Hard to believe (a 2-parter)

Hard to believe 1: I finally populated my MySpace page. No surprises for any of you, though--my voxpals get the skinny first. But hey, take some pity and friend me up--it's lonely with just glassy-eyed Tom there.

Hard to believe 2: This fucking awful monster was right outside my townhouse a few days ago:

The willpower it took to place my cellphone within gripping distance of his awful mandibles was immense, but I felt I needed something beyond the red plastic party cup for scale to show how truly monstrous this tarantula was. Oh my god I felt myself shiver all over; it was the largest such specimen I've ever seen in the wild by a wide margin. I mean, look at it again--just horrible.

Anyway, this monster was just creeping around the parking lot, I saw him, photographed him and ran. No big whoop, I guess. A few days later, I hear this story about how one of my neighbors, a nice gal with lots of plants, had 3 of her bigger potted ferns placed outside to get some sun. later that night she brings them back into her living room, and--can you see where this is going?--she gets a surprise visitor in the form of this fucking awful creature IN HER HOUSE. What do you do? This type spider eats birds. BIRDS.

Anyhoo, I bought a UV flashlight so that when I'm on a night hike in the sand dunes, these goddamned unholy beasts can't sneak up on me. It's also good for CSI-style examinations of coworkers' chairs & desk areas. After all, wouldn't you want to know what, uh, substances are lurking on yr tabletops?

$7 on eBay...