Gorillas in My Midst

Apr 1, 2007 at 10:53 PM
2 comments

Over the years I've amassed a small collection of monkeys, all stuffed toys mostly given to me by friends. Why gorillas? A bit of history, when I first became a net regular, the name igor was already taken in most email and web addresses, so I had to choose another screen name.

My solution: move the "i" in "igor" to the end and add "-lla". The result: "Gorilla". At about that time the anime "Slam Dunk" was being shown locally on Channel 5 and "Gori", short for "gorilla", was the nickname of Akagi, the team captain. Some people assumed that that was the reason for my name, but it wasn't. Until today, some of my friends call me Gori. So, I introduce to you my gorilla family... Yes, gorillas are in my midst.

One of my very first gorillas was this multi-colored huggable from my then girlfriend Jocelyn a little more than 10 years ago. It got lost one time, our maid took it home, thinking I wouldn't miss it. But I raised so much hell that it reappeared the next day. It meant that much to me.

A couple of years later, when I was working for Questor, the Uy brothers (DJ and Bryan) gave me this Mojo Jojo for my birthday.

Two years ago, for my birthday, I met the Questor / CV5 / P3 guys (Bambi, Olan, Cherry, Cecil, Bebert, Nick and Kenneth) for a night out. That day, the biggest member of my gorilla family "ILLA" came home with me.

In March last year, I bought a whole bunch of these clingy monkeys. Some of them found their way to my nephew Enzo's pram. I kept one of them for some monkey love.

This one I love a lot. This is "ILYA", a gorilla puppet given to me last Christmas 2006 by Bambi and Olan. He has since seen action in a puppet show during Enzo's birthday.

Gorilla Puppet

See him in action. Isn't he adorable?

Another gift gorilla, this one was given to me by Nick. I named him "NOGNOG". It's a shrieking gorilla doll.

Shrieking Gorilla Doll

Yup, he does sound like that when you push down on his tummy.

Just last Saurday, i passed by Vente, a Php20 store in Glorietta. I found these multi-colored orangutangs. I didn't let them go. They're the newest additions to my growing gorilla family.