You wanna hear really dopey? Of all the things that can bug you --
literally, in this case -- it's always the small ones that get under your
skin. The goofy ones.

Take crickets for instance.

Crickets. Cute little critters, welcoming the twilight, equipped with
top hat and umbrella to usher Pinnochio into his long-sought humanity....
Crickets.

Ah hates crickets.

A cricket family -- at least one that we know of -- moved into a corner
of one of our sets. The medlab, to be precise. Now, when we're moving things
around, building stuff, moving stuff, it's silent, as a cricket will generally
be when made nervous. But make it all nice and quiet -- as you would do for,
say, filming -- and he becomes downright rambunctious. And sure enough, there
is is, deep in the audio background on a few shots. Oh, we can hide the audio
easily enough...but Getting The Cricket has become something of a cause around
here.

We absolutely cannot find him. I stood back there for ten minutes, eyes
closed, trying to triangulate and draw a bead on the little sucker. We've
tried exterminators, smoke, nitrogen, assassins and psychics; we've tried
scaring him and coaxing him, to no avail. He is as invisible as god but with
a MUCH louder voice.

You ever fire up a daily to hear, at the top of the take, the off screen
director saying, as fast as he can, "Okaythecricket'ssilent,ACTION!"

Like I said...not really a problem, just one of those little things that
niggle at you when there's nothing else going on. So we're going to wait him
out.

Anybody know offhand the lifespan of your average cricket...?

jms