The local Juneau ecology is amusing me with its distractions. There's fauna like this absurd and berserk plant growing all over: Oplopanax horridus -- Greco-latin for "ghastly weapon+cure". ("opl-" as in hoplite, "panax" as in panacea.) It grows a dense fuzz of fiberglass spines so that if you touch it, it brings you out in a rash, possibly with festering just for good measure. And yet slugs eat the plant as if it were just a big spongecake.
The region is also overrun with a small crow species (loud, riotous, maniacal) and with enormous ravens which are surly, ancient-looking, and seething, and which make sounds like a turkey trying to imitate a toucan and a screaming child. It is surrealism as nature.
The mosquitoes here are big and slow and dumb. But they can still bite you in your sleep. Feh.
Speaking of big slow dumb things, this new your_details.zip virus is pissing me off. It makes me not want to check mail for a few days.
Oplopanax horridus -- Greco-latin for "ghastly weapon+cure". ("opl-" as in hoplite, "panax" as in panacea.)
That's some pretty bad Greco-Latin, particularly as hoplon refers to the shield, the defining piece of equipment carried by the hoplite. A word actually meaning "weapon" would've been nice.
