Things I Find Scary

When I was younger I was afraid of only two things.  Sharks and aliens.  Sharks may be easy to understand for most people but aliens?  Now I'm not talking about the movie Aliens.  I'm talking about the flying saucer, people abducting type of aliens. Perhaps it's some sort of primordial generational memory or something but who knows.  I couldn't tell you where my fear of aliens originated from but I can tell you that the movie Fire in the Sky did nothing to relax my nerves about aliens or alien abduction.


It especially didn't help when I found out that the movie was based on a true story.

Now I know "based on a true story" in movies means that a guy once drove a car and in the movie they have a guy driving a car so it must be true.  None of that matters to me though because I'm terrified of aliens and this movie didn't help to easy any of my fears.

The whole point of this post is to tell you all that I am no longer afraid of sharks...

...because I'm even more afraid of octopuses.

Granted my original fear of sharks could very well have been primordial but my new fear of octopuses is very much the cause of YouTube and the Seattle Aquarium.  You see a few years ago the Seattle Aquarium was doing some renovation to the octopus tank and needed a place to store the octopus while they worked on his home.  A nearby tank of small sharks called Dogfish seemed like the perfect temporary home for the little guy.  Well at night sharks were disappearing so the team at the aquarium stayed up late one night to video tape the tank to see what was going on.

When I first watched that video I was freaked out but still curious about octopuses.  After looking into them a bit more I learned that, not only can they kill sharks which I was once scared to death of, but they can also squeeze their bodies through holes the size of their eyeball.

A fucking eyeball!

If that wasn't enough they can also camouflage themselves to their surrounds so they are almost invisible and they have a razor sharp beak which they use to tear the flesh from their still living victims.  

OK maybe not still living but it's a very horrible way to go.

That was it for me.  I was no longer scared of sharks and aliens.  From the day I saw that video on I was officially scared of octopuses and aliens.

A few days ago I read about Otto the Octopus from the Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany.  This cute little man eater has been wreaking all sorts of havoc in his tank at night.  It seems this little bastard has a history of trying to eat human flesh.  He once threw stones at his glass tank  in order to break out and eat the people watching him.

OK maybe he was just bored but how do we know that?

Recently he has been climbing out of his tank.  Think about that for a second.

CLIMBING OUT OF HIS TANK!

He does this in order to spray water on a light to short it out so it's dark in his tank.  I would guess so he could plot the destruction of mankind without us knowing about it.  

Fucking octopuses man, they freak me out but at least if I say out of the ocean I'm safe.  Aliens can get you anywhere man.  ANYWHERE!

Click the link above for the less sensational version of the story.