Crainium - The Coquettery of Immobility Oh Watch How I Bake, a Victim, a Baby, a Coital Cake: A song as insane sounding as its title would lead you to believe.

Tom Waits - Black Market Baby: Just a great song from Mule Variations...which I think I've said before is an album I don't often give enough credit.

Radiohead - Karma Police: Never been a big Radiohead fan, but really liked OK Computer at the time it came out.

Jeff Buckley - Jewel Box: Just good stuff.

Butthole Surfers - Something: Back in the day, I found a numbered, limited edition release called "Double Live," a peculiar looking package which looked to be a bootleg, but it was a bit hard to tell. Now that the internet and its wealth of answers to these questions is within reach, I've learned the band captured a bootleg and released it on their own label and now have the "limited edition" available as a free download from their website. All that said, this captures the mania of the Surfers very well, with "Something" closing out the collection with noisy angst.

Amon Tobin - Cougar Merkin: From Solid Steel Live, over and over again I say how great this CD is.

Tom Waits - Eyeball Kid: Tom at his goofiest.

Robyn Hitchcock - Airscape: Like a buffoon, I bought all the reissues of Robyn Hitchcock CDs a few years ago even though I already had most of the originals...but hey, I had to have those extra bonus tracks. For Element of Light, I will say the upgrade was worth it, if for nothing else, this live track.

The lions were walking about, watching the people with a certain interest. We were just about to walk away when something caught my eye. You could say I've been around cats too long, but I could just tell they were up to something.

Then, the wrestling began.

Having just left the reptile house, I had my shutter speed set really low, so I captured a bunch of nice, blurry cat antics. But if nothing else, it displays motion.

After the quick match, they calmed down.

Philip Glass - The Photographer Act 2: A repetitive song for repetitive mornings.

Husker Du - She Floated Away: One of my favorite Grant Hart songs from the Warehouse release.

The dB's - Bad Reputation: Certainly not one of my favorite dB's songs, but has their manic popness that is fun to appreciate.

Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians - Arms of Love: Very easy to like this song from a very accessible period of Hitchcock's career.

Mission of Burma - Man in Decline: I think I've said this before, but it impresses me how MOB can continue to release fun CDs so many years after their groundbreaking albums.

Motorhead - Christine: Weird having a Motorhead song named after a girl.

The Boom - Heavy Dose: Scream, squeal, pound, bang, screech, record, play.

My Bloody Valentine - Come in Alone: I actually don't think it is an exaggeration when people call this the greatest album ever. Lots of bands have tried to duplicate the sound and songwriting of Loveless, but none have succeeded to my ears.

Everybody has the same reaction to the Alligator Snapping Turtle.

It is a curious, curious, curious look, revelation as to what the turtle is, then a startled jump backwards.

Some little girl ran up to the glass and yelled at the poor guy, "I don't like you." Oddly, the turtle responded by swimming around madly, causing the girl to run off. I suspect I wasn't the only one who, in turn, didn't like the girl.

"Wait, don't take my picture yet...let me open my mouth all scary like."

Actually, this guy was a little shy.

But not the Asian Water Dragon. It was standing at the glass watching everybody in the building with great interest.

Whatever had the zoo animals acting goofy that Saturday, the reptiles were certainly in on it.

Weird what I can find when I really start looking closely.

Finally, I saw the baby.

She came into view riding atop her mom, looking downwards for food.

Then, off alone to slurp for food.

Beautiful as they are, they certainly struck me as being silly looking. I found it quite odd that the goofy creature on the Pink Panther cartoons was actually less goofy looking than the real thing.

The Mammal House is always a special part of any trip to the zoo for me.

Although we were there early, the zoo was still oddly empty, and the mammals were pretty much wide open for me to watch.

Even the Meerkats didn't have an audience, which is very rare. One was following the movements of my camera with its head without distraction, which was remarkable fun for me for a few moments.

After visiting the birds, we had to walk by the pandas to return to the zoo's main drag.

Panda was sleepy.

So sleepy that panda had to roll.

And roll some more, kicking its leg just for effect.

We have used the term "Pandaham" to refer to these clowns as they show off for the public. They always, always live up to that term.

Carter USM - Cheer Up, It Might Never Happen: Loud bouncy fun.

Amon Tobin - Completely Real: The Solid Steel Presents Live album is one of my favorite releases, capturing Tobin at his spinning best.

Amon Tobin - Foley Room: A bit of a different sound from a bit of a different album. The idea of Foley Room, using found sounds to weave and sample into his tracks, was mostly well executed in this release and demonstrates Tobin's desire to constantly do something different.

Stereolab - Super Electric: Yep, that's Stereolab.

Barn Burning - American Folk Rock School: I really like Barn Burning and their droning sad music of agony, but the Choir Practice EP that this is from is most notable for an acoustic cover of Iron Maiden's "Run to the Hills."

Stereolab - Tomorrow is Already Here: A repetitive fun track.

Tomorrow is Already Here - Modern Times: Interesting sequence, with my friend Garret's musical experienced named after the song which played previously.

Mission of Burma - Academy Fight Song: Great song to end the random day.

Even the birds were in a mood last weekend.

The owl was quiet, but probably only because it was irked at the Macaw Birds that were yelling up a storm. I mean, screaming so loud it was almost painful.

The Marabou Stork and the Red-legged Seriema were overly friendly, meeting me at the fence and standing quite tall and pretty.

But the flamingos were the definition of chaos, running and screaming remarkable tones. I think they were possibly preparing for mating rituals. Think Dr. Zoidberg mating ritual.

Not sure who this guy was, but after a few moments of being afraid of me, he let me get close and capture a nice profile.

The cheetahs were next on our trip. Two were sleeping in a den while one was pacing on the other end of the habitat.

We were about to leave when the pacing cat came towards us making a tiny, motoring purr / mert combination sound. Then it walked over to the sleepy cat and began to groom it.

We went to the zoo this past weekend. While I never leave the zoo disappointed, for some reason, this visit seemed to be filled with all kinds of goofiness and fun showings from the animals.

The pandas, our typical first stop, were oddly devoid of observers, but this didn't stop them from being overly silly. Sharing the same yard, they were eating in separate locations when one decided the other must have better bamboo and decided to force sharing.

The otters seemed quite oblivious to us at first, but then ran right up to us to investigate. Then they proceeded to wrestle for about ten minutes.

For the first time, I finally saw the fishing cat closeup.

Same with the clouded leopard.

More to come...

I went out before sunrise to take pictures at the shore.

Spotlights from the onshore condos gave me NBA-attractive legs.

On the first day, the sun never broke through the clouds, but that didn't stop some great views for snapping. Really, I think I like clouds better than the sun anyday.

On the second day, the sun was more obvious.

Hey, a white woolly bear caterpillar, I thought, when I saw the creature pictured below.

I looked him up online and believe I found a young Giant Tiger Moth Caterpillar. According to the text I reviewed, they tend to be darker, but could be all white when very young.

The Great Tiger Moths appear to be very beautiful. I hope I see him again after the metamorphosis.

Steve Westfield and the Slow Band - Wandering: Odd little song that starts off kinda loungy (even to the point that a phony "Welcome to the Catskills Peppermint Lounge" introduction is announced) but grows very dark driven by haunting strings.

Boredoms - 10: From Super Roots 6, a weird song even for the Boredoms with slight traces of The Residents.

Rush - Broon's Bane: The short guitar intro to "The Trees" from the Exit Stage Left.

Philip Glass - Music Box The Demise of Candyman: From the Candyman soundtrack, a quieter ending to the common theme that accompanies the death of our beloved villain.

Tom Waits - Books of Moses: Not one of Waits' strongest songs from the Orphans release.

Tom Waits - Little Drop of Poison: Well, that's much better.

Deerhoof - This Magnificent Bird Will Rise: Very typical yet great mix of mania and musicianship from Deerhoof.

Deerhoof - Frenzied Handsome, Hello!: Well, that's a little weird; a second track from Reveille which really captures the band in great form.

I recently learned that UNDER the mushroom is where to find the good creatures.

I foresee a number of muddy knees in my future.

Stanislaw Lem - Memoirs Found in a Bathtub: After reading Solaris and His Master's Voice, I pretty much decided to try and read every Lem book available translated in English. That said, Lem is usually a slow read for me. There is rarely a sentence in his tales that doesn't contain meaning, and often that meaning is buried under philosophy, politics, sarcasm, or some combination of the three.

Bathtub started with a similar crawl for me, but quickly became much more accessible than I expected. Perhaps my ease of comprehension came from having recently read Kafka's The Trial and Metamorphosis, of which Bathtub has some significant similarities. A dark tale, Lem captures paranoia and self-preservation as the only two conflicting human traits of politicians, military, and out-of-place civilians in a crumbling society. Like The Trial, the lead character in Bathtub pursues a fruitless mission to answer an unanswerable question, lost in an ever-confusing world established by those who only pretend to have control of their lives and the situation in which they live.

I don't think I'd rank this effort over Solaris or His Master's Voice, but Lem exposes his ability to identify with the worst in our Governments if they will allow this dark side to surface. In other words, it only requires a small stretch of the imagination.

Tom Waits - Yesterday Is Here: Waits could do no wrong during the Frank's Wild Years era.

Thuja - Untitled Track 01: From Pine Cone Temples, seemingly a growing favorite on the Random Eight. This is pretty much noise; high percussion, eerie groans, and ambient droning spanning 12+ minutes.

Caribou Vibration Ensemble - Brahminy Kit: About twenty musicians (if not more) filled the stage to play at this group's recent ATP festival showing giving a pretty crazy mix of drums, horns, guitars, and probably a bunch of other things as well.

Peter Holsapple / Chris Stamey - She Was The One: A minimal, great song from the Mavericks release.

Tom Waits - Sixteen Shells from a Thirty-Ought Six: Waits could do no wrong during the Frank's Wild Years era.

Clint Mansell - Pi R 2: From the Pi soundtrack, one of my favorite movies and my first real introduction to how fantastically Mansell could score a film.

Archers of Loaf - Form and File: Proving that the words "concept album" do not need to fill one with dread.

Cocteau Twins - Violaine: I heard this BBC Sessions playing in a CD shop a while back and felt compelled to buy it. I had never listened to this band previously and I doubt if I even knew one song. I don't think it has lived up to whatever it is I heard in the store that day, but it is kinda awkwardly haunting which I guess is always a sell for me.