By the time September rolls around this year, my family will have lived in the same house for seventeen years. In an early celebration of this anniversary, the Midwest is offering up a special swarm of seventeen-year cicadas! They're supposed to arrive any day now in numbers up to 1.5 million per acre.

Now, we could be boring and simply shovel the bug carcasses out of our driveway for the next few months, or we could cut back significantly on our grocery bills and try some of these cicada recipes. A taco for dinner and a piece of pie for dessert? Sounds pretty decent to me.

Really, the only downside I see to this whole thing is that I'll have to cancel my outdoor weddings, parties, and shindigs because of the noise. Then again, I've spent the past several months becoming adjusted to the presence of large insects in my life, so what's a few billion more?

My little brother, Adam, recently got me hooked on the television show, 24. Seeing that it's a Fox show, there was already a chance that I'd be highly addicted no matter how stupid it was. I tuned in religiously every week for the first few seasons of The O.C., for Pete's sake, though mostly because of the general adorableness of Adam Brody.

Anyway, here's my theory for how the writers for 24 came up with the plot lines for the first season...

Step one. Put the names of all the characters except Jack Bauer into a hat.
Step two. Interview as many five-year-olds as possible to compile a list of scary things that could happen to a person.
Step three. Put all these terrible things into a second hat.
Step four. Select a name and an event from each hat and use this for the basis of the script for the next week's episode. Ignore the fact that "kidnapping" and "Kim" seem to be a weekly pairing.

Also, it should be noted that this is not a show that should be watched before bedtime. My dreams for the past week have included being kidnapped, almost being raped, having my teeth fall out (that's a common one anyway, but I'm blaming it on 24 nevertheless), being chased down by a woman with tranquilizer darts, and attending a basketball game with a guy I had a crush on in fourth grade.

Obviously, Fox executives are highly trained at brainwashing people through television programs. Knowing this, I did what every good sister would do for her little brother and promptly got him addicted to House, M.D.

I hate watching the news. Obviously, it's terrifying and depressing and all that jazz, which always makes me shift uncomfortably in my chair. There was also that one incident in which the local newscaster said "LOL" out loud while making little hand motions on her forehead. (The fact that she essentially made the symbol for "loser" twice kinda sums up that event in a nutshell.) But there's also that whole part where you don't get to choose which stories you hear and which ones you don't.

Yesterday, it finally dawned on me that I didn't actually hate "the news" in general, just watching standard television news programs. For example, I came across this article from The New York Times and spent a good five minutes wondering how many people read a journal called NeuroToxicology. Another five minutes of my life were dedicated to pondering who came up with the term "rolling lollipop" for a Segway. (Also, I do remember noticing on St. Patrick's Day that the Segways used by the Chicago police department are equipped with what look like the more expensive wheels, the ones that allow you to go "off-roading." The mental image that brought to mind — the one of a police officer chasing a criminal over the river and through the woods — has made me consider a career in crime.) I was actually genuinely interested in the historically significant train ride between North and South Korea, although it did remind me that my history teacher from this past semester would always say "peninshula" every time he referenced Korea.

The point here, I guess, is that I'm kinda looking forward to being more aware of the world around me. With so many great news sources online, I can click on whichever headlines interest me the most and skip all the gruesome tales of death and turmoil until after I've had some coffee. Or hot chocolate. Or both.

Besides, if someone like Bill Clinton is about to have his hands all over my city, I'd like to be fully warned and prepared.