Thursday, September 22, 2005

Insectious Infectious!

There’s going to be a very buggy section in this blogpost so those that hate beetles and scream and run away when you see a massive moth in class should not read it.

But I shall now begin things on a light note.
Power98fm has started this competition called Mars VS Venus. Currently the girls are leading 4:2, so I’m not particularly worried yet. Besides, they get to win money, which makes it rather competitive, and also, one should listen because of the answers the people give to the questions.
Rules are that the guys will be asked ‘girl’ type of questions and vice versa. So there was this guy, on the Morning Jam with Joe Augustin and Maggie Lim, who had this question:
‘What is gelato?’
‘Errr… Gel?’
Joe Augustin blasted the guy later. The girl didn’t know the answer to her question, which was:
‘What letter of the alphabet does an Allen Key take?’
Answer to both, I think, is ice cream and the letter S.
But there’s this guy that takes the cake for the stupid answers of all stupid answers.
So his question was probably this:
‘Jack and Jill went up the hill, to fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown…
What happened to Jill?’
The guy answered one of the best answers I have ever heard. Actually I think it’d be better if I recite the poem again.
‘Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill drowned not long after.’

Sadako, anyone?
Yes. The girl’s answer was rather weird too, her question was:
‘What film does a digital camera use?’
‘Errr… Kodak?’
Digital cameras don’t use film.
Sebastian came in later and said, ‘Today we’re gathered here to mourn the loss of a great friend, whom we are all very familiar with. We mourn the loss of Jill… What’s her surname?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Okay, never mind, we mourn the loss of Jill, who drowned after seeing Jack breaking his crown.’
Yes. Must listen. This was almost as good as Henry the Rooster all over again or the What-Not-To-Say-On-Your-First-Date advertisements.
And so ends the funny bits.

Warning: This blogpost is not for the faint-hearted. Those who get squeamish if you see hair in your rice or that very memorable green caterpillar in your food or that equally memorable green frozen caterpillar I found on the frozen corn, should not read this.

After two weeks of battling with the obnoxious animal known as the Rice Weevil… Hell, no, I’ve been infected with two bloody kinds of weevils… according to this site.
But anyway, yes, currently my family is under siege from the blasted creatures known as the Rice Weevil, or Sitophilus oryzae, and the Granary Weevil, or Sitophilus Granarius. Yes I have two bloody types of weevils in one rice bin. How fascinating. How do I know? Because of that lovely website and because of the hands-on experience I’ve been getting these few days.
One of the most disgusting things known to us now, is to look into your food and see an insect waving at you. I just have to scoop a damned cup out of my rice bin and pour it into a plate and start sorting and all the damn little weevils will come out.
Thus, I have adopted a no-nonsense kind of attitude when it comes to de-infestation.

There are ways to get rid of them, unfortunately, according to that site and hands-on experience, insecticide isn’t encouraged. You can’t bloody well see the damn kids of the adults, because they’re in the bloody rice eating it before your eyes. Actually I don’t mind the adults that much, they’re adaptable, hard, and drown most satisfyingly in a bowl of water. It’s the kids I hate. They are in the rice, so you don’t know that they’re there. And when you see them, it’s gross.
I find butterflies okay. Beetles are cool too, provided they don’t sting me. Bees are fine… 3 kilometres away, or separated by mesh, but I draw the line at grubs.
I hate grubs.
They squirm and they wriggle and it’s terribly disgusting in a weirdly fascinating way. Then I pick them up with a pair of tweezers and drown them most satisfyingly.
And also, I can’t stand pupae. Especially the going-to-be-adults-pupae as one can see the black outline of the weevil in your now worthless rice. But actually, they’re rather interesting, after you smash the rice kernel and play with the frantic weevils for a while…
Yes I’m cruel. Wa hahaha.
And I have no qualms about picking the live adults out and watching them scuttle across my hands before flushing them into the welcoming drain pipe. But I stop at grubs. Grubs are gross!
Alas, it’s now the norm to take rice out to wash and see little black things floating all over it. Ah that reminds me. One more thing I don’t like about the weevils is that they don’t float. Why don’t they float…?

Actually there’s more I wanted to type but I’ll stop here for now, after grossing everyone out… seriously, with my bug epidemic…

PS- On a lighter note, again, today is Tom Felton's birthday!

Posted by norbert at 9/22/2005 11:27:00 PM