My Penguins
My own town of West Bountiful, and even my very own home, have
been infiltrated by the Penguins. Although this page is horribly outdated,
and my home and car now house over 120 Penguins, this page is
dedicated to the first members of the USA-UT-West Bountiful P.T.A. Cell.
What
What. Yes, "What".
Oh, you want an explaination? Ok.
My Senior year in High School ('01-'02), I was in the Band. The Percussion Section Leader, Mark, had one of those plastic owls that are used to scare away birds. He named it "Who" as a joke, because owls say "who". It was funny, because he'd say, "Who's in my car" or "Who's in my locker". People who didn't know about Who would then say, "Who's in your locker?", and we'd say "Yes :)"
After that, the joke came up that the other "question-starting" words were animals too. Who was the only animal we had, but eventually we said that Who was an Owl, Where was a Llama, Why was a Pirahna, When was a Dragon, How was an Armadillo, and What was a Penguin. By taking the joke to this extent, it came to the point that we couldn't even carry on a normal conversation anymore :)
Then in early May, I was looking through a second-hand store, and I found a cute little stuffed penguin. I've always loved penguins (even though they're evil), so I bought him. Then I realized, he could be What! That's been his name ever since.
For the rest of that school year (about a month), he rode around with me, his head poking out of my backpack. This, of course, invited repeated yoinkings of him from my backpack by a certain trumpet player who shall remain nameless...;)
What now rides around in my tan '86 Jeep Cherokee, stuffed between the end of the steering column and the steering wheel. He's the leader of the USA-UT-WB PTA Cell.
Rocky
I got Rocky a few weeks after What, and from the same second-hand store (all of my penguins come from either there, or another location of the same store). He's Second in Command when What is absent. Presently, he resides in my Jeep, but within the car he kinda...migrates...from place to place. I named him Rocky cuz...he looks like a Rocky. 'Nuff said.
Larry
I got Larry at the same time and place as Rocky. He's Third in Command. When I got him, I noticed that his head pointed up, and the only way to make him face forward is to tip him onto his stomach.
In this position, it looks like he's flying. A flying penguin is a novel idea (even though they really can all fly--they just don't do it around people), so he hangs in flying position above the middle of the back seat of my Jeep. People looking through the back doors' windows get a pretty good view :)
I named him Larry after another flying bird. Years & years ago, on America's Funniest Home Videos, there was this duck named Larry that kept following this woman around. One day she went for a drive, and Larry flew after her, flying right along side the car! But a car in the oncoming lane was approaching, so everyone in the car started saying, "Pull up, Larry! Pull up!" My family uses that line a lot as a joke, and my penguin reminded me of that video :)
Goliath
Goliath is so named because he's the biggest penguin I have (so far). He lives in my room, but spends Christmas-time in the Family Room, wearing my Santa hat. He's Fourth in Command.
Phil
After Goliath, I've kinda lost track about the order of when I got each of them (and thus forgot their ranking), so next I'll just go to Phil. He's a bean-bag penguin that sits on my dashboard. There's no story behind his name, like most of my penguins.
Abbott & Costello
A lot of people have a pair of big fuzzy dice hanging from their rear-view mirror. I have two little stuffed penguins, Abbott and Costello. The only A&C bit I know is "Who's on First?", but they're good names for a pair of twins, especially when What is in my steering wheel (instead of on 2nd :)).
Quasimodo & Cyrano
As you can see, there is definitely something wrong with Quasi and Cyrano here. Their beaks are higher than their eyes! Quasimodo and Cyrano were naturally good names for such freaks. I got Cyrano in my stocking for Christams '02 :) They live in my Jeep between the spare tire and the window.
Jake
He lives in my Jeep between the spare tire and the window, next to Quasi & Cyrano. He's the last one I have in my car, for now.
Neapolitan
Near the end of my Sr. year in High School, I went out to my car to head over to the last Band Concert of the year. I found him sitting shotgun in my Jeep o.O I named him Neapolitan for the obvious reason of ice cream affiliation. I call him "Polly" for short :)
Opus
As I was about to come back from the Band Concert, the night I got Polly, I went out to my Jeep and found Opus sitting in the driver's seat o.O Two penguins mysteriously appearing in my car in one day. I saw him there, looked left, looked right, looked back at him, and said with fear, "The penguins are invading!!" :) He's named Opus because he's a stuffed animal of a penguin by that name in a cartoon called Outland. Personally, I think he's the ugliest penguin I've ever seen... :)
Santopus
He's an Opus with a Santa hat. Thus, Santopus. He's about the size of Opus. Yeah.
Gradopus
My third Opus, though bigger than the other two. He's named Gradopus cuz he's got a neck-tie and a graduation hat.
Pete & Repete
When I got Pete (left), he had a red tag that said, "Pete the Singing Penguin--Sings 3 Holiday Songs in Penguin Voice! Try Me!" I later got Repete, and both of them had a little red bell-shaped sticker on their chest that said "Press for Music". But whenever I pressed them, all I got was an electronic "gurgle" (Repete's was a little louder). Their batteries were worn out.
The rest of the story of Pete & Repete is a sad tale of medical malpractice and tragedy...
My dad and I opened Repete up to see if we could replace the batteries. We found they each ran on 3 watch bateries (expensive), but each battery was 1.5 vots--the same as a Double-A battery. So, we soldered wires onto 3 Double-A's to connect them together, and hooked them up to Repete. We squeezed him, and he started singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas":
"Wak, wak,
wak-wak-wak-wak-wak, wak,
Wak, wak, wak-wak-wak-wak-wak, wak..."
But then, we couldn't make it happen again. It wouldn't work any more, so we opened up Pete to try the procedure on him. We hooked up the batteries to him, but then noticed that there was a little bit of smoke coming from his battery pack! Then we found that not only were neither of them working, but they had stopped gurgling as well!
My dad then realized the problem: The Double-A's had the same amount of volts (1.5), but it had way more amps! Voltage is the intensity of the power, but Amperage is the amount of power. We had burned out their batter packs :(
We're still caught up in a hefty legal battle about medical malpractice, with no end in sight...
Sigfried & Roy
I got Sigfried and Roy at different times, and Roy doesn't have a bow-tie, but other than that, they're exactly the same. They're my 4th pair of twins. They can magically pull Klondike bars out from under their hats :) They can also pull out sub-machine guns when they're ticked off...
Tux
This is a little Stress-Tux my dad got me. Tux is the Penguin Mascot of Linux Computers. He sits on top of my monitor, next to my webcam. My dad's always turning him and my webcam towards each other, so I finally decided to take a picture with my webcam while they were like that :)
Others
I don't have time right now to take & put up pictures of the other 100+ penguins
I have, so for now I'll just post a list of the names of almost all of my penguins, thus far:
Abbott, Abe, Al, Albert, Alphonzo, Andy, Archie, Art, Attila, Auk, Barry, Baskin, Beaver, Benjamin "Benji", Bigopus, Bilbo, Billy, Bob, Bobby, Bruce, Calvin, Cameron, Casper, Charlie, Chip, Chris, Cliff, Coal, Costello, Cyrano, Dick, Dilbert, Donatello "Donny", Dorian, Duncan, Eddie, Edgar, Elmer, Ephraim, Flurry, Ford, Fred, George, Goliath, Gonzo, Gradopus, Hank, Harry, Horace, Jabba, Jack, Jacob "Jake", James (Bond), Jared, Jimmy, Joey, Jonah, Joseph "Joe", Kip, Larry, Marty, Marvin, Max, Merrick, Micah, Mickey "Mic", Nahum, Neapolitan "Polly", Nick, Norman "Norm", Opus, Orville, Parker, Patrick, Pepi David, Pericles, Pete, Phil, Puffin "Puffy", Quasimodo "Quasi", Rand, Repete, Rigby, Robbins, Robyn, Rocky, Roy, Russell, Sam, Santopus, Scamper, Scott, Scuddle, Scurry, Scutter, Scuttle, Sherbet, Shuffle, Siegfried, Skitter, Stuart, Ted, Tim, Toby, Tom, Victor "Vic", Waddle, Waddlesworth, Waldo, Wally, (Edward) Winter, Weeble, What, Yorrick, Zack, & Zero Zandi.
More to come...
