The Camera Phone Chronicles

Hey hey, blogheads. I know, I know... I'm a terrible person for not updating my blog with more regularity. But that's what waking up at 4:00 in the morning does to you. I'm lucky to even make it home and shove food down my craw before passing out for the night. Anyways, I'm finally letting you guys in on my little secret that I had planned for last week. It's a new segment I call "The Camera Phone Chronicles," or CPC for short (Sound familiar, WashU people? Good... It shouldn't.). The premise is that I've been taking a lot of random pictures ever since I started working at the zoo, and I was looking back on them and thinking about all the stories behind them. And then I thought about you guys, and how much you love listening to my stories... IT'S A PERFECT MATCH! Now, prepare yourselves for a fantastic voyage into the private life of your very own Wild Willis. [Insert warp noise]

Note: Please feel free to click on any of these pictures for a bigger size and better resolution.


To begin with, a picture of Bana, one of my favorite gorillas at the zoo, snapped just a few days ago. As awesome a gorilla as she is, she's often overlooked and under-appreciated because she's the subordinate member of the group. People mistake her for a male all the time because she doesn't have an infant, and unfortunately might never get the chance to raise one of her own. She's extremely caring and gentle with the babies, and can often be found hanging out near Nadaya (her nephew). She's such a great gorilla and I wish more people took the time to understand her instead of saying "That monkey's boring," after five seconds and rushing on.


Next up, a somewhat blurry image of Half-Life's own Gordon Freeman. The key feature of this picture are his kick-ass glasses which I would totally rock. It is undeniable that with a similar haircut, those classic sexy scientist glasses, and well-trimmed facial hair, I would be greater than of equally ballin'.


So this next picture is probably the pinnacle of my camera-phoning skills. I saw this girl wearing this pair of ridiculously short shorts and had to capture the moment on pholm (my hereby made-up word for the film that a camera phone uses... pronounced: fulm). Unfortunately, my phone's camera has this annoying (and not to mention incriminating) shutter sound that you can't totally shut off, even if you silence the phone. That doesn't even make sense to me; why does a camera phone that doesn't even have a shutter need to make a shutter sound when it takes a picture? I guess it's part of Samsung's anti-creepster strategy: people won't take creepy, voyeuristic pictures if there's a chance that they'll have to face the social repercussions after being betrayed by a loud shutter noise... Well, I guess I showed you, huh Samsung!? Suck it! My strategy was to pretend to look through my contacts for my favorite pizza joint while snagging the shot on the down-low (Insider Tip: Loudly muttering "Pizza" over and over helps to weave the illusion while simultaneously masking the telltale click.). Although I ended up looking like some kind of cracked-out Little Ceasar's mascot, I got the shot and that's all that really matters in the end.


This next pic is little more than a visual shout-out to my brotha from anotha Jewish motha, E-Baby Stern. I pass this building every day on my walk to the Metra Station and can't help but think about my Hebrew counterpart. Mazeltov, Ethan!


Wacky Races: quite possibly the best cartoon of all time. The premise is that a slew of Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters are called together to enter a race of a decidely wacky nature in order to win bragging rights over all the other characters. Each racer had a themed car and booby traps, and we can most likely thank this series for MarioKart, Diddy Kong Racing, and all the other classic racing games out there where all-star characters are pitted against each other. I absolutely loved this series growing up, but apparently I was the only one, because I've talked to several people about this show and no one has any idea of what I'm talking about. Well, this game is proof that it really existed and I'm not totally crazy... Vindication is mine!


Not only do I have wacky animal adventures in the zoo, but outside the zoo, as well! I found this swarm of ants (with my hand for size reference) on my way to Brookfield and absolutely freaked out. It's definitely the biggest group of ants I've ever seen. Crazy, huh?


Now, to round out this bunch of pictures, I give you the World's Ugliest Polo Shirt. EVER. This shirt just crapped on America.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this edition of the CPC, and I'll talk to you guys soon.