So, recently I've been pretty bored. I picked up The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series -all five books- from the school library. A pleasant surprise, really. I had no idea that they had it there. I've been reading it on and off. Somehow, I'm just not that into reading any more. My eyes start to burn after a while and I need to take short breaks.
I also finally printed the music sheet for The Carnival of Venice that I got from Shaun. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the wrong variation. There's one by a guy named J.B. Arban, and there's another by Herbert L. Clarke. I much prefer Clarke's version, mainly because I can actually play it somewhat, but also that it sounds less "show-offy" and more like an actual solo.
In other news, my table has been invaded by Pharaoh ants... I think. Well, they certainly fit the description: small, black and goddamn annoying. Which is strange, really, since I haven't eaten anything up here for more than a month now. It's like the ants just suddenly stumbled across a few microscopic potato chip fragments and decided that there would be more. And so here they are, crawling around in that sick, sick manner that small black ants do. Watching a spider move is fun. Watching these midgets of the arthropod world mess around on my desk... very unfun.
Worst of all, I can't find any trail to follow. All I see is a few stray ants crawling over the wooden expanse. I've been squishing them, wiping my table down with isopropanol... but an hour later, I detect motion out of the corner of my eye. Augh. Sometimes, they'll get onto my arms and bite me at crucial moments, such as when I'm trying to execute a complicated coordinated assault on terrorist facilities. It doesn't hurt that much, but hell, seriously annoying.
I've read a little bit about Pharaoh ants. It turns out that they were initially indigenous to Indonesia and West Africa. But then, they hitched rides on boats and things and ended up pretty much all over the world. Kind of like rats, except that those things came from China. And are pretty big, so you can pretend to be Steve Irwin when you catch and kill them.
The black ants can have massive colonies, composed of multiple nests and multiple egg-laying queens. Adding to this freakish display of reproduction, they also produce individuals capable of sexual reproduction, unlike other ants. They're the sort of animal that all other animals want to kill.
Interestingly, instead of releasing evil queens-to-bes and drones when expanding, they "bud off". A queen(one of the many) among a small number of worker ants leave the colony, carrying immature larvae and eggs to another site to set up a new colony. I find this really fascinating, because this is just like fungi seeding. You cut off a piece of mold and put it somewhere else, and you get more mold. Ants have been recognised as superorganisms for quite some time now, but this budding thing is just a small step away from turning Pharaoh ants into real-life monsters.
(Plus they also have been known to eat shoe polish. It's like an unstoppable army of expendable cockroaches.)
I'm going for the insecticide.
-Joe
Oh oh and I'm going to get faster internet! WHOOOO