Mother's Cookies filed for bankruptcy

No more iced circus animals, ever. You can buy a commerative t-shirt here.

Tina's lesson of the day: Despite what it looks like in movies, the Hollywood sign is not lit at night. This means a quest to go see it, after dark, is bound to end in failure.

But that was the end of the day, after a trip to Disney and a quest for a good steak dinner.

Disney was fun - Space Mountain is just as fun as it ever was, the new Indiana Jones ride is amazing, and the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse is now the residence of Tarzan. Oh, and I managed to escape without an earworm, since "It's a Small World" is being renovated.

Tomorrow, we're thinking about finding a nice boardwalk - if we're here, we should at least stick our toes in the Pacific, then dinner with Aemilia!

We finally got to take the photo tour today at the Wild Animal Park, and it was worth all the hassle. They actually took you into the enclosures, so you could get right up next to the animals. The tour truck held 15 people, but we were the only ones on it, so we could stop and take pictures wherever we wanted.

In 3.5 hours, I took 210 pictures. Of those, I'll probably end up keeping 100. Just a few of my favorites:

( 5 more... )

We're on vacation in Southern California this week. The purpose of the trip was to go to BlizzCon, but we have plenty of vacation time, so we took the whole week off.

I thought we had tickets for a photo tour at the San Diego Zoo this morning. Unfortunately, it was really at the San Diego Wildlife Park, 45 minutes away, and we didn't find this out until it was too late. So that's rescheduled for tomorrow (hopefully - I didn't get the email confirmation they promised me, so I'm going to call in the morning).

Since we were there anyway, we spent the day at the San Diego Zoo. I like the idea of zoos, but so often the implementation is terrible - unhappy animals cramped in tiny cages. This was the best zoo I've ever been to - the animals actually looked happy and well-cared-for.

Plus, how can you go wrong with giant pandas?

( the rest of the pictures )

After the zoo, we hit a go-kart racing track. I didn't expect a whole lot, but it was an awful lot of fun. And I didn't come in last!

Tomorrow, the Wild Animal Park!

Best quote of the election season so far:

One thing we now know for sure. Electing John McCain would be God’s gift to the profession of journalism. A story a minute.

Imagine what would happen if a new beetle infested the Iowa corn crop during the first year of a McCain administration. On Monday, we spray. On Tuesday, we firebomb. On Wednesday, the president marches barefoot through the prairie in a show of support for Iowa farmers. On Thursday, the White House reveals that Wiley Flum, a postal worker from Willimantic, Conn., has been named the new beetle eradication czar. McCain says that Flum had shown “the instincts of a maverick reformer” in personally buying a box of roach motels and scattering them around the post office locker room. “I can’t wait to introduce Wiley to those beetles in Iowa,” the president adds.

On Friday, McCain announces he’s canceling the weekend until Congress makes the beetles go away.

Barack Obama would just round up a whole roomful of experts and come up with a plan. Yawn.

Current Mood: amused

If you'd like to help, the Houston Food Bank is desperately in need of money and food:

http://www.houstonfoodbank.org/

CNN article here (pdf, sorry)

From Amazon:

We wanted to let you know that the official release date for 'World of
Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King' has been announced by Activision
Blizzard. Unfortunately, the official release date differs from the
date that was listed for the item when you placed your order,
#/*snip*/. As a result, we are unable to deliver your order
as originally promised. The new estimate of when the game should be
delivered:

 'World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King' [Video Game]
   Estimated Delivery Date: November 17

We're sorry if this has caused you any inconvenience. The
manufacturer, Activision Blizzard, recently announced that this title
won't be released until November 13.

Because I'd have been so disappointed if my game showed up 4 days early!

We have power!!!

It's a gas station. With power. Selling gas.

This is (was) Bob Wagstaff's AN-2:

http://ureport.foxnews.com/snc/ViewItem2.aspx?pguid=7fbf4cc0-49ae-455c-8e55-7eecb46b5e30&itemguid=3c9875bd-8e99-48fa-b827-f740062bce94

( pictures from my neighborhood, post-Ike )

( Professional Ike pictures )