Friday, April 25, 2008
Where there's lots of things to do
20th April 2008 - MNSM Zoo Negara Volunteer Trip
As a departure from the usual "Let's visit somewhere and get dirty and have mindless fun" (no I'm not referring to sex), MNSM organised a volunteer trip to Zoo Negara last weekend. 45 of our members could be spotted cleaning up the zoo compound, performing activities which ranged from washing cages, raking leaves and waxing (really!) turtle's shells (turtleshells?). I wish I was helping out at the Reptile section, though, because chelonians are cool.
45 volunteers! One of the few times where everyone turned up.
Getting briefed before everything began.
Instead, I was posted to the big cats section. We had to brush the insides of the cages and everything, as well as rake leaves from the roaming compounds. Boring stuff of which descriptions do not make for good blogging material ("We purposefully piled the leaves with rakes, following up with skillful manipulation of straw baskets to get rid of them methodically"?), so I'll fall back to using good old photos; once again taken by our club photographer, Izuan.
As a departure from the usual "Let's visit somewhere and get dirty and have mindless fun" (no I'm not referring to sex), MNSM organised a volunteer trip to Zoo Negara last weekend. 45 of our members could be spotted cleaning up the zoo compound, performing activities which ranged from washing cages, raking leaves and waxing (really!) turtle's shells (turtleshells?). I wish I was helping out at the Reptile section, though, because chelonians are cool.
45 volunteers! One of the few times where everyone turned up.
Getting briefed before everything began.Instead, I was posted to the big cats section. We had to brush the insides of the cages and everything, as well as rake leaves from the roaming compounds. Boring stuff of which descriptions do not make for good blogging material ("We purposefully piled the leaves with rakes, following up with skillful manipulation of straw baskets to get rid of them methodically"?), so I'll fall back to using good old photos; once again taken by our club photographer, Izuan.
The roaming compound for the tigers. You can't see them because they're crouching. 
Photographic evidence that I did my share of the work...
...and so did other people. Such camwhores, aren't they?
This tiger was really friendly; not a single roar the whole time we were there. But when the other tigers did roar, it sounded like we were in Jurassic Park, what with the booming noise reverberating within the cages and all.
Izuan took this photo when he was at the veterinary section. This is the tail (or lack thereof) of a lioness who accidentally bit it off in a squabble with another lioness.After several hours of volunteer work (nothing too taxing, really), we were allowed to roam the zoo. Just a couple more interesting photos:
Flamingos! The silliest looking bird in the world which automatically makes them one of the coolest in my books.
Tapirs can also be found on the Malaysian Nature Society logo. Seems like environmental NGOs have a predilection towards black-and-white animals as mascots, e.g. WWF with its panda.
Giraffes, aka the animal which gives amateur artists splitting headaches when drawing them in weird angles.
Try drawing this without a picture aid.
Elephants can't jump, y'know.
Striped hyenas look nothing like the spotted ones you see in The Lion King. They're much larger than I thought they would be, too.
Check out this hyena pup! Awww... Soooo cuuuuuute...And finally, a picture of a gaur to bid you adieu.
"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well I'm the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?"If you got that reference, I'll give you a virtual cookie.
Pointless Fact of the Day:
I wanted to write about blue flamingos, but then they are as real as red herrings.
I don't know which is more distracting.Red herrings are rather useful to distract and mislead people, especially in the first Monkey Island game. For those of you who didn't play the game (you should!), here's a couple of screenshots:
Guybrush steals a fish from a seagull (which has already flown away).
A troll blocks Guybrush from crossing a bridge...
...which can be appeased by paying it its toll.The first time I played the game (I remember it well, I was still in Singapore and just a week or two away from leaving my hostel for good), I got stuck at this puzzle for almost two hours. Fear the fiery fish.
I actually went back to play the game just to get those screenshots. Not that I mind, though, Monkey Island is a classic. Anyone who wants the game (I have Monkey Island 2 and Day of the Tentacle, too), just bring your thumbdrive and ask me for it. It can even fit in an e-mail; it's less than 5 megs in size! That's the pros of playing a game released in 1990.
Isn't it interesting how I went from flamingos to Monkey Island? It's the work of the herring, I tells ya!
