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: Backwards Tobogganing
Dec 19, 2005

On the event that a toboggan makes a full turnaround without dumping all the passengers, the proceeding events are scary ones. This method shown here totally skips that difficult 180 degree turn maneuver. As far as the proceeding events, you’ll have to wait and see, this actually begins another short storyline.

Penguins & Polar Bears In the News

A reader shared this CNN news link with me the other day. It talks about a zoo in Tokyo, Japan, exercising their king penguins by taking them on walks in the winter so they don’t get too pudgy. King penguins look like emperors a bit, but they are smaller and do not actually live in Antarctica. They live up north where it is a bit warmer, on islands near the southern tip of South America. They say they have tender feet and can only walk on the snow (hence doing it in the winter), but maybe something got mixed up there in the writing because penguins actually are considered to have tough feet, and king penguins are quite used to the tougher and rockier surfaces of the islands they live on, perhaps their walk includes a lot of abrasive concrete there at the zoo. Also penguins are naturally less active in winter, as the article states, so it would seem if anything they would just cut their food portions a bit if there was a real concern… but I’m no zookeeper (actually they claim none were overweight to begin with). At any rate, I’m sure its fun to see the event there at the zoo, the bunch of them marching along on a morning waddle across the snow.

Polar bears have made the news quite a bit lately. I’ve read several articles about protests and lawsuits to save the polar bear’s habitat. With global warming, the ice is dissapearing up at the northern polar region (just like at south as we’ve covered). This shortens the polar bears ice hunting season driving them onto land for longer, which is a time they endure their most difficult months and can even starve. Here’s another article at CNN about three environmental groups suing the federal government and trying to get polar bears listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. If that were to happen, the government would have to curb emmisions of greenhouse gasses as that is what is jeopardizing the polar bear’s existence.

Tiny Publishers Weekly Blurb

I guess I have a few links going today, here’s another one at Publishers Weekly with a tiny mention of On the Rocks. Its actually about Funbrain (where On the Rocks is now syndicated at), web books and “stealth learning”. Basically it talks about Funbrain’s success with web books, the business model of going to web first and then to print and that they are now testing the market with graphic novels with On the Rocks being the first. So hopefully it is a success and we can see it in print within the next year or so.

Wally & Osbourne’s LiVEJOURNAL

Finally, and final link, I had heard that you can add a feed to LiveJournal, so that users there can add the comic to their friends list to read. I went to create an account to do that for those of you that use LiveJournal, but the name was already taken, I guess a reader has already created the LiveJournal feed for On the Rocks, heh, thanks reader! So if you want to add On the Rocks to your friends list, just click here.

10 Comments

  1. AnnMarie says:

    Since my husband sent you the article about exercise for penguins, I had to do better and send you an article about sweaters for penguins http://www.abc.net.au/canberra/stories/s1392592.htm (In British English, a jumper is a sweater). I wouldn’t believe it, except it is from a news agency. But stil….

  2. SuperVegito says:

    My My Tyler We Are Wordy Today Arent We? Great Strip BTW and its nice to hear about the little Blurb for On The Rocks and the fact that it should be a year before we get to read OTR on Paper ^_^

  3. Tyler Martin says:

    Thanks Ann, heh, you and your husband are a wealth of penguin news. =)

    Vegito, yeah, had a bunch to cover today, it seems the days I make a long post are the days there are the least comments. Must be intimidating… or boring, heh. See you guys tomorrow, for a short short post.

  4. Hi! Thanks for the laugh. I had a similar “backwards” experience except on skis. FYI – I’ve included a link to your blog post in my Christmas Eve Carnival of Healing blog post at http://healing.about.com/b/a/228909.htm

    Happy tobogganing!

  5. bobo says:

    mister holmes nice. lol

  6. Kat says:

    I read somewhere about a penguin kept by a family as a pet in Asia and he’d go to the food market to get fish for the family. He had a little pouch for the fish and the money. The fish monger would let the penguin ‘test’ the fish. It was a precious video. It was on Animal Planet. I forget the name of the show now.

  7. Poppy says:

    HA HAAAAAAAAA! THAT IS SO FUNNY! :mrgreen: 😮

  8. hi guys says:

    hi tyler!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    • Jenny says:

      What did I just tell you?! NO YELLING HELLO TO TYLER!!!!!!!!!!! GO UP TO HIS LOGO AND SAY HELLO NICELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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