OK, here’s a strange one…perhaps for a strange friend. Or for a very lonely monkey. The
Amazing “Alive”
Chimpanzee is an animated, life-size bust like think that supposed acts and sounds like a real chimp. Or at the
very least it is decidedly “chimp like”. It’s um, “soulful” eyes apparently will follow you around the room (creepy!)
and its ears can react to sound…what kind of sound and how it reacts…well, I have no idea. But you can set various
moods for the pet/robot chimp, including “Happy,” “Fearful”, “Feisty” and well it couldn’t be a viable chimp without
“”Curious.” After all, what would curious George say if you left out his favorite emotion…wait, is curious an emotion?
Anyhow, I just came across this and thought it far too bizarre not to mention and at a mere $120, well, that’s a lot
cheaper than flying to Africa to get your own real chimp.
Gadling Gift Guide: Costa Rican Rainforest
How about a gift that you don’t need to wrap? And one that will make Mother Earth very happy – Here’s a way you can give back to your planet this holiday season: buy yourself or someone else a piece of the Costa Rican rainforest for $250. Vinzenz Schmak is president of the board of an organization that is working hard to protect precious flora and fauna in northern Costa Rica. For $250 you can own 1,000 square meters of prime rain forest, and help Schmak’s La Laguna del Lagarto Lodge in their efforts to preserve this endangered area.
[Via Ecoclub]
Mt. St. Helens in the Chicago Trib
The Chicago Trib
heads out West to God’s country and visits the great Mount St. Helens that blew her top on my birthday all those
years ago. Writer Robert Cross takes us there and delivers a dose of history and geology about this monumental natural
event. Myself, I was a wee lad, but I still remember the images on the tele. And it seems ol St. Helens has been acting
up again lately, though she hasn’t yet blown her top again. There is an active volcano there still and St. Helens
watchers (as well as a few apocalypse hunters) have been camping out waiting for her to go, thus heralding in the end
of the world as we know it. But don’t worry, you’ll feel fine. (subscription req)
Great Writing: Terminal Ice by Ian Frazier
One of my favorite writers out there is a guy named
Ian Frazier. Any time I find anything
he’s written, I get it and read it. I first stumbled upon Frazier years ago when I read a short piece he did called
Coyote v. Acme, easily one of the most creative
and hilarious takes on lawyerdom I’ve ever read. Frazier is also a frequent contributor to the
New Yorker, my favorite magazines on the planet, and so I have occasion to read
his stuff when it makes the New Yorker’s pages. I actually saw Frazier at a New Yorker festival some years ago, reading
alongside Steve Martin.
Anyhow, here’s an article that
was in Outside a while ago called Terminal Ice about the coming apolcalypse. OK, it’s about icebergs, and the changing
Arctic landscape. It’s as fine example as there is of Frazier’s superb skills as a scribe.
Postcard from Antarctica
Tony Wheeler of Lonely Planet fame
writes briefly
about how easy (relatively speaking, of course) it is to get to Antarctica these days. With the demise of the
Soviet Union, a whole industry emerged for the old ice ships and supply vessels that used to ply those cold waters for
the motherland. I was in Antarctica
years ago, having hitched a ride aboard a Chilean Navy boat, but many people these days either take the luxury route or
the Soviet route mentioned here. There are lots of reasons to go to Antarctica. One is just being able to say and know
for yourself that you’ve been there. But it is also remarkably beautiful. The light in Antarctica is an unreal light,
impossibly clear, clean, sparkling almost. Anyway, Wheeler’s tips mostly provide the lowdown on seeing penguins (which
are very cute in person, by the way), perhaps catering to the whole conservative March of the Penguins movement…though
this seems unlikely knowing Wheeler.