Remnantmachine - Machinations Of The End

It used to puzzle me why it was such a common element in urban fantasy settings - particularly those of tabletop roleplaying games - that the reason magic stays hidden is because people don’t want to believe in it.

In the real world, people are desperate to believe in magic. You see it everywhere, from spirit mediums on TV to the horoscopes in the daily paper.

The idea that there’d be an institutional refusal to believe in magic is just so alien to the demonstrable facts of human psychology that it would seriously hurt my suspension of disbelief.

Talking cats and setting things on fire with your mind is one thing, but a human psychology that lacks an inclination toward magical thinking is simply bizarre.

Then it hit me.

The public’s refusal to believe in magic in urban fantasy settings is a stand-in for the perennial nerd fallacy that non-nerds are stupid, and only the special, nerdy elite have the objectivity to understand the world as it truly is.

Charming.

Good luck figuring out that emotion you’re feeling as you watch this dinosaur dog chores robot

You think that’s cute? Looking forward to your chores dino bot? Watch how it handles slipping on a banana peel.

Gifs: Boston Dynamics

So today started out dumb, but this afternoon was AWESOME.

I’m on the porch attempting to construct a railing for the stairs when I notice a weird noise. Like, a kind of droning or buzzing? And it’s getting loud. So I investigate. It’s coming from the neighbor’s yard. 

It is a metric fuckton of bees. I have never seen so many bees in my life. It is a fucking swarm of bees, and I have been reading about bees because I got a wild hair a few weeks back about wanting a hive of my own, but haven’t yet convinced Husbandthing, and there is suddenly a SWARMING HERD OF WILD HONEYBEES IN THE NEIGHBOR’S YARD.

I see postings on the neighborhood page all the time for feral swarm collection, but I also know the guy in the house across the alley just set up a hive. “Hey I think your hive escaped,” I text him. 

He calls me back about three minutes later. Turns out, the swarm he was supposed to get never came; the company went out of business and his order got cancelled, and he’d found out HALF AN HOUR AGO. And he says he’s got a friend who is a professional beekeeper, and he’s going to go pick her up and would it be okay if they came and got this swarm please please please?

So Bee Neighbor and Professional Beekeeper show up and immediately don bee suits. Apparently there is fierce competition for feral swarms, and the swarm in the neighbor’s tree is HUGE, and also twenty feet off the ground, and Bee Neighbor wants them very badly. 

The tree the bees are in is in a yard belonging to neither of us, so we go knock on the door, but there’s no answer. I knock on the house adjacent to it, but that guy’s not home either. Finally, I text the neighbor on the other side of me to see if he’s got contact info for the property owner, who is incredibly shy and in three years has never made eye contact. No luck. 

So…we trespass. We get my extension ladder, and Bee Neighbor climbs the tree while Professional Beekeeper stands on the ladder and walks him through the swarm collection. Turns out, you just shake the swarm into a box, and as long as the queen makes it into the box, the rest of the swarm will eventually follow. Bee Neighbor has never collected a swarm before (this is, in fact, his very first swarm of bees ever) and it takes the two of them the better part of an hour in the tree trying to shake the swarm into the box. 

Bees eventually get into the box. Bee Neighbor gets out of the tree without dying, and Professional Beekeeper examines the swarm and makes pleased noises. At this point, the box is the neighbor’s driveway, and about two thirds of the swarm is still milling around the box all confused. Since the neighbor isn’t home and we can’t contact him, he risks coming and parking right in the middle of a huge cloud of bees. Professional Beekeeper doesn’t want to move the box too far away, because we risk the milling bees losing the queen’s scent and never going into the box. An equidistant point between the current location and Bee Neighbor’s yard is the top of my recycling bin. 

So they put the box of bees on my recycling bin, and I text Husbandthing.

Now I have a box of bees that I am babysitting. They’re being all lazy and dopey and bumbling around. I think I might be in love. Bee Neighbor will pick the box up later tonight and put them in his hive, and then the bees will be MY neighbors too!!

THIS HAS BEEN THE BEST DAY EVER

the next time you think you’re lonely, just remember you have about 25 billion white blood cells in your body protecting your sorry little ass with their life. you have 25 billion friends who would die for you. no need for tears.

Ralph Lauren Fall-Winter 2013