Markasaurus

I finally saw the otter exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium on Saturday. Natasha and I went there for the afternoon, and I also had the pleasure of seeing the giant, filthy stuffed otter in the picture displayed above. It was in a store down the street, and it looks like it’s been getting a lot of lovin’ from the kids. The aquarium was fun, but pricey. At $24.95 for admission, I almost think they should let you take an otter home with you for a week or two. The penguin exhibit was closed too, which I could see being a big disappointment for some people (not that I wasn’t disappointed, but I was really there to see the otters).

They also had a baby White Shark on display for the third time. They have a White Shark research program that has been taking young sharks accidentally caught in fishing nets and keeping them in captivity before releasing them back into the ocean. It was a little unclear whether or not the shark was going to be on display because a staff member was overheard saying that the shark “didn’t get along” with one of the turtles, which I took to mean “ate the turtle,” since disagreements with Great White Sharks don’t using end with verbal altercations.

While on the subject of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, how about a shameless plug for an academic paper I wrote a few years ago on the subject of Aquariums? Available for the first time on the internet, my paper The Public Aquarium: Fish as the Other “Other” looks into the birth of the aquarium during the age of the great exhibitions, and how it has evolved to its present form (using Monterey Bay as a key example). Sorry if the formatting of the paper isn’t the greatest, I think I exported out of Word to an HTML file and never really cleaned it up enough. I did make sure all the images were working, if you manage to make it to the end.

Before going to a Superbowl party at my friend Matt’s house, I went to a laundromat in the Castro called “Sit and Spin” where everyone was engrossed in a dog show televised on Animal Planet. This was followed up by the “Puppy Bowl,” which is a contest between two teams of puppies on a miniature football field (You can watch the highlights on the Animal Planet website). They also had slutty kitten cheerleaders for the halftime show. These talented young cats certainly had more energy than Tom Petty did at the real halftime show…