I love that little boy's adorable reactions, but I can't get the notion of those poor lobsters being stuck in that box (alive) out of my head. :(

Lobsters are evil alien creatures that happen to taste good. Not that I can view the video--I'm just trying to comfort you with some core truths.

Heh.

I had a horrible experience with lobster preparation when I lived in Montreal that prevented me from eating them for quite a while. And then, perversely, I was converted by The Hump, a restaurant that Perkins and I used to frequent in my neighbourhood. They served really really fresh food. Helped me understand that lobsters were not like the life forms to which I had become accustomed. Not that we ate their uberfresh food. We just watched other people try and eat it.

Went there with Polgara too, and thought we shouldn't sit front and centre at the bar, but even so we were treated to a spectacle one table over.

Downstairs they serve bugs.

As meals, not as clientele.

Well, swim cancellation meant at least I could get out and run some errands that had to be done before I leave.

Wait, The Hump converted you? But it doesn't sound like you ate any of the food. And by "really really" fresh, do you mean people were eating things that were still alive?

Never mind. I really don't want to know.

I wanted Indian for dinner, but I am having leftovers of chicken and rice instead. saving money is good saving money is good.

3 year old boy sees lobsters for the first time

I especially enjoyed, "You okay holdin dat??"

The "whoa!" and the "wow!" were my favorites.

sarameg, is your pool outside?!

Technically, they weren't eating things that were still alive. At least they weren't eating the bits of them that were still alive. They did, for instance, serve a lobster tail with the top half of the lobster still waving its arms around, but I don't think you were supposed to eat that bit. Mostly they had the tendency to just kill the food at the bar before they brought it to the table, either raw or just before they cooked it. Not sure how what I saw with Polgara was prepared--that was a fish gaping and waving its fins. I don't know what they were supposed to be eating. The woman it was pointed at did shriek and scoot her chair back, but she pulled back up to the table and ate her portion. Not sure if I would have. Don't want to be tested.

Javachik, basically my traumatic incident centred around trying to kill a lobster before grilling it. A lengthy comedy of tragic errors later, we had to boil it because nothing I could do to it would make it die. Watching them work with lobsters at The Hump made me understand that I wasn't a particularly bad or cruel food-killer. Lobsters persist. And I didn't understand their physiology. If I had understood that at the git go I would have just boiled it and not thought grilling was a workable option.

I'm of the school of thought that I shouldn't be appalled or traumatised by the idea of an animal dying if I'm willing to eat its flesh, but not being able to kill the lobster simply freaked me out.