Today was such a beautiful day, although I had originally planned to stay at work a little later and use some flex time later in the week, I couldn’t resist and ducked out at the eight hour mark, swung past Giant, got some groceries, and after fixing myself an early dinner, decided to take a stroll through the National Zoo.

The Zoo is under construction: massive renovations to the Elephant House, which pretty much divide the Zoo in half. A lot of exhibits seemed to be inaccessible, particularly the ones on the west side of the Zoo: the seals and sea lions, etcetra. The bear exhibits. Sadly, I was very much looking forward to seeing the Big Big Cats: the lions, the tigers. A sign notified me that they were not out after 4pm. Alas! I did see the cheetahs, and a fishing cat (sort of), and some clouded leopards.

Those latter two cats were on Asia Trail, relatively new to the Zoo. I also spent many minutes fawning over some adorable red pandas, which inspired me to do nothing more than rub their bellys and scratch them behind the head. I doubt they would’ve enjoyed that much, and perhaps neither would I, but they’re just adorable creatures.

As were the clouded leopards: they’re a pair, and although I don’t know off hand how old they are, they behave almost like kittens, bounding off rocks and trees in mock, playful attacks against each other, chasing each other around their enclosure. Great, friendly, engaging cats.

I wandered towards the Bird House and the Aviary which is accessible, due to the construction, only through the Asia Trail. There’s a new bridge over what will be a hugely expanded elephant environment. Sadly, the Bird House was closed at 6pm, which meant I couldn’t get to the Aviary. There are birds in enclosures surrounding the Bird House, including a whole flock of Pink Flamingos. They’re actually not that far from my apartment, actually: turn around from the flamingo pen and you can see the red brick of my apartment building, maybe 200 feet away. Making my way around the Bird House, I stopped in my tracks: a deer, grazing, standing bold as could be on the pedestrian pass. I had a conversation with a passing Zoo employee who informed me at least six deer lived free on the Zoo grounds, and this one in particular usually had two fawns with her and I should be on guard lest she display her matronly traits. Also, since I wasn’t driving a car, I made the decision not to run said deer over.

Although I don’t exactly work in IT, that is my field of employment (um, sort of). Anyway, while working today, I came across this website:

“My [FBI] boss came out and yelled, ‘Who here knows anything about Unix?’ I grew up in Libya before the Six Day War, and I knew all about eunuchs. So when he came in, I didn’t know why he was asking about eunuchs, but I raised my hand. He handed me a file and said, ‘This is critical; we need to get right on it.’ I opened up the file and didn’t see anything about eunuchs in there.

Cracks. Me. Up.

(And the office: I e-mailed it to the entire department.)

I get the feeling I’m going to regret this, but I’ve got fingers crossed that Maiki worked out that anti-hotlinking defense. So, if you’re reading this and considering stealing this image, it’ll show up on your website as a giant sex organ or something. So, really, right-click, save, and host it your own damn selves. Thank you.

YAY MORE FUTURAMA!

I’m hoping it’s more Bender’s Big Score, and less Beast With a Billion Backs.

In any case: here’s the scoop, the lowdown dirty, the … y’know, the back of the box, at TVShowsonDVD.com. November 4th! It’ll be here before we know it!

“Home is where the heart is.”

I look at these big houses, devoid of personality, and I think, “Why the fuck would anyone want to live here?” Houses with big, empty rooms, perfectly clean big furniture, and expensive prints on the walls, and I think, “Who could be comfortable here?”

So here’s my design philosophy: comfortable, interesting, creative.

So, let’s see: an IKEA Expedit 2×4 unit, used primarily for DVD storage, but secondly, as an entertainment centers. On the shelves: seven wickerish baskets holding a couple of hundred DVD sets. On one shelf, only season sets of Highlander: the power strip which shares the shelf won’t permit the depth of one of those baskets. Above: a 22″ HD TV, the perfect size for this apartment, some lamps for mood lighting, a radio/CD player, and my CDs.

To the right: also an IKEA bookshelf, modern design: beech shelves, steel supports. On one shelf, my DVD player, too large to fit on the EXPEDIT. Heck, it’s too large for this shelf: it hangs over! Stacked atop the DVD player: the cable box, the game systems. On the opposite side of the bookshelf, my printer. Arranged on the shelf: books, board games, graphic novels, job-hunting references, a fan. On the far right upper shelf, a table-top bookshelf, stuffed with paper backs: Reynolds, Hobb, Puzo, Irving. Also: globe-bookstops, a skeleton Indiana Jones, a memento a pizza-coworker brought me from Egypt.

Mounted on the wall, above EXPEDIT: also from IKEA (noticing a theme?), a three-shelf wall unit no longer made called “ARTISTE”, I believe. I originally used it as a pantry in my first studio apartment. Primarily DVD sets held on here: Star Trek on the top shelf, Buffy, Lost, The Wire on the second, collector’s edition sets on the lowest shelf. For accents, a Bender wind-up, Gargoyles, a cigar box, a drawing model.

On the walls: posters. Not trying to overwhelm, simply not to let large spaces of pure white wall through. What can be more boring than that? Guide the eye, allow the eye something to settle on. Okay, and I’ve got a sword suspended through the Artist unit’s support. That too.

Frankly, I don’t even try to organize the books. The DVDs are at least sorted, somewhat, by title: eventually, I’ll get cardstock labels and mark the baskets: A-C, J-L, I’ve got a whole basket just for titles starting with S. But books? DVDs, at least, roughly the same size: books are not: hardbacks, softbacks, quality paperbacks. They look, I think, more attractive out of order: messy, disorganized, even. Maybe, someday, if you’re unlucky enough, I’ll share a picture of my larger EXPEDIT unit: holy mess, Batman!