why do parrots & cuban food make me think of spiders & squid?

[scottobear]

random scotto factoid - Somewhere near my apartment is a nesting area for green parrots. I saw about a half dozen of them fly overhead coming in today. I wonder if they're native, or escaped pets?

I missed Calle Ocho last weekend, not that I'd have been up to go. Great Music and food. A huge block party.

I *still* have to get that stuff put in the mail. Drat. Nothing time intensive, but I'd like the stuff to be where it's going, not where it is now. *note to self, find out the preferred chain.*

Isaac Asimov Died of AIDS? He contracted the disease from a blood transfusion during open heart surgery, and allegedly his doctor advised him to cover it up.

Dave's Birthday is this Thursday... I wonder what to hook him up with? Maybe a blockbuster gift card... he's a daddy now, no time to go out to movies anymore.

"Presently they were under the shadow, and there in the midst of it they saw the opening of a cave. 'This is the way in,' said Gollum softly. 'This is the entrance to the tunnel.' He did not speak its name: Torech Ungol: Shelob's Lair. Out of it came a stench, not the sickly odour of decay in the meads of Morgul, but a foul reek, as if filth unnameable were piled and hoarded in the dark within."

The Lord of the Rings, Book IV, Ch 9

Thumbing through an old paperback novel called Lycosidae. It's the Pride and Prejudice of giant spider stories. A nice popcorn book between more serious study (not available via amazon! must be out of print).

Spiders are great. Freaky, furry web-spinners with poisonous bites and a love for killing the peskier bugs. Mandibles! A bunch of eyes! They're just super neat... they're so thoroughly alien, yet they're everywhere. Heck, there could be one dangling above your head as you read this! Lowering itself closer and closer to you on a line of silk, preparing to land on your shoulder... *evil laugh*

The movie Eight-Legged Freaks comes out this summer. I want to see it.

Speaking of things with eight legs... Cephalopods are even more spiffy. Squid, octopi, that sort of thing. Totally weird.Tentacles with suckers. And inside the suckers, hooks. many can change color with their surroundings, or just to show moods...and they have venomous bone-crushing beaks!

Comments

[ex-corax898.livejournal.com]

Wow, that Asimov bit is a stunner. I always heard that he had died of heart failure.

Re:

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

yeah... I wonder if it's a ploy by his widow to sell more copies of the new biography.

[kitaryufinn.livejournal.com]

Squid and octupusses (the plural of octopus is not octopi oddly enough - This is the useless information I get for being married to a marine biologist. Personaly I like octopi. Octopusses sounds lame and idiotic. And while she corrects me, she at least agrees.) are amazingly cool organisms. Very smart, adaptive, curious. Incredible creatures. Just had to pipe in for no reason.

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[scottobear.livejournal.com]

http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=octopus

actually both are correct, but you're right... octopuses is the more correct term.

Whatever the plural, they're awesome.

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[kitaryufinn.livejournal.com]

*waves his arms* Nope, I'm a conscientious objector to the whole plural Octopus debate. I just like the organism. Very cool.

I heard a story, several people removed regarding a lab doing research with an octopus. Apparently they had a few other fish tanks in the lab with fish, and the octopus in it's own tank. They'd turn the light off at night and then in the morning, they'd be a fish shorter than the previous day. After a few days of this, they set up a camera, trying to figure out what it was. In the night, the octupus was opening it's tank, walking across the lab table, opening the other tank, catching a fish, shutting the tank, taking it back to it's tank and then shutting itself back in to eat it's catch.

For all I know, it's a Scientific Legend as I never personally verified it, but if true, very interesting.

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[scottobear.livejournal.com]

heh.. it wouldn't surprise me. I've seen the films of one unscrewing a mayo jar, getting inside, and screwing the lid behind to get into a safe zone.

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[kitaryufinn.livejournal.com]

They're quite enamored of shiny objects. I was watching one in a pool at a rescue center. It just stared at me, and you can just about see it pondering what you were, then it saw the sunglasses. Reached up and tried to nab them. Watches were about the same. Just wanted something shiny to curl up with.

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[scottobear.livejournal.com]

aww.... clever little boogers!

[argumentplease.livejournal.com]

Have you ever seen the Monty Python sketch about mollusks' sex life?

Re:

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

Yes!

"The whelk is nothing but a homosexual of the worst kind. This gay boy of the gastropods, this queer crustacean, this mincing mollusc, this screaming, prancing, limp-wristed queen of the deep makes me sick. "