Saturday, May 22, 02004
Woe is me. The cicadas seem to have finally found the little grove of trees by my apartment building. Around every 15 seconds or so one of the bugs buzzes by the porch. Sometimes they land but only for a few seconds or so before taking off again. There are two of them on the sliding glass door now. I can see a lot of them just buzzing around outside as well. Since I'm seeing this many from the sixth floor, I'm sort of hesitent to venture outside at all today. But the DC Underground Film Festival. (p.s. dcuff folks, please get rid of the flash-only main page....)
Posted at 11:23 AM EST [Link][Karma] [Comment]
Thursday, May 20, 02004
America is awsome.
Posted at 07:24 PM EST [Link][Karma] [Comment]
Monday, May 17, 02004
In celebration of the cicadas, there's a new version of Washington Area Disaster Bingo available, now in wonderful dhtml-o-vision.
I'm planning on spiffing it up a little more, and I'll probably try and make sure there's a cicada square that shows up in each board for the next month or so.
Posted at 06:28 PM EST [Link][Karma] [Comment]
Sunday, May 16, 02004
I saw my first cicada yesterday on my porch. I thought it was dead, since it was on its back, but when I poked it with a stick, it started buzzing around slowly like a big fat bumblebee, so I quickly got back into the apartment.
Then I saw a couple hundred more on the short walk from my car to the UUCA this morning. One hit my windshield on the dirve home, but it didn't seem to hurt it at all - it just whizzed off in a totally different angle.
The noise is much different from what I was expecting. It's a very constant, and high pitched drone that is more industrial than natural sounding. It reminds me of when the ventaliation fan of a nearby building is busted, but it's in the background constantly.
And weirdest of all, for some reason, it always sounds distant, like it should be much louder somewhere else and that none of the bugs I'm seeing are making any of the noise.
As a result, I keep expecting a huge cicada epicenter just around the corner, where everything is covered in bugs, and people are shoveling them from their sidewalks like snow.
But this is just the first day, so maybe I will see that soon enough.
Update: I was walking along the bike paths in Cherrydale and Bluemont later in the day, and hardly saw any bugs at all, and there was no constant drone. I was in Barcroft neihgborhood when I saw/heard them in mass.
Posted at 05:11 PM EST [Link][Karma] [Comment]
