Stuff that happened to you that doesnt deserve a thread

What does Lady Bird symbolize?




Ladybugs have connected deeply with all manner of spirituality, symbolism, lore, and cultural beliefs. Its most common representation is good luck, great fortune, protection, love, and luck.


Is seeing a ladybird lucky?

Historically and cross-culturally, ladybugs are believed to be talismans of luck. Some believe that, if a ladybug lands on you, you should count the number of spots to predict how many years of good luck you'll have. Many think the spots indicate the number of months until your greatest wish comes true.

I hope that your ladybird experiences bring you good luck but it is amazing what crap some people believe.
 
Ladybugs
© Jacob Buehler and “Shit You Didn’t Know About Biology”

ladybug1.jpg


The ladybug.

Adorable, right? The cheery, apple-red carapace garnished with but a few, large black dots; as if a tiny pixie had painted them on, and the paintbrush tip was just too big to fit more than a few dots on. This, combined with its bumbling walk along the flowers, and its round, squat body evokes imagery of a kindred Russian grandmother, tending her garden in her brightly-colored babushka. If you are fortunate enough to get one to crawl on your hand or finger, its tiny legs tickle your skin and it eventually pops open its carapace (made of modified wings called “elytra”), and silently takes off as an itty-bitty summertime jewel of cuteness and sunshine and sparkles (and it’s supposed to be good luck! awww). Definitely adorable. Right?

Wrong.

Ladybugs (also known as “ladybirds” outside of North America, as well as “ladyclocks”, “lady cows”, and “Xena flys”) are voracious predators in their raised-bed ecosystem. Ladybugs, from the cradle to the grave, feed upon many different types of insects (many of them important crop pests, so yay), but most commonly on things like aphids. Ladybugs are built to seek-and-destroy aphids. Imagine a giant, armored tank, bearing down on you at stupid speeds, and you’re a squishy, slow, small, green thing…and you have an idea of what it’s like to be an aphid caught in the crosshairs of a hungry ladybug. Did I mention the tank’s front is equipped with more razor-sharp blades than an industrial agricultural combine? That cute little ladybug face hides a generous amount of sharp, curved mandibles that are designed by natural selection to pop an aphid’s body like a Screamin’ Green Apple-flavored Fruit Gusher. A single, adult ladybug can consume more than 1000 aphids in one day during the growing season. Seeing as how ladybugs can live up to about two years, that comes to roughly 360,000 aphid lives in the lifetime of a single ladybug, which is more than the metro population of the city I live in, Eugene, Oregon.

Francisbugslife.png

Genocide? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”



Their squeal-inducing adorable coloration has particularly dark origins. Ladybugs are still quite small, and despite their armor, are no match for even more badass predators like birds and larger insects. So, through the wonderful ingenuity of evolution, ladybugs and their relatives have developed a potent deterrent from being gobbled up, and their bright colors serve as a warning and reminder of this capacity. Mechanical stimulation, like from a predator attack (or, you know, a human finger) releases a reflexive outpouring of alkaloid toxins from every joint and crevice in its exoskeleton. The toxins are incredibly bitter tasting, and the “goal” is that the ladybug is spat out so it can continue its merry life of slaughtering ‘lesser’ insects. Some can apparently even spray this shit when threatened, poisoning small mammals. So don’t let your hamster play in the garden. It’s thought that just being around these things can be hazardous, as in large enough numbers, they’ve been shown to aggravate allergies and asthma in humans. Ladybugs are not only homicidal maniacs, they also are walking dirty bombs.

But, you say, that cute wittle bug sort of negates all the inevitable aphid death and venomous ooze. With a face like that, who couldn’t look the other way?

ladybug_larva2_500.jpg


******* Hell! It looks like something that would wrap around your face, lay its eggs in your stomach, and produce chest-bursting progeny that would terrorize Ripley for at lrast four, increasingly shitty films.

You see, in their childhood, ladybugs are essentially nightmarish hell-creatures that would battle, and eviscerate, Godzilla were they not so diminuitive. They look like this for the first two weeks or so out of the egg, shedding their skin (in a process called “molting” or “ecdysis”) four times, growing larger and more terrifying each time. They then pupate, and emerge as an adult, and only a few days later they become sexually mature…and thus have the ability to produce a dozen more killing machines.

So, feel free to admire the ladybug for its beauty and benign appearance. But the next time one drifts by on a warm summer breeze, and daintily lands on your arm, keep in mind those tickly feet are splattered with the blood of innocents and home-brewed drain cleaner.
 
Ladybugs
© Jacob Buehler and “Shit You Didn’t Know About Biology”

ladybug1.jpg


The ladybug.

Adorable, right? The cheery, apple-red carapace garnished with but a few, large black dots; as if a tiny pixie had painted them on, and the paintbrush tip was just too big to fit more than a few dots on. This, combined with its bumbling walk along the flowers, and its round, squat body evokes imagery of a kindred Russian grandmother, tending her garden in her brightly-colored babushka. If you are fortunate enough to get one to crawl on your hand or finger, its tiny legs tickle your skin and it eventually pops open its carapace (made of modified wings called “elytra”), and silently takes off as an itty-bitty summertime jewel of cuteness and sunshine and sparkles (and it’s supposed to be good luck! awww). Definitely adorable. Right?

Wrong.

Ladybugs (also known as “ladybirds” outside of North America, as well as “ladyclocks”, “lady cows”, and “Xena flys”) are voracious predators in their raised-bed ecosystem. Ladybugs, from the cradle to the grave, feed upon many different types of insects (many of them important crop pests, so yay), but most commonly on things like aphids. Ladybugs are built to seek-and-destroy aphids. Imagine a giant, armored tank, bearing down on you at stupid speeds, and you’re a squishy, slow, small, green thing…and you have an idea of what it’s like to be an aphid caught in the crosshairs of a hungry ladybug. Did I mention the tank’s front is equipped with more razor-sharp blades than an industrial agricultural combine? That cute little ladybug face hides a generous amount of sharp, curved mandibles that are designed by natural selection to pop an aphid’s body like a Screamin’ Green Apple-flavored Fruit Gusher. A single, adult ladybug can consume more than 1000 aphids in one day during the growing season. Seeing as how ladybugs can live up to about two years, that comes to roughly 360,000 aphid lives in the lifetime of a single ladybug, which is more than the metro population of the city I live in, Eugene, Oregon.

Francisbugslife.png

Genocide? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”



Their squeal-inducing adorable coloration has particularly dark origins. Ladybugs are still quite small, and despite their armor, are no match for even more badass predators like birds and larger insects. So, through the wonderful ingenuity of evolution, ladybugs and their relatives have developed a potent deterrent from being gobbled up, and their bright colors serve as a warning and reminder of this capacity. Mechanical stimulation, like from a predator attack (or, you know, a human finger) releases a reflexive outpouring of alkaloid toxins from every joint and crevice in its exoskeleton. The toxins are incredibly bitter tasting, and the “goal” is that the ladybug is spat out so it can continue its merry life of slaughtering ‘lesser’ insects. Some can apparently even spray this shit when threatened, poisoning small mammals. So don’t let your hamster play in the garden. It’s thought that just being around these things can be hazardous, as in large enough numbers, they’ve been shown to aggravate allergies and asthma in humans. Ladybugs are not only homicidal maniacs, they also are walking dirty bombs.

But, you say, that cute wittle bug sort of negates all the inevitable aphid death and venomous ooze. With a face like that, who couldn’t look the other way?

ladybug_larva2_500.jpg


******* Hell! It looks like something that would wrap around your face, lay its eggs in your stomach, and produce chest-bursting progeny that would terrorize Ripley for at lrast four, increasingly shitty films.

You see, in their childhood, ladybugs are essentially nightmarish hell-creatures that would battle, and eviscerate, Godzilla were they not so diminuitive. They look like this for the first two weeks or so out of the egg, shedding their skin (in a process called “molting” or “ecdysis”) four times, growing larger and more terrifying each time. They then pupate, and emerge as an adult, and only a few days later they become sexually mature…and thus have the ability to produce a dozen more killing machines.

So, feel free to admire the ladybug for its beauty and benign appearance. But the next time one drifts by on a warm summer breeze, and daintily lands on your arm, keep in mind those tickly feet are splattered with the blood of innocents and home-brewed drain cleaner.
OK , BE SCARED ...please catch yours with a butterfly net and arrange pick up.... looking to eliminate the fxkers that eats my roses each year .
 
Ladybugs
© Jacob Buehler and “Shit You Didn’t Know About Biology”

ladybug1.jpg


The ladybug.

Adorable, right? The cheery, apple-red carapace garnished with but a few, large black dots; as if a tiny pixie had painted them on, and the paintbrush tip was just too big to fit more than a few dots on. This, combined with its bumbling walk along the flowers, and its round, squat body evokes imagery of a kindred Russian grandmother, tending her garden in her brightly-colored babushka. If you are fortunate enough to get one to crawl on your hand or finger, its tiny legs tickle your skin and it eventually pops open its carapace (made of modified wings called “elytra”), and silently takes off as an itty-bitty summertime jewel of cuteness and sunshine and sparkles (and it’s supposed to be good luck! awww). Definitely adorable. Right?

Wrong.

Ladybugs (also known as “ladybirds” outside of North America, as well as “ladyclocks”, “lady cows”, and “Xena flys”) are voracious predators in their raised-bed ecosystem. Ladybugs, from the cradle to the grave, feed upon many different types of insects (many of them important crop pests, so yay), but most commonly on things like aphids. Ladybugs are built to seek-and-destroy aphids. Imagine a giant, armored tank, bearing down on you at stupid speeds, and you’re a squishy, slow, small, green thing…and you have an idea of what it’s like to be an aphid caught in the crosshairs of a hungry ladybug. Did I mention the tank’s front is equipped with more razor-sharp blades than an industrial agricultural combine? That cute little ladybug face hides a generous amount of sharp, curved mandibles that are designed by natural selection to pop an aphid’s body like a Screamin’ Green Apple-flavored Fruit Gusher. A single, adult ladybug can consume more than 1000 aphids in one day during the growing season. Seeing as how ladybugs can live up to about two years, that comes to roughly 360,000 aphid lives in the lifetime of a single ladybug, which is more than the metro population of the city I live in, Eugene, Oregon.

Francisbugslife.png

Genocide? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”



Their squeal-inducing adorable coloration has particularly dark origins. Ladybugs are still quite small, and despite their armor, are no match for even more badass predators like birds and larger insects. So, through the wonderful ingenuity of evolution, ladybugs and their relatives have developed a potent deterrent from being gobbled up, and their bright colors serve as a warning and reminder of this capacity. Mechanical stimulation, like from a predator attack (or, you know, a human finger) releases a reflexive outpouring of alkaloid toxins from every joint and crevice in its exoskeleton. The toxins are incredibly bitter tasting, and the “goal” is that the ladybug is spat out so it can continue its merry life of slaughtering ‘lesser’ insects. Some can apparently even spray this shit when threatened, poisoning small mammals. So don’t let your hamster play in the garden. It’s thought that just being around these things can be hazardous, as in large enough numbers, they’ve been shown to aggravate allergies and asthma in humans. Ladybugs are not only homicidal maniacs, they also are walking dirty bombs.

But, you say, that cute wittle bug sort of negates all the inevitable aphid death and venomous ooze. With a face like that, who couldn’t look the other way?

ladybug_larva2_500.jpg


******* Hell! It looks like something that would wrap around your face, lay its eggs in your stomach, and produce chest-bursting progeny that would terrorize Ripley for at lrast four, increasingly shitty films.

You see, in their childhood, ladybugs are essentially nightmarish hell-creatures that would battle, and eviscerate, Godzilla were they not so diminuitive. They look like this for the first two weeks or so out of the egg, shedding their skin (in a process called “molting” or “ecdysis”) four times, growing larger and more terrifying each time. They then pupate, and emerge as an adult, and only a few days later they become sexually mature…and thus have the ability to produce a dozen more killing machines.

So, feel free to admire the ladybug for its beauty and benign appearance. But the next time one drifts by on a warm summer breeze, and daintily lands on your arm, keep in mind those tickly feet are splattered with the blood of innocents and home-brewed drain cleaner.
What a cool short story
 
What is it with me and Black Friday's??? So yesterday on my way home, I get a notification on my phone of one of my favourite vendors starting their BF Sale early. Like a responsible adult, I pull over and excitedly log on to their website to fill my cart with marvelous greatly discounted goods. Oh the excitement mounts as each item gets "added to cart". So many thing to try and new toys, it's wonderous, like a true early Christmas! Very chuffed with myself and my shopping prowess, I go to my "cart" to review and press that ever-so-sexy "Checkout" button..... Ring, ring! Ring, Ring! What is this tomfoolery???? It's SWAMBO calling, this woman has an amazing sixth sense, how did she know I was Black Friday Shopping?!?!?!?! "Liefie, die swembad is half...." Half?? How is the swimming pool half? I topped it up this past weekend? Damn crack on the deep end, about halfway down the side. FML!!!!! Seems with this wonderful rain, water managed to get in by the paving around the pool and made a nice little cavity behind the pool side. So there goes my BF budget, once again, and my weekend chore had been deiced for me, I'm playing "Pool repairman" this weekend. At least enjoyed a lekker Wing-It session last night on @KZOR 's YouTube channel. @JurgensSt graced us with his majestic beard, was a fun chat. Don't go spending too much moolah today people, you never know when your "swimming pool" will crack, metaphorically speaking. Have a great weekend all!
 
What is it with me and Black Friday's??? So yesterday on my way home, I get a notification on my phone of one of my favourite vendors starting their BF Sale early. Like a responsible adult, I pull over and excitedly log on to their website to fill my cart with marvelous greatly discounted goods. Oh the excitement mounts as each item gets "added to cart". So many thing to try and new toys, it's wonderous, like a true early Christmas! Very chuffed with myself and my shopping prowess, I go to my "cart" to review and press that ever-so-sexy "Checkout" button..... Ring, ring! Ring, Ring! What is this tomfoolery???? It's SWAMBO calling, this woman has an amazing sixth sense, how did she know I was Black Friday Shopping?!?!?!?! "Liefie, die swembad is half...." Half?? How is the swimming pool half? I topped it up this past weekend? Damn crack on the deep end, about halfway down the side. FML!!!!! Seems with this wonderful rain, water managed to get in by the paving around the pool and made a nice little cavity behind the pool side. So there goes my BF budget, once again, and my weekend chore had been deiced for me, I'm playing "Pool repairman" this weekend. At least enjoyed a lekker Wing-It session last night on @KZOR 's YouTube channel. @JurgensSt graced us with his majestic beard, was a fun chat. Don't go spending too much moolah today people, you never know when your "swimming pool" will crack, metaphorically speaking. Have a great weekend all!

oh no man, very sorry to hear, what pool is it, fiberglass, marbilite ?
 
What is it with me and Black Friday's??? So yesterday on my way home, I get a notification on my phone of one of my favourite vendors starting their BF Sale early. Like a responsible adult, I pull over and excitedly log on to their website to fill my cart with marvelous greatly discounted goods. Oh the excitement mounts as each item gets "added to cart". So many thing to try and new toys, it's wonderous, like a true early Christmas! Very chuffed with myself and my shopping prowess, I go to my "cart" to review and press that ever-so-sexy "Checkout" button..... Ring, ring! Ring, Ring! What is this tomfoolery???? It's SWAMBO calling, this woman has an amazing sixth sense, how did she know I was Black Friday Shopping?!?!?!?! "Liefie, die swembad is half...." Half?? How is the swimming pool half? I topped it up this past weekend? Damn crack on the deep end, about halfway down the side. FML!!!!! Seems with this wonderful rain, water managed to get in by the paving around the pool and made a nice little cavity behind the pool side. So there goes my BF budget, once again, and my weekend chore had been deiced for me, I'm playing "Pool repairman" this weekend. At least enjoyed a lekker Wing-It session last night on @KZOR 's YouTube channel. @JurgensSt graced us with his majestic beard, was a fun chat. Don't go spending too much moolah today people, you never know when your "swimming pool" will crack, metaphorically speaking. Have a great weekend all!

Damn Son!!!! What a bummer! So tomorrow you have to wake up at the crack of dawn to start with this nonsense! Good luck! If you were any closer to me I could recommend a great repairman at a reasonable cost. Hope you get it sorted!

(PS: just for the stress, at least buy something cheap cheap today to cheer you up!)
 
Damn Son!!!! What a bummer! So tomorrow you have to wake up at the crack of dawn to start with this nonsense! Good luck! If you were any closer to me I could recommend a great repairman at a reasonable cost. Hope you get it sorted!

(PS: just for the stress, at least buy something cheap cheap today to cheer you up!)
OH I am definitely buying something today.... Pool Crete, rebar, chemical anchor, sanding discs .... At least I still have some pool paint... I've done similar repairs for my cousin on their pool, so the confidence is high, the morale is just low.
 
OH I am definitely buying something today.... Pool Crete, rebar, chemical anchor, sanding discs .... At least I still have some pool paint... I've done similar repairs for my cousin on their pool, so the confidence is high, the morale is just low.

If you carry on like this you are going to make me jump in my car and drive up to come and help you!

Should you run into snags, have a chat to @Angelskeeper , he should be able to give some valuable input for you as well.
 
View attachment 244831
Does one really have to buy a new one of these every four f****g years?!

you chaps and your pools better stop it now before you jinx it... I just redid the lining of my pool this year and my pool pump is on the fritz as it is.... if anything happens to mine I am filling it up and planting carrots and cabbages instead!
 
Back
Top