Gorilla in Therapy

I read an article this morning about Patrick, the 430-pound Gorilla, who has had some ‘behavioural’ issues around other Gorillas, and who is now being moved to the Riverbanks Zoo in South Carolina known for working with gorillas with behaviour problems.

The story goes that Patrick, who was born in captivity (Bronx Zoo, 1990), gets along just fine with humans, but not his own kind. The Zoo where he’s lived for the past 18 years said they have tried repeatedly to socialize him with the other gorillas, particularly the females, in the hopes that he might get along and even breed. Instead, he bit one female and sneered and nipped at others. Patrick was more tolerant of other male gorillas but seemed only to engage with Jabari, who was shot to death by Dallas police after he escaped in 2004 and injured three people.

I’m not a shrink, but the problem seems obvious- Patrick is gay and has been watching Jungle Book a few too many times. He needs a good doze of Gorilla-Prozac and get over Jabari. Oh, it would also help if somebody could explain to him that King Louie is a cartoon figure.

Chile’s strategy to fighting Global Warming

Chile's government wants men in the South American country to take off their ties to help fight global warming, hoping the campaign will save on air conditioning as summer starts in the southern hemisphere.


"Let's all take our ties off this summer to save energy," Economy Minister Pablo Longueira says in television spots airing around the country.


In the commercial, he undoes the knot of his pink and white tie and whips it off with gusto, unbuttoning the top of his shirt and smiling. A tie-less energy minister and other senior government officials also appear in the TV spot.


I often find it hard to argue with simple solutions, and it really doesn’t get any simpler than this. From a problem solving and budgeting perspective it seems like the ideal solution- low cost (for all parties) and easy to both implement and enforce.

I can already hear Chile’s 3rd Nobel Prize knockin’…

Kids call it as they see it!

This morning I was watching a news segment about the well-known North Korean dictator who passed away only a few days ago when my son interrupted me:

Son: What are you watching?
Me: Kim Jong Il
Son: Yeah? What happened to him?
Me: He died
Son: Died? You jut said he was ill! Which is it?

The (im)balance of Water

I had a discussion with a recently divorced friend of mine the other day. I made the statement that the 21^st century has certainly started without any traces of balance- we spend the first decade in severe drought only to enter the second decade with an overabundance of water and severe flooding. Is the weather god making up for the shortages from the first decade?

He was quiet for a second and said that he knew this to be true- he was married in 1999, had a ‘playful’ life until they entered the year 2000 and the ‘fun’ dried up due to pregnancy. The ‘drought’ got progressively worse during the following 9 years or so until they finally got divorced.

By sheer coincidence he ran into his ex-wife on a New Year’s eve party and they haven’t stopped the rainmaking since. Has the weather god got something to do with this too? (if she does, have her call me!)

To make matters ‘worse’(?), this sudden flooding has resulted in him receiving a written warning at work for being late three consecutive days and for being too tired during work hours.

When it rains it really pours!!!

Leaving the Canberra Winter behind

A few more hours of work still and then straight home to pack for a 7 week holiday! Dubai, Sweden and Lebanon are all on the menu and sure feels like it’s been too long since we were there last.

Family, friends and customs officials beware- we’re on our way.

What cleavage size?

The Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand recently undertook a study to find out what size breasts men liked best- small, medium or large. The findings were overwhelmingly in favour of...breasts!

The conclusion was that men simply like breasts and that size was of little importance. The way I see it, any simple heterosexual male could have told them that and saved them both the money and trouble. Then again, the actual study could have been interesting.

"He's got horrible luck"

Last week a 26-year-old party-goer in Germany pushed his luck a bit too far. In between dancing ‘sessions’ the man decided he needed a bit of a ‘pick up’ and began lining up amphetamine on the roof of a car in a disco car park without checking the car first.

Unfortunately he had no idea that the on-the-outside normal looking vehicle belonged to the police, and just as he was about to take the powdered drugs he was surprised by two police officers, who by sheer coincidence, were walking by their parked car.

The local police spokesman referred to the man by simply stating that "He's got horrible luck".

Lesson to be learned here I think: before lining your stuff up on a car- always smash the window of the car to ensure it doesn’t have a police radio!!!

Who are they open for?

It’s a pretty well-known fact that I don’t like shopping at any time, but I particularly hate going on Saturdays which seems to be the particular time of the week when the entire population goes too.

So, I’ve been trying to figure out why the shoppers aren’t spread out more evenly over the remaining weekdays:

The standard office hours in Australia are 9.00 AM to 5.30 PM, which are also the opening hours for shops in all the malls. Since most people are working between those hours it’s clear to me that the shops must be open for another targeted group of shoppers other than the working Australians.

So who is group? The only people I can think of are retirees and unemployed people both whom from what I read in the media they barely have money to survive...or so they tell the Government. And although I haven’t double checked the latest statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, I think these two groups only make up for roughly 16% of the population.

So back to square one- who the hell are they open for?!?

I’m pretty sure that they would double their sales if they were open from say 10.00 AM to 6.30 PM instead!

I’d shop more.