trustycoffeemug

(n.) an expensive yet high quality nut

Get your mind out of the gutter

one of the less savory human avocations, the act of graverobbing amounts to theft of a corpse or its sundry accoutrements from their proper place of internment.

graverobbing has been an epidemic concern at various points in history. for example, in egypt, even in ancient times (when it was better known as ancient egypt), the elaborate tombs of pharaohs were tempting targets for taphological treasure-hunting transgressors, who would seek to pillage not only the gold ornaments with which pharaohs were buried, but also occasionally the mummies themselves (apparently they were considered to have medicinal purposes. mmm, human jerky)

graverobbing was also a source of concern in victorian england, as the need for fresh corpses for medical research (and lack of willing donors) left doctors' associations with little other recourse but to accept stolen cadavers, maintaining plausible deniability by not asking too many questions.

graverobbing may strike the reader as callous, heartless, and reprehensible, but the open-minded among us should remember, you can't take it with you

(n.) the opposite of a friend; like an archenemy, but, lacking arches, they do not warrant as much support

(n.) a person one knows and in whose company they may pass pleasurable time. one who is not too zealous in their quest for repayment of borrowed money

the knowledge of friendship can be a source of comfort when the road looks rough ahead and one is miles and miles from their nice warm bed

(n.) planet earth's seventh continent, as long as one decides to list it seventh while counting, and which is not a continent, technically speaking (it's just australia, which *is* a continent, and all the other places in the pacific that don't belong to any others)

in addition to australia, oceania is usually considered to include
* micronesia (including kiribati, resting comfortably right on the international date line)
* melanesia (including papua new guinea and, like... I guess some places they might have used for filming in "survivor." anyone remember that show?)
* and polynesia (including new zealand, hawaii, samoa, and the delightful statue heads at easter island)

(n.) a kind of snake

which kind? doesn't matter. just some kind. that's all you need to know. move along.

(n.) a gliding lemur-creature hailing from southeast asia, presumably having emigrated there from some sort of other planet inhabited by nightmares

despite the implication of the name, it is not a hybrid of the colubra and the galago

a historical temple complex tucked into the jungles of the yucatan in mexico, one of the more famous remnants of mayan culture.

chichen itza's central jewel is a pyramid called el castillo, the castle, itself known for the astonishingly painstaking detail used by its architects, who imbued the structure's design with veritable assloads of mathematical significance. the entire complex is almost perfectly arranged so the west-facing staircase of el castillo lines up with the equator, the temple of the warriors with the tropic of cancer, and the thousand columns with the tropic of capricorn, with the sunrise aligning with each on the appropriate equinoxes and solstices. the north-facing staircase of el castillo is decorated with a snaky motif that points in the direction of a sacred cenote, or underground sinkhole-lake.

it also makes funny noises when you clap near it. sort of a tennis ball noise. go on, try it.

beware of mayan stall vendors, they are at their most obdurate in chichen itza and may mob you in a desperate bid to sell you a bird call.

(n.) an ovular blob fruit, consisting of a scrubby fuzzy skin encasing a ball of green flesh with more seeds than a tommy gun magazine has bullets.

(n.) a flightless bird with scrubby fuzzy plumage

(n.) one hailing from new zealand, a scrubby fuzzy country that floats about near australia

all in all a very versatile word

(n.) a fruit hailing from southeast asia and oceania, known for its beguilingly-elongated, whimsically-curved shape, and the ease with which its rind can be removed. actually neither of those qualities exists within natural, grown-in-the-wild bananas; both were engineered into the fruit by godless human meddling.

common cartoon knowledge holds the banana to be a favorite repast of the monkey.

(adj.) the condition of low temperature, pertaining variously to the weather, to food, to a sensation experienced when one touches a physical surface, to the cruel behavior of my heartless ex-wife, and various other referents

(n.) that big flat thing you're usually perpendicular to

(n.) that wire chicken you sometimes see perched on top of buildings, pointing in the direction of the wind.

also called a weathercock. under no circumstances should you compress both of these words together to create a vaneycock.

(n.) a sensation that follows right after one gets one's hopes up, during which the hopes come crashing down and break into shards of bitter, bitter reality.

a spotter's guide to clowns. Remember to exercise discretion when approaching.

Order: Clownidae
* Family Stanczykae (medieval jesters and harlequins)
* Family Commediae
** Genus Marceau (mimes and other street performers)
**Genus Emmitkellidae (classic clowns, birthday clowns, sad clowns, punch and judy puppets
*** Subgenus Vaudevillae (the Three Stooges, Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers)
*** Subgenus Nightmaridae (scary clowns)
*** Subgenus Clussi (sexy clowns)

vipers (always venomous):
*rattlesnakes (snakes with built in warning maracas; not mariachi players)
*fer-de-lances (snakes with fancy french names; not medieval knights)
*bushmasters (south american jungle snake; not a porn category)
*puff adders (north african grassland snake; not a good smoking buddy)
*night adders (another african grassland snake; not played by rowan atkinson)
*copperheads (and cottonmouths, which are basically the same things)

elapids (sometimes venomous):
*cobras (hooded snakes; not affiliated with the klan)
*king cobras (hooded snakes; not affiliated with the british royal family)
*coral snakes (colorful snake; not a harmless milksnake, though it strongly resembles one, leading to one of nature's more fun gambling games)
*death adders (snake with a cool name; does not play death metal)
*kraits (very venomous snakes from india; not meant to be smashed by donkey kong)
*taipan (very venomous snakes from around india; not a tie or a pan)

colubras (rarely venomous):
*boomslangs (not similar to boomerangs)
*kingsnakes (not the last scion of numenor seeking to reclaim throne of gondor)
*garter snakes (a harmless bum who just wants to crash in your garden; not an article of women's underwear)

pythons (never venomous, they simply crush the life out of prey instead)
boas (constrictors like pythons; not feathery scarves)

there are more but let's be honest, you don't care

an antiquated slang term for a plainclothes detective. the name probably originates from the popular image of them sneaking about as if wearing gumshoes- that is, galoshes, rubberized boots worn in mud or other messy conditions, in which one would feel compelled to walk more gingerly.

there is no known tendency for detectives or people in galoshes to get gum on a shoe. it could happen, sure, but still.

a sport involving men standing out on a floe of frozen ice and attempting to savagely beat each other with sticks. it's a bit like bruce wayne's training in batman begins, actually.

(american) an american variation of football, refined to have even more complicated rules so that the on-field action becomes even more slow and excruciating. while nobody in recorded history actually knows how this game is played, and americans are too embarrassed to admit it, it seems to involve large men trying to dogpile each other while a pig's bladder is thrown out of bounds.