Butterfly games at the San Diego Zoo

Back on the last Saturday morning of March we woke up before dawn—without alarms—and headed down to San Diego (north county first) for the "Butterfly Jungle" exhibit at the S.D. Zoo Safari Park. As they did last year the park had a hothouse filled with exotic butterflies where people could walk through, seeing them close up and possibly even having the winged insects land on them. We headed out so early to get there when it opened (at 9 a.m.) because last year we got there midday and had to stand in line over an hour to get in.

However, this year they'd adopted the practice of having timed entry tickets, so they could try to limit the number of bodies entering by staggering when people can enter. We only had to wait 15 minutes from the time we got inside the park until we could go inside, and that we spent watching the gorillas (where there was a baby born last June, named Monroe, who offered a bonus of cuteness. (Some photos of the gorillas can be seen here.)

The butterfly exhibit was the same as before, except this time it did seem even more crowded. The timed tickets were in 15-minute increments, but the folks inside weren't leaving on that schedule. Once inside you can stay as long as you wish, but the main reason why you would leave is either the crowding or the humidity; being a hothouse, it's pretty warm even without all the bodies in there. That's not the most effective means of dealing with the situation, but at least it didn't involve standing around outside, queued up with nothing else to do beforehand.

So... (explained by Lexicon Valley)

The Lexicon Valley podcast returned this week with an exploration of starting sentences with "So"—not the adverb to enhance meaning ("The meat was so well done that it tasted like leather.") or to indicate "therefore" ("We have no apples so if you want fruit you'll need to eat an orange.") or to mean "to facilitate" ("There need to be an equal number of players on each team so the game will be fair."), but as an indication of a continuation of a interrupted thought ("So where was I? Oh, right…"). However, there's a more and more common tendency to start non-interrupted thoughts with "so" in conversations.

In that case the purpose of "so" (it was suggested) was to direct the conversation in a different direction than it previously had, one that's more germane to a tacit or overt agenda ("So regarding that item you mentioned last week…"), where there's a sort of implicit continuation of something that wasn't necessarily said; it was a segue of sorts.

Stupor Tuesday: Skipping the campaign

Does the way the presidential campaign stretches out for months (and really, years) before the election result in the country electing the better candidate? Does it serve the nation's interests? Would the electorate be better informed by the media covering the current activities of the already-elected officials than telling us what those vying to be Commander-in-Chief say they would do? And does what the media reports really lead voters to contemplate the complexities of the candidates' positions before casting their ballots, rather than going with that gut feeling when in the booth?

In order: Probably not, unlikely, perhaps, and I doubt it.

Learning about Canada from HGTV

So earlier we turned on the TV and it happened to be on HGTV (the network has turned into our throw-it-on-in-the-background channel) and the show airing was Property Virgins, a show about people buying their first homes (the appeal of which, I suppose, is to be educational for others in the same situation and to offer the naïveté of the newbies up for the condescending amusement for everyone else).

This particular episode was a clip show (according to the info from the DirecTV guide) called "Best Of: Fresh Start" and the opening segment featured a couple looking to purchase a house in Toronto. Near the beginning they did interview pieces with both the husband and wife where they listed the things they desired in their dream home.

Pathetic in The Palace

A couple weeks ago we visited a relative in Detroit, and while we were there we attended the Pistons game at the arena out the suburbs, The Palace, when they were playing the Wizards.

Yes, we were the three there.

Okay, there were more than just us, but as bad as the teams were there certainly were no shortage of empty seats.

Yes, this is during the game.

We were five rows from the floor. During time-outs the players standing blocked out the cheerleaders on the middle of the court. That close.

Anyway, to drum up excitement in the crowd the "cheer team" throws rolled-up t-shirts and little novelty basketballs into the stands. However, sometimes their arms weren't up to the task.