We’ve been eating poorly lately. By “poorly” I mean “like everyone else eats,” which is something we usually don’t do. We’re usually really careful about what we eat and get the omega-3s and the antioxidants and the essential amino acids and trace minerals all that. And “lately” actually has been going on quite a while. Anyway.

We don’t “usually” order out, but we have been for the past few months, especially on Fridays since it tends to be an unpleasant work day for us, and since we haven’t gotten groceries lately, and there’s a place near here that does pretty good pizza. Sick of pizza, we ordered gyros (and a small pizza because they’ve got a minimum order thing going on).

So halfway through this gyro, on the edge of the plate, I notice that this sliver of red onion has suckers. And isn’t red onion.

There are a few things I won’t eat. Well, a few food items I won’t eat. Horses, dogs, cats—companion animals who put their faith in us and serve us in ways that I’d call relationships of one kind of another. If I had a cow that did my taxes, I wouldn’t eat that, either. And primates, because that’s dangerous. And lamb, because my father won’t eat lamb, which (like many things in my family) I discovered by accident and was told “yeah, but don’t bring it up,” so it’s a mystery and it’s kind of like a “really? huh …” sort of thing, so I don’t eat lamb because I guess I’m doing this half-assed honor thy father thing.

And I don’t eat cephalopods. Because they might be really fucking smart. Some people think maybe as smart as we are, but in a different way. And I’m just not down with eating shit that might be as smart as I am, but in an alien way, because you know, that kind of shit got a lot of dudes in trouble in black-and-white movies.

And I’m especially not down with eating the flesh of alien-intelligent creatures that might someday seek revenge if that flesh happens to fucking be raw, which this fucking tentacle certainly was. I don’t even know if I ate any, but there was absolutely some raw tentacled flesh on this plate.

My wife called the restaurant, they offered to bring more food out (”nope, he’s pretty much off his feed at the moment”), and ultimately promised to “take care of us” at some later date, also offering the apologia that “it’s a small kitchen, and we’re very busy.” They were apologetic, which is really all I was after.

Interesting aside. Peter Benchley, the dude who wrote Jaws before it was a movie, also wrote a book about giant squid. I heard him interviewed about it, and the scrupulous and in-depth research he’s known for, and he said that through many first-hand accounts and through all the literature he was able to find regarding it, the giant squid was universally considered to be an animal that held grudges. It would get pissed off at specific boats, remember them, and then try to fuck them up later.

If I die—from food poisoning or revenge from the briny depths—I guess this will be my last entry.

Courtesy of popbitch:

Will the Starbury change the world?

Kids only want to buy trainers if they are super-expensive and exclusive, and top sportsmen can’t be blamed for endorsing top-priced goods. Well, this conventional wisdom is being turned on its head by New York Knicks’ Stephon Marbury. Kobe, Lebron and Michael Jordan have all put their name to $150 Nike shoes, but Marbury has made it his mission to bring out a line of shoes for poor kids. The cost of the new Starbury shoe? $15. And it’s not just a piece of tat. Marbury is wearing the shoe on court himself. Sold only in US discount store Steve & Barry’s (which prides itself on enabling a family to be clothed for a year for $100) the shoe has become a word-of-mouth phenomenon. Queues run outside the stores, with a two-item per person limit now enforced on the Starbury range. Marbury’s aim is to show people just how little it really costs to make high quality sneakers. “Two hundred to buy a pair of sneakers? That’s groceries for the week,” he says. “History is going to say Stephon Marbury changed the game.” More: http://www.starbury.com