It's Good To Be Prepared

If you are the type to go up and down the aisles of the internet, you've probably seen this many times. If not, then a zoo in Tokyo recently conducted an "animal escape drill", where some lucky employee got to dress up in an orangutan suit and pretend to shot with a tranquilizer dart.
If I were the orangutan, I would totally depart from the script, lower my furry orange shoulder and bust through the line. Hopefully I would be lucky enough to escape from the zoo and make it to the subway.

Freedom!

Not The Jam

I saw an article the other day that The Jam was reforming and going on tour in the UK. Gasp! The Jam is back? That would be something I would pay money to see. I would eat a bug to see The Jam live.

However, it turns out it is just two out of the three members, minus Paul Weller. They are calling the act "From the Jam: Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler". Sounds very Vegas to me.

The Jam without Paul Weller? That's so wrong - he wrote and sang most of their songs, for pete's sake. That's like The Police without Sting (get your tickets now, folks). It's like Hüsker Dü without Bob Mould. It's like The Chipmunks without Alvin.

You get the idea. Why can't they leave well enough alone? Sigh.

Mmmmmm....Lobster?

I love lobster, I love crab, I love shrimp. God help me, I could eat crustacean until I'm sick (and I've come close to doing it, believe you me). However, eating and cooking these kinds of shellfish usually takes a little work, mainly the separation of the meat from the shell. We've spent many an evening in the kitchen removing the shells off of shrimp tails (and sometimes the little vein of poo in the tail).

When it comes to lobster, my parents usually take a live ones and drop it into a pot of boiling water, where it makes an "eeeeeeee!" noise as it hits the water. I remember being told that it's not the sound of the lobster screaming in agony, but something to do with the air being forced out of the lobster's body. Right.

Well, according to The Lobster Blog, there's a new method of getting lobster meat: the Avure Technologies Hydrostatic Pressure Processing System!


All you do is drop your live lobsters into the machine's large metal tube, flip the switch, and a huge amount of compressed water pressure is shot at the the lobsters, blowing off their shells and leaving the meat behind. What you get is this:


Disturbingly efficient? Yes! Creepy & nauseating? To be honest, a little. I'm sure the lobster in the picture was arranged like that after it came out of the machine, or then I'd really be freaked out. The whole process is supposed to be a more humane way of killing lobsters - death is supposed to come much more quickly in the machine versus a slower death in boiling water.

What does it all mean? You got me. But I'm sure we'll have a bunch of naked lobsters coming to our supermarket freezer section real soon.

Vengeance will be mine!

Nap Time

From my daily dog calendar:


"When you can't figure out what to do, it's time for a nap" - Mason Cooley

Autobots, Transform!

This is the coolest thing I've seen today: Transformers that change from Nike tennis shoes to robots!


Awesome! Why didn't they have these when I was growing up? If you've got the disposable income, you can get these bad boys here.