aggienaut | Monterey

   I have more of an excuse than the rest of you (well except Kristy) to be mushy on valentines day. You see, I talked to Kristy for the first time minutes before valentines day two years ago (excerpts can be found here, near the bottem of the entry). One of the very first things I ever said to her was "happy valentines day."

   Two years later, about one minute before midnight Sunday night, I met Kristy under a street lamp in the middle of nowhere. (Why? Don't ask.) (=

   On Saturday we went down to the Monterey Aquarium. To do this we spent Friday night at her parent's house in Pleasanton, which involved me wearing a hoodie the whole time to hide my mohawk from them and avoid certain death. At one point her mom asked "what, do you have a mohawk or something?" which issued an awkward silence I broke with "now THAT would be silly!" Anyway, the following are pictures from the Aquarium:

Great White (?) - see rant at bottem of entry

a catshark, doing a lazy cat impression

Kristy being attacked by jellyfish
Compare: Kristy being attacked by giant roses.

more jellyfish. see rant at bottem of entry

Kristy, gazing

if you look carefully you can see us

close up version

see the animal? compare to this other picture.

Manta Ray

Electric Ray!

Cow-Nosed Ray

I call it the "Polkadot Pancakefish." Its actually a Stingray.

We named it Rilo, as in Kiley.

Politically Correct Aquatics
   I was also alarmed by the use of "politically correct" names in the Aquarium, such as the reference to "jellies" rather than "jellyfish." The things are CLEARLY not fish and insisting on calling them something other than their established name over concern that someone will make the terrible mistake of thinking they have fins and gills or something is just lame. Catfish (& catsharks) are just as clearly not cats, but you don't see us calling THEM something different.
   And the Great White Shark they have they referred to as the "White Shark," presumably to avoid the infamy attached to its full name. The thing IS the world's largest predatory fish (according to wikipedia.org), so I think "great" is not a missplaced part of the name.

Previously on EMOSNAIL
   Two Years Ago Sunday: Lawyer Says I'm Right - University legal counsel informs the rest of the ASUCD Supreme Court that I was correct in my dissent on the D1 case and they are all wrong. Also I complain about customers at the CoHo, where I worked at the time.
   Two Years Ago Valentines Day: Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, He's Probably Cheating on You, So Get Over it. - Anti-V-Day party at Chazz's.
   Two Years Ago Today: Date with Antoinette
   Valentines Day One Year Ago: No V-Day's Complete Without An Interrupted Dinner - Yeah Courtbutt thought it would be a good idea to pound on Kristy's door while we were having our candle-lit dinner. I forget what her excuse was. We didn't answer it. -- Also quotes from our (Kristy and I) first conversation are in the entry. All our early conversations have finally been lost for good with the most recent crashing of her computer.

Related
   Kristy's entry on the same.