Snakes on a Plane is Terrible. Go See It.

Is this the right movie? Is that a beach with surfers and chicks? Is that a Jack Johnson song playing in the background?

Did I accidentally wander into the sequel to that terrible/amazing chick surfer movie that everyone saw but no one admits to seeing?

Even when the name "Samuel L. Jackson" appears on the screen, I have doubts, because, as Chris Griffin astutely notes in "Brian Goes to Hollywood", Samuel L. Jackson is in EVERYTHING.

Never fear. This is, in fact, "Snakes on a Plane", and the crowd is bursting with ironic hysteria.

I'm not a big fan of irony. I've been through the RATT poster/trucker hat/Prairie View A&M ROTC tee shirt phase, and it taught me that false sincerity done with a deadpan is actually much funnier than irony, even though people sometimes think that you're dorky/conservative/a racist asshole.

With my hatred of irony in mind, I debated my theater choice fairly carefully. I had two options:

1) This jacked-up new movie theater near Penn's campus with ASSIGNED SEATING (no lie). College kids love irony. Unfortunately, college irony is EXTREMELY basic; shit like: "This is the greatest movie ever. " "Samuel L. deserves an Oscar." "I'm gonna laugh at every line, even those that aren't funny." Vomit.

2) The ghetto theater. Watching movies with black people is fucking hilarious, because they talk the ENTIRE time. Unfortunately I'm white, so going to the ghetto theater means that people are constantly staring at me and trying to sell me things. Sucks.

In the end, I opt for the assigned seats and the irony, mostly because I don't feel like getting stared-at.

The plot is fairly basic: Surfer dude witnesses murder committed by famous Asian gangster. Surfer dude decides to fly to Los Angeles accompanied by FBI agent Samuel L. Jackson so that he can testify and put famous Asian gangster behind bars. Famous Asian gangster, in an attempt to kill surfer dude, places a shitload of angry snakes on the plane and sprays them with aggressive juice. Snakes infiltrate plane and cause chaos.

I was a tough sell. I was pulling the stoic shit at first, i.e. refusing to laugh while all the silly college students around me laughed hysterically at the fact that they were laughing hysterically at a really stupid movie. However, once the snakes start attacking, it's impossible not to enjoy yourself. Every type of awful death-by snake scenario is played out in full, including the scene where the British asshole gets crushed and eaten whole by a python. Time and time again I lose my shit. I become one with the irony. When SLJ says his "muthafuckin snakes" line, I applaud with the rest. How droll.

The movie is everything you'd expect. If you're afraid of snakes, don't go. If you're afraid of flying, don't go. If you're afraid of neither, the one scene where the chick who's having sex in the plane bathroom gets bit in the nipple is probably worth the $10.

Mets vs. Phillies 8/14-18: Game 2

So terrorists are fucking geniuses. They've managed to fuck with my world twice in the past week.

1) As I board the bus home from New York, some tiny Indian dude announces himself as "greyhound security" and informs me that he will be searching my bag and prodding me with a metal detector. Resisting the urge to pat him on the head, call him cute, and walk past him onto he bus, I submit to the search, confident that I'll pass the inspection with flying colors.

Greyhound Security: (w/Indian accent) Your pockets, please.
Me: My what?
GS: Your POCKETS, please.
Me: Like, you want me to empty them?
GS: Yes.


So I empty my pockets into the little ash-tray container and his eyes light up like hot coals.

GS: I am going to have to keep these.
Me: My gum wrappers?
GS: No, sir, your weapons.
Me: My what?
GS: Your pocket knife and your lighter, sir.
Me: You can't take my pocket knife and my lighter.
GS: You cannot have them on the bus.
Me: But what if the bus breaks down and I need to walk back to civilization? I'll need my knife to fend off feral beasts and I'll need my lighter to provide fire, the gift of the gods.
GS: I am not taking your cellular phone, sir. You may call for assistance.
Me: It's out of batteries.
GS: Then you can use someone else's cellular phone.
Me: Okay, so what if China drops the bomb, and it's strategically placed to knock out all communication, and no cellular phones are operational? Then I'm fucked. I would need my knife and my lighter to survive.
GS: You cannot take them on the bus.


Terror Strikes!


2) Game 2 of our 4 game series. I approach the stadium with a gallon jug of water, planning to bring it inside and feed my oral fixation so that I don't resort to buying 5 dollar hot dogs.

Security: Sorry, sir, you can't bring that in here
Me: What?
S: That water. It's an open container.
M: It's water.
S: But it could be liquid explosives.
M: But it isn't. It's just water.
S: No open liquid containers are allowed in the stadium.
M: Don't you think that if I were trying to blow up the stadium I would make a little more effort to conceal my weapon?
S: Sometimes the best disguise is no disguise, especcially when your enemy is expecting one.
M: I disagree. The best disguise is always a fake mustache.
S: That's your opinion, sir.
M: So, since my water bottle isn't wearing a fake mustasche, you should let me bring it into the stadium.
S: The trash can is right there.

Terror Strikes!

In any case, Jose Reyes is my favorite player. I have his teeshirt jersey, so I have an active interest in his success/failure. When he has a good game, it makes me almost as happy as when the Mets win.

Thank God.

Reyes hit three home runs in a 11-4 loss. Two as a righty and one as a lefty. This is HUGE because it means that I can wear my Jose Reyes teeshirt jersey in Philly and no one can say a god-damned thing to me. He owns Philly like that Indian dude owns my knife.

BTW at my place of work I can get Swiss Army knives at cost, so if you want one, let me know.

My Computer is Going to BLOW UP

What should I do?

For those of you who missed it, Dell has issued a recall for certain models that contain a defective battery. This battery, if left to overheat, will explode, and your computer will burst into flames (no joke). I have one of these computers. I could

1) Take out the battery, send it to Dell, wait a few weeks, get my new battery, and move on with my life, OR I could

2) Risk it.

Time for a coin toss.

Heads: do it
Tails: risk it

(...)


Tails it is.

Mets vs. Phillies 8/14-18: Game 1

Upon entering Citizens Bank Park (the Cit) on August 14th, I ponder my first dilemma of the evening. The $12 ticket that I'm clutching in my hand is the cheapest way into the building for a reason; the view is obstructed by the right-field foul pole. So instead of sitting in my awesome seat I decide to watch the game from the standing room section. The problem is that I also like to go watch the pitchers warm up before the game, and I'm afraid that if I go out to the bullpen I'll lose my prime standing spot right behind home plate. The hated Mets are, after all, a big draw.

Coin Toss.

Heads: Watch Pitchers
Tails: Stake Turf

Tails it is.

I claim the best standing location and settle in for what promises to be quite a game. The pitchers are Cole Hamels, Philly's rookie phenom, and Pedro Martinez, a future hall of famer. I prefer good pitching to good hitting, and I'm looking forward to a nice quick 3-2 Mets victory, with Martinez, the wily veteran, outdueling Hamels, the young buck. The top of the first lives up to my expectations. Hamels gives up one hit, but yields no runs.

The bottom of the first is less satisfying.

It starts off innocently enough. Leadoff hitter Jimmiy Rollins hits a single. Fine. A double play and we're back on track.

Then Rollins steals second, which not only breaks up the double play, but also gives Mets catcher Paul Lo Duca an opportunity to embarass himself by throwing the ball in the dirt. Not that he needs any help embarassing himself these days...

Lo Duca has recently become the primary subject of the New York Sports paparazzi's ire (taking the pressure off a grateful A-Rod). In addition to exposing his gambling "problem" (i.e. he likes to do it), they've also succeeded in laying bare his recent fling with a 19 year-old college student. Now consider that 1) Lo Duca is currently estranged from his Playmate wife, who lives in Texas and 2) he's a major league baseball player, who is probably surrounded by beautiful willing females from sun-up to sun-down, and ask yourself it you can blame the guy for getting a nut from some stupid college girl. Is he supposed to jerk off until his wife comes home? Give me a break. Still, that doesn't stop the New York press from pressing his face on the back of their shoddier sports pages (and, frankly, didn't stop me from buying a paper to read about it). Now he's officially getting divorced, and he'll lose significantly more than half.


After two hits and a walk, the score is 1-0 and the bases are loaded. Then, WITH THE BASES LOADED (I repeat), Pedro HITS Rowan. WHAT? How the fuck are you gonna hit a batter with the bases loaded? (2-0) It's fine. He'll recover. Wait. What? He did WHAT? HE BALKED???!!! He balked. The runners advance (3-0).

When he hits Coste (the second hit batter in a row)to load the bases, the boos that followed the first plunk have turned into cheers and jeers. The crowd now recognizes that the Mets ace has lost control. When Abraham Nunez, their 8th hitter, drills one in to the gap to clear the bases (6-0), all hope of a Mets victory has left. It's going to be a long night.

And a long night it was. With Cole Hamels pitching a fucking gem (8 innings, 3 hits, 0 walks, 0 runs), the most exciting thing that happened the rest of the night was a heated interracial lesbian make-out session on KissCam. Oh yeah, and...

After the bottom of the 5th, when Philly had taken a 13-0 lead, The Phucking Philly Phanatic, dressed in tails, rolls out on the field amidst deafening applause and does a dance routine to Sinatra's "New York New York." He finishes the number by smashing a Mets batting helmet with a sledgehammer and then doing a couple victory laps on his ATV.

Apparently Philly got a little break tonight from the little town blues. Tomorrow, I told myself, would be a different story. Let's Go Mets.

Mets vs. Phillies 8/14-18: Introduction

With all due respect to Chicago and Boston, Philadelphia is the most enthusiastic and hostile sports town in the U.S.

Philly hasn't won a title since 1980. When they do, and the emotional dam breaks, the corresponding celebration/destruction will be a serious study in the violence of the collective. We'll blow up buildings. We'll kill cops. We may even attempt to take City Hall and establish mob rule.

Philly fans are so hungry for a title that they 1) care about the NHL 2) act all incredulous when you tell them that Philly fans are the only people that care about the NHL 3) care about the NHL anyway. The NHL, for those of you who don't live in Southeastern PA, is the National Hockey League. Hockey is a game played on ice with sticks.

I'm a Mets fan, and the Mets are 6th on the "most hated teams" list. 1) Cowboys, 2) Giants, 3)Devils, 4) Redskins, and 5) Rangers. Most cities don't have the requisite negative energy to hate 6 teams. In Philly, there's enough and more to spare.

Correspondingly, I hate the fucking Phillies. I smiled when they traded Schilling. I cheered when Joe Carter went yard. I popped the bub when John Kruk was diagnosed with testicular cancer (JOKING). I've been surrounded by all these hoagie eating, vowel swallowing, SEPTA riding fucks for the past 15 years of my life, and if I hear one more person pronounce water "woodur", I'm gonna vomit my cheesesteak with fried onions and saltpepperketchup (which happens to be one word in Philly, just like LMNO is actually one letter) all over my newly purchased Jose Reyes teeshirt/jersey.

However, my hatred of the Phillies pre-dates the great migration of '89 (from North Jersey to Pottstown PA). I hated the Phillies BEFORE I encountered the seemingly endless animosity of the Philly fan base. Not suprisingly, this hatred stems from one of the various phobiae that I developed as a young child. Other such phobiae include but are not limited to:

1) Cows: I would have nightmares about cows, from which I would wake up screaming, "COW! COW!"

2) Gremlins: "Oh, don't worry Nicky, it's not a scary movie. It's a comedy." A comedy. So fucking funny that I slept with my lights on until I was twelve.

3) Elephants: The fucking lunatic children that actually said "yes" when the creepy-looking clown asked if anyone wanted to ride on the elephant obviously had enough trust in oddly attired adults to override the primitive fear of getting too close to animal that could kill you if it stepped on you. Not me.

4) The Cat in the Hat: A talking cat breaks into your house while your parents are away, messes everything up, and then attones for the several hours of panic and stress by cleaning and disappearing right before mom comes home. Otherwise known as a) trespassing b) breaking and entering c) interference with use/enjoyment of a chattel and d) intentional infliction of emotional distress.

and then...

5) The Philly Phanatic. The Philly Phanatic is big, green, unnatural, and aggressive. When I went to see the Mets vs. the Phillies at the old Vet in 1988, he terrified the shit out of me.

That fear, however, quickly turned to hatred (as it often does) as soon as he/it started to taunt my beloved Mets. Dragging an effigy of Doc Gooden from the back of his ATV, the Phanatic drove around in front of the Mets' dugout, pointing and sticking out his tongue. This offended my burgeoning sense of justice long before I could explain to you exactly how, if the Phanatic were an Iliadic hero, this act of blatant hubris would set the machinery of cosmic justice into motion, punishing the Phanatic for acting out of his place (I'll spare you all).

I remember asking my dad: "Why doesn't Gooden come out of the dugout with a baseball and hit the Phanatic in the head?" He replied with something about 1st degree murder.

With all this in mind, I decided to go to every game of the four game set between the Mets and the Phillies from August 14-18. Let's Go Mets.

Floyd Landis is a CHEATER

Myths report that the gods gave Greek hero extraordinaire Achilles a choice between two appealing options: 1) live a long, happy life and die anonymously or 2) live a short, glorious life and gain immortality through legend. He chose the latter, and 3,400 years later the gods have remained true to their word.

Today's heros are given a similar choice. The gods of the 20th century are scientists, and the pathways to immortality are performance enhancing drugs.

The main misconception about performance enhancing drugs is that they are mainly designed to produce gigantic, body-builderish muscles. False. PEDs speed the process of recovery, thus making them more useful for athletes that push their bodies beyond the reasonable limits of human activity and then require quick recovery so that they can go out and do it again (such as pitchers - whose success hinges largly on how quickly their muscles can recover from the jarring experience of throwing 100 or more pitches - or cyclists).

Another misconception, perhaps fueled by the furious wave of media attention surrounding Barry Bonds and the Senate hearings of two years ago, is that PEDs are primarily limited to baseball. Absurd.

Cycling is one of those sports that demands a lot from its athletes and requires a quick recovery time - an ideal sport for use of PEDs.

I, personally, am of the school that Lance Armstrong was a fucking cheater. It makes too much sense. A high profile testicular cancer survivor would have access to the absolute best in new, effective, likely undetectable, testosterone boosting suppliments. How else could he maintain the focus and form necessary to win 7 tours in a row? The conspiricy theorist in me says the US government is behind this, wanting to produce a cancer survivor American hero to give our cancer sufferers hope. Granted, the Livestrong thing has raised money and awareness to fight cancer, so the ends clearly justify the means. But still. Cheater.

There are a couple ways to look at the Floyd Landis situation.

1) Cheater

Floyd cheated. The test results show atificial testosterone in the bloodstream. They coincide with perhaps the greatest one-day comeback in the history of the race. Coincidence? I think not.

2) Victim

a) The Frogs are pissed that they could never catch Lance. Lance was untouchable. Public opinion was so firmly behind him that even the most convincing evidence would fall short. So, in an act of insideous revenge, the Frogs take out their indignation on Floyd Landis, the next American foolish enough to stick his head out. Someone tampers with the samples, causing the testosterone boost to coincide with Landis's miraculous comeback. Landis, framed, takes the fall.

OR

b) Everyone dopes. The French single out Landis because he won and he's an American. Fuckers.

Did Landis cheat? Probably. Do I care? Not really. Personally, I think they should just make steroids legal. If you want to sacrifice a long, active life for a brief flash and a shot at immortality, that's YOUR CHOICE. Right Achilles?

(I'm ignoring the fact that Achilles ends up regretting his decision)

Subject Headings in my Bulk Folder

softy precedence
tawny seventy
clubhouse leaf
perishable depart
impression groceries
circulatory
oxide pragmatism
circuitous adornment
site
riverfront
unofficially
bilateral tree
shortfall gentile
dumpling
stipulate explicit
rider
motivate
inquisition treachery
misplaced hallucinogenic
medication lisp
cargo
idea

Clientele: Live in Philly 8/2/06

Remember that time when you were a 7th grader in Catholic School and you decided to "invade" your rival school by going to their "dance" and stealing all their women? And remember how you sat in a corner, talked to no one, drank a coke, and eventually snuck over to the snack table and wrote "Holy Family Sucks" on the white tablecloth?

I do.

These memories were in full force when I walked into the basement of the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia last night to see Clientele. The room reeked of Middle School dance, from the folded-up cafeteria tables in the other room, to the small wooden stage, to the tables in the back of the room where merchandise and cds took the place of the expected pretzels and coke.

There were a couple more factors that distinguished this outing from your standard Middle School dance:

1) Records on sale. Everything from a mint Highway 61 Revisited ($15.00) to a virtually unplayable Chris de Burgh's Greatest Hits that didn't even have "Lady in Red" on it ($1.00).

2) No Air Conditioning. It's 100 degrees outside and I'm in a basement with no AC and no natural ventilation. To illustrate my point I'm going to ask you to try something right now: breathe in through your nose, exhale, and then breathe in through your mouth. You'll notice that when you breathe through your mouth, the air is both colder and drier than when you breathe through your nose. This is because the nose warms and moisturizes air to prepare it for the lungs. Last night, there was NO DIFFERENCE between the a nose inhale and a mouth inhale. The air was as warm and moist as the inside of my body.

3) Mature, adult, copious, I-haven't-showered-in-three-weeks body odor. Not even the middle schooler that already had armpit hair in 7th grade could have competed with this crew.

Oh yeah, there was also the band. Clientele was fair. Maybe the heat put me in a mood to be overly critical but the bass and guitar were clearly NOT in tune with one another, which frustrated the shit out of me on the songs that I didn't know. On the songs I did know, I could just shut my eyes and remember what the song sounded like on the CD.

There was a gorgeous blonde thing who was in charge of 1) standing in the middle of the stage, 2) looking hot, and 3) playing a violin that no one could hear. I swear she looked at me like twice.

Sampling older and newer material, Clientele saved my two favorite Clientele songs, "Since K Got Over Me" and "My Own Face Inside the Trees", for the end, which proves to me that my two favorite Clientele songs are everybody's two favorite Clientele songs and they save them for the end of shows to make sure that people like me stay the whole time. Mission Accomplished.

The sound man for the FUC (an inherently funny human: black, balding, his remaining hair in dreads) was called "the hardest working man in show business" by frontman Alasdair MacLean after a series of incidents in which the hot violinist asked for "more violin" and didn't get any because our inherently funny sound man was out having a cigarette.

Advice to Clientele for producing a better show:

1) Tune your instruments
2) Pick a better venue
3) Convince the hot blonde violinist to put down the violin and take off her clothes (it was hot enough that no one would have judged).

I'm out.

Junior Boys: So This Is Goodbye

Modern music can be difficult for a bass player. New bands that never took piano lessons excuse their inability to write songs by calling themselves "experimental" and talking about how they want to build music horizontally (i.e. with spacing and texture) instead of vertically (i.e. with chord changes). Additionally, hip-hop acts that want their records to "blow up" write beats that translate to the clubs and shitty stereos, where bass sounds muddy and unappealing. Between these two phenomena, bass lines are often either extremely boring or simply non-existant.

When the Junior Boys debuted in 2004, critics had a difficult time nailing them down. What is it about the Boys' sound that's so appealing? Are they Indie Dance? Dance Indie? Indie Pop? Post-Genre Theme Quaftar? Allow me to clarify: Last Exit is in a category of its own because it was the first electronic pop album that made extensive and high-quality use of the bottom end.

So This is Goodbye, the Junior Boys' sophomore effort, builds on the work of its predecessor without mimicking it. The strong bottom end hasn't left, but the Boys are more confident with their synths and shuffling drum beats, providing some compelling moments where they abandon the rich, headphone-friendly tones of their debut for a more computer-speaker-friendly style that will appeal to the legions of Postal Service devotees waiting for the next "Such Great Heights". With a solid balance between old and new, light and dark, hard and soft, So This is Goodbye will undoubtedly join the discussion for Album of the Year.

The first track, "Double Shadow", picks up where Last Exit left off, with the bass carrying the main weight of the track without being obvious about it, and with light synths and whispery vocals filling space and serving as icing on an extremely tasty cake. However, not content to become a mockery of itself, So This Is Goodbye moves quickly into new territory, offering more balance and variety than its predecessor. "First Time" is a welcome respite from the traditional Junior Boys style, with the bass taking a back seat and serving as the butter to the synth's bread. "Like a Child" reminds us that we're dealing with masters of spacing who reject the wall of sound and use absolutely no unnecessary effects.

The lyrics leave something to be desired. The words are not bad per se, but the melodies are metrical round holes into which the lyrics are shoved like square pegs (for an example of this in popular music, see Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" where she says "fruSTRAted"). It's a shame, because the lyrics are loud and clear enough to be understood, and the awkwardness will undoubtedly distract listeners from the excellent music playing underneath.

Metrical difficulties aside, The Junior Boys have managed to avoid the sophomore slump, producing an album that 1) embraces the strength of the debut without beating it into the ground and 2) moves gracefully into new territory without going through an agonizing and potentially jarring identity crisis. Bass players worldwide will rejoice.

At The Zoo

I went to the zoo this weekend and it was AWESOME.

The last time you went to the zoo, you 1) were five years old 2) had your face painted like a zebra and inexplicably roared at passing pidgeons and peacocks and 3) really really wanted an ice cream cone.

With parents watching their kids and kids watching the ice cream stands, I felt like I was the only person looking at the most interesting part of any zoo - the animals.

Top 5 Favorite Animals (i.e. animals that most interest/frighten/amaze me)

1. Alligators
3 (tie). Bats
3 (tie). Penguins
4. Small Active Monkeys
5. Hippos

honorable mentions - any bird (they can fly).
- aquatic mammals (evolved from rats)

1. Alligators have a special place in my heart. When I was eight, my mother thought it would be a good idea to take me - a child notoriously afraid of everything - to GATORLAND, an "amusement" park in Orlando that specialized in alligators. After watching "The Big Jumperoo" (alligators leap 7 feet out of the water to grab chickens) and subsequently wetting myself, I refused to enter any pool in the state of Florida for fear of being dragged under water, spun around in circles, drowned, thrown under a nearby rock to soften, and then eaten three days later (i.e. death by alligator).

3 (tie). Bats and Penguins are impressive because they're freaks. A bird that swims? A mammal that flies? Birds are supposed to fly and mammals are supposed to scurry around on land (or, if they're especially sweet, swim around in water, but my fascination with aquatic mammals will have to wait for another day...). Either way, these animals, through evolutionary magic, have developed the ability to cross (successfully) into the areas reserved for members of other classes. Congratulations. For your bravery in the face of adversity, you are awarded a tie for third place on my list of sweet animals.

4. Small, active monkeys are fucking amazing. Have you seen these little fuckers? They look just like people. Just imagine what we humans must have been like before we came out of the trees and started farming and building cities: leaping around from tree to tree, eating fruit and throwing our feces at lions. Why did we come down????

5. Last but not least, I give you the hippo. Everyone thinks hippos are cute cuddly friendly herbivores. The last part is true, but it doesn't prevent them from killing more humans per year than lions, alligators, and sharks combined. No shit. There are two crucial mistakes that humans make with hippos: we 1) take boats into their mating grounds (instant death) and we 2) get between them and the water. The latter is interpreted as an attempt to cut off their escape route (a trick that lions use often) and generally inspires hippos to lunge aggressively and crush humans with their massive jaws. Not pretty.


In any case, all of my favorite animals are in one way or another represented at the Philadelphia Zoo.

Now, bear in mind that the day was HOT. The lions were lying down. The zebras were standing in the shade. The hippos, #5 on my list, were engaged in the exhausting activity of sitting underwater and moving as little as possible. No bone crushing attacks. No open jaws. No aggressive behavior at ALL. I was hoping to witness something exciting, like the untimely death of a poorly trained summer assistant who wandered between the hippo and his chlorinated pool. Nothing. Boring. Grade: D

I don't remember exactly when it happened, but at some point I decided that I was going to try to make eye=contact with as many animals as possible. My efforts had been largely frustrated (distance and heat being major impediments) as I approached the giant tortoise's pen. To my surprise and delight he turned his head as I approached, looking right at me. "Success!" I thought. Having achieved my initial goal (eye contact) so quickly, I moved swiftly to telepathy. I spent the next 15 minutes thinking that I was sending messages such as "it must be a pain in the ass carrying that huge shell around, but I guess it's good protection" or "don't you wish you were swimming right now?" only to realize that the tortoise had NOT turned his head because he wanted look at me, but because he wanted to place his head in the shade of a nearby tree. As I walked away, the tortoise didn't turn to watch me leave. Slightly miffed, I moved on. Grade: C+

The bat display at the Philadelphia Zoo is unimpressive. I understand that running a bat exhibit is no easy task: if it's well lit, the bats remain stationary. If it's dark, the people can't see the bats. Philadelphia opted for the well lit approach. Great. Sleeping rats. In fact, the most interesting part of the bat display was its proximity to the lemur cage, where a 50 year-old guy was talking authoritatively about lemurs. Hilariously, he was pronouncing lemur leh-mur instead of lee-mur, i.e. : "Oohh, look! It's the white-tailed leh-mur. Leh-murs are very good climbers. Look at that leh-mur go! Leh-murs are found in East Africa..." Etc. His poor kid is going to be in bio class one day and tell his teacher that he's mispronouncing lemur and be wrong. Like when I told people that the wind came from cars (thanks mom). Grade: B

I actually didn't see the penguins.

The small active monkeys didn't disappoint at all. I put forth all my skill at the monkey cage, attempting to communicate with my not-so distant cousin. It worked. He stopped and looked at me. Then he looked away and starting swinging from a rope and antagonizing another monkey. Then he turned around and checked to see if I was still looking at him. I was. I looked at him as if to say, "hop over here to this branch." He did it. We sat there looking at each other for like five seconds and then the monkey he had been antagonizing came over and started antagonizing him. The bond was broken, but in that five second window I swear I saw the capacity for rational thought. Grade: B+

Encouraged by my success with the monkey, I went over to the reptile house. I wanted to see if I was a parseltounge. I sat in front of the boa constrictor for about 20 minutes, waiting for it to nod and wink at me, waiting to be amazed as my lips started to hiss and spit a language that I did not know that I knew, waiting to set the boa free and watch him terrorize the group of small children who were saying that a certain snake looked like a "turd".

No such luck.

As I turned to exit the reptile house, I was momentarily paralysed by the display in the last cage: the Nile Crocodile. It was staring right at me. For a second I struggled to meet his gaze, but then, as my heart rate sped up and familiar sensations of terror coursed through my limbs, I looked away. Was I ready for this?

Refusing to yield to my stupid childish phobia, I pulled an ugly face, squared my shoulders, walked over to the window and put my middle finger on the glass right up next to his face. He didn't flinch, but he looked me right in the eye and spoke to me, as clear as can be:

"I own you, you little shit. You're so afraid of me that you barely have the courage to put your fucking hand up next to the glass. If I weren't in this cage, I would grab your fucking arm, drag you into this pool, spin you around under water until you drowned, put you under a rock and then eat you three days later when your nasty flesh had softened up a little bit."

Unfazed, I stared right back at him and replied:

"Then I guess it's too bad you're in the fucking cage."

HA.

Grade: A+

It's good to be human.