Holidays that really mean something.

[seanan_mcguire]

According to my big list* of holidays, today is a holiday that's very near and dear to my heart. Not quite as near and dear as Virus Appreciation Day (October 3rd), Waiting For The Barbarians Day (November 4th), or Cuckoo Warning Day (June 21st), but still both near and dear.

Today is Australia Day.

Today we celebrate the fact that Australia exists, the fact that Australia is full of things that want to make us all die, and the fact that Australia pretty much hates the human race. Specific things to celebrate about Australia include venomous snakes, spiders the size of dinner plates, marsupials, really interesting money, the koala (which will totally rip your face off if you poke at it), and the cone snail, which is the size of a man's thumb and can kill you extremely dead. This is why you do not fuck around with the native wildlife of Australia.

Tonight I will continue my celebration by watching several episodes of H2O: Just Add Water, an Australian teen sitcom about three girls who wind up in the wrong place at the wrong time and wind up getting turned into mermaids. It sounds incredibly twee, but even Chloe -- the wuss of the group -- would kick Hannah Montana's ass without so much as breaking a nail. In Australia, even the kiddie TV can kill you. And next year, I'll celebrate Australia Day by actually going to Melbourne, Australia, for the glory of WorldCon.

Thank you for existing, Australia! Today is your day. Your venomous, deadly, kicking-your-ass, being eaten by koalas day.

Hooray Australia!

(*I seriously have a holiday for every single day of the year, and sometimes more than one. Because the world needs more to celebrate.)

Comments

[arib.livejournal.com]

On many years, Australia Day coincides with Thomas Crapper Day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Crapper). The anniversary of the death of the man who popularized the flush toilet.

I got in a lot of trouble with my 9th grade social studies teacher (who was Australian) over that one, let me tell you.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I can absolutely believe it.

[pghkitten]

Awesome, thank you for giving me another reason to consider Australia the land of death and poison--I was not aware of the cone snail before now. :)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

There's a series of pictures of me demonstrating to Debbie Ohi how the cone snail works, with my sleeve serving as the cone snail, and her elbow serving as the idiot who pokes it. There were butter knives involved.

[pockingell.livejournal.com]

Well, from my point of view, yesterday was Australia Day. But we're done with it now, so I don't see any problem letting the rest of you have a go at it now. Get drunk (on whatever you want), eat something off the barbie (it doesn't matter what, as long as it's barbequed), and get bitten by something (again, free choice, but try for something non-venomous).

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing!

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

And they put sliced beets on their cheeseburgers - with a fried egg! WIN!

[lysystratae.livejournal.com]

hmmm... I like cheesburgers. I like beets. I like eggs. And yet, I'd never thought to put the three together...

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I love the way other places combine food. (And I include Oregon and Southern California as 'other places.')

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

Hello!

I hope you don't mind -- Neatorama is this great blog that now lets fans submit blog posts, and I submitted a wee little promotion for Red Roses and Dead Things.

Seeing as they have a 'zombie' tag, I thought it'd fit in.

http://www.neatorama.com/upcoming/post/Red-Roses-and-Dead-Things

I'll let you know if it posts to the main page.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Hey, cool!

[beable]

Curse you Seanan! I looked up cone snail in Wikipedia, and found this "well-written" gem:

Live cone snails should be handled with care or not handled at all, as they are capable of "stinging" humans with unpleasant results.

*hides*

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I like 'not handled at all,' personally.

[tikiera.livejournal.com]

You have a holiday for every day? Wow, wish I could see that calendar.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

What's scary is that I keep finding more.

[igneous-smurf.livejournal.com]

Please not to be forgetting the blue-ringed octopus, a pretty little thing the size of a golf ball whose lethal poison has no known antidote, and the platypus, one of the world's few poisonous mammals, who looks cuddly, but whose venom can cause weeks of excruciating pain that doesn't respond to morphine.

Ah, I love my suburnt country...

[igneous-smurf.livejournal.com]

*Sun*burnt. I love my sunburnt country. Grrr.

[gorgeousgary]

And on the non-fatal side, let's not forget to celebrate Australia's fine folk music traditions, from "Irish Lords" to "Travelin' Down The Castlereagh", to flocks and flocks of sheep-shearing songs.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Absolutely!

[mariadkins.livejournal.com]

My favorite holidays are Bad Poetry Day and World Sandwich Day and Icecream Day. :D

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

All good holidays, I agree.

[melissajm.livejournal.com]

My birthday is Waiting for the Barbarians Day? Cool!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I always sort of wonder what we're doing about the Barbarians for the rest of the year.

[rippatton.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, the fair land of Australia! Not to be confused with New Zealand (those two blips beneath Australia somewhere) where nothing can kill you- I mean nothing. There are no indemic, non-domesticated animals. The only land mammals are a couple little bats. Goats and deer, if they aren't fenced, are considered ferral and must be shot. The possum, which my dad confused with a Koala when he was here are adorable and make nice hats. Life is so easy here, the birds don't even bother to have wings, cause like, what could you possibly need to fly away from. The scariest thing here is four million mindless sheep coming at you down the middle of the road.

The frightening thing is, a lot of New Zealander vacation in Australia and they have no idea that any animal could possibly hurt you, let alone kill you extremely dead.

I miss Grizzly bears. They made me feel alive. That is all!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

This is AWESOME.

[tezmilleroz.livejournal.com]

Dude, I live in Melbourne! Well, a 40-minute train ride from the City, but still, same state... ;-) I probably won't be able to afford to attend the Con, but I'd be happy to meet up with anyone interested. You can even make fun of my ridiculous accent! ;-)

Have a lovely day! :-)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's awesome! We should totally meet while I'm there.

[sheistheweather]

(*I seriously have a holiday for every single day of the year, and sometimes more than one. Because the world needs more to celebrate.)

I agree, strongly.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

And thus are we a quorum.

[princess-kessie.livejournal.com]

Don't forget kangaroos (whose powerful hind legs with three inch claws can disembowl a human quicker than, well, pretty much anything), red-back spiders (who *do* like to hide on the underside of the rim of the toilet seat in many areas), trapdoor spiders (who literally sit in the ground, under their little trapdoors, and wait for unsuspecting prey - including human feet/hands etc to disturb the door), white-tailed spiders (whose venom, while not especially toxic, can trigger an allergic reaction in susceptible people that literally eats the skin off the body), bluebottles (Portuguese Man O' War), box jellyfish and irukandji (another stinging jellyfish) - all of which have cause fatalities, stingrays (think Steve Irwin) scorpion fish, crocodiles and last, but not least, Sharks (including the Great White and tiger sharks). We had a fatal shark attack on my most local beach (Port Kennedy, Western Australia) just a few weeks ago (even if it was the first in my memory along our stretch of coastline, and probably the first in the recorded history of the area).

However, becoming a victim of any of our most dangerous creatures is extremely difficult - unless you go looking for them. Snakes are mostly extremely shy, sharks rarely attack, and many beaches are either netted or patrolled, and the probability of spiderbite, kangaroo attack and crocodile attack are so low as to be almost nil. The statistics speak for themselves: Shark Attack, Spider bites, and just about everything else

Seriously, folks, Australia has some fantastic animals. But they are not hopping down Main Street, or dropping from trees onto unsuspecting tourists (there's no such thing as a 'drop bear'), or roaming our oceans searching for their next meal (well, ok, some are, but that meal is not generally human). Most of them are on display in either Zoos or Wildlife Sanctuaries, or visible on tourist trips to the Outback or areas outside suburbia. The cities and suburbs are a lot like the rest of the Western world - where dogs and wild birds (such as magpies) are the greatest natural threat to any person, and human beings and vehicles are more likely to harm you than anything you can find in the wild.

Australia is beautiful. Unique. There is no other place on earth quite like Australia. For such a young country, we have an incredibly rich and diverse history and culture, and we will welcome you with open arms and open hearts.

We can't wait to meet you :)


When did I become a blogging advertisement for the Tourism Commission?!? *boggles*

[igneous-smurf.livejournal.com]

I dunno, those maggies can get pretty vicious around nesting time. Hence why school children will wear ice cream tubs on their heads during play time.

I can't believe you ruined the myth about drop bears. Ah well, as long as you don't tell anyone hoop snakes don't exist either. ;)

[mirrorred-star.livejournal.com]

Hee, I love you.

But I don't particularly want to kill anyone, or hate the human race. Is there something wrong with me? :(

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

No, there's nothing wrong with you. I meant the continent, not the people. :)

[talithakalago.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you for celebrating... umm... us.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!