A regular roundup of stuff that wouldn’t necessarily make it on the blog, but is worth noting:

• Hearing scuffling noises in your attic? Seeing chewed bits of fabric around the house? You may well have rats, says Jake McDaniel of McDaniel Pest Control, who stopped by the house yesterday to lay bait. Yes, even being a cranky ex-newspaperman is not enough to keep the rodents out. McDaniel says this has been an especially bad year for rats, thanks to the last couple of mild winters and a very dry summer. Rats started infesting homes in June and July instead of waiting until fall, when the y usually show up.
• Call it suburban paranoia. Parents in Rowlett don’t want the high school to perform Rent, fearing that the play about "bohemians" in Greenwich Village will corrupt their children. Rent, of course, is based on an opera called La Boheme, well known for its corrupting influences. Or, to look at it another way: Do these parents want to stop doing The Sound of Music because their children could become Nazis or The Crucible because they could turn into witches?

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Rodeo Ford, whose spokescowboy is the great Burton Gilliam, friend of the Advocate, has been running a promotion in which it gives away shares of Ford stock. You can make your own comments about this, given Ford’s financial woes, but it does give us a chance to post Burton doing a Rodeo commercial.

• I mention this since so many of our readers live in dry areas. Did you know that during Prohibition that there was bootlegging going on in Dallas, and people drank liquor illegally? Last week marked the 75th anniversary of repeal, and this article from Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper gives a good idea of how wide open the town was.