Sharknado makes us ask if we're even still afraid of sharks

I recently spent a lazy rainy day at the Lake of Ozarks skipping out on a boat ride in exchange for a triple header of Shark Week movies on the Syfy Channel, the only one of which whose name I remember was Trailer Park Shark.



I guess it just goes to show that I, like many others, will watch anything that includes great whites. There's no telling whether that hillbilly jam was better or worse than the grand dame of the new breed of shark movies, 2013's Sharknado.

I finally got around to seeing that alleged classic last night and, despite an obvious decrease in brain cells reported in my head today, the movie is an indelible must-watch for fans of the 90s classic TV show Beverly Hills 90210. Ian Ziering, aka Steve Sanders in Bev 9er, finally found the one role he was always meant to play, as Fin, the surfer dude whose beach bar is destroyed by waves of sharks. He then goes about crossing Los Angeles to drop bombs on tornados and vanquish the flying sharks with his chainsaw.

Really, does any more need to be said?

3 out of 5 stars. Now I have, what, four more Sharknado movies to catch up on?

Sharks, Warrior Paint, and Pedal Power Over the Weekend in Durban

Durban continues to be an interesting city to be visiting for two weeks of work. After attending something called Forest Day, I had an hour or so to walk (and jog again) around the beach near my hotel.

So I snapped a few photos. The best one is of this baobab tree replica. That is my hotel in the background and the energy these fellows are generating from pedaling is lighting up the tree.

On Saturday night, my Nature Conservancy delegation celebrated the half-way point of the UN climate conference by going to Moyo, a fun touristy place on The Point a few miles down the beach from our hotel. Some of the more interesting items on the menu include sprinkbok, octopus tentacles, and snoek. That's some of their entertainment in the photo below. And there I am with my warrior paint on my face, courtesy of our waitress.

Moyo is at the end of a long outdoor shopping mall and it's next to Durban's allegedly world-famous aquarium, called uShaka Marine World. I'm hoping to get back there because I'm told the sharks swim above visitors while they walk through.

Another thing about sharks off the coast of Durban. Supposedly it is true that this city, where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic, sports the highest concentration of sharks in the world. The good thing is that there are nets offshore and they can't get to all the swimmers and surfers. Apparently there's only been one shark/human incident in the past several years, during a storm when a shark was able to get around the net.