Attack Of The Humbolt Flying Giant Squids.

More squidiness for those of you who still can't believe that I spent last Saturday night writing about defunct Disney World rides. Over 1,500 Humboldt jumbo flying squid washed up on Long Beach Peninsula, and have been doing so in British Columbia and Washington as well. I guess that's squid pro quo being under attack from soggy suicide bombers. OK that was a new low.

They've become so commonplace off the West coast in the past week that, in typical human fashion, people have started contemplating eating them. "I sure wouldn't eat them. It would be like eating a deer on the side of the road," said Greg Bargmann, a marine fish manager with the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department. "But if you catch them live they'd be good." Hoo wee! Them squid's good eatin'! Forget about roadkill possum sandwiches, let's take a couple of shotguns down to the beach and catch us an eight-legger then go back and watch the Nascar. Whoops, wrong coast.

But what if these things were washing up on the East Coast - say, in a seafood crazy city like our own Boston? The Barking Crab would immediately become "The Flying Squid". Harpoon would begin brewing Squidtoberfest, Fenway would begin serving Flying Franks, Humbolt chowder would become all the rage at Legal Seafood and a new nightclub would open up in the Alley called "Tentacles" which would attract patrons from as far away as Pawtucket.

Here's a gallery from the website of a guy who apparently spends more time obsessing about giant squids than even I am capable of. Note in particular the photo of the two humbolts laid out beside a cooler to add scale to the image. Make that a large calamari to go. I mean, to run screaming.