My favorite class in college was about non-human animal intelligence. We studied chimpanzees and dolphins of course, but one of the most intriguing animals was the African Grey parrot named Alex. Alex is remarkably intelligent and since then I've always wanted to know someone who owned one of these birds. I don't want to own one myself--too much responsibility--but it'd be nice to have a next-door neighbor or something who had one.

A few weeks ago Mark Morford wrote a funny article about living with an African Grey:

Hence, she can now imitate, with freakish precision, the exact tone and cadence of the ring of my SO's home phone. She will ring the phone two or three times, answer it with the exact same beep as the on button, say, "Hello, how are you?" in pitch-perfect girlfriend intonation, proceed to have a full conversation in human-pitched bird gibberish (with all appropriate pauses and cadences), say, "OK, OK, bye-bye," and hang up with another perfect beep. She will do this over and over again. All day long.

Too bad I don't live next door to him.