Monday, June 13, 2005

Oh the Things I Have Seen

This post has been driving me nuts. It is a simple little post that I began about a week ago, it should be moronically simple to finish; but for some reason I have not been able to get it just right.

I have decided to go with the ultra simple approach.

Everyone has at least seen one of those joy stick operated machines filled with prizes, be it in an arcade, on the way out of a grocery store or in your neighborhood bowling alley. You drop a handful of quarters into the machine and grab onto the joystick and for the next sixty seconds you have to bring all of your concentration and manual dexterity to bear so that you can select a prize and manipulate the mechanical claw directly above it before the time runs out. If you are particularly gifted you may end up with some piece of California Raisin memorabilia or a crummy (but shiny) digital watch.

Most of us have played these games before and I was not surprised to see one standing in the lobby of the Weathervane in Kittery Maine. Colleen and I had just finished lunch and were on our way out of the restaurant when I saw the machine out of the corner of my eye and stopped dead in my tracks. Instead of the prize area being filled with stuffed animals and the odd sports bottle, some enterprising genius had filled the machine with water and a bunch of live lobsters.


Drawing By Mike Posted by Hello


On the one hand I thought that this was the dumbest and strangely enough coolest thing that I had ever seen. Think about it if you were hungry and had two dollars in your pocket and better than average hand eye coordination then you could grapple...yes I said grapple...a lobster and walk into the restaurant and they would cook it up for you. I was also impressed that a restaurant would risk the PETA backlash of installing this contraption. While I am no vegetarian I couldn't help but think that perhaps this setup might be a tad cruel...until I realized that it was better for the lobsters than the traditional lobster tank.


Drawing By Mike Posted by Hello

In the traditional lobster tank every lobster is assured a certain death. It is only a matter of time. With this scenario a particularly cunning lobster could theoretically out wit the claw and live to a nice old age. Or at least until he was big enough to take on the claw crustacean to clamp. Given enough time the lobster could become a highly adapted and perhaps even intelligent super-lobster. Think about it, I know that I have been.

2 Comments:

Blogger Sam said...

Hmmm... my question is: what happens when you actually catch a lobster? Does the machine drop it into a bag or something? Does it just spit the lobster out of the bottom? I need to know!

5:20 PM  
Blogger TheDarkLordDerfla said...

As far as I could tell the lobster just gets spat out the bottom and then you take it into the restaraunt and they cook it up for you...but I guess you could release him into the wild.

5:57 PM  

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