Malapascua is a beautiful little island north of Cebu. I met up with Omar at Cebu city’s northern bus terminal for the 4 hour bus ride up. Following that was a short 15 minute boat road across and then this idyllic sight met us.

We spent a good few days diving with Sea Explorers, a very good scuba outfit that took really good care of us. The board below shows Malapascua (right below the tresher shark) and the types of wildlife you can see there. It’s most famous of course for the thresher shark, but there’s lots of other stuff to see there too, like mandarinfish (mating ones at that!), blue ring octopi (which I didn’t spot), lots of other types of sharks and unusual stuff like hairy frogfish and harlequin shrimp.

It was pretty fun except for the early morning dives, the earliest of which requiring us to be awake at 4.30am. These were to catch the thresher sharks as they came out early to the cleaning stations when the water was cooler. Here’s one of me and the dive guides at sunrise. I look uncharacteristically cheerful in this picture.

So did we see any threshers? Yup, just one for a couple of seconds out of maybe four hours underwater for the dives we were down there. It was a pity but the rest of the diving made up for it. Omar’s blogged about the trip here and I think he’s done a better (and far faster) job of it.

(I really hope at least ONE person gets the cultural reference in the title of the post)

….Oh, hello! Here is the fourth transmission of the series. Originally aired on 26/11/09, this is one lemony corker that you do NOT want to miss. Just click the stream below, let it load (let the grey stream go even greyer) and enjoy two hours worth of zesty noises.

The episode tracklisting – and comment box – can be found right HERE.

HEAVY.

xo

Want to eat sausages but can’t bring yourself to do it? Well check out this little fella!

Of course you bloody do! It’s the fourth day of the working week which can only mean one thing – the octopus is being let out of its inky cell and onto the Wired wireless! He is running loose with some miraculous, melodic music and an array of fantastiche guests, including a VERY SPECIAL guest co-host Mr Ian Jamesy James of Eclectrix-shire.

Don’t believe us? You slippery fools! Make sure you listen in from 6pm right HERE to hear it go out live, in real time and/or as it happens!

Expect Jurassic 5, Neutral Milk Hotel and some expert knowledge on everyone’s favourite lumpy, warm juice – SOUP.

CREAM OF CAROTENE.

There are so many reasons why “the terrorists, enemy combatants, maggots, killers,” should not be given a civil trial reserved only for legal citizens of America. President Obama knows  that in so doing , he will not only turn America who is the  victim, into  being the defendant in this trial, but he will give these maggots an open forum to promote their propaganda of hate and all things anti-American. What this childish, naive,  dumb and dangerous travesty will accomplish, is to once again show the world that President Obama is more interested in show than in substance.

The message the world at large is getting is that America lost the cowboy in the White House, and replaced him with a Spineless octopus.  Soldier of Allah Major Hasan who recently went on a killing spree at Fort Hood murdering 13 American soldiers and; at the memorial for these dead American Soldiers, Obama addressed the fact that their deaths was an act of war, by the symbolism displayed in their boots and guns. We already see that this Jihadist murder’s defense is going for the insanity plea. I just hope that his insanity plea will help put him out of his misery with early eternal retirement.

Aside from the ridiculous high expense of affording these civil trials, it is amazing that the US Government is willing to have such a trial, knowing full well it will not be able to put on a strong prosecution, as National Security issues, will prevent proper evidence from being presented to the Jurors.  Speaking of juries, the rights of any one standing trial in the USA is being judged by a “Jury of Your Peers.”  So does Obama intend on importing twelve people from Pakistan? Or Saudi Arabia? How about some Al Qaeda wannabes’ running around most Mosques in the USA?  Germany will not submit documents because the information would help the USA ’s case for the death penalty. This trial should not be about America. The only way this Country can be avenged is to know that these terrorist will be given a proper military trial, and when found guilty, these maggots should be shot and their corpses  left to rot in hell.

Humans are just animals that have evolved . What has never changed is the call of the wild. Weakness in the animal kingdom is an opportunity for a good meal. Weakness in a nation inspires boldness among its enemies.  Americans are seen as the new carrion among our Muslim foes.

Andrea

Luc ‘Topdeck’ Benyon has just dropped a scottish-shaped ‘A’ Bomb on Wardour Street- he won’t be in for the fourth episode in the HEY! That’s My Octopus Saga. Expect a very special guest co-presenter for this week’s show. More meaty deets to be announced!

In other news, from the people that brought you the legendary CATFACE, here’s some funky meat!

This trip to the aquarium was so incredible! Watching the fish swim around is very peaceful and relaxing. The patterns and textures on all of the fish were so vibrant and different from one another. The octopus was really strange. It looks like an alien out of a movie, maybe because of the way the body is shaped. At one point the octopus held onto a rock and blew out making the webs between its tentacles blow up like a balloon! Entertainment central!

It was really difficult to get a good shot, but that was sort of the fun of it. If you do go there, expect to be shooting in low lighting conditions, at least in some of the tanks, and work on your panning skills! I really want to go back again at some point. It was well worth the trip!

If you want to see more pictures of the trip to the aquarium, please visit my flickr page.

“Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.”

-H. Jackson Brown Jr. 

The first time I saw this drill, or something similar to it, was in Dixon, IL. My friend Dan Crawford was using it as part of his team’s pre-game routine.  Whiffle balls were flying in every direction. Players were placed all over left field. Jokingly, I said, “Dan, it looks like a octupus exploded out there. What’s going on?” He told me it was a drill.  I liked it so much, that night I scribbled something similar to it on paper.

Equipment needed:

• 1 bucket
• 4 dozen whiffle balls
• 4 bats

Purpose: The purpose of this drill is to get each of your players 24 purposeful swings with in less than 8 minutes. It makes a great pre-game hitting routine. I especially like it on the road.  It also makes a good practice drill when time or space is limited for hitting.  Lastly, it’s a good indoor drill when a cage is not available.

Set up & Grouping: Take your team and divide them into three or four equal groups. I recommend no more than 5 in a group.  4 in each group is just about perfect. Place the bucket of whiffle balls in the center and one group on each side of the bucket. Each group needs a hitter, pitcher, and shaggers.  The hitters are nearest the bucket.  The pitchers are throwing towards the hitters standing by the bucket.

After a hitter gets 6 cuts, he or she rotates to become the pitcher of  his group. The pitcher rotates to shagger. A shagger comes to the bucket and becomes a hitter.  Make one of the groups “the lead group”. When all of the hitters in the lead group have hit, that group yells “ROTATE” and all of the groups rotate clockwise.  It should take a little less than 2 minutes for a group of 4 to hit at each station. Each station has a purpose. See below:

• Station #1: Pulling inside strikes
• Station #2: hitting up the middle
• Station #3: hitting outside strikes
• Station #4: I like to use this one as a wildcard station in order to mix it up.  You can make it a bunting station, top hand drill, 2 strike hitting, etc. Most often, I like to use a paddle drill.

Hints:

• The first time you run the drill, it will take a bit longer than 8 minutes due to explanation. It will get to be more fluid each time the drill is run.
• For younger players, eliminate the rotation. As the coach, call out a new hitting purpose every 2-3 minutes.
• Monitor your pitchers. Make sure that they are throwing the balls hard enough and trying to hit locations.
• Monitor your hitters make sure that they are swinging at strikes. Much to often, when the whiffle balls come out, hitter start swinging at everything.
• Emphasize no pop-ups.
• Make sure your hitters are not getting to close to one another. Safety first

Leviatán;
cerámica de alta temperatura, engobe y vidrio. C. 2006

The Octopus was a present for my boyfriends, but everybody has one now! It’s a craze!!

You can order it these colours:

* Purple

* Pink

* Dark Pink

* Blue

(click to enlarge)

10€ (shipping not included)

It takes one day making it

For more info and order specifications contact me at:

oratsu@hotmail.com

Mmmm tasty yog(h)urt

We had lots of fun doing this little fella.

We pull out another stonker for a show with you which includes our dear yoghurt expert, Roadkill-ing the Globe and some funky music from The Zombies & Tricky….mmm that’s nice!

For best quality, wait for the stream to load up fully before tuning in. ENJOY!

Originally aired: 19/11/09

GET THE TRACKLISTING RIGHT HERE.

Fin,

xo

I’ve got obsessions with weird animals ; some for their silly looks and some for their features.

For instance, the octopus also known as Sotong Kurita in Malay.

Sotong Kurita

acrylic on sz A3 glossy paper

And this is the skeleton draft of the above piece

Skeleton Kurita

marker on sz A3 glossy paper

My biology lovin’ boyfriend had tried to get me to watch this video for about a month.   Each time he asked me if I’d watched it yet, I’d give some legitimate excuse, like “I’m so sorry, I just don’t have 5 minutes to spare in my unemployed day.”

Well, when I had run out of excuses and finally watched it, I was amazed…just as he promised I would be.   The part where the octopus literally transforms himself (I guess its a him? How sexist of me) into the coral is so cool.   I know it starts off somewhat slow, but watch it through to the end -  I swear.

I love this octopus.

The website is also an interesting concept.  This is an excerpt from the “About TED” page, because they said it better than me.

“TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year’s TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.”

Another bonus, checking out this website makes me feel intellectual again.

[Posted by Shannon]

Oh dear. I have no photographic proof, but take my word for it, Komi IS the best restaurant in DC.

I may have no  evidence but I’m prepared to write a memoir to remember this meal. Right here. As I was writing this up the other night, I realized I was getting philosophical, that I was getting all into each little minute description, that when I flippantly wrote the word “memoir” above, maybe I really meant it. So, before I post on each amazing dish, I thought I’d share what I learned about food at Komi.

Because, yes that restaurant tickled my brain as much as my taste buds.

After our meal, Chris and I had a long conversation about what makes a good meal or a good chef great. Is it ingredients, skill, or imagination? And then what do we mean by imagination?

We agreed that different restaurants have each of these qualities in differing amounts. 2 Amy’s for instance, has great ingredients, prepared with highly-developed, if not simple, skills.  There may not be heaps of imagination, but its a really, really great restaurant in its own special way.  Then there are other restaurants that might have the imagination, but perhaps don’t have the skills to execute.  As food becomes more of a mainstream art form and more people and more people get experimental with their cuisine, I think we will start to see a lot more restaurants in this category.

Then of course you have little old diners like Metro 29 where all of these thoughts on ingredients, skill, imagination go out the window.  These places are sort of exempt by virtue of their diner-ethos, I mean, you might get a mean pastrami sandwich,but your “stuffed mushrooms” might turn out to be crab cakes with a button mushroom stuffed into the top or  your perfectly good bran muffin might be sliced in half and fried before coming to your table.  Perhaps that is imagination, diner style.  Whatever it is, its usually delicious if not wholly surprising.

But what exactly is imagination in cooking? It’s hard to say with all of the new techniques, new styles, new fusion styles constantly bubbling up and trending around the world. I don’t think imagination equals whimsy or playful food-though it can. Whimsical and playful food is fun, but not always imaginative. People with skill can copy the iconic whimsy of someone like Thomas Keller or Michael Richard but that’s not the same as being imaginative. Likewise, imagination doesn’t have to be expressed through molecular gastronomy or new techniques and new tools. Those are fun and delightful, but let’s face, everyone knows peanut butter and jelly go well together whether they are served in a sandwich or a fancy foam.

No I think imagination in cooking is something that has to do with vision. It’s about imagining what can happen when you combine different flavors, temperatures, textures, and styles in different proportions within a meal, a dish, or even a single bite. Its about creating a sensation that’s unique in taste, smell, and mouth feel that helps people come to know an ingredient more deeply, or surprises them, or just simply just lights up every single sensory receptor in one’s eyes, nose, and mouth in a way that is unexpected or new.

That’s what Komi was to me.  The meal was low on drama in comparison to a place like Minibar or even Citronelle.  There were no foams in site.  What made it truly amazing was the care taken with every single item on the plate.  Each ingredient was extraordinary in its own right, but in combination, they were extraordinary.  And I don’t mean just extraordinary looking or tasting, but every single aspect.  What I noticed the most was how at Komi was texture and mouth feel of each bite interacted perfectly with the flavors-or in some cases even overshadowed the flavors.  The octopus was tender, snapping gently with the first bite, the scallop carpacio was the smoothest, softest piece of seafood I’ve ever had.  The fried ball of “caesar salad” was remarkable both for the flavors and the texture, which could have easily been reminiscent of baby food but wasn’t.

So yes, that is what I think the genius of Komi was, the insane attention to every detail of every bite.  Now I swear I’ll hop off my foodie soap box (or perhaps a butcher’s block would be more appropriate) and get to telling you about the exquisite food in the next post!

Some t-shirt illustrations I did very quickly for work. The copy isn’t mine. Love the Octopus one though

First, there was Goldman Sachs:

The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.

According to Matt Taibbi, it’s also a Great American Bubble Machine, but when you’ve won as many awards as Taibbi, the editors don’t insist you stick to one measly metaphor.

But, as Gawker discovered, it’s not really specifically Goldman Sachs that’s the vampire squid: according to the former government of Germany it’s the Jews who are a stabby, stabby, oil-crazed octopus. Behold

the Jewcephalopod:

Very few people actually know that “Jewcephalopod” is the root word for “Jewcy.” It’s true. It’s a FACT.

But this globe-straddling, stabby, oil-crazed, vampire cephalopod is also Standard Oil:

as well as Big Transit, Big Politics, The System, and (again) Standard Oil.

From this, I believe we can only conclude that, in fact, the Rockefellers are Jewish.

WhiteMan’sBourbon
07:03 PM

Then Hitler showed the drawing to Hirohito, and thus was born tentacle porn.

This dude can take eight requests at a time, and refill your inkwell!

Perhaps we should set him up with this lovely Muslim octopus:

and now, a haiku Twitter octopus joke from Chris Twitery:

knock knock knock knock knock

knock knock knock who’s there? Not that

octopus again

Be HERE to listen in. Expect David Arquette, Yoghurt eating, some kick ass Jonathan Richman and a whole crunch-a-bunch more worth of stuff all from 6-8pm.

Cheerios

xo

Arquette ♥'s the weed

Let me start by apologizing for abandoning my loyal fans for the past few weeks. Unfortunately I had an excavation trip in the Amazon and got lost looking for an extinct insect.  However I am back and with a shocking piece of news:

THE HUMAN RACE HAS FINALLY GONE TOO FAR.

Yes that’s right.  Historical events like slavery, the genocide in Darfur, the aids epidemic and pretty much every other unforgivable event in history have finally been overshadowed. The link below (if you have the guile) has taking the number 1 spot:

http://nsfw.totallyupyours.com/492fb3e9a4450-2_girls_1_octopus.html

For those with the descent mind to avoid at all costs I will briefly explain. My cousin sadistically lured me into his layer and bribed me before forcing me to watch what can only be described as the most disgusting, horrific, shocking video of all time.  Put simply, it’s two Asian chicks fucking, yes FUCKING an octopus.  Yes an OCTOPUS.

Now, without getting too graphic may I take you back to the uproar surrounding the classic 2 girls 1 cup, BMP Pain Olympic (man cutting off his penis), 1 man one cup and all the other videos starring the mentally challenged and remind you that they are in most cases unbearable to watch and in some cases impossible.   Yet, once again those sick enough to do it have managed to overtake these legends.

I can’t get over it.  The fact that there are 100% people out there who get turned on by this guff is beyond me.  I can’t help but picture the men involved in this monstrosity holding guns or the like to these poor girls heads and threatening them to participate.  What was their conversation?

Terrorist 1: ‘Lets get freaky with these bitches’

Terrorist 2: ‘I’m feeling really fucked up today and have a brilliant idea.’

Terrorist 3: ‘Hi guys.’

Terrorist 1: ‘Oh hi terrorist 3, how was the aquarium?’

Terrorist 3: ‘Amazing.  It really got me thinking….’

The point is, whatever anyone has to say about the video, the effects it has on its viewers, the repercussions psychologically from watching and worse participating in it, are all part of the bigger picture.  There are absolute fuckfreaks out there.  They are around you everyday.  People.  Weird people.  They dare to imagine these scenarios, some bring them to reality and some, dare I say it, choose to take pleasure in them.

I hope none of my readers (well maybe one) are part of that crowd.

If you are. WOW.

Love you,

Your Spiritual leader,

G

When he’s not slaying dinosaurs or creating magic potions, Kiwi crazy man Sam Neill loves nothing more than chomping on a good beefy one. Don’t believe us? Would we lie to you…

LOVE this little fella:

Ok so here is last week’s COMPLETE show. Listen in and comment and enjoy and do anything else you want to do just as long as it won’t end up with you in judicial court room.

Let the stream fully load to stop any cracklings going on and below is last week’s plays:

ARTIST SONG ALBUM YEAR

Dr John – Big Chief – Dr John’s Gumbo – 1971

HEALTH – Die Slow – Get Colour – 2009

- – - -

Curtis Lee – Pretty Little Angel Eyes – Back to Mono – 1961

Foo Fighters – Big Me – Foo Fighters – 1995

The Clash – Police On My Back – Live at Shea Stadium – 2008

White Rabbits – I Used To Complain, Now I Don’t – Fort Nightly – 2007

Outkast – Gasoline Dreams – Stankonia – 2000

Sly & The Family Stone – M’lady – Best Of – 1975

M – Pop Music – 1979

Jane’s Addiction – Been Caught Stealing – Ritual De La Habitual – 1990

Grizzly Bear – Ready, Able – Veckatimest – 2009

Thom Yorke – Climbing Up The Walls (Zero 7 Remix) – 2007

Michelle – Sally Fool – The Girls Are At It Again – 1966

Pavement – Unfair – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain – 1994

Os Canibais – Felizes Jutninhos (Happy Together) – Os Canibais – 1968

Howlin’ Wolf – I’ve Been Abused – The Genius Article – 1964

Squarepusher – My Red Hot Car – Go Plastic – 2001

Idlewild – Chandelier – A Distant History: Rarities – 2007

Van Morrison – Jackie Wilson Said – Saint Dominic’s Preview – 1972

Tom Waits – Pasties & a G-String – Small Change – 1976

The Flaming Lips feat. Karen O – Watching the Planets – Embryonic – 2009

Bruce Ruffin – Mad About You – Trojan Suedehead Boxset – 1972

Originally Broadcast: 12/11/09

xo