It's a Zoo in here!

I was thinking of going to the

Dallas State Fair which opened last month, but a friend of mine said she wanted to go with me, and I only want to go once so we pencilled a date for next week, and I decided to go to the Dallas Zoo instead.

I had to do something.

Staying around the house was makin' me buggy. Besides, it's very near my house and I hardly ever go.

Unfortunately I was going to have to go alone because my friend was working. She'd get the day off next week, but I'm begining to believe this whole deal of working nights and weekends is really starting to cramp my style. It didn't use to bother me, but it's kind of hard to get a date on a Monday morning. Normal people work on Monday mornings. My Monday morning is actually Wednesday night.

I'd signed up last year to be a Dallas Zoo member, because they were talking about putting in an improved Tiger exhibit which would give the cats more room. And if you've never been to the Dallas Zoo, the old cages for these animals are just heart wrenching. They were raising money for the new projects where the animals get new habitats and can get out of the cages. I wanted to be a little part of that.

However, maybe I've gone only like once or twice since then. I figured I should get my money's worth, since my annual membership dues are coming up at the end of this month, and I'm still deciding whether or not I want to renew.

Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh My!

I get through the doors and I'm expecting it to be a real slow day. Not a lot of crowds. It's a school day, and I was hoping for some peace and quiet. I didn't see any school buses in the parking lot. That's a good sign.

I don't really like kids. I mean, I like them in small doses. As long as they're someone elses. I don't hate kids. It's just that I still remember what it was like to be a kid, so being around kids brings to mind a flood of memories. They're not bad memories. I just don't like being flooded by memories. I don't like being flooded.

While many of my friends around me since high school and college have gotten married and had children, I've been careful not to make the same ..uhm.. choice. I'm not really good at taking care of myself. Why bring a kid into it?

So I'm walking around and there's a lot of kids, which bugs me for a minute. Kids howl and scream and run around you. You have to be careful where you step.

Then I notice the kids are being led around by a lot of moms. And I'm thinkin'

Score!

All these babes! Good lookin' moms too. Then it dawns on me. These women have a bunch of kids with them. I don't recall seeing a single woman out there who didn't have kids.

And if you're going to try to impress a woman with kids, you gotta impress the kids first. I just didn't feel that daring and adventurous, so I figured I'd just walk around the zoo and enjoy it alone. I'm still getting the hang of this being a divorcee stuff.

But after awhile, that casual series of thoughts sort of haunted me. I'm thirty-one. The odds of my finding a woman about my age and maturity level who is childless.. Well, it seriously cuts down the percentage of available women, doesn't it? If I don't like kids?

So I guess I'll have to re-evaluate that attitude. Or else try to find some place to hang on a Monday morning that isn't an ideal place for single mothers to take their children.

Does Zach have a point today?

Well sometimes I'm not going to have a point. Generally in this makeshift sub-editorial project of mine, I'm going to try to talk about every day things and simultaneously bring to your attention some aspect of h2g2.com that you may or may not have thought about before. Or maybe just a new and fresh way of looking at h2g2.com. New ways it can be useful to you, or new ways in which you can express yourself. Perhaps in ways you hadn't thought about before.

And sometimes I'm just going to wax philosophical or be generally silly. Or I'll just experiment. There's only a few of you reading me now anyway, right? No pressure. I'm not trying to be Joe Bob Briggs.

...

My pet chihuahua is making weird noises in his sleep. I wonder what he's dreaming about?

Come on. Tell me you have a point.

Okay, okay. I have a point. The reason I typed up the above explanation about my recent visit to the zoo is to make a point. A little point. Perhaps a silly one or one you may already know, but a point nonetheless.

There are two distinctly different types of guide entries here in h2g2.com...

My dog just woke up and is looking weirdly about the room. He doesn't seem scared, but he looks a bit out of sorts. Disoriented. Like when he woke up it suprised him that he was inside the house all the sudden. I wonder. Do dogs dream?

Will you get to the point already?

Yeah sure keep yer shirt on.

We've talked extensively elsewhere (well, Mark does most of the talking about this admittedly) about Approved Guide Entries. The gist of approved guide entries is that you come up with a subject matter of interest to you. Say, ''dogs'' for example, and you write up a few paragraphs about dogs. What they're like, what to call them, different breeds and why they lick strange parts of their body like my dog's doing now..

Gross!

You write this up and you can submit it to us Sub-editors and we look them over as fast as we can (I'm waiting for my next batch from Anna which is why I'm writing this instead of actually doing my job) and provided the piece fits certain criteria, we format it, clean up syntax and make it snazzy, then the real editors accept it and relist it as an actual approved guide entry for the world to see.

But admittedly, the world could see it already. Being approved just puts a page a bit higher on priority in the search field, and it is neato to say you've actually gotten something approved.

Now I'm about to reveal a secret to you that not everybody knows about. It's a little hush hush so keep it under your hat. Don't tell anybody I told you or they'll make me return my Sub-Editor Decoder Ring.

That button that suggests you can submit a piece for possible approval? You don't have to hit it. In fact in some cases, that should be the acception and not the norm.

Say you just want to talk about your day. Let's say you went to the zoo like I did above, and came upon a little revelation about yourself or about how horrible zoos smell or whatever. You're not in the mood to write up a piece about tsunami or plankton or some other definite topic. You just want to ramble.

You can! In fact, that's largely what h2g2 is about, and as our community editor Peta gets her sealegs and gets started, you'll find there's a lot more community behind h2g2.com than meets the eye. I'm sure many of you have discovered this already.

One of our many goals at h2g2.com is to engender and cultivate community. Oops. Sorry. Big words again. I mean, we want you guys to talk about your day, or your opinions about (yep, you guessed it) life, the universe, and well, everything. Share your braincells with each other. See what pops up.

I think we've had at least one engagement in h2g2.com already. I wonder when we'll have an online wedding in here?

My dog's lickin' himself again. Is that normal?

Just remember, not all guide entries are meant to be considered for approval. In fact, ''approval'' may even be a bit misleading. So long as you behave yourself and not call other people names, you're pretty much approved to be here just by being here.

Pages where you wax philosophical, or describe that cute babe you ran into at the mall, or rant about how some guy pulled in front of you on the freeway, or whether or not you pay attention to your dog enough to understand his habits.. All that stuff is an integral part of the guide. We just don't accept them as approved guide entries.

Approved guide entries are generally nouns; people, places, things. What they are and who they're like. Sometimes a journal entry or user page can evolve into something that can be approved for the Guide, but you should experiment first. Write about a lot of stuff and then look back over it and see if maybe later pieces of what you write can become an approved part of h2g2. Then rewrite that bit on a new user page and submit that.

If you write something without submitting it, there's a lot you can do with those kinds of pages. You can link to them on your own front user page, or share them with your friends and partners-in-crime in here. You can read the pieces that they wrote, and then comment on them in the accompanying forums. Talk about similar experiences you've had or contrasting opinions about various ideas.

It helps us all to get to know each other better, and most importantly it's a helluva lotta fun.

And if you do send us something like that, and we reject it (which we will), that's completely okay, because we try not to delete anything in here. Your page will still be searchable in the field at the top of every h2g2 page. You can still share them with others. You can add to them and edit them to your heart's content.

Just because they're not an 'approved' part of the guide, that doesn't mean they aren't a part of the guide.

In some ways, they're more important, because they reflect who you are, and you're why we're here, baby.

Well okay. You're why the Powers That Be put h2g2.com here.

Personally? I'm here to pick up chicks..