye, ah fook. baby lucien - the movie so... there are shitloads of stuff that should have been posted between this and the last spideykids update. but that's gonna take too long so i'm just gonna post the very first spideykid movie and then slowly fill in the blanks afterwards. :) a quick run-down of the current fambly: i have five of lucy's bubbas (four from her first clutch, one from her second. uncle john adopted three and the rest have been returned to mother nature), four of munster's bubbas (there were five but max, the only boy, died. current bubs now are min, poof, flynn and missy. almost adults now), three bobbies and one bobbette (not the same ones from last year), three plexippus adults (two girls, one boy. plexippus are a size between lucy and munster).ok, that wasn't such a short run-down after all. :)all my original spideykids from last year have passed on and gone to spidey heaven. slash and lucy left me on the very same day, one in the morning and one in the evening. bobbette was the last adult to pass on. everyone is buried under the same tree, where munster lies.it has been a wonderful 2007 with them. :)the bulk of my attention is now on raising lucy's bubbas, which are very much less hardy than munster's kids. they are also turning out to be a joy to handle. especially lucien, lucy's biggest little girl. :) my little movie star.i pulled away when she was flailing her arms because it seemed like she was trying to grab the lens. but i realised after a few shoots that she was doing something else. all shall be explained when new footage is uploaded. yes, i caught her doing funny stuff. hehe. uncle moo says she looks like a baby wanting hugs when she flails like that. :)my old ibook didn't enjoy editing the movie. i'm going to try to hold off making more till i get a new machine soon. meanwhile, new spidey movies might still magically appear (especially after i happen to visit friends). ps. photobucket's video streaming sucks donkeys' balls. lolspiders uncle moo kindly pointed out this funny picture:see more crazy cat picshehehehehehehehe. paper doll cover my eyes so that i might seethe rose-tinted world that you've built for meas the sands of time whirlin a hurricane spirallike a paper doll i'll cut you away from my heart home sweet home the spideykids are home.:) note to self do not attempt a new route home at the 11th hour while lugging three bags of toiletries and groceries.