You can watch the episode again on the CBS site.

Aurelia, happy birthday! Ah, belated.

I have been in bed most of the day. I have to do laundry. I have a migraine. I don't feel unified and aligned of purpose.

Still got to get the fuck up, though.

Something near me smells like smoke. I wonder if I should be worried.

Are you on fire?

Nope. It's my neighbors' BBQ. They still aren't very good at that whole thing.

I'm watching Scariest Places on Earth. Good thing you have neighbors with poor BBQ skills. Otherwise it could mean you have a ghost in your home.

I also visited the CBS site (Thanks, ita! I foolishly thought I'd have to pay to see the ep.) Six minutes in and very glaring belly. How'd I miss that? Geez.

I'm not quite ready for the alternative yet, Gus.

ita, I think you'll appreciate my link about the Odd Jobs just slightly upthread.

Six minutes in and very glaring belly. How'd I miss that? Geez.

This is what I'm saying.

Happy belated birthday, aurelia!

I'm not quite ready for the alternative yet ...

Sure. Let your little fear of the Big Dark twist this. Birthdays ... One More goose-step toward the Abyss.

Do people know about this? How come I didn't?

The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

The Pacific Northwest tree octopus (Octopus paxarbolis) can be found in the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula on the west coast of North America. Their habitat lies on the Eastern side of the Olympic mountain range, adjacent to Hood Canal. These solitary cephalopods reach an average size (measured from arm-tip to mantle-tip,) of 30-33 cm. Unlike most other cephalopods, tree octopuses are amphibious, spending only their early life and the period of their mating season in their ancestral aquatic environment. Because of the moistness of the rainforests and specialized skin adaptations, they are able to keep from becoming desiccated for prolonged periods of time, but given the chance they would prefer resting in pooled water.

An intelligent and inquisitive being (it has the largest brain-to-body ratio for any mollusk), the tree octopus explores its arboreal world by both touch and sight. Adaptations its ancestors originally evolved in the three dimensional environment of the sea have been put to good use in the spatially complex maze of the coniferous Olympic rainforests. The challenges and richness of this environment (and the intimate way in which it interacts with it,) may account for the tree octopus's advanced behavioral development. (Some evolutionary theorists suppose that "arboreal adaptation" is what laid the groundwork in primates for the evolution of the human mind.)

Reaching out with one of her eight arms, each covered in sensitive suckers, a tree octopus might grab a branch to pull herself along in a form of locomotion called tentaculation; or she might be preparing to strike at an insect or small vertebrate, such as a frog or rodent, or steal an egg from a bird's nest; or she might even be examining some object that caught her fancy, instinctively desiring to manipulate it with her dexterous limbs (really deserving the title "sensory organs" more than mere "limbs",) in order to better know it.

...

Although the tree octopus is not officially listed on the Endangered Species List, we feel that it should be added since its numbers are at a critically low level for its breeding needs. The reasons for this dire situation include: decimation of habitat by logging and suburban encroachment; building of roads that cut off access to the water which it needs for spawning; predation by foreign species such as house cats; and booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle and sasquatch.

Oh gawd - the image of housecats hunting tree octopuses just cracked me up....

Apparantly this site has fooled a number of people - supposedly some poor students wrote reports based on info at this site.