fun with animals

This past weekend, we participated in two of our favorite pastimes: shopping and the Discovery Channel. We got some great deals through my work discount and spent much of our weekend at the store. In our downtime, we watched some Discovery Channel. Isaac has a sampler of Discovery Channel DVDS, and at first, I wasn't really interested in watching, but after about 2 minutes, I was hooked. In "The Deadliest Catch", which was actually made into a series on Discovery Channel, we witnessed the difficulties of snow crab fishing, an occupation which has been termed "The Deadliest Job In the World" because of the many dangers of fishing in the Arctic Ocean. I actually experienced a little phantom seasickness while watching the fishermen run around on the boat as it was tossed around 30 foot waves. It's crazy to see what fishermen have to endure so that I can enjoy a nice meaty crab claw.

Later, we watched "Living With Wolves" (watch the video clip!), a documentary about two filmmakers who spent 6 years living in Idaho with a pack of wolves. It's actually pretty captivating, except for the storyline about their romance. I could have done without that. But the wolves are interesting and cute, even, and you get to see their personalities and a little bit about wolf society. It was fascinating.

Watching the intimate lives of wolves awakened my usually dormant interest in animals and I ended up perusing Wikipedia to learn more about various animals. I learned some random things. For instance, did you know that a group of tigers is called a streak? Or that hyenas eat their prey alive? Or that a single well-placed kick from a giraffe can shatter a lion's skull or spine? Or that zebra's stripes act as camouflage from lions who are colorblind? Well, maybe you knew, but I had no idea. It was a feast of information for me. So just now, I checked the TV schedule for tonight, and while there are no animal specials on, National Geographic is airing "In the Womb: Multiples" at 9pm tonight. I saw a commercial for this a while back, but forgot about it. Fortunately, National Geographic is airing repeats, so if you're at all interested, you can catch the showing tonight or next Sunday.