Ants in the Big Apple

Kraut, mustard, no ketchup: Ants, those tiny but plentiful insects, perform a lot of the trash cleanup in New York City, getting to the garbage before rats can. The ants that live on the medians along Broadway, for example, are capable of eating the equivalent of 60,000 hot dogs a year.

The only problem, at least for the hot dog vendors, is that they’re lousy tippers.

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Channel-surfing the vast culture wasteland — Christmas edition: Among the holiday specials on TV tonight is “Christmas in Rockefeller Center,” with Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett and other musical stars at 8 p.m. on NBC.

But the night is almost ruined when during Gaga’s and Bennett’s duet of “Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy,” New York City’s ants swarm Gaga and begin consuming her meat dress.

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Storage wars: Lynnwood is considering a ban on industrial shipping containers in residential neighborhoods. Most of the county’s cities have bans on the use of the containers for storage and housing.

Does this mean I can’t hang my hammock from the 150-foot-tall crane I bought at the marine terminal surplus store for the back yard?

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