Gratuitous Pandas

You know, some people might find useful ways to pass their time. Me? I pride myself on finding highly entertaining yet ultimately useless pics and vids of baby pandas. Well worth the effort, imho.

Here's another [insert city name]-ist blog that is crazy about pandas. (If you will recall, the DCist blog went through a Pandodyssey-like phase cooing over Tai Shan.) The Shanghaiist has linked THREE adorably panda clips. SSFW: if you're pretending to work, be wary of annoyingly brisk holiday music in the first clip.

Follow that page's link to this one at Life in the Fast Lane, where an essay on the life of a panda - rife with illustration - awaits.

Pictured above: pandas en masse are cuter.

A panda, by any other name, would be so cute

The panda cub at the SD Zoo has a name! She will be called Zhen Zhen, which in Chinese translates as "I hate my name". Zhen Zhen turned 100 days old on Monday.

Despite the lousy appellation, she's still extremely cute.

My what big eyes you have!

Wanna show your support for victims of breast cancer? Then get topless and make yourself one of these awesome ceramic panda breast plates. For the price of 12 pounds (which according to my math, using today's exchange rate, carry the one...equals approximately 2,000 US dollars), you too can dip the twins in black paint and, ahem, make your mark on a dinner plate. Also available are plate designs in bumblebee and holiday pudding. Raise even more cash for cancer research by 'painting' an entire matching table setting! Just think of all the holiday mammaries and the impression you'll leave on Grandma this season.

Pictured above: a breast plate, and not the Gladiator kind either.

Fossil Fuels Won't Power This Search Engine

Google has stepped into the renewable energy world in a huge way. Both Google.com and Google.org (Google's non-profit arm) are ready to invest hundreds of millions of dollars on new and promising renewable energy projects. In teaming up with universities and companies, the Googles will attempt to find ways to lower the cost of renewables. Today, coal is still the cheapest source of energy, costing 2 - 4 cents per kilowatt hour. Google hopes to drop the cost of renewable energy down to 1 - 3 cents per kilowatt hour, finally making renewables a viable option to coal fired power plants.

I'm a believer in Google. As the most successful company in existence today, I am totally psyched about Google getting so heavily involved in the search for alternative energy. With big guns like Google on board, fossil fuels don't stand a chance. Now it's just a matter of time.

I wonder if Google would want to fund my alternative energy solution? I would pay people by the kilowatt hour to work out on treadmills and bikes and stair masters, harness the energy that's generated and then use the energy to power the building itself, or sell it to the power company. Think of it as recycling those indulgent Thanksgiving feast calories into useful electricity - The PandodyGym!

fashionably panda

Beijing has drafted a law that will ban THIS. Thank God!!!

Unfortunately, it is NOT a ban on bad fashion, but a ban on abusing or debasing the panda's image. Which this dress does.

Viva Vegetable Oil

How great would it be if you could refuel your car with cooking oil from your kitchen cabinet? That's exactly what Jared Fisher, owner of Escape Adventures - a sightseeing company, resorted to one morning when he discovered his company car's tank was on 'E'.

Earlier this year, Fisher spent around $9000 converting his six-vehicle fleet into hybrid vehicles that operate on either diesel fuel or vegetable oil. Fisher spends 4-6 hours a week driving around Vegas and pumping used vegetable oil from local restaurants for use in his vehicles. He estimates he has pumped roughly 3000 gallons of oil so far - nearly enough to make up for the entire cost of modifying his fleet.

People complain about the astronomical costs upfront to capture, convert, and store alternative energy, and how it's not feasible or easy to make money from going green. Then, you've got this guy who says "Nuts to that!" and for a $10,000 initial investment, is already seeing returns on his money. Plus, he's found a source of free fuel while simultaneously decreasing his expenditures on diesel fuel. Brilliant!

A business that's both green and profitable? Who would've thought it? I might have to invent The Medalodyssey to award to this guy and his corn oil cars. The Medalodyssey would be almost as prestigious as the Nobel Prize, but instead of a cash award and international recognition, you would receive a cheaply-crafted panda-themed gift in the mail sent to you C.O.D.

More Gratuitous Panda Pics

What's the point of having a subversive-quasi- panda-related-blog if not for the occasional gratuitous panda cub slide show? Here are some images of the as-yet-unnamed cub getting a checkup at the San Diego Zoo. Guessing from the graininess of some of the pics, these images were taken with the Hubble space telescope while it was offline for repair. Cuteness abounds regardless.

Speaking of space, on the way to the farmer's market last night, I saw what some could only describe as "a flaming ball of fire" in the nighttime sky. Maybe it was a meteor or a comet, maybe it was just a plane. If someone at NASA could point that Hubble telescope towards the east-north-easterly sky tonight and, I dunno, just check it out, that'd be swell. If it is indeed a "flaming ball of fire" headed straight for Earth, I'd at least like to finish the beer in my fridge before impact.

This Post is Utterly Useless

Warning: gratuitous panda shot.

This images comes to us courtesy of theatlantic.com. The article, titled "Among the Pandas," is available only to subscribers. Since I am not, I'm going to make up a story to accompany this photo. The Wolong Panda Reserve is seeking donations to care for its pandas. As this image shows, the keepers can only afford to feed 7 pandas at a time. Poor Typhoon (pictured in the back) now has to wait in line until dinner to get his meal. Meanwhile Dasher, Dancer, Donner, Prancer, Blitzen, Rudolph and.....uhhhh Ralph, chow down on some panda kibble while Typhoon pretends he's not hungry.

These names are MEH at best

If you want, you can help name the San Diego Zoo's baby panda at the SD Zoo site. Your oh-so-original choices for names are:

* Li Hua - "Beautiful China"
* Ming Zhu - "Bright Treasure"
* Zhen Zhen - "Precious"
* Xiao Li - "Little Beauty"

BOOOOOOOOOOring! How about Stephen Col-banda the Panda? That way, when this ball of fuzz is sent back to a Chinese nature reserve in two years, all the other baby pandas will know it's an American panda! It has US citizenship already, so why not a name that shows the whole world that this "little beauty" is "built Ford tough" and not "Made in China"?

Pictured above: U! S! A!

Hi-YAH

Jack Black - or really Jack Black's voice - is starring in Kung Fu Panda, a Dreamworks animated adventure starring a panda. It's slated for release in summer 2008.

I am embarassed to admit that I will watch this. Probably not in the theatre, but I'll watch it because, panda vehicle or not, Jack Black is one hilarious guy. Not in a "Didya-ever notice" ha-ha-isn't-that-clever- funny. His comic style is more ... physical. Sorta like Chris Farley, only with less fat, more sweat and funnier teeth. Jack Black, much like panda cam, is definitely one of my guilty pleasures. How can I not watch this movie?