Die! Die Crickets! DIE!

I've spent the last half hour or so trying to find a video clip of Dave Matthews telling a really funny story about crickets. No luck -- it's from an episode of MTV Unplugged from about a million years ago. Anyhoo, the gist of the story is that one of his friends from South Africa wigged out and set a bunch of crickets on fire in a bathtub.

I totally and completely identify with the desire to light those fockers up.

Now, I'm not talking about good ol' Jiminy, or even the shiny black crickets you find in the backyard. I'm talking about these things:

Camel cricket, cave cricket, spider cricket, NASTY SCARY MOTHERFUCKING ALIEN CRICKET MENACE, whatever you want to call them, I hate them. With a passion.

I don't hate them because they do damage (they don't) or because they bite (they don't) or even because I generally dislike insects (I don't). I hate them because they hop, they hop FAR, and they hop in a very erratic fashion. Like, HOLY HELL IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR MY FACE. They're also huge, at least around here.

Why do I bring this up, you might ask? Well, guess what I found in my bathtub at 4 AM today? That's right. NASTY SCARY MOTHERFUCKING ALIEN CRICKET MENACE. Definitely not what I wanted to see as I was about to hop in the shower. I had to run to the utility room and grab a bottle of Clorox Cleanup -- the chemical of choice for cricket elimination. (Not really, but we didn't have any bug spray.) After hosing him down with the stuff for what felt like an eternity, he finally died. I put on a glove, wrapped him in TP, and flushed his alien cricket menace ass down the toilet.

I'll still be checking that toilet every time I use it for at least three days. For all I know, he's some sort of alien cricket ninja whose compadres will climb out of the sewer to avenge his death.

My Triumphant Return to Teh Intarwebs

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...

EASY MAC.

I made Easy Mac as part of the kid's dinner the other night (yes, I feed my child uber-processed, microwavable crap from time to time -- so sue me!), and as happens every time I make it, I ended up staring at the bowl when it came out of the microwave. I love, and I do mean LOVE, how the noodles manage to stand themselves up on end. The picture above shows a pretty good arrangement, but I've had bowls in the past where all but one or two macaroni (macarono? I mean, if macaronI is plural...just sayin'.) are vertical.

I'm sure there's an explanation for it, probably something to do with the fiber in the pasta, steam, etc. But quite frankly, my dear fellow noodle-phile, I don't give a damn. It's a small, small thing that makes me smile. AND SO I SHARE IT WITH YOU, INTARWEBS!

Note: If you're looking for The Weekly Austin, it's been moved to Wednesday.

Dairy Love

Dear Greek Yogurt,

I love you. Please, don't ever leave me.

-Me