Tag: Quokka University

Two Hot Flashes from Byron the Quokka!

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

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I don’t know who wrote that “hot flashes” headline! It should have been “hot news flashes! It should also have been three hot news flashes.

First, there are only 146 comments to go, to reach 65,000 and have a winner in our current comment contest. And this time the grand prize (there he goes again–there’s only one prize) will either be an autographed copy of His Mercy Endureth Forever (first edition, collectors’ item, etc.) or an autographed fli-back paddle ball toy.

Second, I don’t know how, but suddenly that annoying “301 error” message has disappeared from our Facebook posts on Patty’s Facebook page. We’re glad to see it go.

Third–now what was it?–oh, yeah! Quokka University will offer a course on how to read this blog. This is because we’re afraid people are missing special features like Joe Collidge and Oy, Rodney by not backing up a day or two and reading them. You don’t have to read them on the same day they were posted. We’ll also go into the wonderful treasure-trove of the blog archives, going all the way back to late 2011. Do you realize there are literally thousands of blog posts you could read? I’d never do it myself, but it’s all there if you want it.

To attend Quokka University, all you have to do is come to Rottnest Island. There is a rumor that if you close your eyes, click your heels together three times, and bellow out our Latin motto, “Ipso loquitur mannimota,” you will be instantly transported to our campus. I can’t test that because I’m already here. If you can make it work, please let us know! Make sure you tell us where you get transported to.

Pottos on the Rampage!

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Potto | Animal Database | Fandom

Pottos all over the world are enraged about there being even any question about allowing them to enroll in Quokka University. Throwing bricks, setting fires, letting crocodiles loose from zoos–Mostly Peaceful Pottos (MPPs) are tearing the world apart.

The Mostly Peaceful Pottos say they won’t stop until they get everything they want. Humans are warned not to travel alone in the treetops. If you must creep from tree to tree, clinging to and swinging from the branches, try to do it during the day when most pottos are asleep.

A spokesquokka for Quokka University, Emma the Quokka, said she and her fellow board members were “terribly disappointed that this sort of controversy should occur before we open our very first semester. Nobody said we wouldn’t admit pottos! Honestly, the subject never came up–until now.”

Any decision, she added, will be deferred until after the quokkas hold their annual Fli-Back Paddle Ball Tournament.

Should Pottos Be Admitted to Quokka University?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of potto

Hardly anybody’s here today, so I guess it’s safe to discuss a burning issue that threatens to tear the world of higher education right down the middle.

Should they let pottos take courses at Quokka University?

Opinion is divided between “What’s a potto?” and “Who cares?” Which camp do you belong to?

Important question for any readers who might show up this morning:

Is it okay now for people who are not in the NBA to play basketball, provided they wear masks and observe Social Distancing? True, it would make playing defense virtually impossible; but who bothers to play defense anymore?

New Courses at Quokka U.!

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Quokka | San Diego Zoo Animals & Plants

Actually, all the courses at Quokka University are new because we haven’t opened yet. But let me turn the program over to Byron the Quokka–

G’day! We’re experimenting with a course on Leaf Cuisine; but before I tell you about any more of the courses we’ll be offering, I’m supposed to remind you that we’ve got a comment contest going–just 704 more comments and we reach No. 65,000 and someone, it could be you, is a lucky winner!

A very famous celebrity named Brad Something-or-other is going to teach a course called How to Write Good, we’ll have one on Stinky Movies, a lecture series on How to Avoid the News, and a mini-course about French painters that you never heard of. I haven’t, that’s for sure. Bob Matisse? Ginger Renoir? I think I’ll take this course! Felix the Platypus is going to teach it.

Munchable, crunchable leaves will be served with every class meeting!

The Quokka U. Film Project

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Quokkas Are So Cute People Can't Believe They're Real - UNILAD

Lights! Camera! Action!

Byron the Quokka here, with the latest from Quokka University! We’re not open yet, but we’re already dreaming up spectacular academic and cultural triumphs that’ll put us on the map before you can say “Abombalbap!” Actually, I’ve heard some people have a lot of trouble just saying that at all…

But hark! Introducing the Quokka University Film Project! Yes, we will create and release an extraordinary feature film, just as soon as we can raise the money for it. We know you’ll all want to contribute, once you hear what the movie’s going to be about. May we have a trumpet fanfare, please?

Introducing [da-tada-da!]… from Quokka U. Studios…

Oy, Rodney: The Catastrophe. Starring a lot of quokkas, koalas, and wallabies! Mel Gibson wanted to direct it, but we’re going for “the Outback Hitchcock,” who needs no introduction so I won’t give him one.

We wanted Rachel Ward to play Lady Margo Cargo, but she ran away. No problem–Rottnest Island’s full of quokkas who can act the hind leg off a donkey.

We realize we have a lot of big old established universities as our competition, and they’ll do just about anything to stay on top. Well, let ’em try! If we can’t do better than Stanford or some other place like that, we don’t deserve to have a university.

More False Facts (Quokka U. Edition)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

PHOTOS] This wildlife photographer's love for Quokka has made the ...

G’day! Byron the Quokka here, raising funds for Quokka University. And what better way to rake in the bucks than to offer an all-new set of Acme False Facts? (We thank Acme’s former chief financial officer for signing their agreement with our university. It’s not our fault he didn’t read it first.)

I’ve gone through the set, and I can tell you that our Quokka U. edition is as false as they come! Puts us right up there with the other colleges. Just to give you a taste of it, here are a few of my favorite examples.

*In 1948 astronomer Reginald Swabb discovered three new planets which he named Moe, Larry, and Curly. All three can be seen with the naked eye, but not with a telescope.

*Movies and TV shows featuring actor Kevin Costner cannot be shown legally in Fester County, India.

*The U.S. Supreme Court once had two chief justices named W. Anthony Busterson, neither of whom could speak or write.

*The highly poisonous Jamaican Dust-mop Spider is the most popular pet among the elusive Basketball People of central Italy, whom no one in the provincial government has been able to find lately.

*The custom of reading the minutes of the last public meeting at the current public meeting once resulted in the ossification of four members of the Bazookistan Township Committee; but no one noticed until three meetings farther on.

Remember, if you want people to think you’re incredibly well-informed when you’re not, just puff out your chest, shoulders back, look ’em in the eye, and transfix ’em with a False Fact. That ought to do it.

Comment Contest Update

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

50 Quokka Facts: Smiling, Baby-Flinging, Selfie Kings ...

G’day! The Board of Reagents here at Quokka University has voted unanimously, 1-0, to change the goal of this blog’s current comment contest to 65,000.

Well, why not? It was 64,000 at first–and then followed five weeks of non-stop computer problems, including loss of internet access. That slowed down the comments but good!

Anyhow, it’ll be more fun to do it, now that the mess has been cleaned up and we can find more interesting things to talk about. So with the goal moved to 65,000, that means we have about 13 hundred comments to go. Let’s see how fast we can do it.

The prize is still an autographed copy of one of Lee’s books. I advised him to make it $65,000, but you know how cheap he is. He won’t even shell out for a bicycle.

Then again, one of those Fli-back toys–you know: wooden paddle, rubber ball on a rubber string–would make a great prize.

Paddle Ball Game by Schylling

Maybe I can get him to go for it.

What About the Comment Contest?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

491 Best Quokka images in 2020 | Quokka, Happy animals, Cute animals

G’day, seekers of truth! Byron the Quokka here, with a bedraggled comment contest that’s had to contend with five weeks of computer problems. We were shooting for 64,000, we now have 63,654, so that leaves 346 comments to go, according to my abacus.

But now the repairs have been made, the blog refurbished, and I’d like to ask you something: should we stick with the goal of 64,000 comments, or move the goalpost back to 65,000, to give us more time to have fun with it without being distracted by on-and-off internet access and all the rest of that mess? What do you prefer, dear readers?

Although nobody new signed up in July, we now have 1,600 followers here. I wonder if we’ll ever get up to 2,000.

Whew! It’ll be nice to get back to setting up Quokka University. We’re still trying to decide what kind of leaves and twigs to serve in the cafeteria.

Quokkas on the Job

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

What a cute little Quokka family this is... Rottnest Island WA ...

G’day! Byron the Quokka here–and as you can see in the picture, we’re all working like galley slaves to try to fix this blog. July really clobbered it, what with all those internet outages and such.

Here at Quokka U., we’re toiling behind the scenes to try to breathe life back into this blog. I could tell you about some poor blighter whose blood pressure monitor gave up the ghost this morning, but he told me not to mention it, so I won’t.

At the highest level, the thinking is that if there were more on this blog about pick-up sticks, it’d keep viewers coming back for more.

It’s hard, though, to get proper pick-up sticks video. This one comes with a clumsy human who wouldn’t last five minutes in a game against a quokka.

There’s also some support for upping the stakes in the comment contests–like that time we gave away the Mona Lisa as a prize. It wasn’t my fault we had to give it back.

Well, we’ll just have to come up with something!

 

A New Science Is Born!

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Why Quokkas Are The Cutest Animals On Earth

G’day, everybody! Byron the Quokka here, on what is sure to be forever remembered as an historic occasion!

Because on this day, a new science is born. Brand-new! In fact, if you want to earn a degree in it, the only place in the whole world where you can do that is right here at Quokka University! Because we have a monopoly on the new science of…

Cryptogeography!

Even as Cryptozoology is the study of animals that have to be found before they can be studied, because they may or may not exist, so is cryptogeography the study of places that may or may not exist. [Note to Board of Sages: we owe Phoebe S. an honorary doctorate in Cryptogeography, for coining the name.]

Did you ever try to go someplace and never get there–and you thought it was because you just got lost somehow? Well! Maybe the place was really there… and maybe it wasn’t. I mean, really, blimey, how do you get to Brigadoon, or Gondor, or the Seven Cities of Gold? Poor Coronado wandered all over the map and never found the place that he was looking for. How many times have you been told, “Just keep on going down Route Whatsit, and you can’t miss it”? And then you do miss it, because it isn’t there! But maybe, just maybe, it was there yesterday.

What makes lost cities lost? How do they get found again?

You can see the world’s been needing a science of Cryptogeography for quite a long time.

And as we say here at Q.U.–Ipso loquitur mannimota!