I think this is absolutely brilliant. For only $2.99 you can get Tian Tian, Mei Xiang, or Tai Shan’s voice as your as cellphone’s ringtone! All three ringtones, and many other animal sounds, are available from the National Zoo’s website. Forty percent of the proceeds are returned to the zoo.

Tai Shan’s little voice is too cute. He sounds like a little lamb!

Photo Credit: National Zoo

Have a fantasy about pandas? Just joking, but if you do, wrongcards.com has the card for you. Or maybe you just wanna make someone laugh.

Send one to a friend.

Frances was kind enough to send in a link to this adorable panda wall decal. It includes 6 seperate panda decals for only $11.95, and the range from 4 to 11 inches tall! You can get yours at MyGrowingChild.com. The smiling one in the center is so my favorite and I want to hug him.

From the San Diego Zoo Weekly E-newsletter:

Everyone’s waiting to see what Zhen Zhen does when she has her first encounter with snow. Come see for yourself on Sunday, April 27, when keepers will have frozen fun waiting for the pandas.

How adorable! I can’t wait to watch on the panda cam.

Oh my goodness, this is adorable. This video explicitly takes you through every step to draw an adorable panda on GIMP, a free software download.

I’ll post my drawing once I finish one. Make sure to link to yours, too! I’ll add any submissions to this post.

Get to drawing!

From the NPR website:

I really don’t smile that much. It’s not that I am unhappy or depressed. It’s just not in my nature. I tend to take life a little seriously.

But, as part of my coverage for NPR in China, I visited the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding and Director Zhang Zhihe. He’s a gentle man who speaks about the giant pandas as if they were his own family. At the end of our time together, I asked him why he thought the giant panda bears are so popular. A simple answer from the director: “Because they make you smile!”

I fully agree. I edited this piece for the blog smiling and laughing out loud the whole time. This footage is a preview of a full report with Melissa Block that will air in May. Enjoy.

–David Gilkey

Aww. The rest of the world is finally catching on. Yay!

This adorable panda painting is available from OopsyDaisy.com. The artist, Sally Bennet, has a ton of other adorable paintings available on the site, too. Not to mention the pages and pages of cute art. It’s definitely worth a browse and they add new art often.

While panda only in name, I think their logo is cute, so I’m gonna mention them. Panda Yarn apparently has a reputation for quality, so I have no qualms suggesting you buy their product – if only because of the name. You could always knit a panda project using panda yarn on panda knitting needles!

Keeping with the whole learn-to-knit goal I’ve set for myself, here is a set of knitting needles that I must have if I ever actually begin to knit.

Available for $24.99 in DesignsbyTami’s Etsy shop.

For only $153 you can have your mail delivered to you by a sweet little panda! Available from Wild Mailboxes.