Crickets and a Scary Thing

So the ants are gone. Apparently during the week that I was in the UK they decided I was never going to feed them again and left for greener pastures. And the centipedes are invading less frequently, thank goodness.

But now there are the crickets. Loud little bastards. At least one of them sneaks into the house every night and starts calling for its miniature lover all night long. Thank goodness they can't get up the stairs, and between the fan in front of the window and my book on CD I can't hear them, so they aren't keeping me awake. But they are slowly driving me mad while I watch television.

And there is some other creature leaving tracks in my carpet. I haven't seen the actual creature yet, but it must be fairly large, because the tracks are pretty deep. They seem kind of worm shaped. It's very scary. They sort of trail away in the middle of the dining room, and there's no trace of where it went. I'm hoping one of the crickets ate it, but I have the distinct feeling that it's probably building a cocoon somewhere so that it can bust out in a month or two and fly upstairs and kill me in my sleep.

I bet you never get to hear this conversation...

This is how you know you're not me. You never get to hear the following:

*SQUEEEKKKKK*

My beloved: "Can you not hear how terrible that sounds?"

Offspring: "I think it sounds terrific!"

Beloved: "It hurts other people's ears."

Yes, this is the joy of a 6 year old learning to play the recorder. Writhe in envy, all you without musical 6 year olds!

The Tootsie Roll

I'd like to spare a moment for a misunderstood masterpiece of culinary delight. You can probably guess what it is. No, not the sno cone, you silly IR, the Tootsie Roll. I was on my way out of a meeting today and I saw some one's candy bowl with 3, count 'em, 3, tootsie rolls in it. I snarfed em all and then gloried in them for the 60 seconds it took me to devour them. Snarf, by the way, in this case means "to grab," not "to eat." Snarf is quite a flexible word. In any case, they were heavenly. And I realized that it's so rare that someone praises the Tootsie Roll. Oh, we rave about our Snickers bars, or our Milk Duds (yummmm, milkduds), but never mention the good ol' rolls. Personally, I think that's because they're just too widely available. They're handed out in massive quantities at every parade and every holiday. They're in people's candy jars. That's because they're cheap, and good, but the net effect is it makes them kind of like air. They're around all the time, you're constantly taking them in, you need them to survive, and you take them for granted. Well maybe not the survive part, but the rest of the analogy holds. When's the last time you said "Wow, that last breath of air was so life giving and terrific!" Now when's the last time you said "Wow, that Tootsie Roll is scrumptabulous!" I'll bet the answer to both is "Never" which goes to show how similar the situations of the Tootise Roll and air really are! I think another downfall of the TR is that, because it is cheap, and everywhere, it often gets stale. Now a stale TR is better than no TR, just as stinky air is better than no air (ask a submariner about that one - he'll agree). But a stale TR just doesn't bring the same level of joy that a nice, fresh, perfectly tectured TR will bring you. So here's to an American classic, the Tootise Roll.

By the way, if you get bored and look at the Tootsie Roll's webpage (yes, everything has a webpage these days - here's a quite scary one on bellybutton lint), you'll see that the Tootsie Roll Industries also makes Sugar Daddies and Sugar Babies, which are also unsung heroes of American candyhood IMO. Oh, and also Wack-o-Wax. WTF?

By the way of the way. If you think blogging about Tootsie Rolls means I'm short on material at the moment, you're absolutely goddamn right. But they're still awesome.

By the way of the way of the way. I think it would be freaking awesome to be the head of IR for Tootsie Roll Industries. What a random-ass job. How could you not get into some good random conversations with that job?

"Hidden Driveway"

Have you ever seen those "Hidden Driveway" signs? We've got one kind of near our house, just before this turn where, it turns out, there is a hidden driveway. I've always wondered how pissed off the home owner must be about the sign. I mean, they go to all the trouble to put in a hidden driveway, kind of like the secret entrance to the Batcave, ya know, and then some idiot comes by and puts up a sign announcing its existence. It is now considerably less hidden than your average driveway, which at least does not get proclaimed to every driver with a big yellow sign. I'm sure there's many a non hidden driveway I've gone by without noticing it, but this hidden one, I see it every time. "Bat Cave here - Bat man is [IN/OUT]".

Blogging for Dummies

Yup, they have it. A Blogging for Dummies book. I saw it at the ol' used book store today and I thought "who the hell needs that? This isnt' that hard!" And I was going to post on here about how dumb do you have to be to need a blogging for dummies book. But then I pictured all the imaginary readers out there saying "Please, please read that book" and maybe even taking up a collection to buy it for me and I thought I'd better keep my mouth shut. I officially have no comment, then, on the Blogging for Dummies book.