Zoo picture of the day 11.30

Ooh, last picture I think. Well, of the animals at this zoo. For this visit. And it's a crappy photo, what with the glare and everything. I've had enough of an upturn in visitors (holy crap - i got 15 one day - new record FYI) that I might just post everyday. Quantity > quality, especially when there was always a chronic shortage of the latter.

About the animal though: My one gripe about this exhibit was that there was no sand. How in the hell is an ostrich supposed to stick its head in the sand, when there is none? ANSWER ME THAT, ZOOPEOPLE. (incidentally, the zoopeople was an interesting exhibit on its own, but there was no photography allowed). That said, the ostrich is a frightening animal. I can imagine it running up to me (apparently at up to 40mph; tell me this website isn't a little fascinating) and pecking the shit out of my face, and then kicking me like 4 miles.

I guess the summary of the zoo is that I am glad for the person who invented cages. Good job.

Aside

I'll give you a break (until like 5:15 when I get bored and want to post another zoo picture) from the picture of the day, because I just had an interesting (to me) thought:

How long would it take for me to be found in the bathroom if I collapsed and died in the handicapped stall? Assuming my body couldn't be seen from outside the stall (hence the selection of the larger, handicapped venue), I think it takes up to 36 hours, and possibly more if it's a weekend. Maybe until I start to smell, and even then, who knows?

If the stall door is closed, it's occupied, right? And one doesn't typically chat, or check in for a status update with a bathroom buddy. Add to that there are two separate bathrooms in this office (halving the possible number of body-finders, after it's already been cropped down to only the male employees - unless I made a silly mistake in selecting a bathroom, but either way it's one sex only I think).

Add to that no one would really miss me at my desk; they might wonder briefly where I'd gone, but I could have gone home, or out of the office for any number of reasons.

Add this inconvenient delay in discovery to the fact that it would probably be horrifically embarrassing to be found dead with your pants down, and I think I've found the most humiliating way to die.

Which means it's exactly what's going to happen to me.

Zoo picture of the day 11.29

The king of the jungle. Or, king of the lion exhibit in this case. This gentle creature would occasionally roar and I would occasionally piss myself a little. The two events were unrelated, though concurrent multiple times. In this photo he's staring at this couple's baby in a stroller. It was pretty funny to me, but I can imagine fairly terrifying for the couple/baby and fairly frustrating for the lion. The equivalent of blueballing, I'd guess. They really should throw a baby in there occasionally.

Also, manes are ridiculous. The animal kingdom equivalent of a neck beard. I don't blame them though, they have limited access to razors and cosmetologists in animal jails i mean zoos. Just kidding, I heart animals in captivity. They're easier to hit with spare change.

Zoo picture of the day 11.28

Isn't this an oddly proportioned animal? I looked around for other photos but apparently no one has captured pictures of this elusive animal in the wild. I think it has stubby little legs. Or a beer gut. Either way it's ridiculous. And those stripes? Everyone says that's camouflage but it's also the pattern some prison inmates wear, and I doubt anyone would want to camouflage an inmate. The only conclusion I can reach is that somehow, the animal kingdom has found a way to mark offending horse/donkey types for committing crimes. I wonder what sorts of crime. Also, I wonder if other animals commit crimes, and if so, why don't we see similarly marked lions, elephants, etc?

That's because lions are badasses, that's why. And elephants are too friggin' huge to mark. Smaller, pussier animals I can't explain. Maybe horses are the only animals dumb enough to get caught.

Don't worry, these zoo entries will end soon.

Zoo picture of the day 11.27

Ah, and here we are at the miscellaneous animal pen. If I were a zoo tenant, here is where I would reside. Just look at the complete ambivalence exhibited by that youngster. It's good that this was one of our last stops on our tour, it's resoundingly underwhelming. The kangaroo, in its defense, is a dwarf version or something, so a real one would probably be cooler (and able to jump this puny fence and roundhouse you in the face before you could say 'throw another shrimp on the barbie, mate' in that crappy Australian accent you do). The emu with it (and the random sheep in the background - hey, buddy) are pretty uninteresting. I guess at night they do a pretty cool laser light show where they blow up a few of the animals, and I would have liked to stay for that but I really had to pee and they wouldn't let me go on any of the animals. It's really a bizarre line the zoo draws about what you can and can not do; I mean, there's an interactive bestiality exhibit, but I can't piss on an emu? Seriously?

Zoo picture of the day 11.26

Did you ever read the story of the ugly duckling? It's raised by ducks and gets ridiculed by everyone for being so weird looking, and then when it grows up it's a beautiful swan? One detail the book left out was the swan was black.
So even though it is a beautiful bird, it gets discriminated against all over the place. Out of frame here is a sign that says 'black only' over the little pool of water. Zoos are really backwards in terms of civil rights. But the times, they are a changin'. Signs of civil unrest are visible all over the zoo, from sit-ins at the petting area, to pseudo-organized protests by the gorillas and zebras. They can't really get the zoo-wide involvement that they'd like because they're caged for the most parts (like ANIMALS!!), but they're hoping to get some concessions.

There was no comment from the albino animals' representative when I tried to ask him some questions. He's a dwarf rabbit so mostly he chewed and pooped while I asked, but you could see the hate burning in those red eyes of his. Frightening, really. More so if he weighed more than 6 pounds, but still.

Zoo picture of the day 11.25

To be honest, I think this kid deserved to get thrown into the habitat, see how long he holds out there. There he is, banging away at the glass. Asshole. Lucky for him the gorilla was all hopped up (or down) on barbiturates and couldn't feel a thing. Substance abuse is a serious issue for the zoo, especially for the exhibits where multiple animals are in contact. The zookeepers get bored and try out new prescriptions on the animals, the animals are addicted and become violent when they don't get their fix. The problem is compounded when the animals share the goods and things get ugly. That's how you get animals like birdzillas.

Zoo picture of the day 11.24

This photo is actually fake. I made a little gorilla biome with paper mache and threw an action figure gorilla in there.

hahahahah just kidding guys, seriously, haha.

This picture actually makes me a little angry because it perpetuates gorilla stereotypes. For example, look at the rope in the photo. It just assumes the gorilla is going to climb all around instead of using the stairs or Seqway that the zoo provided. I think it's terrible. They don't put Lucky Charms in the Leprechaun exhibit for crying out loud.

Zoo picture of the day 11.23

This little guy was free to roam all around the little bird enclosure, as it was either able to escape the zoo defenses (consisting primarily of a 3 foot high fence - not exactly Alcatraz-esque for a bird with flight capabilities) or has earned the trust of the zookeepers. Regardless, it had blood on its beak and there was a little kid's hat on the ground nearby.

We kept our distance.

Zoo picture of the day 11.22

Today's picture:
These are camels. Apparently, in the desert, their humps are used to store fat for long trips, so they don't die when they encounter nothing but sand and cacti for days on end. However, in captivity, the humps serve a very different function, and that is storing zoo employee drugs. A small incision in the hump is made, excess fat is removed (sort of a camel liposuction) and all manner of illicit drugs can be stored with minimal impact on the camels. Of course the drugs need to be stored in plastic bags or else some is lost to the camel, which can also result in erratic behavior. This is why camels are the most dangerous animal at the zoo.

Zoo picture of the day 11.21

This is an interesting selection, as it gives a peek into zoo life behind the scenes:
While everyone (I hope) realizes that human babies are not delivered by storks, zoo babies actually ARE!!! Of course they aren't normal storks, they're optimized for carrying and are mostly mechanical (that's right, your fears about flying cyborgs was justified. hope they never fly out of remote control range). As you can see, antelope babies are a little larger than your average human child. Another interesting aspect of this sign is that Isabel has a 1/2 sister. While in human society this would point to a child sharing only one parent, in the animal kingdom it actually indicates a partial animal. And sure enough, in the exhibit was an antelope with only two legs. The cruel part was that it was the front and rear left legs only, so each attempt to stand was a hopeless failure. Luckily the poor animal only attempted to stand for a few hours before breaking several ribs, going into shock and losing consciousness.

Zoo picture of the day 11.20

You were waiting with bated breath, and I know it. This is a bird that only eats things in the rough shape/size of a human head. At the time of this picture, the zoo had settled on tossing a small pumpkin in. That only fools the birds for a few days however, before their bloodlust returns. If you bring an annoying child to the zoo, the lion notices and alerts this bird, who waits for the aforementioned youth to pass in front of the cage (located adjacent the lion's). The bird, thought to be flightless and thusly located behind a fence with no cage above, swoops in and plucks the offending youngster from whatever transport they're located in. It quickly plucks the eyes from the skull. After this, a few choice portions of the brain are sampled by the sharp beak before the bird's craving is satiated. After this, the symbiotic relationship with the lion is completed via transport of the still living child through a tunnel between the cages, where the lion finishes the meal.

Source - National Geographic, November 1846

Zoo picture of the day

I went to the zoo like two weeks ago. It was pretty awesome. But I don't feel like writing about it, but I will give you a zoo picture of the day for the next week or so. I don't know what I'll do around Thanksgiving, but you don't get to complain.

Here's a lion I killed.

Waffled for my pleasure

I spent a good chunk of my morning scraping dog poo off my doc martens. I say martens because it was on both shoes. I must have had a lucky couple of steps, or perhaps this particular canine launched his/her salvo from afar, resulting in a larger spray pattern. I just don't know. What I do know, now, is that shoes soles are typically textured not for traction (as treacherous as the average sidewalk is, I'm fairly sure I'd survive with a somewhat less aggressive tread) but to retain particles of fecal matter in which the wearer is unlucky enough to have trodden. So if you're looking to give yourself a really awful (and I purposely avoided a pun there, which if I see it in the comments section I will delete and punch you in the face) start to your day, I'd recommend scraping dog shit out of your shoe for 10 minutes or so. That should do it. There's really nothing more humbling that cleaning someone/thing else's fecal matter off your shoe. Plus I have no good excuse why I smell like ass today.

Google ads redux

I really really really like reading the ads on the side of my email. I think google's a little hive of geniuses, if only for the unintentional comedy of the ads. A sampling from today:

Coffee Exposed
A shocking secret coffee co's don't want you to know
www.coffeefool.com

What might that be? It's overpriced filtered water? Yowzers!

5 Reasons for Belly Fat
Why you struggle with stomach fat. Learn 5 tricks to lose it.
www.Attractive-Abs.com

How...How did you know about my belly? Where are you?

Is Your Belly Fat & Ugly?

Well, I wouldn't say it's ideal, but that's a little presumptuous, wouldn't you say?

Want Massive Shoulders?

I know You Do
See Why I'm the Man and You're Not

Well, I can already tell it's probably an issue of self confidence, but I'm intimidated already. And I AM the man, anyway. A little at least, I think. No? OK.

I'm a little shaken by the brazenness of the ads, but I have to tell you - Google KNOWS me, and more importantly, what's best for me. Pardon me, I have some shoulder exercises to do.

My Hero

Actual email today to everyone in the office:

If your license plate number is 42xxxx please give me a call when you are leaving my parking space #13 that way I can move my car into my space.

Thanks

Holy poop. I tip my hat to you sir; I consider myself a professional passive aggressive, but you put me to shame. I can just see this guy's car idling for 7 hours waiting for this spot. You can envision the next email:

Hi, if you're currently in my house, could you let me know when you're done looting because I need some things, if you didn't take them.
Thanks

And then, probably finally:

Hi, if you're currently on the sidewalk, please let me know when you've moved so I use that spot to arrest my 30 story fall.
Thanks

Phlegm on my Phace

So sometimes I go running at lunch. It makes me feel a little better, even though I'm gasping like emphysema patient by the end of my loop (that wasn't nice - I'm sure those folks are breathing much easier than me, what with their BOTTLED OXYGEN), and when the weather's nice it's a chance to get outside. Anyway, I was about halfway through the other day, when I realized I needed to get rid of, shall we say, a loogy. This typically happens when I haven't had much to drink in the mornings, and I end up with this really sticky, viscous spit. It's pleasant.

So I find a clear place, where I won't a) spit on someone or b) be seen spitting, and I let fly. 94% of the projectile takes the intended path onto the grass adjacent the path. The other 6% elects to get separation anxiety and cling oh so sweetly to my right cheek. Meanwhile, other runners/walkers/personal hygiene inspectors are approaching. I try to wipe away the offending saliva, but I only succeed in smearing it across my face and into my nose. So now I can smell my own drool, and I also look like a member of an inbred royal family to most of the people around me.

I try to ignore it until I can wipe my face with my shirt (you know, so as not to draw attention to it) but I can tell they see. And they judge.