Saturday, May 26, 2007

Why Penguins Attack

Today I went to Newport Aquarium to film CiN At The Movies, a little Web ditty I film and edit for CiNWeekly.com that includes Tabari reviewing a movie and me adding a movie trailer in the middle and a blooper of Tabari at the end. (I suspect Tabari doesn't like the latter, but it's pretty hilarious for me.)

We filmed at the Aquarium because Tabari was reviewing Surf's Up, yet another penguin movie.

So we're filming with these three tropical penguins, which are cute as hell, in a new exhibit that let's anyone willing to pay $15 the chance to pet and hang out with the penguins for 20 minutes or so. (I'd totally pay $15 to do that.) The penguins were raised by humans and are hand fed lobster every day, so they're very people friendly and kind of waddle around to their keepers and guests, kind of like a kitten or a puppy.

What was particuarly adorable is that the keepers use cat toys to entertain them. Just sticks with colorful things at the end, and the penguins waddle over and nose them and get excited when they see them. They're also fans of red lights from laser beams, which they chased all around.

Well, one of the penguins waddled over and attacked me as I was packing up the camera. Ok, not really attacked me, but came over and poked me on the side of the leg. I thought it was pretty awesome. (It must totally love me, I thought. It wants my attention. Probably because I petted it so nice like.)

After it happened, one of the keepers distracted the penguin and gave it a talking to as you would a baby. Like, "Hey Paula, We do not attack people, do we? We love red lights and lobster and cat toys. Yes we do!"

Turns out, much like the penguins enjoy chasing around the light beams, they also chase around any spots or discolorations on things. So that little tattoo of a sun I have on the side of my ankle was ripe for a poke from a penguin.

I'm totally glad I got it now.

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