Penguins

A policeman spotted a guy driving a truck with a live penguin sitting in the passenger seat. The policeman said, "Take that penguin to the zoo, now."

Next day the policeman sees the man with the penguin again.

The policeman stops the guy and says, I told you yesterday to take the penguin to the Zoo, what on earth are you doing with the penguin in your truck again?"

The guy says, "What is there to do? Yesterday I took him to the zoo and today I'm taking him to the movies."

So I'm about to install a Linux distribution (possibly in a vmware image or off a 16GB USB stick) to play with. Only question is, which one will VI for my attention? I've had a few recommendations over the years, but now I need the latest and greatest, state of the art, bleeding edge choice with a nice and easy GUI. Do I say ungawa to ubuntu? Tip my beanie to the Red Hat? Suss out Suse? Or place my microscope over the real small distros?

Comments anyone?