I don't know what these things are

But they are delicious! And they're EVERYWHERE!

They make a lot of noise and they flutter around when you grab them, but they are tasty. Plus the challenge of getting them is what makes it so fun.

Dad says these are the 13-year cicadas, and that they live underground until they're adults. Then they emerge and are really noisy for a little while, eat trees, and lay their eggs. Then they die. But I guess they can do a lot of damage to the trees in the meantime, so I am doing my part to save the trees by eating as many cicadas as I can.

This is important work!

Famous Basset Hound Friday # 18

Our famous hound this week is a personal inspiration of mine! His name is Woody, and he was the first blogging basset I ever discovered.

Woody goes by many names: Sheriff Woody, Bluepaw, the Big Woof, etc etc. He writes a blog called Woody's World, where he updates us on his life as the Protector of Bagels Everywhere. Woody gets to go to a park where there are other bassets, and where he gets to chase birds and bunnies. His family takes care of him and gives him popcorn on family movie night, but he has to deal with noisy teenagers.

Woody hasn't been blogging for a long time now, almost a year. We are guessing it is because he has lots of bagels to protect. We are anxiously awaiting his next blog!

So he's our newest famous hound!

Cry havoc and let loose the Jowls of Fury!

I have written about how much I love car rides before. I would have to say the best part about car rides is that you can put your head out the window and watch the world fly by you. The smells are the best, and you get to see jealous dogs and people watching you as you pass them by and leave them in the dust. Your ears and jowls flap in the breeze, and the best part is when you get to go to the fast food drive-in and get chicken Mcnuggets (they are the tasty!).

Below are some photos of us going on a car ride!

That mirror should say 'objects in mirror are sexier then they appear'.

Here's Breezy earning her name!

I look pretty awesome here.

Stupid TV Commercial Sunday # 18

When I saw this week's stupid commercial the first time, I was outraged. When I saw it the second time I was just disappointed. Then the 'rents and the dogs left the house for a few days, so the TV was left off for awhile. But this sort of commercial is just a load of crap.

OK, first off, no self-respecting female cat I know would date a dog, let alone such a silly, ugly-looking dog. Second, this cat is pretty annoying, so I guess the ugly dog can have her.

Stupid commercial.

Famous Basset Hound Friday # 17

We've missed Famous Basset Hound Friday enough lately! Enough I say!

Back to the famous hounds!

This week's hound is named Bonnie! She is a real-life hound who has hit it big time. Unfortunately for her hitting it big-time means being part of a soap opera.

If you didn't know, soap operas are these ridiculous, dramatic TV shows where babies get stolen and evil businessmen come back from the dead! It's like Halloween, only without any of the candy or fun!

Also the women and men mount each other all the time. They are worse than us dogs on those shows.

Anyway, Bonnie was on a show called EastEnders, where she played a dog named Chip. I couldn't find a good video of her on that show, but I did find her in a TV commercial selling mattresses. Probably a good fit since we bassets are the go-to authority on sleeping needs.

Bonnie is our newest famous hound!

Weird Word Wednesday # 12

We have yet another stupid human word to go over this week.

"Hoodwinked".

This is a word that has somehow survived centuries of human usage, despite the fact that it probably didn't make much sense when they first used it. It was used back in the 16th century, when people evidently wore hoods. Wink means eyes closed, of course, and it had something to do with thieves shoving a hood over their victim's heads before they robbed them. It also had something to do with falconry.

Anyway, this is basically a dumb word. Lots of humans hoodwink themselves these days. The word is used these days to mean that people get tricked or something.

If you buy something like this you have been hoodwinked.

This has been a stressful month

My month has not been very fun. I keep thinking I am having babies and that makes me mean to my brother and sister. Rosco just backs off but Layla wants to fight me and that only makes me angrier. Mom and dad have had to separate us and my crate got moved all the way across the room. Now I am by myself in my crate and I can't see Rosco or Layla. I even had to spend a few nights in my crate while Rosco and Layla got to sleep in the bedroom with mom and dad because of my temper. Plus my appetite has left me, and all the toys that squeak sound like lost babies to me. I would go looking for them but be unable to find them.

I was pretty upset about all this.

But the false pregnancy thing is starting to go away. I don't feel as mean anymore and I don't think I am going to be a mommy to any puppies anytime soon. My appetite has started to return (especially when they put gravy on our food, that is delicious!). The weather is nice again so we can all lay out on the deck together and get some sun.

But with warm weather comes my most hated enemy: lawnmowers. They scare me. Even when it's the neighbor's lawnmower it makes a ton of noise and it runs around the yard chopping up grass, and I know it is going to hurt me or my parents. I whine a lot and shake and cry and try to hide from it until it is all over.

May can go away for all I care.

Famous Frid- er, Sat- what the heck day is it anyway?

Hello faithful readers! Sorry we missed our latest Famous Basset Hound Friday. We had a good excuse. It was mama's birthday, and since she is working now way outside of town, we decided we were going to give her extra attention on her special day!

Of course daddy got her lots of good presents and toys and treats. He even put up a banner that says 'Happy Birthday' and was going to put up a bunch of pretty stuff but mama came home too early. He got her flowers to plant outside and treats to eat (cupcakes, I had those on my birthday and I remember how delicious they were), and he even got her a balloon. Except his balloon said 'Happy Mother's Day', and I guess that was OK since she is a mama to us. But I think he made a mistake.

Now that I think about it mama can be our first every 'Honorary Basset Hound'. She possesses many qualities of basset hounditude. First of all she is very beautiful, and she carries herself with a certain dignity that only us hounds can manage. She likes to be outside like we do and she enjoys smelling things (although they are mostly pretty things like flowers and lotions, but hey smelling still counts). She likes to take naps and she enjoys eating good food. She also has been teaching me to howl and she does a pretty good job herself. And of course she likes to snuggle with us, which is something all hounds enjoy. In fact the only thing she does that is unhoundlike is that she doesn't roll in stuff like we do. But we think that's because she makes herself smell good with lotions and sprays and stuff.

So she is our first Honorary Basset Hound!

Am I a crazy person?

I saw a recent online article about how we are, mathematically speaking, almost certainly living within a computer simulation of some hyper-advanced culture.  Accepting a few necessary assumptions, you can show that it's pretty much likely that the entire universe is a computer program.

That of course made me think of movies like The Matrix, where people's entire realities (and not to mention acting careers) are suddenly cast into doubt as it is revealed that everything they think they know is a lie.  As a scientist, or a person who is curious about the way the world works, such a revelation would really suck.  I've spent the better part of my life trying to learn.  It all sounds crazy.

I was reminded that craziness is probably one of those 'eye of the beholder' kind of things tonight.  I had to go to the grocery store to pick up some dog treats because they are being visited by a pet-sitter this week (I can't come home at lunch due to training to let them out).  While I was leaving the store I noticed a fiery searcher wandering around the pavement near the gardening section.

Before you ask, this is a fiery searcher.

These are substantial insects, and they have mandibles that could result in a painful bite.  Not something to try and capture if you are preoccupied with the 5 pound bag of peanut butter-flavored, breath-freshening dog biscuits you just purchased, along with the questionable sci-fi movie you rented from Redbox.  But this is a cool beetle - a real collector's item.  Not terribly rare or anything, but one that I don't have yet and one that I've been searching for since the fall of 2009.  So what was I to do?

Well, I ran to my car and searched for something to put it in.  Normally there are about 500 discarded cups and pop bottles, but I cleaned it out the other day, so no luck there.  However, I was able to find some trash in the parking lot that would work.  All I had to do was dump out the pink lemonade or whatever the hell it was.  I only got a few stares as I was trying to find this bug again, and was chasing it down with a McDonald's cup outside the front of a Wal-Mart.  I console myself that most of them were dressed like twerps and appeared, like most 18-30 year-olds in college towns across America, to be on drugs.  Clearly, pursuing beetles in parking lots is standard operating procedure.

Is this the behavior of a crazy person?

Stupid TV Commercial Sunday # 17

First off, Happy Mother's Day. At first I was mad at my mom for not taking me to Grandma's, but the more I thought about it, a 10-hour car ride with 3 dogs and noisy Beaker wasn't on my hit list. Mom and I made up when she came home by having me sleep on her head; I know it went a long way towards keeping the peace.

This week's stupid commercial continues a recent trend in my dumb commercial harpooning: human bathroom needs. If you remember, last time I criticized Angel Soft's "just right" toilet tissue ad. Well, this week, I am taking on Charmin's disturbing bears ad campaign.

First off, why are bears being used to sell paper for humans to wipe their butts with? Second, why would any company use the idea of one bear removing bits of toilet paper from another bear's butt as a selling point?

Dumb, and a little disgusting. See my previous stupid commercial post for how cats deal with these issues.

Famous Basset Hound Friday # 16

Boy it seems like it's been a long time since we had a Famous Basset Hound Friday. We've been gone awhile, and I think we missed last week's. Anyway, we are honoring a homegrown hound from the south.

This week's hound is Henry, of Herb Adcox Chevrolet! Henry is responsible for selling probably millions of cars in the greater Chattanooga Tennessee area! He is also a regular basset hound, loving thing like naps and attention!

Henry has starred in a bunch of commercials - we put a few of them up for you to check out. I'm a pretty sleepy hound right now, so I'm going to just put them up and then take a good, long nap.

Henry is our latest famous hound!

Breezy's vacation

Well I see Rosco and Layla have blogged about how great their vacation was. I'm glad someone had a good time the entire weekend. Let me paint you a picture that is not quite so rosy. I was really looking forward to going to Grandma's but a few key events kind of ruined it for me. Don't get me wrong I had a good time, and I got to wander around off-leash and explore (that was new). I also went on a really long car ride, which turned out to be OK.

Hmmm this is pretty interesting...

But I just wasn't feeling myself. My insides have been upset lately and I feel like I want to take really good care of my crate and my bed. I also had to try and put up with Maggie, and she can be a real pain. She wanted me to be submissive to her - me! I wasn't going for it and I barked and howled in her face when she tried it. Maggie and I didn't get along at all. She's lucky mom and dad kept stopping me from biting her.

And then there was Max. Rosco thinks Max is the greatest dog there is but let me tell you, Max is a little weasel sometimes. He tried to get fresh with me! With me! He wanted to play the puppy-making game (I don't know why - he has been fixed, even if he tries to play it off like he isn't. A girl can tell these things). I wanted no part of it, and you can believe I barked at him to make sure he knew it.

But these things get you in trouble when you live with parents like mine. I was feeling pretty down until the kids came to visit. I really like kids! Especially little girls! And the one little girl kept dropping food so that was great!

Then the other little girl and I went into the camper and we played basset princess and her personal chauffeur! I was in pretty high spirits that day! I decided I would take a walk with the other dogs and have myself a good mud bath!

My chariot

Aren't we so regal?

That was the decision that turned my good spirits around! Because I was muddy I had to take a bath that night. Baths are the worst. Just look at my poor bedraggled expression.

Well that one event was enough to put me back in a bad mood. I was defensive and angry again and they made me ride home in my crate! I tell you it didn't help me feel any better. Hopefully the next time we go to Grandma's I can enjoy myself without all the hassle of amorous little puppies and stupid baths!

Layla's vacation

Rosco talked about his vacation but he left some important stuff out. Of course we got to go to Grandma's, which is where I was first brought after my Gotcha Day last year. We got there by taking a really long car ride, but this time without the cats, which was both good and bad. Grandma's house has some interesting cats but like all houses everywhere we aren't supposed to chase them.

Honestly though why wouldn't you chase something like this?

Of course we got to go to the cabin which was great, for all the reasons Rosco said. We also got to see Sophie again, she is the newest baby in the family and she is a beautiful little diva just like me. I showed her a few of my tricks on how to look cool and get what she wants. I'll have to be careful though, if she learns how to get belly rubs it could be difficult...

I just wanted to go into a little more detail about the mud bath we took. Rosco really didn't give it enough information to make sense to you people. You see a dog rolling in mud and think we are just dumb dogs. What we are really doing is making ourselves more beautiful. For example:

Beautiful...

More beautiful!

See? Mud baths are important things! And we get them at Grandma's!

Rosco's vacation

Hey everyone! We got back from our vacation! We had a great time! We got to go to the cabin and see our buddies Max, Maggie, Griff, and Remy! There was a new baby and we got to chase a porcupine and everything!

But I am getting ahead of myself. I am just so excited!

I just realized that we never introduced Max and Maggie and Griff and Remy properly! So here we go!

This is Maggie. She is a taller dog that belongs to Grandma, and she is very fast. I like to chase her but she can be kind of mean sometimes. Max also likes to chase her (they are siblings), and she is really good at catching squirrels. She's so good they don't have any squirrels at Grandma's anymore.

This is my buddy Max! Max and I were best buds since we were tiny puppies together, chasing cats! Max is half basset hound so he is pretty awesome! Watch us chasing cats as puppies together below!

You may see this picture and ask yourself 'Why did Rosco put a picture of a horse up here?' That is not a horse, that's Griff! He is huge compared to the rest of us! He loves the water and got really wet and muddy all weekend long! But he's fun to play with, because he is even more of a puppy than me (and they call me Puppyman). Griff lives with his brother Remy and his family.

Speaking of Remy here he is. Remy is the newest dog in the family (after Breezy), but he and Griff are best buddies and he is fun to chase and play with (although he is really fast like Maggie and kind of hard to keep up with).

So now that you are up to speed on who is who in the dog world, let's get back to the vacation.

We went up to Grandma's, which is in Michigan, and it's great because there are lots of trees and no fences. There is a shortage of squirrels, sure, but we make up for it by chasing each other around. There are also chickens but we don't get to mess with them. Then we go to the cabin and it's even better, because there are tons of woods and even less fences and the cabin smells like mice, and there are porcupines. We had a porcupine cornered under the cabin and were going to get it but the moms and dads in the house called us in so they could deal with it themselves. Max says porcupines aren't really that much fun - lots of stickers in his face once. Maggie sure wanted to get under the cabin though!

But I would have to say the best part of the cabin is the creek. We get to go walking near it and it gets really muddy there. Of course we get all swamped up and then go tearing around. We even get to come inside the cabin that way once we dry off, because nobody really cares if the cabin gets dirty.

There's nothing like a little dirt between your toes!

All in all it was a great time! I know Layla had fun, but Breezy was kind of a pain. She acted like she owned everything and she got into fights with Maggie and I think she really made a bad first impression. She completely hogged the new camper we got from Grandma's and was just a pain. But I didn't let her spoil my fun!

See you next year!

Weird Word Wednesday # 11

Let me just start by saying that the last 5 days have been great - there have been no dogs or humans around. Sure, I missed the humans every once in awhile (like when I needed to be petted) but the tradeoff was worth it - no dogs.

They came home tonight. Sigh.

Anyway, the latest stupid phrase that has got my attention is 'sick and tired'. A person says they are 'sick and tired' when they really mean to say they are 'bored with' or 'have had enough of' something. However, true to human fashion, instead of just saying what they actually mean, they bury it in some half-accurate catchphrase. It's amazing any of them make it past childhood.

My Google efforts got me nothing on the term - in fact, it would appear that human musicians are not sick and tired of making songs about being sick and tired. Either way, I'm bored with this now, and I need to scout out a dog-free zone.