As a giraffe detective and his hippo sidekick are called to an island by an old friend to join a party where he wanted to make a grand announcement, they find themselves showing up to the scene of a murder. In Lord Winklebottom it is up to you to search for clues on this island and find out who killed the head of the household, and why.

In it you will find a rogue's gallery of suspects: a feline journalist, an alpaca seer, a pelican actress who is hard of hearing, a walrus priest, a chameleon scientist, a goat maid, a sloth butler, a slug gardener, and a toad lawyer. Yes, this game is very, as Fred Patten would put it, zipperback. These characters could very well be replaced by human counterparts, but where is the fun in that?

In spite of the animal characters, though, I could not actually recommend this as a game. If you do enjoy detective stories this one is kind of forgettable, if you enjoy games this is not much of a game. If you do like quirky animal character adventures, this one is passable but there are better options out there these days. If you like playing a story that has light interactivity then this may actually be your cup of tea. As long as you don’t put the tea in first — or was it don’t put the milk in first? Either way the tea is just okay.

Gordon the Giraffe is a new full-color trade paperback from Arcana Entertainment, written by Bruce Brown and illustrated A. Shelton. It tells the story of Gordon, a young giraffe who discovers that he’s different from other giraffe kids… and how the other kids learn to accept that. Here’s the description from Word of the Nerd: “In the jungle where Gordon lives, there is a special game that the giraffe children play with each other (much like 1-on-1 volleyball, but with bananas). Gordon’s issue is that, instead of playing banana volleyball with a girl giraffe, he finds it much more fun to play the game with Gary. So the other boys decide to play a trick on Gordon. When that trick backfires, it is up to Gordon to rescue the other boy giraffes.”  This new storybook comes out in early July.

image c. 2012 Arcana Entertainment

I was in a bad mood all day when I went to see this movie. A real bad mood.

I was looking forward to seeing it, however, because I decided it would cheer me up. I wasn't expecting it to be great and cheer me up; I expected it to be bad, and then I would get to take out all my frustrations on it in my review.

Essentially, if this movie was not the second coming of Furry Jesus, I was going to rip it a new orifice which I would then proceed to assuage my rage.

Can I even write that?

Anyway, you read the headline; this movie cheered me right up in the way I did not expect it to. By not sucking. Also, by not only not sucking, but by really not sucking a lot.

The people who brought you "Shrek" and "SharkTail" are at it again. Watch the trailer for their next movie "Madagascar", which stars a lion, a giraffe, a zebra and a hippo who all live in the New York Central Park zoo.

See the trailer here.

BBC News is reporting that keyhole surgery, the same that has been used on horses - but never tried on giraffes has saved the life of a giraffe, who had a fracture in its lower jawbone.

You can see the whole story here.