Missed Penguins

Hey everybody! I found a blog the other day (thanks to the indirect recommendation of someone whose company I enjoy, albeit infrequently) that posts illustrations to accompany the "missed connections" personals in New York papers. It's a really beautiful blog, and I mean that sincerely. It also inspired me to write my own version of "missed connections" from the perspective of a penguin. Enjoy!

A Penguin's Missed Connections by Bertrand G. Penguington


I was on one of the trains--I don't know which one it was because I can't read--and you stared at me and smiled while you were talking on the phone with your boyfriend. Your hat was cute. I was the penguin.

You almost got in my cab somewhere around 47th. You said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know this was taken." I would have said that you could join me, but I couldn't open my beak fast enough. In case you don't remember, I was the penguin.

You're the only other penguin I've met in this penguin-forsaken city. I was also a penguin.

You kicked me when you were walking down the street somewhere in Manhattan. Maybe it was an accident, but you didn't even apologize. Do you hate penguins? (I was the penguin, by the way.)

I caught your eyes when we were at the zoo. Maybe you were wondering what I was doing walking around like a regular person. I was wondering if you'd like to go out to dinner. I hope you date penguins.

I muttered something under my breath about how a penguin can't get a break in this world, and you helped cheer me up. Then you threw me out the bus window. That was not cool, and I wanted you to know that.

Adventures in Urban Pigeon Hunting

A while back, my roommate Yorick (name changed to protect said roommate from legal action) bought a blow gun so he could take out the pigeons that so persistently poop on our doorstep and mailbox. To most this may seem like an extreme reaction to a minor problem, and it probably is. But I'm not here to criticize.

So check this out:


This, friends, is a pigeon with a dart in its neck. As if that wasn't already pretty obvious.

So in the course of Yorick's hunting, he's nailed many-a-pigeon in the neck, but he's only had one confirmed kill. Most of the time he hits them and they just fly off, presumably to die elsewhere. Apparently, though, they never die and end up flying around with these darts stuck in 'em like nothing ever happened.

We all knew pigeons were stupid. But stupid enough to go on living and pooping like normal despite the unrelenting presence of a dart in the neck? That's beyond what any of us could have hoped or dreamed.

The greatest insult of all? This pigeon is going to poop on our doorstep so much more now. Or maybe the greatest insult will be when one of these pigeon shows up at the police station and "Yorick" ends up getting arrested after a lengthy sting operation. In either case, it would have been much more efficient to use a bazooka.

The Magnificent Game

The Internets are alive today with thoughts on the incredible Game 6 of the Bulls-Celtics playoff series, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. Bulls won in 3 overtimes. In six games, there have been seven overtimes, and five of those six games have been decided by one play. It's incredible. It being fresh in my mind, I wanted to record some thoughts. I'll post something funny later.

Since Game 3 or 4, some people have been calling this possibly the best playoff series in NBA history. It's been that good. But what really gets me is the fan reaction after Game 6. People haven't just been talking about the team they want to win, but they're talking about their love for the game, and how that love is captured in this moment (or series of moments).

Sports almost never does this, but it can reach a level where it brings something out of us, the fans, that transcends the game. I mean, every sports fan wants to see a good game, and we see a lot of bad ones, but every fifty years or so there's something that's more than just a good game. It's something that brings people together, even people who really wouldn't care otherwise. This Bulls-Celtics series is approaching something special like that. I know it sounds ridiculous, but if you read around the net, you'll know what I mean.

If you'll allow me to get really overdramatic, it reminds me of the Miracle on Ice. People got on board for this Olympic hockey game like never before, and maybe hockey was more popular in 1980, but even then, this game brought the country together. A hockey game. In 1980, the only hockey teams south of the Mason-Dixon line were in LA and Atlanta, and the Atlanta team moved to Canada the following season. Somehow, this game that appealed more to some Canadians than most Americans still caught our hearts. I don't think we can imagine anything, let alone a sports game, uniting us like that today. But it was about more than patriotism or anything like that. As easy as it was to draw political lines, that doesn't speak to the heart of the fanaticism over a hockey game. This was something more, something you can't put your finger on. And the feeling everybody got when those guys won, well, see Miracle. I cry every time I watch that movie.

It makes me want to part of a Magnificent Game. We love games like this because we want to be part of something like that. We want the struggle, the back-and-forth, the come-from-behind victory, the back-breaking impossible play. But since most of us will never be in a sports moment like that, we want that with our lives. That's why it speaks to our hearts and not just our rooting interests, because the struggle really matters.

We can make a game out of everything, but how do you make it truly Magnificent? We play the money game, the sex game, the fame game, the knowledge game, whatever. But to really matter, you have to have a magnificent goal, a magnificent end. If I play for money my whole life, it won't mean a thing in the end. I want to think eternally, and then I want to think about how my life can be a Magnificent Game forever. I mean, whoever wins this Bulls-Celtics series will get beat by LeBron and the Cavs. In the bizarre chance that one of these teams wins the championship, then they play for a few more years, get old, retire, and maybe even end up trying to sell their championship rings on eBay (as many former champions are doing now). It's a fading glory at best.

I need something that really matters. So I want to struggle against evil and fight for truth. I want to fight back when I'm down one (or ten), even if the devil keeps coming back and taking the lead from me. And there's so many ways to take this metaphor, like designing the right plays and going for the unbelievable shots, but I'll just leave it at that. To me, it comes down to whether I'm playing the right game.