Enough with the tasteless poll questions and vulgar t-shirts (warning: both links contain potentially objectionable/offensive material)… it’s time for something totally non-objectionable… pictures and movie clips from the zoo!

Back during late December, Becky and I went to the Arizona’s Wildlife World Zoo with her dad, and I took a bunch of cool photos and videos… but I never got around to posting them. Well, here’s a collection of those videos, starting with a very cool blue-tongued skink, and ending with an OCD duck:

Here’s my full photo gallery, and here are a couple of particularly cool shots:

“I’m the king, baby.”

Becky feeds a giraffe.

I stick out my tongue at a giraffe.

Butter grooms herself… wait a minute, that’s not Butter!

Becky gets mobbed in the petting zoo. Heh.

Again, full gallery here.

D’oh:

Colt Brennan, who will announce Monday his decision on whether to apply for the NFL draft or return to [Hawaii] for his senior season, appeared on ESPN News’ The Pulse this morning. Here’s a snippet:

The Pulse: “If you had to decide right now, right this second, which way do you think you’d go?”
Colt Brennan: “You’re putting me on the spot right now. I’d say right now … shoot …”
The Pulse: “If you had to make a decision … I mean, and then change it …”
Colt Brennan: “If it’s just hypothetically, I’d probably go to the NFL. Yeah.”

Nooooo! Stay, Colt, stay! Make Boise-Hawaii the game of the year! (Well, okay, one of the games of the year. :)

Fox just showed a live shot of a Saints fan wearing a t-shirt that says “F*** da Eagles.” Heh.

First “West F***in’ Virginia” (warning: link contains profanity!), and now this. But that was on ESPN; this was on broadcast TV. That noise you hear is the Family Research Council’s fax machine going into overdrive.

Incidentally, the Saints lead 3-0 early. This after a touchdown-less 15-6 Colts win over the Ravens earlier today. We’ve completed almost five quarters of divisional-round playoff football, and nary a touchdown has been scored yet.

UPDATE: Michael David Smith at AOL Sports Blog is calling the t-shirt incident “Wardrobe Malfunction Part 2.”

UPDATE 2: More blog posts about Shirtgate here.

Deadspin already has video up.

I can’t get that one to play, but here’s a YouTube video, in slow motion. (Warning: profanity… obviously.)

Deployed and blogging has a downloadable WMV version. Better quality, with sound, non-slow-mo.

Looking at the video, you can see that it wasn’t actually a live shot… it was a replay! So Fox can’t even use “hey, it’s live TV, anything can happen” as an excuse… they actually chose, despite at least several seconds’ lead time, to show an instant replay of a female fan jumping up and down while wearing a vulgar shirt. Awesome. This controversy is going to be fu-u-n. :)

After the jump, photos of the shirt. Again, warning: profanity!

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USC leads fUCLA, 55-51 with 7:55 left in the 2nd half. They’re 7-of-12 from three-point land, and have also had some great highlight-reel plays inside. This team looks good. Fight on Trojans!!

UPDATE: I spoke too soon. Ever since I posted this, USC has been stone-cold. Luckily, UCLA has too, so with 4:38 left, it’s 55-53 Trojans.

UPDATE 2: It’s 61-57 UCLA with 1:25 left. Bah. They’ve scored a grand total of two points — and have missed three front-ends of one-and-ones!! — in the 6:30 since I complimented them. Clearly, I jinxed them.

UPDATE 3: USC trailed 63-57, then rallied to lead 64-63 on a four-point play by Nick Young with 23 seconds left… but now UCLA has taken the lead 65-64 with 4.7 seconds left. Trojan ball.

UPDATE 4: WTF???? With 4.7 seconds left, trailing by a point, USC inbounded the ball to a guy who was about 80 feet away from the basket and, of course, ended up launching a desperation heave from around midcourt. WHAT THE HELL? Dumbest ending to a game ever. I’m sure UCLA was playing good defense downcourt, but no amount of good defense justifies that kind of block-headedness. That’s just an unawareness of how much time is on the clock. Idiot! If nobody’s open, it’s better to throw a desperation 80-foot inbounds pass heave, basically a jump ball, than to pass the ball 20 feet and end up launching a 50-foot shot as time expires. The chances of hitting a shot like that are one-in-a-million! With 4.7 seconds on the clock, there’s a much better chance that the “jump ball” pass will land in a Trojan’s hands and wind up going into the basket, than that you’re going to hit a halfcourt shot. Plus, if UCLA gets the pass, you can foul them immediately, send them to line, and try again. Likewise if the long pass goes out of bounds. All of these are scenarios that are more likely to result in a win than a freakin’ halfcourt shot, for heaven’s sake.

Whoever was inbounding the ball (I forget which player it was) should have been specifically told during the timeout before the play: under no circumstances do you inbound the ball on this side of the midcourt line, unless someone there is totally undefended (in which case they can quickly run it toward the basket). If given a choice between passing the ball to a heavily defended player 80 feet from the basket, and heaving the ball 80 feet into a “jump ball” situation 20 feet from the basket, you do the latter.

Anyway, UCLA 65, USC 64, final. Bah. I totally jinxed them.

Tsunami alerts issued for the Pacific Basin due to an 8.2-magnitude earthquake were lifted when only minor surges resulted. Visit CNN for the latest.

The senior Pentagon official in charge of military detainees doesn’t believe terrorism suspects deserve good lawyers. In fact, he thinks anyone who loves America should refuse to do business with law firms that allow their lawyers to represent these suspects. I’m sorry, did I say “suspects”? I meant “terrorists.” Because that doesn’t beg the question at all.

You know, we hear a lot about how our brave men and women overseas are “defending our freedom” — and God bless them for it, they deserve all the praise in the world. But this story got me thinking: it would be helpful if the Bush Administration could provide us with a list of precisely which freedoms they’re defending, and which ones they’re not. It gets confusing sometimes, trying to figure it out.

P.S. In fairness, an anonymous, but apparently more senior, Pentagon official sorta-kinda-disavowed the deputy assistant secretary’s repugnant remarks. It’s interesting, though, that said “senior official” wouldn’t allow his name to be used, and that we haven’t heard any on-the-record renunciations from, oh I dunno, the president or the secretary of defense.

This story is a couple of days old, and several people have e-mailed me about it, but I’ve neglected to blog about it until now. It definitely merits a mention, though: New Line Cinema head Richard Shaye has basically declared war on Peter Jackson, the latest salvo in the battle over The Hobbit. (Previous post here.)

All copies of the video of Steve Irwin’s death have been destroyed, according to his widow Terri. (You can read the full interview here.)

So much for the reports that Irwin’s family was planning to “respect his last wishes and allow the harrowing footage to be broadcast.” (The Daily Star, which initially got that rumor rolling, quoted Irwin as once saying, “My number one rule is to keep that camera rolling. … Even if a big old alligator is chewing me up I want to go down and go, ‘Crikey!’ just before I die. That would be the ultimate for me.”)

One video that will air is Irwin’s final documentary, “Ocean’s Deadliest,” which he was in the midst of filming when he died. It will debut next Sunday at 8pm, simulcast on Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel.

Anyway, the discussion of the death video reminds me of a poll question I’ve wanted to ask on the blog for a while… but I haven’t, because, well, it’s in extremely poor taste. But, what the heck, I’ll ask it after the jump. Taste doesn’t matter, so long as it’s after the jump, right? :) Like I said, though: extremely poor taste. Seriously. Don’t click the “more…” link if you’re easily offended!

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In mid-March, Great Big Sea will be touring 10 midwestern U.S. cities. I highly recommend their concerts to anyone who has a chance to attend one. GBS puts on a great show. Even if you’re not normally a fan of Celtic or folk music, they’re well worth seeing, as they really transcend the genre, producing a sort of hybrid Celtic/folk/rock/pop blend that’s just, well, awesome. Anyway, whatever you want to call the genre, it’s just plain good music. And they seem to have legions of fans everywhere (I’ve been to concerts in L.A., New York, Buffalo and Providence), and the energy and enthusiasm of those fans, who know every word of every song, is infectious. So yeah. Go see them! Tickets are on sale now. :)

On a related note (no really, it’s related - watch and you’ll understand), this is kinda funny:

Tsunami warning issued for Japan and surrounding areas after quake east of Kuril Islands, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says. Visit CNN for the latest.