Let My Penguins Go
It's amazing how sometimes all the wrong emotions can work so well towards writing. To cut out all the ugly parts and make a long story short, my mother managed to spark newfound ire in pretty much everyone else in the family. Though instead of stomping around the apartment in a listless rage, I sat down and much to my surprise, wrote more in an hour or two than I have probably all week. My productivity is disturbing in a way; can I only write now when I'm outraged? For that matter, if this is the case, why haven't I been able to write more when the "March of the Pinhead Customers" has been going on in our store the last few days? This would all be made so much easier if our Head Office would make tasers a part of the official uniform.
Speaking of potential outrage, I'm not even entirely sure what to think of this article:
German 'Homosexual' Penguins Spark Gay Protest BERLIN (Reuters) - A plan by a German zoo to test the sexual appetites of a group of suspected homosexual penguins has sparked outrage among gay and lesbian groups, who fear zookeepers might force them to turn straight. "All sorts of gay and lesbian associations have been e-mailing and calling in to protest," said a spokesman for the zoo in the northwestern city of Bremerhaven on Friday.
He said the zoo concluded the penguins might be gay after seeing male penguins trying to mate with other males and trying to hatch offspring out of stones. German media reported that female Swedish penguins would be brought to the zoo to test the theory, but when word got out about the plan, the phones started ringing. "Nobody here is trying to break-up same sex pairs by force," the zoo's director Heike Kueck told public broadcaster NDR. "We don't know if the three male pairs are really gay or just got together because of a lack of females."The news link via Yahoo is here:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&e=5&u=/nm/20050211/sc_nm/life_germany_penguins_dcToday's Lesson: a hammer and a plastic-capped thumbtack just do not go well together...unless you want lots of plastic debris from where you shattered the thumbtack.
posted by Phillip at 6:28 AM
Your Geek Head May Just Explode...
Behold the sci-fi/fantasy/comic geek's timeline:
http://www.captaincomics.us/forums/index.php?showtopic=1075 From Jedi Knights to Black Adder to the Space Battleship Yamato to Sauron vs. Ghidorah. It's mostly all there. Although it should be known my eyes started to cross before I managed to reach the 1700's.
In other news, Mel's very important
lesson of the day is: never wear clogs when you are walking outside on slushy chunks of ice that are only half-frozen and have water lurking underneath, which can subsequently eat both your shoes. You see, as we were walking Shady last night, Mel literally stumbled into a bit of a problem. While I don't think they were clogs specifically, she was wearing the sort of shoes that allows you slide your feet in and out, with nothing else to really hold your feet into the shoe. As we were walking around the school playground near our place, we were forced to cross a rather treacherous area that had only partially frozen drifts of snow and ice. Beneath these unstable mounds were large pockets of unfrozen water.
Imagine Mel's surprise when suddenly the snow beneath one of her shoes collapsed. She lurched to one side as the puddle beneath the snow soaked her shoe and her sock. But this unto itself wasn't really the problem. You see, as she tried to quickly pull her foot out of the puddle, the still semi-solid ice managed to wedge her shoe in place. So poor Mel's foot slid out of the shoe, and she was stuck hopping around on one foot while I in turn had to forcibly yank her shoe out from the ice.
But this unto itself wasn'y really the problem. You see, as she was hopping around on one foot, her
other shoe sank into a patch of ice and water. And it too got lodged in the ice. So suddenly Mel's hopping around in just her socks, with both shoes wedged into the snow. I in turn had to forcibly yank both shoes out from the ice. Despite the squelchy socks and cold toes, Mel managed the return home, whereupon she changed her socks and stuck her feet in front of a warm heating register.
I'm tempted to laugh as I reread this...but my self-preservation instincts are kicking in.
posted by Phillip at 7:30 AM
