Oh, yes, I should probably write some things about some subject here tonight.

Let me tell you something- if you're trying to mash some sweet potatoes, don't use a blender. Or at least don't use a Ninja. That's right. I have a ninja in my employ, but most of you probably already know what I'm talking about. It's a little blender that essentially has razors in it to cut things up. It's super handy for making drinks, I MEAN UM. SALADS. YEP. GOTTA BLEND THOSE SALADS. Unfortunately, for sweet potatoes, you end up with more of a confetti than a viscous ooze. Not that you'd want your mashed anything to be a viscous ooze. I just doubt you'd want it to be confetti, either. But hey, tastes fine. As always, the devil is in the texture.

So, that takes care of that subject. Brevity's the soul of wit, right? So why aren't you laughing? Oh man, I wasn't brief enough. Let's try that again.

LET ME TELL SOMETHING DON'T LET NINJAS MASH YOUR POTATOES BECAUSE YOU'LL GET CONFETTI, AND NOBODY WANTS MASHED CONFETTI.

Maybe these folks do, but do you really want to be like them?

But I digress, as I am prone to do.

Allow me to retort with a herpity derp.

And of course, we continue aimlessly with no real subject, but boy howdy, is that about to change. I'm not entirely sure how, but we'll make it happen.

Signs seem to be pointing to "The Ocean." Not the best topic, but I'm not arguing with the signs at this late hour. No, you don't get to know what the signs are right now, because such things are mortal men not meant to know, or perhaps some other more sensible form of that sentence.

So, the ocean. I think there's something... FISHY about the ocean. (See what I did there? That's a pun. You kids might not think it's so great, but 600 years ago? I would be a freaking artist. Well, an appreciated artist.) We're talking about a place that covers a buttload of our planet (that's a technical term, of course) where we can't live. Not only can we not live there, it will straight up murder us if we try to do so. I mean, there's that absurd amount of water pressure, so if there's a body left over, well, there won't be for long. You can just sink for hours (not that you'll know, because you'll be dead), and you might not hit anything. And we're putting up with that?

"Well, Rob," you might say, "that's why you wear scuba equipment and know how to swim and other similar things along those lines." Oh, sure, you say that now. But you forget about the death squads that the ocean has out there for us. Sharks, jellyfish, stonefish, octopi, Pfeffer's flamboyant cuttlefish, you name it. It's ready to get you.

Ladies and gentlemen, Pfeffer's flamboyant cuttlefish. It will straight up murder you.

Or worse still, it doesn't care. You're on its turf, now, son, and it is only by its indifference that you aren't getting really chummy with its insides. (See? Unappreciated in my time.)

There was a time when I thought all of this was really cool. For a while, I really wanted to be a marine biologist. Honestly, it all is pretty fascinating. There are some amazing things that go on down there (hurr hurr), and there's definitely plenty left to be discovered. But then you look at these things again.

For example. Lobsters. Delicious! Decadent! Delightful!

See? Look at that. He's got a sailor's hat and everything. He just wants to be your friend and give you hugs! He's got that dopey little lobster face going with the antennae and the eyes. Look at how round that body is! Truly, he is a jovial creature that wishes to share in the joy of scuttling about the ocean floor, possibly with a jaunty sea tune.

Look again.



AAH! Good Lord! I can't even look at this picture, and now it's going away. Now it's going away. Now it's going away. Good Lord, make it go away. I don't need to see it wriggling those mouth parts at me with those cold, dead eyes that are just staring.

Did I mention that one of my earliest memories is a nightmare in which my bed was filled with crabs and lobsters? Sure, there's another one near that where I was being attacked by the honkers from Sesame Street, but they're fuzzy and on the TV with Big Bird and Cookie Monster. They're NOT unholy sea creatures with a maw covered in gills and probosces with giant claws that can just grip you and pull you in.

Seriously. That is what lies down there. On the one hand, I want to pollute the living daylights out of it just to make everything down there die so I don't have to even think about the possibility of dreaming about them. On the other hand, what if that just makes them angry? What if I end up being haunted by not just crustaceans, but GHOST crustaceans? Now these implacable killing machines can't even be stopped by death. Or, what if they decide to take revenge for the pollution while they're still alive? There are a whole lot more of them than there are of us (citation needed, but it still haunts my freaking dreams. I would use stronger language, but there's family reading this, and I don't need to have a total lobster meltdown on the Internet. This is, at best, a partial lobster meltdown, which would be a great name for a band, just like every other combination of three random words thrown together.), and they could do some damage. Imagine lobsters laying on subway tracks in New York. Yeah, they'd get run over, but then the train is stopped. You have people trying to work on the tracks and other people trying to get the passengers out.

That's when they strike. Everyone is getting the living daylights pinched out of them. The lobsters are cutting off the other end of the tunnel, so there's no means of escape. There's tension as the passengers wonder what to do. Some foolhardy marine biologist says something like, "Oh, but they eat fish, mollusks, and some plant life. They couldn't possibly harm a human beyond some mild pinching. It was even on a commercial (or was that a crab?), so I'll just go on up and try to reason with OH MY GOD THE LOBSTERS OH GOD THEY'RE PINCHING ME OH GOD THEY CANNOT BE REASONED WITH OH GOD THEY'RE IN MY EYES NOT THE CLAWS AAAAAH AAAAH MY EYES AAAAH."

Then they cut the power.

Think about it. How many cities with extensive public transit systems are on the coast? How many have numerous grocery stores and fish markets where these things can just wait. Biding their time until the appointed day of revolution. Sure, they're delicious with some butter and lemon, but do you really think that we could put together enough pots of boiling water in that amount of time? And what do you think they're going to do with people that have lemon and butter? First up against the wall, my friends. First up against the wall.With a coordinated strike, they could knock out DC, New York, Boston, and, most importantly, Maine. Ever wonder why people used to say, "Remember the Maine?" It wasn't the Spanish- it was the lobsters. It was a symbol for their revolution. Yes, they too remember the Maine, but for different reasons. You might get a laugh out of the store displays, or the lobsters in aquariums, or the funny pictures on the Internet, or Annie Hall, but why do you think Woody Allen was so worried about getting it into the pot? He knew, man. He knew.

Kanly!

Oh. Great. You know what else I just found out? Lobsters are basically immortal. Yes, there's disease, predation, and all those other things that negate my claim of the lobster Highlander (of which there can only be one, but in the gurgles and clicks of lobster language), but lobsters can repair their DNA. What's the biggest lobster you've ever seen? Maybe a foot or so across, including the claws? Maybe a few pounds? Maybe you've gotten lucky and found one that was ten pounds, and then you ate it because you cannot respect the leaders of lobster culture (and rightly so, because who do you think had the idea for the revolution? It's us or them, my friends.).

The biggest one ever caught was about 44 pounds. I shudder to think how big it was, but thin about it. With some organization and careful avoidance of traps, the lobsters can grow to nearly limitless size. And then they strike. Claws take out the Empire State Building, the Washington Monument, and some other monument that would make people gasp and say, "MY GOD! WE SHOULD HAVE LISTENED! DAMN OUR HUBRIS!"

Once again, Matt Groening and co. were right all along.

Oh, and they also have multiple brains. So you know how you're supposed to stab it in the brain before you boil it or something like that? Might not work, because there are extra clusters of nerves that can keep it working. Now we're not only dealing with clawed, eternal killers of the sea, we're dealing with clawed, eternal killers of the sea that are harder to kill than zombies. I mean, zombies you can at least just bludgeon the head a bit and you'll be in good shape. Lobsters? You've got to break them in half, and to do that, you've got to get close. And that means pinching range. We're talking full on purple nurple territory.

So, friends, be vigilant. Beware the lobster bloc, my son- the jaws that wriggle and the claws that catch. Wait. Nope. I don't have a vorpal blade just yet. Just... just keep that water boiling. And when the time comes, don't stand on ceremony waiting for that bib. Just get in there, and do your civic duty. Eat some freaking lobsters.