Rise of the hippopotamus

This isn't a particularly sysadmin-y entry, but that's ok.

I've noticed lately that hippopotamuses...err hippopotami(?) are on the rise in the public consciousness. Last year, my wife's grandmother entertained us at Christmas by singing "I want a hippopotamus for christmas". The fact that she threatened to do it for the 6 months leading up to it may have been the cause of her getting something like a dozen hippo-related gifts that year.

If you watch American TV, you might have seen the E-Trade commercials with the baby that speaks fluent 20-something American English. He recently taunted another golfer with what is undoubtedly my new favorite insult: shankopotamus. Awesome.

Not too long ago, Michael Francis (my editor, and one of the originators of this network) asked me for my input on an ad campaign from Red Gate, his parent company. It was for an exchange email archival system. I provided a little bit of input throughout the development, and it's done now.

In the interest of full disclosure, RedGate partially sponsors this site, and they pay me to write for them. I'm not doing this as a commercial for them, I'm posting it because I think it's quirky and fun, and because I'm a shameless self-promoter and I helped with it :-D

Here's Elsa, the hippopotamus exchange server:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaZOcH5osCY