For those of you who just like your cephalopods natural, here's a plush cuttlefish. It's cute and cuddly, and I wouldn't mind having one to snuggle up with.
On the other hand, if you like your cephalopods unnatural, you could carry out perverse and disturbing acts on ordinary stuffed animals, turning them into chthonic entities with alien properties.
They're all fun, and all part of a happy squidmas celebration!
More like this
That's not hyperbole. I really mean it.
Ocythoe tuberculata
I was reading a review paper that was frustrating because I wanted to know more—it's on the evolution of complex brains, and briefly summarizes some of the current confusion about what, exactly, is involved in building a brain with complex problem solving ability.
There's a stuffed animal series, called the Giant Microbes. I have my own ebola. "1 000 000 times actual size."
http://www.giantmicrobes.com/
Waterdog, the Ebola is cute, but I think I prefer Syphillis.
Just be careful that some fundies don't find out about your stuffed animals.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7112929.stm
I was going to suggest the scabies mite from Giant Microbes as being particularly cute, but they seem to have discontinued this one. The flea and bedbug are pretty good, though.
TY (yeah, go ahead and hiss) has an adorable octopus plushie named Opie.
http://www.ebaja.pl/images/opiebb.gif
I just noticed the chickenpox one. Heh heh heh, I get it. Chicken.
Before it became Squidmas, the Scandanavians were already celebrating this pagan holiday in the peninsula.
I think I linked this yesterday, but one can never have too many cuddly cephalopods.
No, sirree bob.
Woohoo! My link made it on Pharyngula!
The Morbid Tendencies site has a ton of other stuff too - I've given a couple of FrankenCritters to people as gifts before (like Rupert), but I'm definitely requesting a Cthonian for one of my friends this Christmas.
Hey Cuttlefish!
Can we prevail upon you to pen a Squidmas carol? It would be nice to supplant the Xmas carol ear worms that infest my days until this benighted holiday is past with one celebrating cepholopods.
Ok, shiftlessbum, you shiftless bum, just for you.
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2007/11/squidmas-carol.html
The Chorus:
You can't "Fa-la-la" with a rad-u-la, my darling
You can't "Fa-la-la" with a rad-u-la, my dear.
And that star so bright--
It made you flip your lid?
It's the photophoric action of the firefly squid
It's the way we know that squidmastime is here!
5 verses if you click the link....