Happy Fifth Anniversary First YouTube Video

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the first video ever uploaded to YouTube. If you're expecting something monumental or visionary or anything other than boring as hell, you're going to be disappointed. The video consists merely of am 18-second clip of Jawed Karim, the co-founder of YouTube at...are you ready for it?....At...the San Diego zoo. That's right. The zoo. Not any sort of behind the scenes tour at the zoo (whatever that would even consist of) or anything like that. Nope. Just the zoo. The elephants to be exact.

OK, it's not JUST the elephants. Because that would be silly...or something. No, Jawed (is that like Jared with a lisp?) gives us commentary on the elephants. 18 seconds of pachyderm commentary. How exciting. And groundbreaking. But not much else. And actually, I was lying about the exciting part.

"All right. So, here we are, in front of the elephants. And the cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long, uh...trunks. And that's...that's cool. And that's pretty much all there is to say."

That's pretty much all there is to say? That's a little bit more than I would have expected there would have been to say. They're freaking elephants. What did you expect there to be to say about them? Big ears. Long trunks. Impressive tusks. Back to you.

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Do Not Feed The Bears

From the files of "Really? I'm shocked." we have this little gem from htrnews.com: "An Asiatic black bear at Lincoln Park Zoo bit off all or parts of four fingers from the hand of a 47-year-old woman Friday after she went past barriers and was trying to feed the animal." Uh-huh. And?

Don't get me wrong. I understand why this is news. I just don't understand why it isn't portrayed as the news that it really is. The news that it really is would be that this moronic woman ignored all sorts of signs and barriers at the zoo warning people (including her, I would imagine) to stay away from the cages containing said bears. The news that it really is would be that despite repeated signage and repeated warnings and the continued presence of the bears, this woman went ahead and decided to feed them a little snack. (No word on whether or not a pick-in-ick bas-KET was involved. Boo-boo was unavailable for comment.) I'm not so sure that it's news that a bear (which is a wild animal, don't you know) bit the woman's hand and bit off her fingers. That doesn't seem like it's news, per se.

But it's being treated like news. And it is just what it sounds like it is. (By the way, in the same way that it sounds like what it is, police say that alcohol may have been involved. Again, I'm shocked. Someone help me sit down.) What did the woman think was going to happen? It's a freaking BEAR, for crying out loud!

But here's the part that gets me. According to a one Aaron Buchholz, a wildlife biologist with the the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, "It appears at this point the bears will be saved,"...meaning not euthanized." What?

Why would the bear be euthanized? Because it went all bear on the woman?! How much sense does that make? The woman is moronic enough to stick her hand inside of the bear cage, the bear acts like a bear and eats her fingers off and it's the bear who should be euthanized?! Does it make me a bad person if I ask why we're not talking about euthanizing someone that dense?

Instead of euthanizing the bears who were just acting like bears, the woman, a one Tracy Weiler and her boyfriend, a one Lawrence Bosworth, have both "...agreed to undergo a series of preventative rabies vaccines, he said. The bears will be observed for a few days for signs of rabies." Wait. The bears will be observed for signs of rabies? Umm, look. I'm not a zookeeper. I'm certainly not a bearkeeper. But if you've got a couple of bears in a zoo, shouldn't you already know whether or not they have rabies? I'm not so certain that the "Rabid Bear Display" would go over all that well with animal activists and with most humans when you put it that way!

Apparently "State law requires wild animals to be euthanized if they bite someone unless the victim agrees to the vaccinations." Ohhhh. OK. So it's just a matter of a ridiculously stupid law. If the "victim" agrees to be vaccinated against something that the animal probably doesn't have, then the animal gets to live. BUT, if the "victim" doesn't want to go through the rabies shots, then the animal, who was only acting like an animal, gets put down. That's a fine, fine law you've got going for yourself there, Wisconsin. A fine, fine, bass-ackwards law there. What is wrong with people?

Do you know what the rabies testing involves? Just out of curiosity? I'd never thought much about it before. But fortunately, the fine people at htrnews.com gave us the low down. "...if the animals were put down they (the "victims") would have had to pay for euthanizing the bears and sending their heads to the state laboratory for testing as well as for replacing the bears." Huh.

Why the heads? It's just the heads. Who does that testing? The bear head testing for rabies? I'm guessing you need a degree or a certificate or something. And I can't even begin to imagine what the bear replacement costs would be. You'd have to go through all of the trouble of looking at potential replacement bears, maybe hiring a replacement bear locator service, etc. There's so many factors to consider. I'm guessing that just having rabies vaccinations is a much cheaper way to go as opposed to lopping off the bear's heads, having them tested and then replacing them. Much, much cheaper.

What's the moral of this story? I guess it's the obvious "Don't feed the bears." But can we please start to change the attitude of how these stories are looked upon when a wild animal in captivity acts like a wild animal in captivity and attacks someone? Can't we start to look at these things as being the fault of the humans involved and not the fault of the animals involved? If you're dumb enough to go past a sign that says "Don't go past this sign or you're going to get your fingers eaten off by that there bear" (or something to that effect), can't we repeatedly make it about that instead of about the bears? Please? It's no fun to be stupid, kids. It makes life hard. And your life is going to get a lot harder if you're stupid AND you're missing a bunch of fingers (especially a thumb). Much, much harder.

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Panda's Gone Wild

Panda alert! Panda alert! We have a panda that is acting like....well, a panda! That's right, a panda! Panda alert!

It seems that a panda, yes a panda, a panda in Beijing (the official sponsor of the panda) according to The Telegraph, "...has tasted human blood for the third time after attacking a man who jumped into the animal's enclosure to retrieve his son's toy." Wow. Way to lay the drama on thick there, UK reporter guys. Geez.

GuGu the panda (not to be confused with a distant cousin, GaGa the wallaby) lately seems to be dealing with an inordinate number of people in his living area there at the Beijing zoo. Actually, when there are supposed to be no people in the panda living area, even one person in there is a sure sign to the panda that something is wrong. It's very easy to spot something is awry when "normal" is "nothing" because "something" is therefore "something" and not "nothing".

I don't know what the deal is with the panda enclosure at the Beijing zoo, but if people are just able to hop on over it willy-nilly like they seem to do, perhaps the zoo might want to think about an alternate enclosure for the creature. I'm envisioning something similar to the tiger enclosure the way it used to be at the San Francisco Zoo. In that scenario (right before the tiger bolted from her enclosure to maul two zoo visitors and kill a third) the tiger was kind of on the honor system. It wasn't much more than a curb. really and the zookeepers must have thought that they had some sort of a deal with the tiger. It became clear that was not the case immediately after the tiger escaped and all of the mauling and killing began.

The Beijing Zoo apparently has five pandas. China.org.cn had the handy little graphic below to show where the five pandas are located at the zoo. I don't read Chinese (and the only thing in English on that map are the two emergency exits for some reason), but I'm going to guess that the one with the big yellow "Ka-Blam!" graphic next to it is GuGu. Just a guess, however.


Over there at China.org.cn is a pretty detailed description of what occurred. Apparently, a one Ding Ding (who, to my surprise, was not the name of another panda! No, it was the name of a young boy! He's going to be confused for a panda for the rest of his life whenever someone first hears his name. Poor little Ding Ding the panda. See how easy it is?) dropped his panda toy into the panda enclosure. That's when Ding Ding's Dad, Zhang Xiao (pronounce that however you want because I don't have a clue) jumped over the fence to get the toy. Bad idea number one right there.

Then a panda (presumably GuGu) went rushing at Ding Ding's Dad (who, from now on will be referred to as DDD for the purposes of this post). The key word there is "rushing". Panda, full speed ahead! That's when DDD did the natural thing and got out of the rushing pandas way. As he was trying to escape from inside of the enclosure, "....some bystanders, thinking the panda was harmless, urged him to stand his ground. Zhang stayed where he was and the panda made its attack, knocking Zhang down and biting his left leg." WTF?!

You're in a panda pen with said panda "rushing" at you while a bunch of people who are not in the pen, nor do they have a panda "rushing" at them, tell you "Oh, he's fine! Stay! Stay! Stand your ground, man!" And so you do? Why? What is wrong with you? How many times did he get bit? It wasn't enough. Stupidity deserves to be bit a lot.

"A 40-year-old zookeeper (Do we need to know how old the zookeeper is for a particular reason? Is it just to show that even those who are 40 can still save people from the jaws of a panda?) rushed to the scene and called for help from his fellow keepers. In minutes, the rescuers used hand tools to separate the panda from its victim." Hand tools? What kind of hand tools? Panda-jaw priers? Panda-jaw removal instruments? Panda-jaw insta-openers? What kind of tools? Who makes them? (Wait. Let me guess. Made in China?! I thought so!)

Having a panda's jaws clamped on your leg for any amount of time would be extremely painful. Heck, having any animals jaws clamped on your leg for any amount of time would hurt. It's not just exclusive to panda's that when they bite you it hurts. But despite all of the jaw clamping the man has "...undergone surgery for damage to major ligaments (I'm Major Ligaments! And where is Lieutenant Tendon and Corporal Cartilage?") and been given an anti-rabies vaccine, has no life-threatening injuries." Anti-rabies vaccine? I would assume that a panda, any panda, in a zoo would not have rabies, thus making the anti-rabies vaccine unnecessary. I suppose it could be a precaution, but I'm really thinking that they would know if they had a rabid panda on their hands. (All of the foaming over the bamboo and what not would be a tip off.) Yeah, he looks great down there, doesn't he? Geez.

But this is being reported in the media as if GuGu is some crazed and violent creature who just attacks people at will. (People, of course, who have climbed into her enclosure, that is.) This isn't a house cat. It's a panda bear. A bear. Bears, while they look all nice and cute and always seem quite friendly in cartoons (that Yogi and Boo-Boo always cracked me up) they will sooner knock you down with one paw and proceed to maul you to death in a rather undignified fashion while you scream in horror and agony. That's not very nice and cute and friendly. Pandas, while ever cuter looking because of that black and white facial thing they have going on, are still what? Bears, that is correct. And they will act like bears when? All the time, because they're bears, that is correct as well!

I don't know that I can fault an animal that has been in captivity in a zoo for several years when it attacks or rather, bites a human being who was too dumb to stay out of it's cage. I certainly can't fault it for biting a human being who was too dumb to get out of it's cage. So I think it's a little unfair to characterize the panda as violent or vicious or having a taste for human blood (like it's some sort of panda vampire or something. Though I'd really like to see something like that!). I think that the guy who jumped in the pen and then did decided to stand up to the rushing panda could, however, be fairly characterized as a moron who probably got what he deserved. And after all, the article did say that "Such attacks are frequent in China, where zoo-goers often approach the animals...for a closer look." There ya go! He got what he deserved. It's not like he had never heard of a panda attacking a person before. Happens all the time, apparently. Moron.

Next time, sir, just buy your kid a new toy. It will hurt less.

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Two Girls Can Get Along Just Fine

I don't know a lot about animals and even less about wild animals (and even less than THAT about women, but I digress). But I know that if you have a species that is 'endangered', that's not good. I mean, if you were 'endangered', how would that make you feel? Safe? Secure? I doubt it. On the verge of disappearing from the face of the earth forever? Now, you're talking. Fortunately, humans don't want animals to disappear from the earth anymore than they want themselves to disappear, thus the creation of the Endangered Species List. When animals are on that list, those who are supposed to be 'in the know' about all things animalistic are supposed to aid the creatures in reproducing their species.

Now, if you're thinking that means that they join in, you'd be wrong. You can try it yourself if you don't believe me, but I'd guess you'd be somewhat regretful the next morning when you woke up next to Ling-Ling and couldn't remember the night before. But humans are supposed to pair up the animals in captivity (sort of like the Wild Kingdom version of match.com) and hope that they hit it off enough for them to go at it sufficiently enough to result in the birth of another creature. And who's to say if two creatures are going to hit it off enough to do that? That's why in Japan, they were getting concerned about the two polar bears they had in captivity.

It would seem that back in June, Tsuyoshi, the 4-year-old male polar bear, was paired up with Kurumi, an 11-year-old female bear at the Kushiro Municipal Zoo in Hokkaido (that's in Japan). Actually, Tsuyoshi had been at the zoo for at least 3 years prior to the June hook-up experiment, so the folks at the zoo had been familiar with the bear for quite some time. That will be a factor later on in this story. (Or at least, it should have been!) And apparently age is not a factor in the animal kingdom. From what I can figure, one polar bear year is the about the same as 3-4 human years. So you've got a 12-16 year old male paired up with a 33-44 year old female. Yamma-hamma. That's only like a 21-32 year age difference there, so chances are that older female will be able to teach the younger one a thing or two about...stuff. He would so go off bragging to his buddies after that encounter....if only things had turned out just a bit differently. Just a bit.

Now according to the zookeepers, who were frustrated and a wee bit puzzled according to the folks over there at Reuters - Africa (Yeah, go figure.), "...the bear couple, on a breeding mission, showed no signs of chemistry, and Tsuyoshi has never gone into rut even during his mating period." (Huh. So, is it all males, regardless of species, that have a "mating rut" that they go into? Because after a while, it always seems to end up being just same old, same old, doesn't it?) Yeah, I wonder why that would be. Perhaps if it's only males that go into a "mating rut", then the reason that Tsuyoshi didn't go into a "mating rut" was because......? Oh, come on! You haven't put it together by now?! Do I have to spell it out for you?! (Of course I do. I am typing!) He's a she!

"Handlers of a popular polar bear, brought to mate with a female in a zoo in northern Japan, found their breeding plan was doomed when they noticed that he, in fact, was a she." Actually, their breeding plan was doomed before they noticed. It wouldn't have mattered if they never noticed, they still weren't going to to mate. (Well, they still weren't going to reproduce. There's nothing wrong with a little experimenting is all I'm sayin'.) And their explanation for the misunderstanding was pretty lame if you're asking me. "We thought he was a male, so we never had any doubts as we took care of him." That's it? That's all you folks have to say for yourselves? You guys are the zookeepers, correct?

So how did they ever figure it out? "But one day we realised that the two bears urinate in the same way, and we thought, is that how males do it? And once we started to look at things that way, we weren't quite so sure." (I'm starting to think that four years might not have been as long as it seems, given that statement from the folks who were in charge of this whole ordeal. I'm starting to think it's a wonder they ever got things straightened out.) That's what it took? You had to watch them pee before you thought something might have gone horribly awry with your polar bear mating plan there? You know, that, um, unit that they pee out of is usually a pretty good indicator of the male/female variety of the species there. Actually, of any species, its' a pretty good indicator.

With suspicions fully aroused (which is more than I can say for Tsuyoshi), they did "two DNA examinations of Tsuyoshi's hair and a manual exam" and determined that Tsuyoshi was a male. (Did it really require those two DNA exams? Wouldn't the manual exam have been plenty? Seems like overkill.) And the justification as to how they hadn't known before all of the testing (both genetic AND manual, for some reason) was even lamer than the explanation as to how they started becoming suspicious. They said, "But because Tsuyoshi was supposed to be a male, she came here, and because she came here, we were able to take care of her since she was very small." Um, what? Never mind. It's probably not worth it.

But apparently "It is not uncommon for the sex of polar bears to be misread, as their long hair makes it difficult to distinguish, especially when the bears are young. Well, exactly how long was this bear's hair? I mean, are we talking Cousin Itt or something? I'm thinking it would have to be pretty long hair to miss....that. And really, whatever the reason was, it appears to be of no consolation for the zookeepers who expressed, "We do have mixed feelings." "Mixed" with what?! And why? "Mixed" because you thought you knew what you were doing and it seems rather evident that might not be the case? At all? "Mixed" because you had such high hopes for the happy couple? (Awww...don't throw that hope away just yet. They could end up being perfectly happy together. Yes, even though they're a couple of chicks. Er, bears. Er, girls. Even though they're a couple of girls. They can still be perfectly happy. They won't reproduce, but they can be happy.)

After reading about this unfortunate case of mistaken gender, I read a bunch of other stuff about polar bears and I learned that the polar bear world is a weird world. Take for example Zero the polar bear. Zero had fallen into a dry moat in his pen/cage/area at the Milwaukee County Zoo. Now, the zoo folks had hoped the bear (who was 19-years old) would use the stairs to climb out of the moat. The bear had other thoughts and did not use the stairs (no matter how much they rhymed). The AP reports that "After two weeks, they anesthetized the 1,100-pound bear on Oct. 30 and hoisted him out." Two weeks? OK, maybe four years was a bit long for these other zookeepers to catch on. But still, two weeks of hoping that a bear would learn that those block-y things over there are a way OUT? Were they surprised the bear didn't get that? I'm thinking they might have been.

Then there's Knut. Knut was rejected by his mother (she was probably on crack and living in the hood), so they bottle-fed him at the Berlin Zoo. Somehow, that morphed into Knut putting on a performance or two every day with his keeper. I don't really know what kind of a performance a polar bear cub would put on. Piano, maybe? Whatever it was, the zoo raked in about $10 million in 2007. Now Knut has his own TV show, a full feature length film and (oh, sweet Mother of God) a blog. (Alright, he is kinda cute over there, but I have a blog! I'm kinda cute! I don't have no $10 million.)

And Germany didn't stop with Knut. No, then they got hold of a polar bear named Flocke and bottle fed that polar bear, in hopes of having the trend continue. And they didn't stop there either. Then another German zoo got another polar bear, this one named Wilbaer (American translation: Wilbur the Bear). No word on whether or not those bears had an agent that could get them a sweet deal like Knut. But has no one in Germany noticed that Germany, as defined simply by location only, is NOT a polar region?! Why are they collecting polar bears like baseball cards? Make them stop!

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That's Not A Panda!

Release the pigeons! We have another freaking panda!

Over there at Zoo Atlanta (Correct. Zoo Atlanta. Not The Atlanta Zoo. Zoo Atlanta. Go figure. Morons.) Mr. and Mrs. Panda, otherwise known as Lun Lun and Yang Yang are the new proud panda parents of a baby panda with no name because they don't know the sex of the baby panda just yet. I'm surprised that they knew it was a baby panda to begin with. A baby panda does not look like a panda at all. It looks like an unfinished mistake of some sort. And while I couldn't find a picture of this particular baby panda, I learned that most of them look the same. Thus, I figured that I could use a picture of any ol' newborn panda or, in this case, pandas and it would be just like the real thing. And the real thing looks nothing like a panda. Behold and trust me! Two newborn pandas, I swear!

Oh, my God, what the hell are those?! They're like little fuzzy penises with legs! Holy crap! (Why did I make that so BIG?! I don't want to see that!) Those can't be pandas! THIS is a panda:

Those things above look nothing at all like pandas. Penises with legs, that's what I'm seeing. And it's starting to frighten me. (Why do I keep looking at it?! Make it go away!)

Apparently, when a baby panda is born, it is no bigger than a stick of butter and weighs about as much as well. The panda gestation period is quite short, between 140 and 160 days. That's only about 4-5 months, which makes it a little easier to understand why the Little Leggy Penis Brothers up there look the way that they do. 4-5 months is not very long to grow an entirely different creature within your uterus or womb or pouch or stylish shoulder bag or whatever pandas have. It'd be like cooking a three minute egg for a minute and a half. Actually, it would be just like that because in both cases, what you end up with is something that is just SO gross!

Apparently, Lun Lun had to be artificially inseminated as Yang Yang had no interest in providing the natural insemination. It seems that pandas are rather particular when it comes to choosing a mate. You know, there's only about 1,500 of them left on this planet; they really shouldn't be so darned choosy. And while I know that Lun Lun did receive the sperm artificially, I am blissfully unaware of the particulars of the procedure! I am not, however, unaware of how they figure out of the creature is pregnant after all of the sperm implanting has occurred. Just like with humans (although hopefully in a different setting) they do an ultrasound. Behold! An ultrasound on a pregnant panda!


All of this has been so, so, SO much more than I really wanted to see and or know about the panda pregnancy process. (My world is a world in which things do not grow inside of other beings like an alien that is maturing inside of a select host up until the time which the creature has matured to the point of being forcibly expelled out of the host uterus in an extremely painful process akin to that of shoving a pot roast through one's nostril.) And since the little cub is so small, the fine folks over there at the zoo with the ridiculous name, Zoo Atlanta, didn't even know for sure if Lun Lun was preggers until Thursday. And out popped the Little Leggy Penis (the LLP) on Sunday!

But hold on! Now there's a problem. It would seem that Zoo Atlanta has turned off the feed from the Panda Cam (I swear). According to a one Simone Griffin, the Zoo Atlanta spokesperson, "...they wanted to more closely watch the tiny, hairless cub based on the behavior of the cub and its mother, Lun Lun, in the zoo's birthing den." So they shut off the Panda Cam and plunked the LLP down in an incubator. So they say.

Hey, you saw the pictures just like I did! That little panda is tiny! That big panda is not! Personally, I'm not so sure they should be allowing Lun Lun around the LLP until it stops looking like an LLP at the very earliest. She could squash it without even trying. She could think it's a bug and swat it into a panda pancake without really trying. That's not really a zoo attraction many would flock to.

But pandas, in general, ARE the sort of zoo attraction many, many folks flock to. If you want some folks to flock, get yourself a panda. For some reason, Americans love the damned panda. They just can't get enough of the panda. Panda, panda, panda. (I think it's that black and white fur pattern they've got going on that Americans are drawn to. What's another animal that Americans just love to death? That's right, the killer whale. Willy. Shamu. Doesn't matter the name, if you're an American, it is unlikely that you've made it through your childhood without having a killer whale jump through a hoop five feet in front of you and then shower you with water when he splashes back into his Tank O' Captivity. Americans just love a tricky orca.)

And flock the folks did to Zoo Atlanta to get a glimpse of the yet to be named panda-panda. Some of the children even brought along little stuffed panda toys with them to play with while they watched the panda cub on the Panda Cam. Those kids are going to be two things. Disappointed and confused. "Mommy, that's not a panda." "Why are we looking at a rat?" "What's a leggy penis?" They did not get dragged to the zoo to look at something was not panda-like. Yep, some very sad children leaving Zoo Atlanta, I'm sure of it.

Pandas also always have the repetitive name. Ling-Ling. Lun-Lun. Yang-Yang. Why do they have to have Chinese names at all? I mean, we're raising them. Can't we name them what we want? Why can't the Chinese part of their name be like the middle panda name and then they get an American first name? Maybe it would help me warm up to the whole panda craze if I had an opportunity to go and fawn over Steve, the Giant Panda and his cousins Gary and Sue. It might not, but you have to start somewhere and naming the panda Steve would be a great place to start.

But here's a real treat for you! Below is the video of the nameless panda-panda being born. Panda birth! It's fairly short, considering it's the emergence of a brand new creature into the world, and runs a little less than two minutes. It's not disgusting. It's not gross. You don't see fluids or placentas or any of that stuff flying around. It IS loud at times. And it is also hilarious.

Weird, eh? I thought so too. I also thought it was hilarious. After Lun Lun shoots that creature out, she appears to be shocked, just shocked that it is what it is. She sort of jumped back there like, 'Holy s***!! What the hell is that?! Where'd that come from?! Usually I'm just crapping bamboo! I've never had this happen! Yang Yang, dammit! Get over here!"

Look, as much as I don't understand the fascination with the panda, I really do hope the LLP panda is going to be OK. I also hope it grows some damn fur pretty quickly. It's going to be scaring the neighbors if it's walking around looking like that for very long.

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The Summer Is Responsible For That? Really?

I'm not easily confused, but a lot of things confuse me. Physics. The homeless. Right and left. There's a number of them. Today my confusion was provided by the Houston Zoo.

The Houston Zoo apparently attracts record numbers of guests. I'm not sure why. I can't think of many things less appealing than wandering around in the Houston heat looking at animals that are so obviously out of their natural habitat that it would be comical if it weren't kind of, somehow wrong. I don't know what the big attraction is. Do they have a panda? That might explain it, because for some reason, Americans LOVE the panda. (I'd guess it's because of the eyes, but raccoons have that same feature and, to my knowledge, Americans are not in love with the raccoon. But a panda? Americans will wait in lines longer than those to get an iPhone just so they can see the damn panda.) But I think that Houston is panda-free, which is one reason why I'm confused.

So the zoo is looking for ways to attract more low-income families. NO. Not for exhibits. As visitors to the zoo. They came up with the idea that families that receive food stamps will be able to have unlimited free admission to the zoo for themselves and up to eight guests. According to the president and CEO of the zoo, a one Deborah Cannon, "We're always trying to expand access." Why? I don't know either, but they're intent on it. Since 2002, the zoo has had five days a year where admission was free and boy, did the Houstonians (?) love that. Between 50,000 and 80,000 people went to the damn zoo on the days when it was free. Between FIFTY and EIGHTY THOUSAND people? Went to the ZOO? My confusion continues to grow at this point. Those figures are mind boggling.

The problem they had with that many people, according to the zoo director, Rick Barongi, is that "It can be stressful, just too many people." Oh, do you think? He also noted that on Memorial Day this year, one of the free days, "the police were needed to control angry crowds at the zoo gate an hour before closing." WHAT?! What were they angry about?! That the wonderful, fabulous, FREE zoo was closing?! And that was enough for a mob mentality to set in to the point where the authorities were called? Were they hoping for a late night stroll through the Reptile House? Midnight Monkey Madness? What did they want?

But even with the crowd and the attracting more people and all, the zoo was disappointed that less than nine percent of their free visitors were from low income areas. The rest? That's right. Regular people just wanted a free peek at the animals. (Although, some of them could have been just like me and been completely bewildered as to what in the world all of the fuss was at the zoo and so they had to check it out for themselves.) So the zoo was getting more people, but they weren't the right kind of people. And that's why it's free for people on food stamps now! Are you with me? No? Good! That makes ALL of us! WTF??

They wanted to make sure that those who can't afford to go to the zoo are not limited by just those 5 days. So, by expanding the number of days that the zoo is free (for those on food stamps) from five days to ALL days, that gives those on food stamps the freedom to come to the zoo whenever they want to. And they will continue to have the five free days for everyone. You know, just so those who can afford to go to the zoo don't get pissed off. And I guess that sounds fine, but, um, if they're on food stamps shouldn't they be working or looking for a job instead of going to the zoo? I'm just asking! Remember? I'm confused!

But here's the part that almost made my head explode. According to the article by the fine folks down there at the Houston Chronicle, "To make matters worse, animals were getting sick after the summer free days because too many people were throwing cotton candy and other items into their pens. To alleviate the problem, none of the five free days will be scheduled for the summer." Wait. What?

Ah, yes, you have to take the good with the bad, I suppose. Along with the freedoms and the joys of summertime you must also deal with how those summer days cause people to become unable to stop themselves from throwing cotton candy and other items into animals pens! They're just out of control and no one, NO ONE, not even the 50,000 to 80,000 zoo visitors themselves, can stop this summertime phenomenon from occurring at the zoo, right? NO!!

Are you KIDDING ME?!!? How are the two related? Oh, oh, that's right! THEY'RE NOT!! I suppose I should ask if there are any strange wintertime phenomena that occur at the zoo that I should be aware of? Are the visiting patrons in January stripping off their winter garb (in Houston, that's a T-shirt instead of a tank top) and riding the giraffes bareback, completely unable to stop themselves from doing so? Or do they have that season completely under control? This is the most confusing and complicated zoo EVER.

See what I mean? You have a panda-less zoo in Houston that attracts between 50,000 and 80,000 visitors on days when the zoo is free. But the zoo wants visitors who are on food stamps to visit the zoo, so they're making every day a free zoo day for those folks. And none of the five days that are free for everyone will be during the summer because it's the summer that causes people to throw cotton candy at the animals. How's your head? Pounding? Ready to explode? Welcome to my world.

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