This summer, two Queensland Koalas will be on exhibit at the Indianapolis Zoo from Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day Weekend.  These animals are on loan from the Sand Diego Zoo, so come check them out while you can, as they may not be back for many years.

I asked my wife if she was excited about the return of the koalas to our zoo and to my surprise she claims she isn’t.  Usually, she’s ecstatic about any new zoo exhibit, as she takes more visits to the zoo than any other person I know.  However, in this case, she claims that the last time the koalas came to the zoo back in 1994, all they did was sleep all day.  You see, koalas are nocturnal and tend to hide in trees during the day and snooze, so they don’t make for interesting viewing during the day when the zoo is actually open.  If you’re lucky enough to be there after hours, I’m sure they’re quite interesting to watch.

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Movie tickets may not cost as much in Indiana as they do on the east and west coasts but that doesn’t mean they’re cheap.  If you’re anything like me, your wallet has taken a hit in recent years as movie ticket prices have continued to escalate.  Besides the common sense tactic of going to matinees to save a few dollars, there are several other methods I have for saving money at the theater.

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If you want to annoy and/or amuse your friends and family this holiday season, head over to Elf Yourself from Office Max and turn 1-4 people or pets into dancing, singing elves. Click here for an example I created using some staff mugshots from our newspaper, The Noblesville Daily Times.

While you’re at it, you may as well send them a Christmas joke or two. Here’s an old school list of holiday jokes hosted by somebody over at Cornell University. After that, you can let your kids send a letter to Santa and get a reply back at The North Pole. And if that’s not enough holiday spirit for you, then head over to All Things Christmas for, well, all things Christmas.

On Saturday evening, my wife and I stopped at the Indianapolis Zoo to check out Kroger’s Christmas at the Zoo. Besides thousands of Christmas lights and a model train exhibit at the White River Gardens, there’s another reason to visit the zoo this time of the year. The extended hours (the zoo is open until 9 pm) means that you can see something that you can’t see during the summer: nocturnal animals being active. Of course, this also means that all of the animals normally active during the day are asleep during these extended hours.

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Growing up, I was always more into redemption games, such as skeeball, than arcade games, since I liked the concept of winning an award (tickets/prizes) than earning the high score.  One exception was pinball, which I spent many, many quarters on when I was younger.  I guess pinball technically does have a prize you can win on most machines, which is a free game, but it’s definitely not a redemption game.

Anyway, I’ve never outgrown my childhood love of pinball, so I still seek out machines when I’m on vacation or visiting anywhere (like a mall) that might have an arcade.  If my choices at the mall are browsing Old Navy for an hour with my wife or spending that hour in the arcade, you can probably guess where I’ll be.
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