crab machines

via boing boing. vending machines for live crabs

New toy

Testing blogger with my new toy.

Are these deductible?

From Queensland

Salvation Army area manager Ian Harrison said live chickens, dead pets, prawn heads and garden waste were just a few examples of waste left at Ipswich op shops and donation bins.

Happy New Year

Welcome to 2010.

The play's the thing

I wonder if the touring company of this will make it to Texas.

THE moment a husband saved his wife’s life with the help of a 999 operator when she choked in their North Yorkshire home is being recreated on the London stage.

As we reported in The Press last year, Ruth Swift, from Easingwold, was only seconds from death when she choked on a prawn sandwich, stopped breathing and turned blue.
...
Breathing Irregular, which is directed by Carrie Cracknell, will be a mixture of dance and theatre – all inspired by true stories taken from the transcripts of 999 emergency calls. The aim is to capture the intensity and raw emotion in those critical moments before the emergency crew arrive.

A prawn cocktail for a new mom

The Plymouth (UK) Herald reports on Christmas births:

Donna’s brother, Darren Jewell, had invited her, shop assistant Steve and their boys to Christmas dinner before she went into labour.

But, true to his word, he made sure Steve brought a prawn cocktail all the way to the maternity unit so Donna would not miss out.

Yellow lights of Texas

Truth about Cars:

A number of Texas cities are exploiting short yellow timing at intersections, generating significant additional revenue, according to a review of Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) data by TheNewspaper. The citation issuance rate at the nine intersections with the shortest yellow timing in the state was four times greater than the ticket issuance rate at locations that offered yellow times exceeding statewide averages.

Surprise! The intersections with short yellows tend to have red light cameras.

Recreational prawn fishing in California

Is legal

You may take any type of ocean shrimp in California waters, but spot prawns are the most desirable and sought-after for eating purposes; others are often used for bait. According to senior invertebrate specialist Kristine Barsky, because California’s spot prawns are found so deep – usually 100 fathoms (600 feet) or more – and the bag limit is only 35, most people are not interested in trapping these shrimp recreationally.

Coconut crabs of Nikumaroro

Eek

According to him, there is no evidence that the plane crashed in the ocean. It is more likely that Amelia and her navigator made a landing on the island to become castaways and eventually die there. “If Amelia died on Nikumaroro, her body was eaten by crabs. That’s pretty much a given.” The crabs were not ordinary crabs but known as coconut crabs.

Is this in the new movie?

Prawns threaten Gulf fisheries

Escapees could become an invasive species and disease vector:

Giant tiger prawns first appeared in Louisiana waterways two years ago, and mature adults have been spotted near Lafitte, Grand Isle, Venice and in Vermilion Bay, according to Wildlife and Fisheries.

Tiger prawns are used in aquaculture and first escaped from a facility in Bluffton, S.C., in 1988. But officials believe an additional release may have taken place from a facility in Alabama during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

World's largest prawn cocktail

In Greenland

Bacon

According to the NYT:

Bacon has become the sun-dried tomato of our time.

Lifesaving prawns

The Independent reports on British Army medics using prawn shells to treat life-threatening wounds:

Amina was in a particularly serious condition; her leg was almost hanging off. Both of Guldasta's legs, meanwhile, were embedded with razor sharp metal shards. "We did the best we could," said Major Colin Wall, the Army doctor in charge of the medical unit at the base.

"They had a hell of an experience, but they were pretty brave. We have to deal with a lot of casualties from IEDs (improvised explosive devices) – British and Afghan soldiers, but also a lot of civilians. We do what we can, but there are obviously limits at a place like this in the front line."

But they made the best of it – and it worked. The first stage of the treatment in Nad-e-Ali had involved special bandages made with crushed shellfish. On being placed on wounds, "chitosan", an ingredient derived from prawns, rapidly stops severe bleeding and accelerates clot forming.

A game of chicken on trade

The NYT

China is threatening to cut off imports of American chicken, but poultry experts have at least one reason to suspect it may be an empty threat: Many Chinese consumers would miss the scrumptious chicken feet they get from this country.

Mulloway Risotto Farce

Prawns to be replaced?

Danger! Biscuits!

The Telegraph

An estimated 25 million adults have been injured while eating during a tea or coffee break - with at least 500 landing themselves in hospital, the survey revealed.

The custard cream biscuit was found to be the worse offender to innocent drinkers.

Via Tyler Cowen

Oily prawns?

Chinese scientists claim prawn shell chitin can be used in biofuel production.

Alien prawns!

The aliens in the new movie "District 9" are apparently nicknamed Prawns. I wonder if they get made into risotto.

back of the house

I added the Atlantic Food Channel to the blogroll when I learned that Alinea's Grant Achatz was blogging, but I added the overall feed for food sites at the Atlantic, not just the one to his specific blog... which meant that his posts would get pushed off the list of recent updates by other stuff. I've now added a new link just for Achatz and for a couple more food blogs to encourage myself to check them more often.

Among the Achatz posts I missed, was an interesting one about how to deal with treating customers differently.

Farmers and prawn ranchers should be friends

But there are problems

“The local authorities (Village level Peace and Development Council – VPDC) sold the fishing rights at Kyat 3 million. The shrimp farm owners, who acquired the fishing rights of sea water shrimp farming continuously open and close the dyke which protected our paddy fields from saline water. They do this to catch shrimps and prawns. As a result the paddy fields were inundated with sea water damaging all the fields,” a farmer from Pyinsalu told Mizzima.