Penguins

I adore Penguins!!! They are most excellent creatures, indeed! http://users.mwci.net/~chuckbri/geeklinks.html A SEA OF PENGUINS

Mother's Day for Father Penguins

God damn penguins...they are the best thing that has ever happened to the Universe :-)))) My friends are often worried about me because of my obsession with penguins... I went down to Brighton last weekend, where I went to University, and I went past the stuffed toy shop that started off my obsession (called Animal House - they do fantastic stuffed penguins). I was stood staring in the window for at least five minutes before I was dragged away... :-)

Those pictures were great. Sorry, I meant to say :-)

This is one of the best penguin sites I've found (http://sung3.ifsi.rm.cnr.it/~dargaud/Antarctica/Penguins.html)

Just chillin'

Too Cool, Mike!! What a great shot.

:-) I'm going back to bed before I have to really get up in half an hour (it's only 5.25 am here :-)

Thank you, Mike, for adding this topic!! I adore penguins too!

HONK HONK!!!!! A quick run down of my stuffed penguins 1. Beethoven - a very realistic King penguin, with a hilariously serious look. He is so cute I could die and he pretty much kicked off the penguin thing. Probably my favourite penguin :-) 2. Clifford the Gay Penguin. Given to me by a friend of mine who's gay and was seeing a guy called "Clifford" at the time. Hey, I thought it was pretty funny :-) I'm all for diversity. 3. Escobar the Colombian Street Penguin. Escobar was bought by my best buddy Matt when he was travelling in South America for a year. Escobar really is a genuine Colombian street penguin (purchased from a street seller) and he has a really, really mean look to match. It's quite uncanny how dangerous he appears :-) 4. Mergle the Alien. Mergle is an honorary penguin, even though he's a green-skinned, three-eyed, blue-space-suit wearing being from outer space. He's happy. He still says "oooooooooo....." :-) There are more, but I'll spare you ;-)

indulge me, i love stuffed animals! never grew out of that (the AM simply cringes when i fall in love with another one--esp. bears)

I will never grow out of "The Guys", as they are collectively termed :-) The thing with stuffed animals is that they are always your friend, whatever is going on in your life. I find them very non-judgmental :-)

Very comforting .... Daughter 2 deciding right now how many of her 'friends' she will take with her to new lodgings. I guess we're a cuddly family.

:-) The answer is: ALL OF THEM *grin*

You must be joking!!!!! A HUGE bag of them goes into the loft. She decided on the four foot teddy her fiance bought her ,, plus a few other special ones ... no penguins Mike I'm afraid ...

In the loft? That's so mean :-( I put some of my toys in the loft when I moved to the US for a few months and I felt so guilty. I still get guilt about it now - they bring it up when they want to make me feel bad. God I need help ;-)

Oh Mike you make feel so good on a Sunday morning. Now ...am I as mum sposed to feel guilty that I insisted the room got cleared and they went in the bag ...GRIN C'mon I NEED the study space ... anyway ..I've toys of my own ... They bought me a silly little cow that goes moo for mothers day, and ot coursethere's the little white angel teddy that marcia sent me, and the larger brown one my husband bought me when i grumbled that the fgirls had their teddies and I didn't have one (that one predated marcias). Think of a name for the cow ... she's black and white with a big pink nose. Daisy is a bit too obvious. she's shaking down well with the others though ...

I'm glad I amuse, Maggie. It's nice to have some small purpose in life ;-) I haven't been to see penguins for quite a while now...I'll have to make a trip. HONK HONK. Oh, quick question for you. Do Japanese penguins speak Japanese?

dunno ... I'll have to ask our rats Nice to have someone to talk to around here Mike. I was about to give up ....

I kept forgetting about this conference...even though it was on my list. One thing I could never get bored with is talking about penguins... :-)

do you have a favorite species of penguin?

Here's a great story: SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's Fairy penguins are all set for winter and any oil spills after 1,000 tiny woolly jumpers were specially knitted and sent, some from as far away as Japan, to the Australian island state of Tasmania. The jumpers, which cover the 40 cm (15 inches) tall penguins from neck to ankle, stop oil-coated penguins preening themselves and ingesting poisonous oil. And for the fashion-conscious penguin there is a wide choice of colours and designs, even a black and white tuxedo jumper, complete with bow tie. The Tasmanian Conservation Trust made a local appeal earlier this year for the penguin jumpers after oil spills on the coast of Tasmania, not realising they would be inundated.,"They have come from everywhere, even as far away as Japan. Someone in New York asked for a pattern, but we haven't received it yet," Jo Castle, a spokeswoman for the Trust said on Monday. The jumper pattern is based on one used for seabirds in the northern hemisphere, only smaller. "It was re-designed for the lit le penguins in the southern hemisphere," said Castle. "They (the penguins) are not very happy about them, but they cover them from neck to ankle which stops them preening themselves and ingesting poisonous oil," she said. Castle said knitters, many old ladies in nursing homes, made jumpers in their favourite football team colours, used scraps of wool to make patchwork jumpers, and some knitted woolly tuxedos in keeping with a penguin's natural style.

I saw that story, Maggie - absolutely hilarious!!! If I could knit I would have made some :-) My favourite penguin type is the King Penguin. So majestic, yet still somehow hilarious :-)

Ok, THAT was what I came in the middle of the conversation on last evening's news. They were showing what amounted to little ribbed (knit two, purl two) tubes that resembled the beginning of sweater sleeves. I thought it was little sweaters for some unfortunate children of wars, but I now see they are wee wolly jumpers for Fairy penguins. How adorable!

HONK HONK!!!

Same to you ..with brass knobs on!!!

:-) I still have to decide which stuffed penguin comes with me to Italy...

Have any of you ever seen the 1971 film "Cry of the Penguins" (sometimes known as "Mr. Forbush and the Penguins")? I saw it years and years ago and it has haunted me since. It was that film that made me a fan of John Hurt. I kept looking for it on TV, but it never reappeared. Recently I learned that it is now available on DVD. Bowled me over! It is so obscure, I thought it would never get released on DVD. Heck, you can't even get "Strictly Ballroom" on DVD! I have, needless to say, just ordered it. If you love penguins, this movie will touch you deeply. I hope you are able to see it someday. Charlotte

Hi Charlotte! Long time, no see! Never heard of the movie, but i am a big fan of John Hurt!

never heard of the movie either--is it scary or what?

Not scary, really...unless you think John Hurt as a romantic lead is scary. :) Here's what AMG says about it: A great deal of director Al Viola's version of this film was pruned away for its general release. The missing portions are not only the heart of the story, but they are the heart of the novel by Graham Billings which gave rise to the film. The whole story is that Forbush (John Hurt) is going nowhere in his romance of Tara (Hayley Mills) because he is basically an uninteresting, shallow man. In desperation, he decides to go off to Antarctica and study penguins. He hopes that his heroism in doing this will prove his sincerity to Tara. Once there, he grows genuinely enchanted by his project and develops a real interest in penguins. It is this, rather than his courage, which wins him Tara's affections. The truncated version omits most of the film's reputedly spectacular and affecting Antarctic footage (shot by Arne Sucksdorff) in order to concentrate on the love story. � Clarke Fountain