The strange, the bizarre and the unexpected

[floppers]

ooohhh, that's creepy......should we name it Jerome, and keep it?

[DonGuy47]

Here's an opossum I found in a bag of garden debris. I think it was attracted to the rotting tomatoes.

[dannyb]

Then you have definitely not seen my cousin Jerome!

[floppers]

Which of course meant I had to google the difference...wow! Whilst I might prefer non rabid squirrels to possums, I definitely prefer possums to opposums. The "O's" have sharp teeth and are kinda mean looking....good for you for trying to rescue the baby though (probably saved your cat too). We have two types of possums, ringtails...small, waaaay cute, live in trees or possum boxes at my house, to protect them from crows...and brushtails, which are bigger and we tend to catch and rehome, because they love ten pin bowling in the roof at night and burrowing into wall cavities. I didn't even know North America had marsupials, so...yaaay you guys! (marsupials are cool, even the evil looking ones).

In New Zealand, where brushtail possums were introduced (no one knows why), there is a bounty on them. The Brits gave us foxes, rabbits (a gift that keeps on giving), pigs and goats and someone gave us camels. Yup, we have wild camels...like we didn't have enough weird creatures already.

If anyone can top a platypus (you can hear the banjos playing with them), let me know.

[DonGuy47]

Speaking of possums, I learned recently that your Australian "possums" are *not* the same as my American "opossums". Trying to train myself to pronounce the extra "O", though it sounds weird. Also, the other day I rescued a baby Opossum. Mom -- covered in gravies, I mean babies -- had tried to slither under a fence, and baby got confused and clung to the fence. Mom managed to extract baby from the fence, but then it happened again, and by then my cat was right up in her face, being curious. Mom decided to leave baby behind, and shuffle away! I got the baby off the fence, and chased after Mom, with my cat following behind. Mama shuffled faster. Finally, cat and I managed to corner Mom, so that I could place baby close enough to Mom that they found each other. Hmm, can we attach videos here? "Maximum size exceeded." Bummer. I had to stop filming anyway, needed both hands to pry baby off the fence. Clingy!

[floppers]

and now for something completely different....

On Sunday my Mother was explaining why she had to cut down her cherry tree, as it turns out it was rotten on the inside, so it was a good thing. Mother had to cut down the cherry tree because of the squirrels, which we do not have in Australia. The squirrels (which we do not have) were using the cherry tree as a bridge from the garage to the shed. It was suggested that she might mean possums, which we have a proliferation of. "Oh, yes", said Mother, "the possums, but really possums and squirrels are nearly the same thing though".

It was Mothers Day, so there were 15 people in the room, which made for a noisy environment, and Mother misheard what I said next...which was, "I really prefer squirrels though, as long as they don't have rabies (which we also don't have in Australia)". "Oh!", said Mother, "I wouldn't want squirrels covered in gravy either, what a dreadful mess that would make!".

Words twisted, mind boggled, have a nice day!

[floppers]

sounds like an ep of Horrible Histories...

[jbud1980]

DonGuy47 I see where you went with this. Haha!

[DonGuy47]

Currently, in the 4x4 total points monthly competition, the top four scorers' "best words" are WATERBOARDINGS, RECAUTERIZATIONS, BLEEDINGS, AND MEDICALIZATION. Theme detected!

[lalatan]

Lol Spike. I'd bet on PHOTOPALAEOCURRENTS. It'd be when someone took pics of them.

Isn't it crazy to see various players getting high words scores now? While clicking through games I've never even seen the usernames of many of best/longest record holders before. I remember when we started out there was 1 page of users who got 38+ pts in the best words list. Now there are 5-6 pages of them every month.

[Spike1007]

I just found PHOTOCURRENTS (24 pts). I didn't keep it, but maybe we should be on the lookout for PALAEOPHOTOCURRENTS or PHOTOPALAEOCURRENTS.

[lalatan]

I just played a board where I spotted PALAEOCURRENTS and had to try it. Strangely it was only worth 16 pts but I kept it anyway since it's such a Frankenstein word as well as PALAEOCURRENT being an oxymoron.
Definition: A geological feature that indicates the direction of flow of water in the geologic past

Edit: I just found SEAMANLIKENESSES for 31 pts. Can't say I've ever used that in a sentence.

[floppers]

which is humourous, because it shouldn't be a pleasant surprise by definition...

[Razorflame]

I found TRANSMOGRIFICATIONS on a board a few days ago, was pleasantly surprised to find it.

[DrPlacebo]

After finding HEROISMS on a board, I tried HEROISE, because why not? It counted.