inspired by minneapolis genius

Hello fellow orgers, i started this thread to make you aware of the fact that I originated all the cricket jokes in the general discussion forum, so if you ever see anyone else posting a cricket joke in this forum please inform them that i am the only one allowed to do this. Thank you for you attention and assistance with this matter.


Magnificent


please feel free to post any cricket pics or jokes on this thread. everyone except ahem, minneapolis genius
[This message was edited Sat Jun 14 19:53:41 PDT 2003 by magnificentsynthesizer667]

i don't even know what all this cricket stuff's about in the first place...

WHAT-EVERRR!!!

Okay, I guess we can stop with the pictures though.

minneapolisgenius said:

Excuse me your not suppose to participate in this thread.

magnificentsynthesizer667 said:

I can post wherever I want damnit!

REDFEATHERS said:

That's a good one.

That's a locust.

minneapolisgenius said:

I know...not as scary as crickets huh?

REDFEATHERS said:

No, but they are bigger though.

...and I thought this thread might have something to do with eleven or so men galivanting about the green in white!

I'll get to the bottom of this...




















chirpety chirp edit
[This message was edited Mon Jun 9 4:14:09 PDT 2003 by pejman]

pejman said:

I was waiting for that one!

minneapolisgenius said:

I've been gone all weekend, but when I came back I noticed the crickets were lurking so I called the chirper in charge and he said he would make a cameo appearance.






















The "LET'S CHIRP" remix EDIT
[This message was edited Mon Jun 9 4:20:47 PDT 2003 by pejman]

I thought i'd bring this back into circulation, to celebrate the swarms that are infesting Nevada


Mormon Crickets Invading Western States
SANDRA CHEREB
Associated Press

PALOMINO VALLEY, Nev. - Swarms of Mormon crickets are marching across the West, destroying rangeland and crops, slickening highways with their carcasses and leaving disgusted residents in their wake.

"It's yucky," said Amy Nisbet of Elko in northeast Nevada, where this year crickets made their first appearance in recent memory. "You drive down the street and they pop like bubble wrap."

Mild winters and three years of drought have provided ideal conditions for the insects, which hatch in the spring and feed through the summer. Experts say this year's infestation in Nevada, Utah and Idaho could be the worst in decades.

Five million acres are infested in Nevada with the 2 1/2-inch long creeping insects, said Jeff Knight, entomologist with the Nevada Department of Agriculture.

"I've seen them eat weeds in a field but leave the alfalfa," Knight said. "Other times, they'll just strip the crop bare."

Their voracious appetites take in anything - sagebrush, alfalfa, wheat, barley, clover, seeds, grasses, vegetables. At a density of just one cricket per square yard, they can consume 38 pounds of forage per acre as they pass through an area. They don't fly, but can hop and crawl a mile in a day and up to 50 miles in a season. And before they die in the fall, they lay the eggs that will become next year's swarm.

The Mormon cricket actually is a katydid, similar to a grasshopper. It got its name in 1848 when swarms invaded the fields of Mormon settlers in Utah. According to lore, the settlers prayed for divine assistance that arrived in the form of gulls, which ate the insects and saved the crops.

Though Knight couldn't provide an economic damage estimate, he said this year's infestation is twice as widespread as last year. The bugs are showing up in places they haven't been seen before, such as Elko's city limits and Palomino Valley north of Reno.

Last week, Elko County commissioners declared a state of emergency because of the worsening two-week infestation. Officials in southwestern Idaho say the infestation there is the worst since World War II.

"They've been building up there on the Boise front for several years, but last year was the first year everything seems to have coalesced and really erupted," said Mike Cooper of the Idaho Department of Agriculture.

"They're cyclic and they build up over a number of years, kind of peak, and then usually some kind of natural disease comes in and starts taking them down," Cooper said.

In Utah, agriculture officials estimate 6 million acres - more than double last year's plague - will be infested before the crickets die off.

Dick Wilson of the Utah Department of Agriculture said the dismal predictions were "all true. (My staff) are all out in the field, working seven days a week" fighting the bugs.

Earlier this spring, Nevada treated about 66,000 acres with an insecticide that kills the insects before they mature. But as the treatment cuts down their numbers in one area, they pop up somewhere else.

The chief weapon is carbaryl, an insecticide commonly known as Sevin. It is mixed with bran and spread before the crickets as they advance. Crickets lured to the bait quickly die. The poisoned carcasses are consumed by cannibalistic fellow crickets, which also die.

State officials said their priority is to protect public lands, crops - and motorists. In Idaho the state has posted warning signs on State Route 55. Crickets smashed by cars create a mush slicker than ice.

"We're doing our best to keep them off the highway," said Martin Larraneta, a state entomologist coordinating cricket controls in Elko. "It can be like a grease slick."

So far there are no reports of accidents caused by the crickets.

While serious, this year's outbreak isn't the most severe in Nevada history, experts said.

A 1939 state publication noted an infestation in Eureka County in 1882, when trains were unable to travel the main line of the Central Pacific Railroad "due to the rails being so thoroughly greased with crushed crickets," state archivist Guy Rocha said.

In the 1930s, a band of crickets 12 miles long and at times several feet deep was reported in Elko County, Rocha said.

The crickets have existed for millions of years and were once a food source for American Indians. But the swarms covering fields and roads and houses horrify modern residents.

"When it comes to something that's six-legged, people have a big problem with that," Knight said.

These pictures of crickets are starting to make me itch like a mutha phucka.


A Itchin Like A Bitch Edit
[This message was edited Sat Jun 14 20:21:28 PDT 2003 by Paisley]

I thought that all you heard was the crickets in Utah anyway because it's so boring there.

minneapolisgenius said:

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

Ok, I'll tell you.
I always say (in real life too) that "all you heard was crickets" when you do something that gets no response.

I started saying this a long time ago, for example, after a show we'd all be (the dancers) backstage afterward, and if it was a particularly dead audience that night, I'd say "Wow, what do I gotta do? It was just crickets tonight." So it became a thing people that I know said. And then I saw that someone else had posted something else about crickets so I accused them of stealing my bit.

But it's actually from a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Do you know the one where Daffy and Bugs are onstage competing for applause? Bugs can do anything, and the audience loves him, and Daffy gets up there, does a whole elaborate tap routine, ends it sliding on his kness all out of breath, like TA-DA!!! and no one applauds-it's just the sound of crickets chirping. I always loved that one.