Tonight on GeekNights, we consider Zoos. In the news, Rym finally ran out of razor blades, climate change is destroying the world, and we're loving this purported Fake IPL Scam.
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How have you not already finished Binti?
Haven’t started.
It literally takes longer to ride the Megavalanche race course than it does to read Binti 
I’m getting through a backlog of podcasts and just finished this episode. I have a recommendation for if (magically) the state of TX stops being so goddamn awful and it becomes an ethically neutral place to visit. That is the Dallas Aquarium. I’d toss it into the category of zoo adjacent because of the large amount of non aquatic animals there tbh?
Anyway, my wife and I happened to be in Dallas for a music festival (convention?) back in like 2015/6 ish timeframe and because it was a dark wave gathering, the shows wouldn’t start until around 9p and end at like 4a, leaving plenty of daytime stuff to do around the city. Because it was during the week, a lot of the standard touristy stuff was relatively light in terms of foot traffic so we could move through a lot of stuff quickly. The aquarium was also one of the more ethically handled places that I’ve seen, weirdly? Like there were certain monkey and bird exhibits that always had a staff member present and, if you were so inclined and wanted to feed the animal, they’d hand you blueberries or some such to feed them in an observed way to protect the animals and had certain enclosures that were easily able to be roped off if ever there were too many people around, etc.
ANYWAY, the reason I bring that all up, is that one of the funnier things that happened was that they had was a traveling exhibit that was a jaguar, I forget if there was a specific type or name for it, suffice to say “big damn predator from South America” in a kind of large enclosure with reinforced see through walls to observe. Because it was early in the day on a weekday, the foot traffic was light, so other than me and my wife in this particular spot, there was a group of small kids and a couple of moms/babysitters. Kids are playing with the wall exhibits lining the room. One mom goes toward the enclosure and puts her back to the see through wall and kind of stand/sits on the railing to adjust her shoe. Takes a phone call. And then, there’s a loud SLAM behind her and causes her to kind of fall forward and yell out a bit. The cat had been hidden in some plants in the enclosure and had slammed into the wall trying to eat her since her back was turned. Very sheepishly licked its forepaws (much like embarrassed house cats do) and then slunk back into its little hidey hole.
So yeah If TX ever gets its shit together, visit the Dallas Aquarium. I’d also recommend the Chattanooga Aquarium if anyone is ever in TN? It’s marginally better as a state, but Chattanooga (unlike what I know about Dallas) is actually a fairly progressive city that I don’t mind spending time or money in.
Good topic for a THU show, for whomever suggested it or came up with it!
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I’m sure the Dallas Aquarium is very nice, but we’re really saturated with top tier aquariums in this area. Mystic, Norwalk, Baltimore. I do love aquariums, but even if Texas became awesome, that’s not a thing that would get me to go there because we have top-tier aquariums at home.
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The fake betting thing is the plot of The Sting.
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OMG you are absolutely right. They are just doing The Sting IRL!