# The Hell is it with Christmas penguins? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 23, 2012, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963 "2012-12-23T22:32:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2012, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/21 "2012-12-24T12:46:04Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Tell that to Batman. Ha! And do these illegal alien criminals have green cards? I think not! ---
**Author:** ![Sticks\_and\_Scones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sticks_and_scones/32/16951_2.png) [@Sticks\_and\_Scones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sticks_and_Scones)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2012, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/22 "2012-12-24T12:52:20Z")
How odd that I would just be reading [this](http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2012/12/2/sunday-sweets-polar-opposites.html) today. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2012, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/23 "2012-12-24T13:09:53Z")
> [@kittenblue](#): > > Plus, Santa is magical and if he wants to whisk penguins from one Pole to the other he can! Ah, so we can add Human…er, Penguin Trafficking to his numerous crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2012, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/24 "2012-12-24T17:32:55Z")
I like pengies. There is very little that can not be improved by the addition of a little more penguin. Beef stew being one. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2012, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/25 "2012-12-24T18:22:22Z")
So the mechanic says to the penguin, “It looks like you blew a seal.” ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2012, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/26 "2012-12-24T19:12:52Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > I like pengies. There is very little that can not be improved by the addition of a little more penguin. A skunk convention. They will believe he has his suit on backwards. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/27 "2012-12-25T05:24:16Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > So the mechanic says to the penguin, “It looks like you blew a seal.” And the penguin replies “Hey bub…just fix the car and leave my private life out of this!” In other news…the shirt I wore this evening for our Christmas Eve dinner is covered in Christmas penguins…barbecuing. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/28 "2012-12-25T06:34:16Z")
> [@Telperion](#): > > The poor little guys are all dressed up with nowhere to go, and you want to exclude them from celebrating Christmas with everybody else? Is your heart made of stone or something? Penguins have never hurt anybody, unlike polar bears and reindeer. Largely because they stand four feet high and rarely even meet anybody, but still. I used to have a few photos of another admin who was sitting with a group of penguins. What IS the collective noun for penguins, anyway? He had gone to Antarctica and frolicked with the flightless birdies. I think I lost those files, though. ---
**Author:** ![Audrey\_Levins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Audrey\_Levins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Audrey_Levins)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/29 "2012-12-25T06:43:19Z")
I call my husband a penguin sometimes, because his feet turn the way theirs do…so pretty much every holiday bag/wrapping paper/card he gets features penguins. They are adorable animals who are always formally dressed for every occasion. Penguins START the party. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/30 "2012-12-25T07:13:44Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > What IS the collective noun for penguins, anyway? A monkey-suit of penguins? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/31 "2012-12-25T08:52:03Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > I used to have a few photos of another admin who was sitting with a group of penguins. What IS the collective noun for penguins, anyway? He had gone to Antarctica and frolicked with the flightless birdies. I think I lost those files, though. Brief search yields “colony”, “rookery” or “huddle”. So a sysadmin was hanging out with penguins? Was he looking for advice? Or did he just want to meet Tux? ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/32 "2012-12-25T10:22:14Z")
A SDMB admin, not a sysadmin. And he was hanging out with penguins to be cool. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/33 "2012-12-25T15:10:09Z")
One of my favorite cartoons is of a colony of thousands of penguins. There is a single balloon, reading, “You want to know what we need around here? I’ll tell you what we need around here. We need some damn name tags around here!” ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/34 "2012-12-25T15:53:19Z")
I like the one with two penguins standing on an ice floe. One says, ‘Once again, here we are.’ Another is one I saw on a T-shirt back in the '80s. A (non-anthropomorphic, I think) penguin is standing with a Thompson submachine-gun. The caption reads ‘Penguins have no mercy.’ ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/35 "2012-12-25T20:47:00Z")
Why, didn’t you know? [Everything’s Better With Penguins.](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EverythingsBetterWithPenguins?from=Main.EverythingIsBetterWithPenguins) ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/36 "2012-12-25T21:58:10Z")
Santa obviously lives at the South Pole, because Arctic sea ice is way too mobile and unstable (they regularly put [buoys](http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/np2012/DriftMap.png) (note the first one, green line) at the North Pole in the spring to track ice drift and by the time summer is over, they are often entering the Atlantic, as shown). By comparison, the ice at the South Pole moves [only 10 meters per year](http://www.eoearth.org/article/South_Pole?topic=49460), so even after a century you are only 1 km from the actual location of the Pole if you don’t relocate. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/37 "2012-12-25T22:07:18Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I like the one with two penguins standing on an ice floe. One says, ‘Once again, here we are.’ > > Another is one I saw on a T-shirt back in the '80s. A (non-anthropomorphic, I think) penguin is standing with a Thompson submachine-gun. The caption reads ‘Penguins have no mercy.’ [Gary Larson commits a comic sin.](http://thedailypenguin.tumblr.com/post/2099991531) [I gotta be me.](http://pgboger.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/far-side-penguin.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/38 "2012-12-25T23:17:01Z")
> [@Michael63129](#): > > Santa obviously lives at the South Pole, because Arctic sea ice is way too mobile and unstable Has Superman also moved? ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/39 "2012-12-26T00:36:53Z")
Silly question. Since the Fortress of Solitude was built using Kryptonian technology, it is impervious to Earthly ice movement. It stays where it wants to stay. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2012, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963/40 "2012-12-26T00:50:13Z")
That does make me wonder–I remember reading Superman comics back in the long-ago, and the FoS was built into the side of a mountain, with the giant key the size of a winnebago and a door made of metal. I realize that in the Donner movies & Smallville, the Fortress is a big boat o’ icicles, but is that now canon? Or am I completely misremembering this? Meaning, if it’s built into the side of a mountain, then no, it’s not gonna move anywhere near that fast. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hell-is-it-with-christmas-penguins/644963.md?page=3)