Recruiter Of The Week

This week's winner!

It Doesn't Get Any More Piscatorial Than This

BEHOLD!

Imagine the back-breaking hours of rummaging, salvaging, gluing, wiring, polishing, experimentation and who-knows-what-else that it takes to design, build and maintain this...this...INCREDIBLE MONUMENT to Piscatorial Love. There will be a very special reward waiting for these two in the Roiling Intestine of Dagon. I hardly dare to think what might be in store for them.

Technological Breakthrough Bridges 'Couture Gap' For Operatives

What'll they think of next!? Finally, a dress that HAS to be worn wet. Do you have any idea how many runway models this is going to draw into the ocean!? Do you realize, do you REALLY UNDERSTAND how much easier it's going to be once we have outfits like these to wear on training runs and deep-cover ops?

You all know how hard it is to remember to maintain your human form when you get into the water. From here on in we will be WEARING SOMETHING that reminds us to keep our legs on when humans are watching.

Operatives Stopped At Border, Searched -- Cover Entirely Blown

THIS is only a minor setback, I promise you. Thousands of us have crossed the border successfully using this method. These three were merely relieved of their vehicle and sent back to their pods for debriefing. I have to like the fact that it was the vehicle, not the spies riding it, who got in legal trouble over this little fracas.


But the small part of me that is still human is commenting, bitterly, on how SILLY this makes us look.

Carp Rescue Operation Successful

DATELINE: NOWHERESVILLE, MICHIGAN, USA

Yesterday in the late afternoon, in a no-account town in the Midwest, a human was out walking by a smallish river and spotted one of our operatives trapped in a shallow pool, next to a large outflow pipe after a heavy rain. Between the fast, shallow current and the pointy rocks, this operative (who prefers to be anonymous) had been trapped long enough in half-deep water to have a sunburn. YOU KNOW HOW CARP ARE ABOUT SUNBURN!

Well, this human took the situation in hand, sloshed into what, by human standards, is very cold water, and maneuvered the operative into deeper channels. Naturally, the operative realized at once that this was EXACTLY OUR SORT. She recruited her on the spot. To recognize this act of heroism in a member of an essentially dull-witted and selfish species, we also rewarded her with a glimpse of the First Muskrat of Spring.

Of course, as the DNA transfer takes hold, the REAL reward we’re giving her will become clear.

SIRENA

I think it’s fascinating, the way books about Mermaids get aimed at the young-adult market. And female young adults, at that. They try and they try to sell this damaged archetype to middle schoolers of the WRONG sex, it NEVER catches on, and they JUST CAN’T SEE WHAT THEY’RE DOING WRONG.

In case any humans are reading this, let me put it in perspective. For me, leader of the St. Lawrence Seaway Zone of the North American Branch of the Global Fish Conspiracy, for ME, reading one of these Mermaid stories is like being asked to take seriously a novel about an Olympic medalist pole-vaulter born without arms, legs or a head. Your average Mermaid story, for probably the last fifty to a hundred years, has featured some dizzy adolescent with a fish tail falling in love with a landlubber male, and ruining her own life in the hopeless attempt to get him to MARRY her. This is a hacked-up version of the real dynamic superimposing the motivations (and even the limitations!) of a human female on ONE OF OUR OPERATIVES.

Spare me. A Mermaid overpowered by her love for a featherless biped? A Mermaid so unattractive that she has to struggle to get her man? What is this, a joke? I just got through reading and reviewing Sleeping With The Fishes (q.v.) and it had a lot of the same problems. Maybe I’m projecting here, but it seems to me as I read that even the authors are unconvinced by this nonsense. If that’s true, you certainly don’t see any of them DOING SOMETHING about it. For crying out loud, people, just WRITE A BETTER STORY.

I feel strongly that the target audience is similarly unconvinced. That’s why these books are nothing more than flashes in the pan. They don’t even deserve as much attention as they do get, if you ask me.

At worst this type of novel stands to actually mislead the reader. They could bamboozle a new fish reader into losing confidence in the purity of our Mission, at a time when morale is EVERYTHING. Funnily enough, the novels are even more likely to mislead a human reader -- into believing that Mermaids are mindless sex bunnies willing to chop off their tails just because they love you so much. This sort of delusional thinking actually would BENEFIT us a GREAT DEAL if Mermaids hadn’t been discontinued long since. I mean it would only help us for a short time, before the TV news got wind of it, but we could really get a spike on the recruitment graph in the meantime, followed by a steady trickle of rebellious types who think everything they see on the news is part of a government cover-up, and who will seek Mermaids out to befriend them, feeling our most deadly operatives are being discriminated against. I am too much of a Catfish now to laugh, but if anything could make me smile, this mental image would.

Sirena, published in 2000 by Scholastic and penned by Donna Jo Napoli, may be the most frustrating read of all. I say this because we actually get a bare glimpse of the Mermaid’s proper home life and religious mission before Sirena goes off half-cocked to catch herself a man. She finds herself a remote island complete with a wounded human male to study and observe, and for some bizarre reason she decides to save his life rather than drag him to the bottom of the ocean, eat his face off and feed his screaming soul to Poseidon.

What the author never explains properly is what possessed Sirena to do such a crazy thing in the first place. I do find it encouraging that almost ALL stories of this sort frame such actions by a Mermaid as being OUT OF BOUNDS. Napoli, for instance, makes clear that Sirena’s family would NOT approve.

By the way, what kind of stupid name is Sirena? Isn’t that like naming a human female ‘Girlie’? The story explains that she is one of a large hatching of sisters. If they named one of them Sirena, what did they call the others? Manateena? Betsy Wetsy? Dugonga? Selkie Mae? The possibilities make my head spin.

Here again we see a Mermaid going, humanlike, after the one man she can never have. How many things can you find wrong with this picture, ladies? First off: a Mermaid, like a Canadian Mountie, ALWAYS GETS HER MAN, simply because she is irresistible. Second, there is no truly unsuitable male victim recruit. Sometimes it makes sense to pass on one because he’s a head of state or something and we need him to sign some upcoming declarations, but even then we usually go right ahead. We can always slow down the transformation if we need to. At least we see Sirena stay on target despite the fact that this recruit is evidently under a curse, and extremely unlucky even on his best day. THAT sort of nonsense should not dissuade ANY recruiting operative. Alas, we do see her commit for life to this single landlubber – not to bring him into the sea, but just because she wants to stay with him.

At least Sirena doesn’t mutilate herself by ripping out her tongue or (eeeeccccccch) changing herself into a human in order to get close to the guy. But she did spend an awful lot of time in this book cleaning the infected ooze out of a snakebite on his leg (all part of the guy’s famous luck). Now I know a lot of human nurses become our recruiting operatives as they begin to transform into Mantis Shrimp, or Bream, or what have you. But this situation seems bass-ackwards. She’s NOT taking on the nursing duties to foster a dependency on her. That should be totally unnecessary – she’s a Mermaid, meaning HER COMMAND IS HIS WISH. Now get this: she’s doing it to HELP him. If she knew which end was up, the only thing she would be helping him with is finding Davey Jones’s Locker.

So you see the problem with the story? Unfortunately, this is written in a readable, convincing style calculated to draw in impressionable young minds. BURN EVERY COPY.

"THE LITTLE MERMAID"

QUESTION: What is "The Little Mermaid," exactly?

A) A charming, traditional fairytale that is many human children’s first introduction to Piscatorial Love;
B) A mind-warping abomination of a perverted horror story;
C) An overwrought Disney animated musical that makes you want to slap someone;
D) A poignant statue placed on the shoreline of Copenhagen;
E) A powerful recruiting tool for the Fish Conspiracy.

ANSWER: All of the above. It depends on the day, and on whether you’re a human or not.

If you’re a human, I submit, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING AT in this story. You featherless bipeds generally think of "The Little Mermaid" as a rather sweet fairytale character who attains human status by throwing away everything for Love. You cannot imagine what else she could want besides a rich Shaved Monkey, highly placed in Monkey society. In her place, you reason, it would be worth it to lose the most beautiful voice ever heard, and be rendered mute forever; it would be worth it to feel at every moment as if you were walking on knives. It would be worth it to leave behind everything you’ve ever known and all your people. Because, although HE doesn’t know you exist, he MIGHT love you someday if you hang around him long enough. In some versions of the story, it’s all worth it because of the wisp of a chance that you might get an Immortal Soul out of the years of constant suffering. An Immortal Soul is much, much better than returning home to the sea, right?

Excuse me while I go puke.

If this were the whole story, I would order every copy of it eaten. YES, I HAVE THE POWER.

Reading it for the first time many years ago, when I was only dimly aware of my Fish nature, I was struck immediately by th tragic character of The Little Mermaid. The first time I ever read how she looked up from the bottom of the ocean and longed to see the sun, I felt a cold ripple of dread touch my heart. I just knew it wasn’t going to come out well. Was I ever right! I was nearly in tears by the end of the thing, and it was years before I could face reading it again. When I finally did, IT WAS EVEN MORE PAINFUL.

But as I grew up and learned about recruiting for the first time, I started to grasp the subtext of this story. Dang, I WAS the Little Mermaid, surprised to find myself blinking in the sunlight on a hot beach, wondering why I was there. At least, unlike the nameless heroine of this story, I found out what my mission was, and came to appreciate the wisdom of the Conspiracy’s grand design. I was born part Catfish and have become more and more so, less and less human, as the years pass. That makes understanding it easier. But like her, I got into this line of work not having read the fine print. The main character in this story was allowed to take a tremendous leap, totally unprepared, into a world she knew nothing about, with NO TURNING BACK. Nobody even took her aside for a serious talk to let her know what she was in for.

There are big differences between a real operative and The Little Mermaid. First, we are heading in opposite directions. We are on a direct, if terribly slow course INTO the sea. She is headed OUT of it, onto the land and from there into the sky. Second, The Little Mermaid was robbed. Over and over. She loses her voice, her tail, her home, her family, her place in the world, the Naked Ape she loves, and finally her life. For what? For nothing, is what. Do you feel robbed? OF COURSE YOU DON'T.

One good thing about this story is that is DOES serve as a cautionary tale for those who are considering signing up their children as operatives, pre-conception. GETTING UP HERE ON DRY LAND IS A BIG, BIG COMMITMENT. ARE YOU READY? I THOUGHT SO, TOO.

NIGHT TIDE

Now this is a movie unlike any I’ve ever seen. YOU AND I KNOW that nearly all of the movies and books I review are written BY humans, FOR humans. NOT THIS ONE. Having seen it at last, I can only conclude that this one was intended SOLELY FOR US. For that reason alone you need to rush out and buy it – after all these years of searching and watching, I have found a movie that only a fish can truly enjoy.

Not that this is enjoyable in the sense of being brilliantly made, perfectly filmed or even that well acted. BUT YOU HAVE TO LIKE IT ANYWAY.

OK, as far as the basics go, this movie was released in 1961, directed by Curtis Harrington, starring an incredibly young Dennis Hopper (as the recruit). He plays opposite Linda Lawson (as the operative) and Luana Anders (as the security leak).

Yes, this is another Mermaid picture. I put off finding it for at least a year because the person who told me about it – 100% human – told me that the Mermaid only appears for a few seconds. THAT couldn’t have been more wrong. She’s in practically every scene. (More support for my life’s motto: NEVER TRUST A NAKED APE.)

The problem with reviewing the film is this: if I tell you why it’s so great, it’ll ruin the story for you. But I will tell you that despite the film’s total dependence on the element of surprise to deliver a blockbuster ending, I feel it’s going to stand up to many, many repeat viewings. Me, I’m watching it again tonight.

CLIFFIE’S NOTES ON Night Tide

>> This one has the look of a film rescued from some incredibly deep and obscure treasure chest buried on the shoreline of the Secret Island Of Lost Movies. It hearkens back to an era when directors knew all the subtleties of black & white photography. In fact, it hearkens all the way back to silent movies, when the visuals consisted mostly of actors standing there looking terribly dramatic in their pale make-up, against some sort of fabulous backdrop, glaring at each other without saying much.

>> The fabulous backdrop here is Venice, California, where a new Navy recruit (chuckle) from Denver, Colorado is looking for some fun for the weekend. The visuals are very nice – they range from that claustrophobic-little-crummy-hotel room feel I associate with b/w movies of that era, to lovely shots of the beach and the ocean. In those days you could sweep a camera from here to there along the shore without ever risking a glimpse of David Hasselhoff.

>> Here we get an extraordinary glimpse of Dennis Hopper from the long-past years when he had not yet been typecast as a drug-addled control freak; from before the time he matured into a confident, fluent actor; in fact, it almost dates back to before he started shaving. In this sense he plays the perfect recruiting material, not only for the Navy but for US. He’s still young enough to allow the DNA transfer to take well. His personality can still adjust easily to the idea of joining us in the sea forever. And because he’s at his physical peak, he stands to infect fertilize about a gazillion eager females before his tenure as a Naked Ape ends. But the character he’s playing in this movie is a little too, um, wooden for him to get as many dates as he’s like. I KNOW: that’s just what I was thinking, too. You need to see this movie, just so you can see Dennis Hopper being "wooden"!

>> Linda Lawson did a creditable, if not spectacular, job of playing the operative. This is especially true when you remember that nobody now living up on dry land has ever seen a live Mermaid. Actually, the flaws I see in her performance are probably caused by dubious film editing. The cinematographer (if they had one) really fails to take advantage of her great bone structure and arresting eyes. Sheesh, those are exactly the features she shares with the real thing!

>> I find this film very moving because Poor Mora the Mermaid is in such agony about whether to belong to the Naked Apes or the Sea People. Normally, this is what new recruits go through as they grieve their monkey existences and move – sometimes terrified – towards their new lives underwater. It’s quite wrenching to see a Mermaid go through it. Likewise the scene with Mora, Johnny and Mora’s pet seashell. I defy you to watch that scene without choking up.

>> I find this film especially bracing because everyone in the story, even the ones who claim not to believe in Mermaids, acknowledge that such creatures are TERRIBLY DANGEROUS. Of course they only think that because they believe monkeydom is everything there is to life. If they understood the gifts we truly offer, they would flock into the sea like Lemmings.

>> Luana Anders was perfect, perfect, perfect as the security leak. I want you all to STUDY HER CLOSELY. This is exactly the perky, helpful sort that does leak our secrets over coffee, and who needs to be KILLED and EATEN.

WATCH THIS MOVIE. NOW. THAT’S AN ORDER.

This Is For You, Chad

I’m dedicating this Cliffie’s Note to the discoverer of the true nature of the front rank of our operatives…these gals.

This far-ranging band of sisters in slime have penetrated everywhere. They live in your gardens, your cities, your woods and your fields. Or maybe I should say THEIR fields, THEIR woods, THEIR cities. For although you believe that you own everything you see, you’re mistaken. They own you and everything around you. They are, in fact, inside you, taking notes and reporting STRAIGHT BACK TO US. Why would they need to report to us on the state of your internal tubeways? You may well ask. Don’t expect an answer.

For years the sharp-eyed human mentioned above has been trying to warn his species about our mucilaginous army, TO NO AVAIL. Scientists continue to run tests on them and NEVER A COMPLAINT. They let, and even encourage, the crazy stories about them to proliferate. For instance, they tolerate the ignorant statements made about them to schoolchildren, like the one about how all of these operatives are female. And if you’ve ever read one of the countless children’s stories about them…How far off track can you be?

I’m making this note, not only a salute to Chad, but a tribute to the impenetrability of these operatives’ disguise. They continue to be a sappy symbol of – well, whatever it is they mean to humans. Relaxation is one thing they appear to mean, in the sense od stopping to smell the roses rather than being too "Type A." That one actually fits in with the actual mission of these leaf-licking operatives. Blissful communion with Nature, too, definitely. That sort of thing.

But above all, people find Snails cute and harmless, safe for children to play with. FOOLS. Little can the Shaved Monkeys suspect the TREMENDOUS DANGER these operatives pose to the very fabric of human existence. ANY TIME THEY FEEL LIKE IT, they can choose to scrape away with their little tongues at the moorings of Everything That Is, and at that point the Monkey People will be HURTIN’ FOR CERTAIN.

You have to consider the actions of unusually insightful humans like Chad. WHY would he run screaming from an apparently harmless platoon of Banana Slugs? DOES HE KNOW SOMETHING? I say you have to consider this – but it’s not the same as getting worried about it. HE knows, and WE know, but it’s ALL ARRANGED so that nobody in a place of power in the ape hierarchy can see it as important. The Chads of the world will inevitably be dismissed as low-key mental cases. This is a fine example of how we play, AND WIN, on the insuperable egos of the Naked Apes.

Let us never forget the Snail massacre captured on film in Crispin Hellion Glover’s What Is It? I think it should be clear even to the casual passer-by that GLOVER KNOWS SOMETHING. Ah, but WHAT? He knows enough to pay tribute to the deceased operatives at the end of the film, is what. True respect? Or a sensible fear of retribution? Glover’s not talking.

Now, here’s the part I love. I CAN POST THIS INFORMATION RIGHT ON THE INTERNET, AND NO HUMAN WILL BE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING WITH IT:

The Snails’ power – and when I say "Snails" I include Slugs – derives from their ability to straddle the line between dry land and water; between fresh and salt water; between male and female; between harmless vulnerability and the power to destroy the Universe. Scientists even know most of this (probably not that last part) and they’re not even really interested. DON’T YOU HAVE TO LOVE IT?

WE ARE WATCHING YOU.

CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER

This stunning film, directed by Ricardo Freda (or was it Mario Bava?), released in 1959, is an undeniable gem. It is, perhaps, the jewel in the crown of the Piscatorial Love subgenre. (OK, maybe if you exclude Deep Blue Sea.) This film can give EVERY ONE OF US hope for the future.

I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO SAY: What’s so piscatorial about a shapeless one-celled animal the size of a bank building? I urge you, ladies, to think back to the shape and construction (if not the dimensions) of your very earliest ancestors. Think back to THE MOVIE ITSELF and be reminded of where the intrepid explorers found Caltiki. Bottom of a pond, right? A pond strewn with the bones of human sacrifices, right? CONNECT THE DOTS.

Tip: If scuba gear is involved in finding the star of the film, it is probably NOT about the Easter Bunny.

What I have to love is the way the humans involved TOTALLY OVERLOOK THE ACTUAL MENACE. They take a cutting of it. They expose the cutting to radiation and thereby make it grow alarmingly. They realize just in time that the comet passing overhead is going to make it grow to stupendous, world-eating proportions. From here on in they focus entirely on the cutting, defeat it bravely, and FORGET ALL ABOUT THE PARENT ORGANISM, which is undoubtedly growing to the size of Texas out of camera range. This is what we are up against, ladies: a species with no sense of essentials. Sometimes I think I could just post every detail of all our plans on the Net with impunity. Even if I did, even if we got 500 landscum hits a day on this blog, the humans involved would just read it, shrug and get back to the serious business of deciding which species of saucer alien really shot John Lennon. I watch this film and come away with a happy little glow, knowing WE CANNOT FAIL.

OTHER THINGS TO LIKE ABOUT THIS PICTURE:

>> The creature effect was really cool. At no point was I able to say, "Yeah, but that’s just a guy inside a sack. See, there are his knees sticking out."

>> The creature was 99% more convincing than any of the human characters. Remember the blonde wife wearing the elaborate hairdo out in the jungle? Wait’ll you get a load of her later in the film, wearing her everyday, city clothes – let’s say her costumes are bit fanciful for, um, anyone who has a drop of taste. Seriously, where did the hero find this woman, and where the hell has she been shopping?

>> And the Kenny role! This little girl flouncing around the family’s mansion in starched chiffon dresses like a little princess – hoo boy. Do the families of archaeologists, even in affluent Mexico, really live like this? The kid is made all the more compelling by the fact that her hair is cut like a boy’s, which kind of clashes with the gauzy ruffles, and by the fact that they used an adult to dub in her voice. I found it very difficult to believe that anyone would go out on a limb, a ledge, or a tank to save this empty-headed, over-indulged, hair-traumatized child. But you know how humans are about their offspring.

>> The Noble Savage roles were fantastic. At one point we see the approximation of an ancient Indian ritual – danced to totally African rhythms pounded out by what appears to be a bunch of antebellum slaves. Yes! They used persons of African descent to play Mexican Indians! Except the dancer, who was played by what looks like an Italian fashion model. (I say "model" because she sure wasn’t a dancer. Yikes!) The main Noble Savage, a "half-breed" Mexican Indian, has the tidy black braids, gingham-checked granny dress and loyal solid-gold heart of a tame Comanche or Arapahoe from your favorite Western.

>> The bad guy is wonderful, too: a grinning, scenery-gnawing madman scaling walls and climbing through windows to get to the woman he loves and wants to violate. Yep, he’s after the archaeologist’s blonde wife. I guess all those ruffles and tailfins on her dresses drive him simply wild.

>> Oh, the hero? He’s your typical egghead from any Fifties sci-fi picture: great bone structure, gray flannel suit, no common sense.

>> The ending of this movie is even happier than you’d suspect: Not only does Caltiki get clean away, without even the director appearing to notice, but ALL THE GOOFY OUTFITS IN THE HOUSE BURN TO ASHES!

This film should be in the home of every American woman who is turning into a fish.

Humans Successfully Duped...AGAIN!

Click here to hear, and read about, our latest RED HERRING. It feels almost like an honor to lead The Discovery Channel astray. They are so thorough and methodical.

BUT FISH ARE SMARTER THAN HUMANS. They'll NEVER get to the bottom of this one.

SLEEPING WITH THE FISHES

This pleasant brain-candy novel, penned by Mary Janice Davidson and published in 2006 by Jove Books, is...a curiosity.

It chronicles the sorry non-adventures of a puckered-up mermaid named Fred. The poor creature wallows miserably in the typical romantic and professional dilemmas of a landscum human woman. In general she comes across as a perfectly normal twentysomething, who happens to be a stunning beauty with hair the color of the ocean. The basic conflict here is that Fred is denying herself all the delights of dry-land existence, as if she were a stereotypical mousy secretary with unflattering glasses and her hair in a bun. If only she would let her hair down, she might...You get the idea.

The author takes great pains to make her as unhappy and badly-fitted to her life as possible. Fred, lovely in human eyes like all Mermaids, handicaps herself with a rotten attitude and a permanent scowl that drives off the men like nobody's business. She's allergic to seafood. She can't swim unless she changes into her aquatic form, and she refuses to change most of the time. She has a degree in marine biology but works at a no-brainer job feeding the fish at an aquarium. She can't even do that properly, because the fish are on strike. They insist on listening to the Pet Shop Boys, and she won't let them...Her whole life goes like this, basically.

Oh, but then she drops her books, and when she leans over to get them her glasses fall off and her hair falls in shining waves about her shoulders! Her boss says, "Good heavens, Miss Makimoto, you're beautiful!" He proposes on the spot, and they live happily ever after... OK, not literally, but suddenly she finds herself torn between TWO attractive men, one a landlubber and one aquatic...Hello? Are you still awake? Actually, this book is not half bad if you like light comedy. But don't expect anything more.

CLIFFIE'S NOTES ON THIS STORY:

>> This is exactly the wrong book to use to introduce young human females to Piscatorial Love. Even Aquamarine is better, if only because Aquamarine is a harmless ditz and makes a clear decision at the end to return to the sea where she belongs, albeit with only a single recruit. Fred is miserable about being aquatic and never resolves the problem, never accepts what she is. DO I SMELL SEQUEL?

>> This is part of a series by this author focusing on the relationship problems of MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES. For this reason alone it could not be more inappropriate. It also means Fred is even more misplaced than she realizes.

>> Davidson is a perfectly good writer, but she's 100%, unrepentantly human. This is the Mermaid experience seen through the eyes of the editorial board of Cosmopolitan.

>> If she knew what she was about, Davidson would have talked about Fred's need to draw humans into the sea and DROWN THEM. That's all they were designed for, and that is exactly why we had to discontinue the model. Humans now take it so hard when one of them drowns that instead of honoring the waterlogged comrade's journey and composing a heroic song about it, what you're likely to see is a mass exodus away from the shoreline. NOT what we're after here.

>> This novel is likely to become a sort of piscatorial equivalent to the dirty books the landscum keep hidden fron their chidren: we can't let the little ones see this stuff until they are old enough to understand.

OK, OK, I give...

Cards and letters have been pouring in, demanding commentary on the recent capture and torture killing of yet another Squid operative, this time near the disputed territory known to the Shaved Monkeys as "New Zealand."

And before you say ANYTHING, you know how I stand on landscum species distinctions. "Giant," "Colossal," who cares? WE ALL KNOW HIS REAL NAME.

I am nothing but depressed about the killing. This was not planned. One minute he was living out his life happily, and the next he was dangling at the end of a gaff. I have searched but cannot now find the comment by the enraged operative who promised "bitter, bitter ink" in retribution. Have no fear, my friend; WE'LL SEE TO THAT.

If I still had hands that could form into fists, I would shake them at the sky.

Fantastic Squid Resource

This site is jam-packed with recruiting tools for every situation. Next time you have trouble casually striking up a conversation about Squid on the bus to work, DO YOURSELF A FAVOR and refer to this delightful site.

You know I want this blog to be a training, recruiting and anti-burnout resource for every operative. Have at it, ladies.

Words Fail Me.

Check THIS out.

Sometimes you just get a beacon of hope like this, and the whole monkey-infested world looks a little better.

Newfoundland Hijinks

Someday I have finally got to visit this place. It's an important part of my territory but I just haven't gotten around to making the inspection tour yet.

For much, much more on Newfoundland, let me suggest the hefty travelogue Theater Of Fish, reviewed elsewhere on this site.

Crabs In Beer Commercials

This is just another example of how humans CANNOT GET IT RIGHT. Sad, isn't it? Our motives are completely mysterious to them. Actually, I suspect that they think we HAVE no motives, certainly not an ambitious one like WORLD TAKEOVER.

Now, is this had been done properly, the Crabs would be surreptitiously pouring the beer into the sand, refilling the bottles with SOMETHING CLASSIFIED THAT CANNOT BE RELEASED ON THE INTERNET, and carrying off the sun worshippers, not the COOLER for crying out loud.