In which we are concerned with cephalopod logistics though it is no longer hockey season.

[mrissa]

mrissa: And then markgritter was listing the places Vernor Vinge could have gone to see a live lobster. He went on at quite some length. Like, Byerly's, Red Lobster, the aquarium. Boston Gardens.
timprov: Um.
M: Okay, he didn't quite get so far as Boston Gardens.
T: Good. It's not like octopuses and Detroit.
M: I am concerned--I am suddenly quite concerned about the octopuses and Detroit.*
T: Like how at any moment--
M: Yes.
T: At any moment some guy there in Detroit has an octopus in his pants and you don't know it.
M: Yes. This concerns me greatly. Please tell me that Ziploc is involved.
T: I'm thinking no.
M: Or that nice friendly people such as the Detroit equivalent of United Noodle have sold the Red Wings fans some lovely dried octopus for their flinging needs?
T: Clearly not.
M: Oh, oh, oh, I am concerned. So in a regular plastic bag like a Target bag, just a whole dead octopus.
T: Possibly. If it was me I would use a thermos.
M: This is heartening.
T: But thermoses are not allowed in the arenas.
M: Not heartening!
T: But it's not like things that are not allowed in arenas never get in arenas.
M: And something like a smuggle-in beer belly contraption would be difficult to get the octopus out of--and although I hear octopuses are good at wriggling in and out of confined spaces, I expect that's mostly the live ones.
T: Never underestimate the power of the undead octopus.
M: No, I am concerned.
T: I think they have official Red Wings jackets with special pockets for the octopuses.
M, heartened: Do you? Like duck hunting jackets? Oh, I am relieved.
[pause]
M: Wait! I am not relieved! Oh why was I relieved?
T, laughing: If they don't, it's a marketing opportunity waiting to happen.
M: Now I really have to ask the internet how this works. And fear that it will answer me.

*Detroit Red Wings fans have been known to fling dead octopuses upon the ice. No, I cannot explain this to you. I am not a Detroit Red Wings fan.

Comments

[zunger.livejournal.com]

I would suggest that this is still infinitely less disturbing than the possibility of someone in Detroit having a live octopus in their pants, ziploc or no ziploc. Yet this is the mental picture I am now stuck with. Curse you, mrissa!

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

Um, the dead octopuses spontaneously generate in JLA due to all of the combined superfandom of the superfans in Hockey Town.

There you go. You just think really hard about it, and at the right moment, you'll have a dead octopus in your hands.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, and the red light we saw in the sky on the way home from my great-aunt's house on Christmas Eve when I was 5 was Rudolph's nose.

*patpat*

[txanne.livejournal.com]

No, dead octopuses come to JLA because of Aquaman, silly.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

It's because you used to have to win 8 times to with the Cup.

I believe there are guides online as to exactly how to sneak the octopus into the Joe (I know I read a guide in the Freep years ago). I believe it involves plastic wrap and duct tape and an abdomen. Hopefully not a really hairy one.

Oh, I love my team.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

...

.....

If anybody I didn't know ever, ever, ever made me witness his buddy ripping duct tape off his abdomen in order to get a plastic wrapped dead octopus off of there in order that he could fling it past me at the ice, there would be no roundness of o Minnesotan enough to cover the amount of sorry he would feel the need to say to me.

But I'm glad you love your team.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

I believe the extraction of the octopus has to be clandestine, since there are rules prohibiting the presence of octopus. Wikipedia tells me that in one game 15 years ago, 36 cephalopods splatted on the ice. Including one weighing 38 pounds.

The NHL has specifically banned octopus-twirling, which is a travesty.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i love your team too but i am very glad it is two states over.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

Well, I currently live in Delaware, so. (Left Michigan 10 years ago, couldn't pay me enough to move back. Still love my team.)

[moiread]

I could really have gone the rest of my life without knowing this.

[kizmet-42.livejournal.com]

Are you allowed to twirl squid?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

If you are worried about the potential of an undead octopus, avoid Tom Holt's BLONDE BOMBSHELL . . .

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Until today I was entirely ignorant of this Detroit perversion. Gosh, to think I have lived four decades in ignorance. Gosh, to think that I could have lived four more, likewise. Mourn my loss.

It may, or may not, strike some as an interesting coincidence that I was just today admiring a cow-orker-s efforts in making a tentacular scarf (http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter09/PATTtentacular.php).

But really, if Detroit fans had to throw something with eight legs, couldn't it just be four chickens, instead?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am now contemplating under what circumstances I would say, "A dead octopus in your pants? Couldn't you just have four dead chickens tied together in your pants instead?"

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Also, possibly worth contemplating whether you are braced to hear, "Well, I'm happy to see you but I wasn't that happy to see you..."

Besides, with chickens you just need three friends with a chicken each.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do see how multiplying the people with dead things in their pants by a factor of four improves matters.

....

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear heaven, the continued giggling, it hurts us, precious. Laughter is good for the soul, but somewhat painful to broken ribses.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

...

I haven't been keeping up on FB, if in fact it is on FB. You broke your ribs? Don't do that, it hurts. (I know, thank God I was here.)

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

Oh, the incident was about a month ago. I slipped on the steps and Miss Em got her first sledding trip down the stairs riding astride Momma's Chest. I managed to land with her squarely on top, so she was entirely uninjured, but she did disapprove of the rapid descent. I'm mostly better now, but uncontrollable laughing for an extended period of time still hurts a bit. Feels more like a muscle knot now than being skewered in the lung with a sharpened stake... So... That's something... at least...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Dear Miss Em:

Sledding on Momma: good fun.

Sledding on Momma without benefit of snowsuit, coat, sled, snow, and hill: not good fun! Don't do that again, kiddo!

Love,
mrissa

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Mad love for that icon.

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

Thanks... Those are my dogs... The one with string on her head likes to lie with her face in my lap while I knit, and whatever knitting project I'm working on ends up resting on her noggin. Thus her mistaken impression of how socks get made...

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

The chair I often do hand work in has got nice broad, flat, sturdy wooden arms to it. Our Kaylee has discovered that she can jump up onto the arm, and drop a ball or other spittle-covered object into my lap from a great height, to encourage me to stop this silly business with string and Fulfill My Destiny To Play With The Dog. I really should discourage this habit, but there is something so charmingly absurd about a 50-lb Labrador-Ibizan cross wanting so obviously to be a lap dog that I have not had the heart.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Down here, it's catfish. Not that it's often called for. I suppose you could slide one up your sleeve, for true convenience in extraction. They may fling a bit better than the cephalopods.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Thus leading to the common refrain: Is that a catfish up your sleeve, or are you just happy to see me?

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

Down here, it'd be the sleeve up the catfish, if anyone actually wore sleeves while noodling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noodling).

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

But catfish have spines! Sharp ones!

[sethb.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, your birthday is coming up.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

...?

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Octopuses can come in really small sizes (at least the dead ones at Whole Foods)--I can see putting several in your pocket, though if no bag was involved, you might not want to wear those pants again.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

And I'm glad for the explanation--I thought octopuses were a soccer phenomenon...but that one was live (and large).

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

I'd be even more concerned if live ones were involved.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

It apparently falls to me to note that "Boston Garden" - when we are discussing the place where people gather to see various arena-type events - is always singular. Actually these days it is Some Bank Whose Name We Can't Remember Garden, but everyone still calls it Boston Garden (actually, Bastan Gahden, but let's not be picky). But it is never plural, no no no no.

I had not previously considered the question of how the Red Wings fans get the dead cephalopods (notice how cleverly I avoided the long-burning flamewar about the proper plural of "octopus," there?) into the arena. I do not know that I should be thankful to Timprov for opening this avenue of thought in my mind.

[zelda888.livejournal.com]

I am oddly heartened to know that you are not bothering with Some Bank.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

None of us bothers with Some Bank, Some Company, etc., unless it is to snark. Things that have been named a thing for a long time are named that thing. Things that never got a real name need one. I feel so sorry for the San Francisco Giants in their new Whatever Park that should have been Mays Park or Mays Field and have done with it.

[zelda888.livejournal.com]

Here in Chicago we have this Tower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willis_Tower). It feels a little hypocritical to be all outraged about the Evil Corporate Overlords stripping it of its Proper Name when, after all, it *was* a corporate structure in the first place. But it's been emblematic of the city itself for several decades, and it doesn't seem quite right to change it.

Jury's still out on how well the name will stick-- the death of Marshall Field's at Macy's hands caused fiery outrage and fury-- for about fifteen minutes, apparently.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We here in Mpls had Chicago people attempting to enlist us in the fiery outrage and fury. And we laughed and laughed. Because Marshall Field's took away our Dayton's.

I mean, officially. It's not like I don't still confuse the heck out of people by calling it Dayton's two name-changes later. And there's still an elevator downtown where the metal plate indicates what floor for Dayton's.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

An octopus could probably be concealed in top hats, rasta caps, especially large berets...

[dancing-crow.livejournal.com]

There's a flickr group for that...

http://www.flickr.com/groups/octopushead/pool/

[callunav.livejournal.com]

I'm deeply disturbed on behalf of the octopus/octopi/octopodes, because they are by and large bright and sweet-natured things that twitch the very tips of their tentacles when they dream like puppies dreaming of running.

On the other hand, I really, really love this transcribed conversation.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Why did / does Vernor need to see a live lobster? I can't remember if the Scripps-Birch Aquarium has them, but there and Sea World would be good local-to-him starting points.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

There was a bit of unfortunate description.