Random Thoughts on Milk Duds, Meerkats and Mice

You know the time when you get back from vacation and you switch your brain from "time-to- relax mode" back to "high-alert mode," right? I'm making that transition, and my brain has powered into random-and-rapid-fire mode, so here goes ... and not all of this will be about pets.

Looks like Regal Cinemas has brought back Milk Duds, Goobers and Raisinets. For years, all you could get at their concession stands were M&Ms and other Mars-brand treats. A colleague and I each complained to managers at Regal's Delaware theaters when our faves were removed. We were told the chain signed an exclusive contract. I even filled out suggestion cards and got back nice letters and free movie tickets, but no Milk Duds. So, thanks, Regal for bringing them back, and I promise not to sneak in a box anymore.

At the movies -- I saw "The Devil Wears Prada" and Meryl Streep proves she can do comedy as a modern-day Cruella de Ville of the fashion world -- there was a promo for "Meerkat Manor" at 8 p.m. Fridays on Animal Planet. If you're a Spark reader, you read a plug for the show there, too. It's a nature documentary series with a twist: A meerkat clan in southern Africa's Kalahari Desert turns out to be just as dysfunctional as that infamous brood on "Roseanne." The only problem is that the dysfunction sometimes has very real consequences as detailed by a Cambridge University crew that filmed the clan over 10 years. Time to fire up theTiVo.

And how do you entertain yourself on a holiday when you're not headed to the beach or a barbecue, and your spouse has taken himself to a walk-in clinic for a bad cold? You hang out in PetSmart and watch the mice run the wheel. My favorite moment was side-by-side racing -- call it Roller Derby for the small creature set. They're running the wheel side by side, when the one on the left stops, sending the one on the right upside down and hanging my a toenail. He lets go, falls to the bottom of the wheel and tumbles out. The wheel was left to the survivor. There's your new Animal Planet reality series: "Mice Racing: Win at Any Cost."