Detroit Zoo Wild Lights 2018 Experience

Hey there everyone. 2 years ago I went to the wild lights at the zoo with Mskate, and we decided to go to it again. We were going to see "Instant Family," but our schedules weren't able to line up with the movie times, so we instead went with something that doesn't require us to align our schedule to a movie that is on it's way out. Before the wild lights, we went out to dinner at a place where she and her family go frequently. It's just a small family restaurant, and it was fun. We chatted and caught up after not seeing each other for a while.

Now for the zoo. We parked off the property to save $10 on parking, and extra exercise. We were able to get in easily. Our ticket was for 7:30 and it was like 7:20. While there was a line, we went in really quickly. Right off the start we saw some jungle animal lights.

Quite fun. What was really interesting was what they were doing at the penguin house. They put in a new penguin house last year, and while I haven't been in it, I'm sure it's quite neat. However, they did do some projection on the side of the building.

There was also this cool jumping frog lights thing. I saw it before, but here it is again.

We also took a selfie in front of one of the trees. We kind of went off the official path to get to it, so don't tell anyone.

Now for the really cool thing. Last year the only exhibit that was open was the reptile house (because reptiles require constant heat lamps and sleep whenever they do, unlike mammals who have sleep schedules), but this year the otter exhibit was also open. I was able to see some and get pictures.

The beavers were also out, but I wasn't able to get any good pictures of them. 

We also saw this really cool display where the lights danced with the music.

After that cool display, we walked by a Coney Island in the zoo. That was new to me, and just shows how long it's been since I've been to the zoo. We didn't get anything (because we just had dinner), but I just wanted to see "is this basically a full Coney Island," and it was. There were also a lot of different stands (hot chocolate, smores, popcorn, etc.), but we didn't stop at them because the line was long and we weren't hungry/thirsty.

Before the reptile house there was this cool bug light display.

And now we're at the reptile house. Mskate was a little weirded out by the reptiles, but I had a lot of un looking at the various snakes and turtles and others. Plus we were able to warm up. Here are the different animals I saw.

 

After the reptiles we saw some more lights.

One I really enjoyed was seeing the Rackam fountain all lit up. Mskate asked "why do they call it Rackam fountain?" and I didn't have an answer. Chances are it was whoever paid for it.

We saw more lights after the fountain, and this really cool video light display. Unfortunately it didn't show up well on video.

We did some more walking, and saw some more lights. Not much longer then we reached the turn around. There were some Rudolf displays at the loop, along with some more lights.

I know a lot of what I'm saying is "look at the lights," but that's primarily what it was. Check out some more lights, and more animated lights.

Now for some stuff I don't have pictures of (lol). One of the new things at the zoo is a Buddy's Pizza (a local chain), and while we didn't stop there, it was quite interesting to see it at the zoo. In the conference building there was a Polar Express simulator ride. I'm sure it would have been cool (I've done similar simulation rides in the past), but we didn't want to spend more money (it was $5 for a 10 or so minute show). However, we did see this cool "photos of nature" art exhibit on the 2nd floor. I didn't take pictures because that would have gotten me thrown out, but I can say they were really beautiful, even if there were some that were kind of gruesome (like a hyena chewing on a monkey's head). Yeah nature isn't always pretty. Right outside the convention center was this ice sculpture of a moose.

There was also a little ice rink and mskate wanted to check it out (because she skates, go figure). Unfortunately the line was pretty long, and they use artificial ice. We saw some more lights. There was this really cool "ornament made of lights" photo op thing, but the line was really long so we decided not to wait. We did see some cool animal print giant ornaments close to it though.

After the ornaments we walked through this cool light tunnel. Here's another selfie of us.

This was getting close to the end of this little journey. Here are the remainder of the lights.

That was our little wild lights journey. It was really fun hanging out again. I didn't take nearly as many pictures this year, because a lot of them were the same as last time (you can check the old ones out on my myspace). Hopefully you enjoy this fun time. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Collaborating with Tom Green at his Comedy Show

Hey everyone, so if you don't know by now, I have a podcast I do with my friend Bio, and every episode I find some way to mention Tom Green and his career. You can watch the Peanut Butter Podcast here. Well I went to his website and checked out his tour schedule, and I saw he was doing a show in Muskegon Michigan (which while not "convenient," isn't unreasonable for a little weekend get away). So, I decided to book a hotel room and have a little trip. I was hoping to take a picture with him and maybe get him to say "peanut butter on a sausage" after the show, but what happened was SO much better (soon you'll find out the meaning of the title).

Now I've never been to a "real" comedy show before; the closest was a "last comic standing" thing my college did in one of the schools ballrooms with maybe 20 attendees, everything else is either comedy channels on Serious XM or Comedy Central specials. I didn't really know what to expect, but I was ready for a night of fun. The place that was hosting it is called "Back Alley Comedy," and it is one of the most interesting venues I can imagine. First off, it's not a comedy club, it's a bowling alley. I was trying to get the address by googling "Back Alley Comedy Muskegon" expecting a comedy club or bar or something, and I kept getting this bowling alley. After clicking on some links I realized "oh, this bowling alley does comedy shows too; that's interesting." Everything leading up to this wasn't that eventful (I drove for a good 4 hours, checked in, watched some spongebob on TV, that's kind of it). Now for the main event.

So I get to this place and the signage is like REALLY retro. I'm talking neon signs, the word "bowl" is on a disk thing that's spinning, it has this really old font; it was like something out of Fallout. I looked inside and saw they had Dance Dance Revolution and I knew afterwards I had to play, but first things first, I'm here for comedy. I bought my ticket there and ended up not having enough cash to pay (tickets were $30, I had $24). Thankfully they were able to ring me up at the bar with my credit card. They were quite busy, so it took them a while to ring me up. Since I was there I decided to get a Long Island. That took even longer, and it definitely wasn't one of the better Long Islands I've had (a bit too strong for my tastes, I enjoy more sours). Regardless, it still helped make sitting with a group of strangers easier. I sat up front, because I wanted to be right there with the action (and maybe get called on). I sat with a family whom after some small talk I learned the parents grew up with Tom Green and they were bringing their son to introduce him to his genius. That was cool.

Now for the main event; OK, the pre-show before the main billed act. The MC whom I guess is a regular came up and did some warm-up jokes. I gotta say, he was pretty funny. Then there was a lady comedian. I specify gender because she did some "I'm a woman, these are jokes about being a woman" jokes, but as a testament of how good she was she managed to make them funny to me, a single man. But that was only 30% or so of the act. The rest were funny regardless of gender. Now what was really awesome is she did some "play the audience" jokes, and being in the front I got to help. I don't want to say what the joke was, but my response to one of the questions was so bizarre it made her laugh. After she said the material she had written to the answer everyone else had, she worked my response into the punch line and asked me to elaborate more, and the end of my response she just lowered the mic, and walked over to take a drink, like "I can't build on that, that is just way too weird."

OK, now it is time for the reason I booked a hotel and drove 4 hours, Mr. Tom Green. Oh man, that was amazing. I was basically sitting right in the middle of the front row, and Tom Green walked down the middle of the event hall to the stage. He was within 1 foot of me, it was neat. Now out of respect for the art of comedy club comedy, I won't go into details about what his jokes were (which he made a joke about, there was a woman who was taking a picture with her phone and he joked about "the Instagram look at me I'm watching Tom Green" before going into a creative way of saying "don't record this"), BUT seeing that I was PART of the show, I want to talk about how I collaborated with Tom Green. Now even though I've not been to a real comedy show, I knew "if you sit up front, you're basically asking for the comedian to make fun of you," and that's exactly what I was hoping for, and it happened. There were 4 times when Tom Green spoke directly to ME, and made fun of my responses. And it's not like he was just "what's your name, here's a joke about your name," or "oh so your single, how hairy are your palms, I see you found a way to transplant the hair to your face" or something like that. No, there were a couple of times where we had a little bit of a back and forth; brief, but I still threw back some more material for him to work with. If you want to hear the full details, they're in this video here.

But what REALLY made it awesome, is after his routine he came walking down the middle and he patted me on the shoulder in a way that said "thanks for playing along so well loud guy." Then after the show as I was on my way out there were some people that said "hey you're the loud guy, that was good;" some more verbal than others. So yeah, there it is, I collaborated with Tom Green. Yeah, it's not like he was on the Peanut Butter Podcast or brought me on stage, or anything like that, but I've had yet another brush with fame. I know the title is a little click-batey, but when else am I going to be able to make a title like this again. Plus, I did give him at least 2 minutes of material directly at me, and in the world of internet videos that gives you a collaboration credit.

Now for the remainder of my little trip. After the show I played 2 games of Dance Dance Revolution in the arcade of the bowling alley, and I did pretty good. I'm not one of those "super heavy, my feat are barely touching the ground" kind of players, but I regularly set high scores on medium difficulty. And now my name is enshrined on at least 4 songs in the DDR cabinet of the Sherman Bowling Center (at least until someone plays perfectly on the songs I played, I got some combo breakers unfortunately). Then I filmed a Peanut Butter Podcast with Bio when I returned. We were both quite tired, so that meant things got a little weird.

The next morning I woke up early enough to eat the continental breakfast. Normally that doesn't happen, but the bed was so uncomfortable (super firm) and people were walking down I managed to wake up before they closed. Yay. I packed-up my stuff, checked out, and went home. It was REALLY fun. I hope to be able to do it again sometime. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.