You
know, it’s an interesting world.
One
of your fellow readers is building a blimp.
An acquaintance keeps penguins. A
third sent me an e-mail about trepanation.
And
don’t even get me started on chess boxing.
BLIMPS
Dan Nachbar: “Well, I'm still at it.
(For details, see personalblimp.com). My work to date has
focused on recreational use rather than marketing/advertising use. The main reason was speed. When I
started, I only knew how to make a cheap, slow blimp. Advertising blimps
need to be pretty fast in order to be at the appointed place at the appointed
time, regardless of the winds. However,
my work has evolved to the point where I now believe I can build a cheap, fast blimp – suitable for advertising. So, my question: I am
trying to ‘size the market’ for a blimp that is less
expensive to operate ($1,000,000 per year rather than the current $2,000,000
per year). But I have no idea how the decision to purchase blimp
services are made or who makes them. Will a cheaper blimp be of interest? Or do only crackpots
buy/lease blimps? Do you know anybody who knows about high-end advertising/marketing
that might be willing to give me some idea if a cheaper blimp has potential?”
F No, but a friend of
mine is dating a guy who seemed to have really bad mosquito bites on his legs that
he’d been scratching too hard when I met him this summer. “No, those are penguin bites,” he said. And now here he is in the New York Times!
PENGUINS
Dress Is Formal, but the Food?
Cold and Slimy
By
DAN BARRY
THERE
is a touch of swank to the place. But then the man in green appears with the
afternoon's repast in two buckets, and what had seemed like a cordial gathering
turns into last call at a bad Waldorf soiree. For penguins, apparently, nothing
beats the feel of a nice cold smelt sliding down your gullet.
The
man in green, Rob Gramzay, knows this better than
most humans. Officially, he is the Central Park Zoo's "senior wild animal keeper for polar birds and
polar mammals." Unofficially, he is Manhattan's penguin guy, responsible for the
well-being of this island's 42 Chinstraps and 23 Gentoos.
He
has other charges, of course, including but not limited to 13 puffins, three
polar bears, two screech owls and old Breezy, the blind sea lion whose
repertory of tricks once wowed them at Coney Island. But the penguins are especially dear
to his heart, in part because they seem always to be gently mocking those on
the other side of the zoo exhibit's glass partition: waddling about in comic
self-importance, beaks raised as if detecting an aroma nowhere near as pleasant
as a bucket of smelt. . . .
TREPANATION
And those two were just a warm up. You want to talk odd? How about paying someone $3,600 to drill a fair-sized
hole in your head? Needless to say, I am
one who thinks that anyone who would do this
already has one.