Friday frivolities: some icky weather, the icky plague, and an icky fish.

It’s rainy here in the Queen City and surrounding areas today. I don’t mind telling you that drizzly 50-ish degree weather at this stage in December is irksome.  I mean, yeah, I realize that it’s still technically mid-fall and whatever, but my Christmas tree is up and there are lights outside in my bushes.  This is the ONE (1) time of the year I would welcome some acorn-shriveling chill accompanying a healthy dose of the dreaded White Death.

What I’m getting at is that it’s nigh the holiday season, dammit (or close enough for government work).  So, no, I’d rather the weather not be a constant reminder of Axl Rose playing a piano with an orchestra.  It isn’t November anymore, a fact I made abundantly clear in Wednesday’s Post of Epic Length, enough, then with the Cold November Rain.

The only thing worse than these shivery showers, if you ask me, is the inevitable plague that accompanies this time of the season.  Unless you’re extremely lucky (or perhaps only moderately lucky and without school-aged children in your life), you’ve probably had the opportunity at this point to come across the Dread Plague of Dread that’s going around now.

If you’ve had it yourself, you have my sincerest of sympathies.  My understanding is said Plague leads directly to 24-48 hours of alternating between being a lifeless couch-bound lump and worshipping at the alter of the porcelain god, without all the revelry the Jagermeister shots that usually accompanies such behavior.

For a parent of multiple children, the threat of such an illness hangs over you like a anvil destined for Wile E. Coyote’s skull.  Trust me, there are few things in the pantheon of raising kids that rival running a sick house.

Especially when you’re the one tasked with keeping the plumbing in working condition.

But I digress.

Thankfully, I did come across something today that brightened my spirits more than, well, spirits.  Have you ever heard of the goblin shark?  No?  Well, then, allow me to introduce you.

Puddintopia readers, meet the Goblin Shark:

I know, right?  How awesome is THAT?!  Of course, but awesome, I mean really cool in that sort of terrifying way you feel all the way down in your cockles.  You know, wherever one’s cockles happen to be.

This Goblin-y Shark-y awesomeness comes to us from Twitter acquaintance Howard McEwan, who described the monstrous yet very real thing saying, “as if Jaws and Alien had a love child”.  This image will undoubtedly thrill both the Puddinpop and Mini-Me to the point of distraction while simultaneously giving them a tool with which to terrorize their sister, Princess Puddinette. It’s a young boys’ dream, right?  Thankfully little girls have fathers to protect them from scary gifs.

And on that much-more-positive-than-we-started note, I think we’re done here.  Have a great weekend, and try not to break stuff.

Oh, and avoid the goblin sharks.  Because,  you know, damn.

Pud’n