14 posts tagged “penguins”
Yesterday was fun. My friends and I, tired of winter, decided to take one of the few nice days to come our way in a long while to head outside and do some walking.
Plans changed slightly as my friend Jay had slept badly and was feeling kinda blargh, so he decided to stay home and get some sleep while Wassy and I went out to the zoo. We had intended on going when it was cooler out, with the supposition that the penguins would be more active and the zoo would be less crowded.
Well...we had one out of two correct. The zoo was much less crowded since it was around 50F out. But the darn penguins were hanging out indoors mostly! And they weren't really swimming exactly. Boo!
But as much as that part of the idea turned out to be a flop, it was made up for by the rest of the trip. Fall is definitely the best time to go to the zoo, just because it was much less crowded. A lot of the animals were more active too, which is probably because it was much cooler out.
We saw them feeding the elephants, one of which was a greedy bastard who took all of the food for himself. Pushed it all over into a little pile and wouldn't let the other two elephants get anything but a couple scraps here and there.
It was excellent weather for just wandering around outside. Probably one of the last really good weekends before it starts getting too cold out to wander around comfortably for a while.
After we took in the outdoor sights, we headed inside to check out the various monkeys and birds and things. They added an exhibit of Sand Cats since we last went. They're basically cats that are adapted to living in the desert. They were the first domesticated variety of cats and I can see the resemblance to the modern day house cat. One of them was spazzing out and doing continual figure eight patterns around the exhibit while the other cat was staring at it like it was crazy
After we went to the zoo, we went around shopping as Wassy needed to pick up some art supplies and then headed back to their place to hang out for a bit. Jay was more awake. We ended up hanging around watching TV. She showed me how to do her version of Chicken Scampi which was excellent...adding another dish to my inventory. Then we watched the first Futurama movie which is something I really need to get the DVDs of. I missed the show when it was first on and it's totally awesome.
Sunday was just a very lazy sort of day. I played some Rock Band 2, did my laundry and a little cleaning...but mostly it was just kinda lounging around and relaxing. This week is going to be short and long. I'm taking Thursday and Friday off but this weekend We're planning a get together with my friends. And old school halloween type sleepover deal. Scary movies, visit to a haunted house, interspersed with various games and lots of rock band (I'm bringing my 360 over with me). I can't wait until friday!
I'll leave you with a final zoo picture, of a Meerkat and his lounging buddy.
Yesterday I went over to my friends place, as per usual on weekends. This week we had planned on going to see Wall-E, having dinner at their place and then generally hanging out for the rest of the evening. Which we did.
Wall-E was incredible. I can't say much without totally spoiling the story for anyone who hasn't seen it so I won't discuss the plot very much. What I will say is that it jumped instantly to one of my favorite Pixar movies, if not the absolute favorite. It's very different from their other movies. While the other Pixar films are aimed at kids with things thrown in for adults, Wall-E seems like it's aimed at adults with some things in there to please the children. I can't imagine this movie keeping the attention of young children for long.
The animation and everything was spectacular and they were really able to get across a lot of emotion in the way Wall-E moved and sounded. The story had a message to get across, but it wasn't overbearing. This truly was an example of animation as an art in moden cinema. GO SEE IT. And the short in front of the movie was my absolute favorite Pixar short ever.
After that we went back to their place after a couple quick stops to pick up a little ball they could stick a ferret in so it can roll around the apartment and stuff for dinner. While the food was being prepared, Jay played a little more Silent Hill 2 (which has finally gotten to the scary parts). We watched Batman: Gotham Knight while we were eating dinner (mmm...spaghetti and meatballs) which was kinda eh. The movie...not the dinner. It's a bunch of little batman shorts with animation from studios in japan. It was...strange and I really don't think the caliber of the people who worked on it managed to show through. A "the whole is less than the sum of it's parts" kind of situation.
After that it devolved into a general hanging out type situation as Wassy wanted to work on her art. I had brought my laptop so I played some City of Heroes while we watched a special on the Galapagos Islands. It was neat. Except for the part about the turtles mating habits. That was disturbing. I also didn't realize that there were penguins that lived on the Galapagos Islands, but there were. And after that discovery I was eagerly awaiting the section where they discuss the penguins...what I got was a brief mention and a little bit of footage when they were discussing the ocean currents that play a role in the climate of the islands. However, fate is cruel. Just after I left they started playing the documentary over again and Wassy sent me an e-mail saying that I had missed the penguin part because they did it right in the beginning. Bah!!!
All in all it was a very relaxing day
I think I may have mentioned that I have a 2008 Origami page a day calendar for this year. If not, well...I just did. Anyway, this week is the one that I and my unhealthy obsession was waiting for. Yes, that's right, the week I get to fold lots and lots of origami penguins! The first one was done today, after much trial and error. The wings in particular were quite difficult to figure out what the heck it was they wanted us to do.
Show us what the weekend has in store for you.
A little too late to show what the weekend holds. How about what it did already:
Since I was at the zoo, I snapped a couple of mandatory pictures of animals. So here we go.
I'm too tired to post much more right now though, so a full roundup of today's activities will be forthcoming tomorrow at some point.
Well, not MY moving day. I went over to my friends place today to help them carry their large items from their storage space into their brand spaking new apartment.
Yeah...their couch is really heavy. REALLY heavy. And their mattress is HUGE. I never want to push a mattress that big up a flight of stairs ever again.
I'm going to be extremely sore tomorrow I think. We managed to move all the big stuff in around about 5 hours (with lots of rest breaks, one bottle of lemonade and one bottle of water). I should have wore shorts today. I'm definitely very tired right now.
Oooh, in addition to stealing their air conditioning unit (right after the weather started getting cold) I was surprised with an extra gift for helping in the move.
Penguin wine! Wooo! I have no idea how that penguin is holding that wine glass over there, but it doesn't matter. The artwork is just cool...and sophisticated too.
Anyway, I need to head out to the Syracuse Zoo and pick up a wine bottle holder thingy for this to use for some display action. Why the zoo you ask? Because the zoo had the absolute best wine bottle holder. It makes the wine bottle look like it's being carried off by a bunch of drunken penguins.
It rocks!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to pass out...
I promised penguin pictures from the zoo and, darn it...I'm going to deliver! I forgot my full camera, but I took these using my camera phone. I want a penguin :( But since I can't have that...here's some pics of the Homboldt penguins at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse.
You may have noticed I changed my blog theme. That's because it's been so hot out the past few days, I've decided to try and trick myself into believing it's cooler with penguins and icebergs. I don't think it's working.
It got up to at least 90 yesterday, probably a little higher and it's going to do the same thing today too. Last night I escaped to my friends place which was much, much cooler than my apartment was. We went out to dinner and then did some more music listening. I also played with their cat some. I want a cat someday...Well, I actually want their cat (or a clone of their cat) but, it'll probably be a while before both things are actually possible. In any case, going over to their place last night made yesterday feel like Friday, which it wasn't. So now I feel like I'm working on the weekend and, since we're planning on going out to Syracuse to the Zoo this weekend, well...today is going to crawl by too.
I also spent some time yesterday reorganizing my facebook profile since another one of my friends uses the site that I didn't know about, so I figured now that I have 3 friends, I'd spruce the place up a little bit. There's an awful lot of face book apps out there these days.
That's about all there is to report for now...I promise penguin pictures when I get back. Higher quality penguin pictures considering I now have an actual (although broken) camera.
It was a good decision, since we spent the entire afternoon at the zoo. It was (thankfully) a shortish walk away from the metro stop.
There's not really a heck of a lot I can say about activities here since it was mostly just looking at animals. Memorable creatures included the Maned Wolf, which as we learned, has very, very strong smelling urine which they apparently use to communicate.
We also saw an Emu that I could have swore was showing off for the camera. It enjoyed hanging out by the fence with all the people there, striking bird like poses and basking in all of the attention.
They had Giant Pandas as well, but I was unable get a really good shot of one because of how far away from the fence they liked to hang out.
Unfortunately, my camera battery died about halfway through the zoo, so I wasn't able to get as many pictures as I would have liked. I was so tired from all the walking that when we got back to the hotel room the past two nights, I forgot to charge it. It's got a pretty good battery life otherwise though, as I found out.
Another camera hiccup...it seemed to enjoy focusing on the cages the animals were in and not on the animals themselves. So I ended up getting an awful lot of pictures of wires and bars with fuzzy animals in the background. Oh well...I know for next time.
Lunch was at the zoo. A little over eight dollars for a Mcdonalds style burger and small fries. I suppose it was going to fund animal conservation though, so that's all right. I bought a little stuffed penguin at the panda gift shop even though they don't have penguins at the zoo (figure that one out) and was teased by my friends for collecting "dolls". Everybody has a hobby! There's nothing wrong with it! NOTHING!
Dinner on Day 4 ended up being at the hotel restaurant which ended up being really, really good for a pretty decent price. After that, it was bedtime since we were leaving pretty early the next day in order for me to be back for the second round Syracuse NIT mens basketball game I wanted to see Monday night.
Cut to the next morning we were all feeling pretty blah. We pack up, and go to load up the car. Tragedy strikes...we left the dome light in the back on when we were unpacking...4 days ago. The battery was dead and the maintenance guys with the jumper cables and battery stuff weren't going to get in for another 20 minutes. We waited back in the hotel lobby. Eventually they arrived, but they weren't the brightest group of people in the universe and it took them about an hour and a half to figure out that they needed to bring their truck around and jump start it that way.
Finally we left and after an almost stop-free ride back home, my friends dropped me off at my parents house and then we left immediatley for the game.
Vacation...complete.
For more day 4 pictures, you can check my flickr account. Click here!
Wow, yesterday was exhausting.
I got a call from my sister at 8:22am. "Santa came! Get over here so we can open presents!" The plan was for me to head over at 9, but I guess she got a little antsy. Fine by me. I head over to my parents house for the ritual cinnamon bun and Christmas gift exchange. I ended up with a bunch of penguin themed kitchen items. Woohoo! Oh, and some cleaning supplies. It's amazing how much you appreciate this kind of stuff after you move out. I also now have a LARGE stack of games that I need to play, and a pair of Sennheiser HD-595s which are AWESOME. I can't stop listening to these things.
After the gifts, we hung out at my parents for a couple hours and headed for my apartment after lunch for the Wii party.
That part went really well. First of all, I discovered that I CAN fit 5 people in my apartment without some sort of a pry bar to get them all through the door. We mostly played Wii Sports Bowling, Tennis and Powershots from the training section. I tried introducing Rayman, but I'm not sure they were quite ready for that as far as wrapping their heads around the motion control. Maybe some other time.
The best part was my sister boxing her fiance. They REALLY went at it. My sister won.
We finished up with the Wii (My sister complaining that her arm hurt. I warned her!) and went to my grandmothers to meet with the rest of the family. 5 hours of kids running wild, catching up with everybody and, of course, the traditional Christmas Eve game of Pitch. As usual, we split up into teams, girls against the guys. The guys cleaned up this year.
After all of that I fell into bed around 10:30ish and just got up a few minutes before I started writing this post. This afternoon I'm headed out to my Aunts house to take care of the family stuff for my dad's side. My parents might be coming back here for a little bit for some more Wii action as well. Not sure on that, we'll have to see when they call me.
