A Totally Weird TV Show

I already told you about all my most favorite TV shows, but there are some other ones that I haven't talked about yet because Mom likes them better than I do.  One example of this kind of show is Lost, which we had to watch for THREE WHOLE HOURS last night!  But if you are a Lost fan who didn't get to see the new episode, don't worry, because I am not going to spoil it by telling you what's in it.

Lost is about a bunch of people who are in an airplane, and then the plane crashes on an island, and some of the people survive the crash.  Then, after that, really strange things start happening.  I used to watch Lost in the beginning because it had a dog in it who was a yellow lab named Vincent.  Sometimes Vincent even got to bark in a meaningful way on the show.  But we haven't seen Vincent for a while, so I'm not sure what happened to him.  Maybe he got off the island when Walt did, or maybe I was asleep when they told what happened to him.

But anyway, like I said, Lost was interesting at the start because there was a dog, and there were some polar bears, but I think they all got killed off.  And there was a monster which turned out to be some black smoke that chased people around and made them scream and sometimes killed them.  Oh, and then there was that Dharma thing, where people lived in a bunker underground, and every 108 minutes they had to punch some numbers into a computer so the world wouldn't end.  And the numbers they put into the computer were the very same numbers that Hurley had used to win the lottery, which brought him lots of money and also lots of bad luck.

So the show just went on getting weirder and weirder, plus also more complicated, because they kept killing people off and bringing in new people, and there were these people called "The Others," that seemed like they should have had a more interesting name, but maybe the writers couldn't think of one.  And some of the people who were dead turned out not to be dead or else they really were dead, and then then came back to life again.  Oh, and did I mention that there was this Egyptian-looking statue?  Or that there was a submarine?

Well, the show got so confusing and silly that I started mostly just sleeping when it was on.  But Mom kept watching it, although I don't know why.  She says she doesn't even try to understand it anymore.  She just watches it to see what totally crazy thing they are going to do next on the show.  And also she likes some of the characters.

So anyway, last night we had to watch for three hours, and the reason for this was that first there was an hour of just reminding us who the characters were and whether they were dead or not, and also which characters were living in which year, because some of them ended up somehow in the 1970s, and the rest of them are in the present.  And also the island moved around a couple of times, but maybe it stopped doing that now.

Anyway, after the first hour of reminding us of how confused we were at the end of the last show last season, there were two hours of new stuff to confuse us even further.  But luckily, this is the start of the last season ever of Lost, after which all our questions will be answered, and we will never again have to watch this show!

Does It Get Any Cuter?

I want them both as pets : ) 

GROUNDHOGS

Today is a really dumb holiday called Groundhog Day, and what happens on this holiday is that a groundhog named Phil comes out of his burrow in Pennsylvania, and he looks around.  Then if he doesn't see his shadow, it means that spring is coming early.  But if he does see his shadow, he goes back to hibernating in his burrow for six more weeks because that's how long it will be until spring really comes.

This is a stupid reason to have a holiday, if you ask me, because spring always comes about the same time every year, and it doesn't have anything to do with groundhogs and their shadows.  But there ARE some very important questions that should be asked on Groundhog Day, and here's what they are:

1.  What the heck is a groundhog anyway?
2.  Are groundhogs yummy to eat?
3.  If so, how can I get some to come live in our yard?

Okay, so after I figured out what the important questions were, I did some research to try to answer them.  And here are the answers I came up with.

Answer to Question #1:
A groundhog is the same thing as a woodchuck, and sometimes it's called a whistle-pig or a land-beaver.  The fancy name for a groundhog is Marmota monax.  So this means that a groundhog is a marmot, which is a really big ground squirrel, and squirrels all belong to a huge family of rodents that are called sciurids.  But really, it's just easier to say "groundhog" or "woodchuck."  And if you were wondering where the name "woodchuck" comes from, it's from the Algonquian word wuchak.

Oh, and did you know that there are sciurids on every continent except Australia and Antarctica?

So anyway, groundhogs are just a type of really big squirrel.  They usually weigh about 9 pounds, but if they get lots of alfalfa to eat, they can grow as big as 30 pounds, which is even bigger than me!

Groundhogs like to dig burrows in the ground to live in, and during the winter, they hibernate in their burrows.  They are very good diggers because they have thick, curved claws.  And their burrows are really long, with several escape routes and exits they can use.  So a groundhog who is making a burrow has to dig a ton of dirt out of the ground.  Well, okay, not a whole ton, but maybe as much as 700 pounds, which is still a lot of dirt!









Answer to Question #2:

Yes, groundhogs are good to eat!  Here are some of the animals that like to eat groundhogs:  wolves, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, bears, hawks, owls, and dogs.  Also snakes can go down into a groundhog burrow and eat the baby groundhogs.

Answer to Question #3:
Mom says that no way do we want groundhogs living in our yard because they would dig burrows there, and then we would step in the holes and break our ankles.  Also the 700 pounds of dirt piled up in the yard would be ugly, and if the groundhogs dug their burrows under our house, the walls might fall down and kill us like happened to people during the earthquake in Haiti.

So it sounds like Mom is pretty much against our getting any groundhogs to have around as pets or snacks.  Which means I will just have to try harder to catch one of the sciurids we already have living in our oak tree.  Either that or maybe a possum.