New Pet!

[major_clanger]

bugshaw was in London a couple of days ago for a meeting near Covent Garden. Afterwards she did a bit of shopping and bought me a couple of very nice presents including something I've always wanted: my very own pet trilobite!



It is admittedly a bit on the quiet side compared to live_gerbil but then is about 440 million years older.

MC

Comments

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

Easy to feed.

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

It's obviously set in stone, but somehow the photo makes it look like you keep it in the bath.ä

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

We'll need to introduce it to my "big stone bowl'o'trilobity goodness"

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Is it squamous and rugose?

[dougs.livejournal.com]

You are the Ross Geller of British fandom.

Earworm warning

[papersky.livejournal.com]

All right, all right, all right, all right,
I love your triliobite!

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

It is somewhat rugose, but not squamous to any noticeable extent.

(Searching for definitions of these Lovecraftian terms reveals that rugose means wrinkled and that squamous is scaly, or in more common medical usage, formed of a thin layer of flat cells. My trilobite friend is certainly a bit wrinkled - it's all the segments - but not scaly and certainly not flat.)

MC

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Futher to my other comment, googling on 'squamous' and 'rugose' throws up a couple of apparently genuine medical papers, a brilliant fictional autopsy report for Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green and, on newsgroups, the following filk (quoted by Jordin Kare):

Calling all cars! Calling all cars!
Be on the lookout for
A horror that writhed from between the burnt-out stars!
Partly squamous, partly rugose, partly dextrose
You will know it by
The following distinguishing signs and characteristics:
A three-lobed, burning eye.
This creature is armed -- or tentacled --
And dangerous.
If apprehended, do not hesitate to call
Upon the Elder Gods. And fill out your reports in triplicate.
That is all!

However, the best comment found just has to be

"I've often wondered whether Shambling, Eldritch, Squamous & Rugose weren't a law firm rather than just a description of the thing..."

To which bugshaw and I are Saying Absolutely Nothing.

MC

[bugshaw.livejournal.com]

When I mentioned to the fossil geek at Covent Garden Market that major_clanger also had a collection of old HP calculators, he said "That's really sad."