Having to find a laboratory to stage a mad scientist scene for the Ed Wood Machinima Festival (which I didn’t end up submitting to because my nose was clogged up from the flu) I typed in “lab” in the search section for “places” and thus found myself, entirely by accident, at the Dinosaur Park (Pumacity, 218.155.23).

I had always found dinosaurs fascinating and when I was little, I had even dreamed of digging up dinosaur bones one day (of course, going to all those dinosaur museums helped build my awe for the creatures). So even though going to a dinosaur park was not my goal and even though I had a deadline, I couldn’t resist being side-tracked (as usual) and check out the facilities.

The place is owned by Nargus Asturias, whom I have not yet had the honor of meeting, but turned out to be a beautifully-built place. Naturally, I couldn’t go into a dinosaur park in plain clothes, so I dressed up in my shiny dragon avatar, which has a rocket booster attached to the back (courtesy of freebies at New Citizens’ Plaza).

The place consists of two huge glass half-spheres and an outdoor park. One is a shop where Nargus sells his dinosaur avatars and related accessories.  Trotting towards me on the right is Allstar, wearing a raptor AV (more about Allstar later). Being a kind of museum, there is also a visitors’ desk with freebies and gifts (Pictured above: that’s my head at the right, craning my neck to look at the freebies). 

The cool thing is that there is a woman’s computerized voice that welcomes you to the park and warns you not to feed the dinosaurs. There is also a nice metallic door sound (like the ones you get in Halo2) because you have to go through two doors to access the park (security measures to prevent the dinosaurs from getting inside, I suppose).

The park, disappointingly, did not have any brontasauruses or brachiosauruses, which was a shame because I am very fond of the huge creatures. Instead, there were a couple raptors, one of which was guarding a nest of eggs. A sign in the park encouraged me to say hello to the dinosaurs, so I carefully approached it and as it looked pretty friendly, I tried to pet it.

“Get thine hands outta ma scales!” it shouted. So much for petting dinosaurs. At least it said “hands” and not “paws” or else I would have been truly offended. 

Ruffled from my encounter with the snobby raptor, I went to a more refreshing section of the park and let off steam, sunbathing on a rock, after which I felt much better and went back into the museum.

There, I met Allstar, who is a friend of Nargus. He showed me the nice avatars and offered to give me a ride later on after he bought a saddle. Now that is what I call a friendly dinosaur! I really did not care for raptors at all, because they always looked cunning, but Allstar was very sweet. Moral of the day: do not be prejudiced by how people look on the outside.