... my job on the desk that night was as a "rim" editor, which meant I edited stories, made any trims in length necessary, and wrote headlines and cutlines ...
~ The UT-Austin archives
Sadly, this is the last season Maggie the Monkey is making her hockey playoff predictions!
Maggie, who is retiring after this 2008-09 postseason, is probably about as accurate as TSN's other "experts," and quite a bit cuter.
One can only hope Maggie enjoys the rest of her days at the Bowmanville Zoo, and TSN finds an equally entertaining replacement.
Munkee!
This is Bernard Fernard, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. He's the official Travel Munkee of the Ace/Marisa relationship.
Bernard first came into our lives during last year's trip to the Bay Area, when he followed us home from the Napa Valley.
He majored in tree climbing at a special Munkee school in Asia, then traveled as far as the West Coast, where he chased our rental car and jumped on top. We tried to convince him to stay with his friends in California, but he liked us so much, he followed us to the airport, where he snuck into M's bag after passing successfully through security.
Anyway, while Mookie J. Monkey, blog mascot, guards our house with Butterscotch Bear, Bernard will be accompanying us back to the West Coast.
So, if we get the chance to blog at all from the road, don't freak out if you see some pictures with Bernard Fernard sneaking into the corner.
Click on over to TSN.ca and you can see video of Maggie the Monkey making her first-round Stanley Cup playoffs picks.
Maggie's about as accurate as TSN's experts, so I'm quite pleased she picked both the Flyers and the Penguins.
Today, my main goals on a rare Sunday when I have nothing to do, are as follows:
• Write the four blog posts I've been meaning to write.
• Hack through our mountain of laundry so I can lay off the Sherpas.
Thus, Part 1 of 4: Monkey Madness!
This one harks back to the bad old days of Monkey Mondays past. Two bits of monkey news you might find fun!
The first one is from Oprah.com via CNN. It has to do with one of my favorite places in the world: Monkey Jungle!
There was -- and I believe there probably still is -- a place in Florida called the Monkey Jungle. It had funny little monkeys swinging from vines overhead, it had monkey memorabilia that made monkey memories last forever, it even had a monkey that was trained to put his hairy little arms around your neck and smile for the camera. I could go on, but suffice it to say the place was lousy with monkeys, and my cousin Suzie Gale and I thought we'd found paradise, complete with souvenir shop and snack bar. Then it happened.
Fact: Suzie was holding a peanut.
Fact: There, high above a large cage of spider monkeys, hung a gigantic sign that read, "Do not feed the monkeys."
Leah was staring at George. A series of rapid, pulsating whimpers escaped her lips. She then drew near to George, who locked gazes with her, his face unreadable. His shoulders were relaxed, and when Leah was within his grasp he opened his right arm and embraced her. Leah lay on the ground and George looked into her eyes. He bent over to lie on her, while Leah wrapped her legs around George's waist...
Is this a missing letter from the Penthouse Forum? The steamy section of a well-thumbed romance novel? Try neither: The scene is actually taken from the April 2007 issue of the Gorilla Gazette, a primatology journal. Leah and George aren't star-crossed lovers caught in mid-tryst. They're western gorillas in Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo...
It's not quite the Semi-weekly Monkey, but I found this the other day, and I thought it was pretty funny.
From Time magazine:
It turns out that one of humanity's oldest professions may be even older than we thought: In a recent study of macaque monkeys in Indonesia, researchers found that male primates "paid" for sexual access to females — and that the going rate for such access dwindled as the number of available females went up.
According to the paper, "Payment for Sex in a Macaque Mating Market," published in the December issue of Animal Behavior, males in a group of about 50 long-tailed macaques in Kalimantan Tengah, Indonesia, traded grooming services for sex with females; researchers, who studied the monkeys for some 20 months, found that males offered their payment up-front, as a kind of pre-sex ritual. It worked. After the females were groomed by male partners, female sexual activity more than doubled, from an average of 1.5 times an hour to 3.5 times. The study also showed that the number of minutes that males spent grooming hinged on the number of females available at the time: The better a male's odds of getting lucky, the less nit-picking time the females received.
It's always sad news when monkeys are kidnapped!
INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- Concern for three monkeys stolen from an exotic animal preserve near Lee's Summit brought out people dressed in gorilla costumes at the Jackson County Courthouse on Tuesday.
Three pigtailed macaques were stolen in October from Monkey Island.
Owner Dana Savorelli said there is surveillance video that shows a former volunteer drugging the three monkeys, netting them, sticking them with needles and then taking them away.
All right. So the Daily Monkey idea flopped.
Here is, as they say in journalism when they're not sure of any regular schedule, one in a continuing series of monkey news, this time from CNN.
NEW DELHI, India -- Monkey handler Ramal Lala strolls along New Delhi's streets, a leash on his monkey named Mungle. The local government has hired the two to chase down thousands of smaller monkeys known to roam this mega-city of 13 million people, hopping on just about anything, breaking into houses and occasionally biting spectators.
On this day, Lala bangs a large stick, yells at the monkeys and lets his partner off his leash. Mungle, a Langor monkey, jumps into the trees and hisses at his smaller monkey kin. Every once and a while, Lala whips out a slingshot and fires at the little menaces.
"They steal clothes, snatch food from inside the houses. They raid the houses in large numbers," he says. "Sometimes, the brave ones even bite."
Lala and Mungle are essentially the monkey police of New Delhi. The government wants men such as Lala to round up the wild monkeys and move them to the Bhati reserve on the edge of India's capital city.
Here's another quick little monkey food item - only this time, the monkeys aren't the food, the food is for the monkeys.
Monkeys enjoy fruits and vegetables during the annual Monkey Buffet Festival, in front of Pra Prang Sam Yot temple in Lopburi province, 150 km (94 miles) north of Bangkok, Nov. 25, 2007. The annual festival provides various types of food and drink to the local monkey population, which numbers more than 2,000.
I'm not sure I'm getting into this Daily Monkey thing, but I do love me my monkey news! So here is today's story, courtesy of the AP via CNN...
NEW YORK -- Think you're smarter than a fifth-grader? How about a 5-year-old chimp? Japanese researchers pitted young chimps against human adults in tests of short-term memory, and overall, the chimps won.
That challenges the belief of many people, including many scientists, that "humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions," said researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University.
That's an ad featuring Koko, the gorilla that knows sign language.
She's just one of the monkeys/chimps/gorillas (the difference? there's a tail there somewhere... get it?) featured in today's Daily Monkey site!
Today, it's "Hotshot monkeys* in science," from CNN via Mental Floss:
It's a common theory that, given enough time (and food ... and ink ribbon), a million monkeys on a million typewriters will eventually bang out the works of Shakespeare. But that only goes for average monkeys.
Round up a few higher-class primates armed with an education and some travel experience, and we wouldn't be surprised if you got a masterpiece on par with Harry Potter or The Firm.
I know, it's Sunday. But Monkey Monday sounded better.
Anyway, I've had a thought.
Now, before you fall over at the notion of two posts in two days from me, hear me out.
As you might have guessed, I've given up on National Novel Writing Month 2007. I'm still going to work on my novel, just more at my own pace.
But I was thinking I really would like to blog more. I should. I enjoy it.
But maybe, I'm thinking, I need a theme. Like Stewie's "30 Days of Joy" for NaBloPoMo.
How about a Daily Monkey blog? Well, maybe not daily. But you know what I mean.
There are, of course, other blogs with such a theme, but hey... do you read them?
But you read mine... or you wouldn't be reading this.
So. Something to ponder. A munkee/monkey of the day.
Let's start here.
This is a story about monkey meat, or "bushmeat," as it's sometimes known. And freedom of religion.
NEW YORK (AP) -- From her baptism in Liberia to Christmas years later in her adopted New York City, Mamie Manneh never lost the longing to celebrate religious rituals by eating monkey meat.
Now, the tribal customs of Manneh and other West African immigrants have become the focus of an unusual criminal case charging her with meat smuggling, and touching on issues of religious freedom, infectious diseases and wildlife preservation.
The case "appears to be the first of its kind relating to that uniquely African product," defense attorney Jan Rostal wrote in a pending motion to dismiss. "Unfortunately, it represents the sort of clash of cultural and religious values inherent in the melting pot that is America."
When last we left our intrepid hero...
It was Saturday, in Miami, the final day of the AAJA national convention.
Then moving intervened. But now, the conclusion of our story, featuring, as advertised, the two most amazing words in the English language:
Monkey.
Jungle.
That's right. Saturday was the day of my big trip to Monkey Jungle...
But first, the convention.
The most awkward moment of the weekend: I was sent, by proxy, to the chapter treasurers' meeting. Please note: I am not the chapter treasurer. There's a reason for this. That reason can best be summed up by saying: I don't handle the money. And I don't do math.
Needless to say, it was, outside of the free leftover breakfast items, an absolute disaster. One other participant-by-proxy fled as soon as even remotely dignifiedly possible. I lasted a bit longer, but not much.
Then we were off, driving our little rental car (a Chevy POS that, other than the lack of power locks/windows, actually kind of grew on us) through the Florida equivalent of over the river and through the woods to...
Monkey Jungle: Where Humans Are Caged and Monkeys Run Wild!
This is probably my new third- favorite place on Earth, though you'll have to take my word for it for now. At least, until I can post pictures.
This was awesome. Except, probably, for the fellow who got peed on.
And the fact that it was, once again, hot as hell.
Monkey jungle is what seems to be several acres of Florida jungle, with caged tunnels running through it, which the monkeys wander down from the trees to climb on, and you can put little raisins into little bowls-on-chains, which the little monkeys pull up to the roof and eat from.
Clever!
We didn't see any capuchin monkeys - my favorite - sadly, but we saw tons of squirrel monkeys - Marisa's favorite.
There was also a gorilla - big monkey sit! - and an orangutan and lots of others.
Don't worry, there will be pictures! Big monkey sit!
Despite the heat - the soda we bought out of a machine came out near boiling, it was that hot - we struggled through, then retreated to the air conditioned car and went back to the hotel for the evening's festivities.
That included a silent auction, where M raided the CD-for-$2 table, and the great big gala. I served as one of the ticket-takers for the event, continuing my journalistic-event tradition of serving as the world's worst bouncer.
Then it was inside for a fairly nice dinner and a terrific, moving keynote speech by David Ng, the executive editor of the New York Daily News and a former colleague - in fact, the very man who talked me into joining AAJA.
Did I mention, at one point, as Tina Kim fled the room briefly, she stopped by my table for a wink and a nod?
Then it was...
Karaoke night!
Once, again, AAJA fights Asian stereotyping one free beer and dreadful song at a time. Actually, it's a pretty entertaining event, led by three young ladies in dresses that could only be described as lingerie crooning "Like a Virgin," and a couple of guys who jumped off the stage into the crowd and stuff.
Then there was some kind of hiphop guy who started grinding on folks in the audience while performing - after stripping off his shirt - and somehow, to M's probably unending delight, chose me as the token "yeah, let me grind on a guy for laughs" victim.
So I got into it a bit, grinding back. I think that got him by surprise, but hey, I was good and drunk and fully confident that - unlike last year - I was taking a good-looking woman back to my hotel room at the end of the night.
Yeah. I'm confident in my masculinity.
Then it was...
Tina Kim time!
That's right, capping my new don't-read-this-M lust for the journalist-turned-comedienne, she did a set at the show.
I thought it was pretty darn funny, if a bit ill-timed - by the time she hit the stage, everyone was kind of drunk and well into their conversations, so she had to shout over the crowd sometimes. Still, it went off quite well, and then Miss Kim disappeared into the night, and my fond memories.
And after that, 'twas time for a last free beer, then off to bed.
Sunday was getaway day, but because last year's convention had some Sunday programming, I scheduled an evening flight... and this year's didn't have any.
So we checked out, had a spot of brunch - giving our balloon munkee to the hostess at the hotel restaurant, for her little sister, thus ensuring it had a nice home rather than, say, bursting on the flight with a loud POP and causing both tears and a Homeland Security investigation.
After that, we went for a quick stop at my grandparents' graves in the Tamarac area. They don't get many visitors anymore, but I wanted them to meet Marisa. And, of course, I cried like a baby. But I did make sure the graves were well-kept. I miss them, especially at times when I think of our wedding and the house and how I hope they can see me and they're proud of me. How I wish they could be there.
We also passed the Seminole Hard Rock hotel, which is probably best known as the place where Anna Nicole Smith died.
And then it was time-killing time.
The first plan: Beat the heat at the Miami Seaquarium.
Problem: It turns out, most of the Miami Seaquarium is... outside.
So after watching the sharks feed, the dolphins ("Flipper"!) leap and M melt, we fled for the indoor paradise of ... Dave & Buster's.
(M got much better pictures of the leaping dolphins, by the way, a practical lesson in the difference between an 8 megapixel camera and a 3 megapixel camera.)
So Dave & Buster's is at the famous Dolphin Mall in Miami. That probably suggests we could find it easily.
Ding. Try again.
So after driving around Miami for about two hours...
(This way. That way. Always headed to the West, but never quite finding the right North/South crossing.)
We finally found it - mercifully, we discovered it was close to the airport when we... drove right past the airport. We're both two stubborn to have actually given up and gone to the airport without finding the food.
So, in the end, I had my first Dave & Buster's experience, capped off by beeping the horn repeatedly on some kind of cross-country trucking arcade game as M got farther than she ever had before on said game.
And then the airport, a fond farewell - no fighting this time - to our little rental car, and our flight home, mostly harmless but for one of those "let's bounce through the clouds on descent" kind of landings.
Which leads us to our last strange story of the trip.
We're at the airport, waiting for a cab (I'd parked at the office), and I look around the taxi queue, and I swear I see a fellow who resembles the publisher of my paper (for those unsure, that'd be The Man).
I'm looking at him, he's looking at me, we're both looking puzzled.
Now, it's 12:30 a.m. on a Sunday night/Monday morning, and I'm thinking our publisher should either a) be able to afford a limo; or b) be able to afford airport parking. M suggested I offer to share a cab to the office, which I vetoed on the grounds that this would be the sort of thing that might lead to a) my being embarassed that it's not the guy I thought; b) my getting fired; or c) possibly my getting promoted to something impressive.
As I think it might've been Woody Hayes said of the forward pass: Only three things can happen, and two of them are bad.
So we got our own cab back to the garage, and as we're standing outside debating whether M should stand out there with the luggage while I get the car...
The publisher drives out of the garage with a little "hey, that's the guy from the airport" wave.
Which begs the question: No, not "why was the publisher taking a cab?" which was my first instinct, but more practically speaking, "how did he beat us to the garage?"
I guess it pays to be The Man.
And thus ended my Miami trip, and thus resumes my regular blogging.
I leave you with this bit of football expertise: My fantasy team's quarterback is Vince Young, whose rights I kept because I think he's just a couple of pit bulls away from being the next Michael Vick!
Editor's note: I added a bit, and added the pix! Enjoy! Big munkee sit! Little munkees pull!
That's it... back to the blog!
That's right, it's NHL playoff time!
And that means TSN's Maggie the Monkey is making her playoff picks!
Of course, she and her scientific method - spinning a wheel - won't be picking my team, the Philadelphia Flyers, who were so bad this season, they even lost the draft lottery.
That's right, I root for the lousiest team in hockey and the lousiest team in football. If the New York Yankees suck, too, I'll die.
Do you know what time it is?
That's right... time to tell you about the cool munkee thing I found this week!
Monkey art!
The artist's name is Matthew Porter, and he paints monkeys on 9" x 9" wood.
Only $20 for a print, $100 for a piece, or $120 for a commissioned work...
I think I know what I want for Munkeemas!
Watch for Civil War trivia time soon!
Got this from a post on HorrorTalk.
It's like my slogan of the day, but with movie quotes! Here are some of my favorites.
You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a munkee.
When there's no more room in hell, the munkee will walk the earth.
Munkee, for lack of a better word, is good.
One munkee's too many, and a hundred's not enough.
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world munkee didn't exist.
I feel the need - the need for munkee!
A boy's best friend is his munkee.
Ray, if someone asks if you are a munkee, you say, 'yes!'
Some of you may be familiar with Jin and Jewels and their Santa Hat Project, which involves photos of Santa hats covering interesting bits of womanhood, plus a bonus picture of an adorable child (completely clothed, of course).
Well, in talking with Jin, she said it would be, and I quote, "INTERESTING!!!!!!!!" to see, as I put it, me "hiding my little munkee behind a Santa hat." Me and my big mouth.
But, what the heck. So here it is. My little munkee, hiding behind a Santa hat. (And to think, I'm Jewish.)
You ready for it?
Click right here!
But be warned, this is only safe for work if, well, you won't get in trouble for looking at my little munkee!
As the world awaits the decision on the senator from Virginia, with Democratic challenger Jim Webb leading incumbent Republican George Allen by the slimmest of vote margins, I find myself somewhat torn.
Not so much because Allen is the brother of former Raiders senior assistant and de facto general manager Bruce Allen (who clearly got the brains in the family), but because during his campaign, Allen brought a lot of attention to monkeys.
That's a definite plus.
On the other hand, he misused the monkeys.
And frankly, misuse of monkeys is an offense I deem punishable by defeat, if not worse.
Come on, "Days of Thunder" fans, you know the lines... after you look like a (and I quote) "monkey f***ing a football," you get yourself a sponsor!
Well, an unofficial sponsor... that's right, my Barber Foods coupons finally arrived! So I'll be trying out some new flavors and types of their delicious chicken products very, very soon!
Now, does anybody know how to make that picture link to their Web site, that's the question...
Vacation update: For the curious, yes, I've done absolutely nothing pretty much since Mom & Dad left yesterday, except work on my reviews and sit on the couch and stare at the TV. I actually managed to do some laundry for my trip... and watch "The Mummy" not once but twice on TNT. Plus watch "The Mummy Returns" on DVD.
And, at Mookie's insistence, I've watched the better parts of "Curious George" (the ones with George, obviously) three more times.
Oh, and sometime soon, I've got a story to tell about the Yankees game and coincidence. Remind me.
I'm on a much-needed vacation this week. So there probably won't be much posting.
My schedule, as planned, and thus far partially carried out:
SATURDAY:
Morning: Sleep. Afternoon: Edit Stewie's latest HorrorTalk review. Evening: Go to Philadelphia Flyers preseason game. Late-night: Do nothing.
SUNDAY:
Morning: Sleep. Afternoon: Do nothing. Evening: Go to Borders to use "personal shopping day." Late-night: Do nothing.
MONDAY:
Morning: Sleep. Afternoon: Watch "Curious George" with Mookie. Evening: Dinner with Sari at Newark's excellent Spanish Tavern. Late-night: Do nothing.
TUESDAY:
Morning: Sleep. Afternoon: Lunch with parents. Evening: New York Yankees game with Dad. Late-night: Watch (taped) finale of "The Contender," season 2.
WEDNESDAY:
Morning: Sleep. Afternoon: Lunch with parents. Evening: Do nothing. Late-night: Do nothing.
THURSDAY:
Morning: Sleep. Afternoon: Do nothing. Evening: Do nothing. Late-night: Do nothing.
FRIDAY:
Morning: Sleep. Afternoon: Do nothing. Evening: Fly to Oakland to cover the Oakland Raiders game for Raiderfans.net. Late-night: Munkee on a plane.
SATURDAY:
Morning: Sleep in Oakland. Afternoon: Do nothing in Oakland. Evening: Drink in Oakland. Late-night: Drink in Oakland.
SUNDAY:
Morning: Sleep in Oakland. Afternoon: Cover Raiders' game with the Cleveland Browns. Pray for win. Evening: Write article in Oakland. Late-night: Fly back to Jersey on the red eye.
As you can see, there's an awful lot of "do nothing," which can be interpreted as watching TV, watching movies, reading, eating, drinking, playing video games and watching more TV.
Somewhere in there, I gotta write some HorrorTalk reviews of my own.
Yeah, I'm probably the only guy in the world who's gonna chase "Curious George" with "Deadlands: The Rising" and "Rape is a Circle." What can I say? HorrorTalk's a genre site. And I've got a very obvious inner child.
Completely off topic, it's 14 days to "Mortal Kombat: Armageddon," which is my most-anticipated video game of the year. More than "Jaws Unleashed," more than "Madden," more than "Smackdown vs. Raw," more than anything. I love, love, love MK, and this is the MK to end all MKs.
