Japanese Lobster Vending Machine

Catch me if you can.

Japan has achieved some notoriety for the variety of items that can be purchased on the street from vending machines. The things you can buy from vending machines in Japan include beer, but also the used panties of high school girls.

Apparently you can also purchase a specimen of "robusuta," if you have enough coins. Last weekend BoingBoing blogged the existence of a vending machine in Japan that sells live lobsters. I haven't confirmed this independently, but here's the photo, and it does appear to be exactly that.

Comments (1):

I won't be impressed until I can get a live lobster from a Pez dispenser.

To Live and Die in L.A.

I wish they all could be
California girls.
(photo: Oliver Danner)

Here I am in L.A., taking a break from interviewing some of the Hollywood talent that is lining up to star in the forthcoming film adaptation of THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS.

Okay, so only the first part of that sentence is true.

Here I am in L.A., posing with two human-sized lobsters at the Redondo Beach Lobster Festival, where I signed copies of my book (and got in a visit with my brother, who lives in Manhattan Beach).

Okay, so the first part of that sentence is false.

Those aren't actually human-sized lobsters. They are professional lobster impersonators. (Maybe I could get a job doing that?) But they sure made me feel like the alpha male lobster of the neighborhood. My thanks to them and the festival organizers -- who run GiveLobster.com -- for the warm welcome.

I was even given a tour of the festival's custom-built lobster cooker, which is so big it sits on a truck trailer. The builder claims it's the largest lobster cooker in the country. Hundreds of lobsters were steamed to death in each batch that was lowered into the boilers.

So guess what, New Englanders: Californians love their dead lobster as much as you do. Maybe more.

Lobster Hotline

"Hi, I'd like to place an order. Yes,
with melted butter."
(photo: Trevor Corson)

On the ferry from Provincetown to Boston this summer I spotted this cell phone, sitting unattended on a table. I hung around for a few minutes to see if the phone's owner would appear, but no one did.

Every time I think that I must be the most lobster-dedicated individual on the planet, I get trumped. If anyone should have a lobster cell phone it's me, and yet there I was, caught looking like a chump, no lobster on my cell phone.

Come to think of it, I don't even own a lobster necktie. I mean, come on Corson, they sell those at J. Crew.

On several occasions, guests have even shown up to attend my talks around New England wearing lobster pants. The owners tend to be the more elderly gentlemen who appear to belong to country clubs. But if I really put my mind to it, couldn't I start a lobster pants craze among the young?

All it takes is one lobster cell phone, and then . . .

Speaking of lobsters and cell phones, I recently gave a pair of fuzzy stuffed-animal lobsters to the daughters of a Japanese friend of mine who lives in Tokyo. The girls liked the fact that the lobsters matched their Hello Kitty cell phones.

"Hello, Kitty?"
"No, this is lobster."
(photo: Trevor Corson)

Despite my best efforts to explain that lobsters actually communicate by urinating in each other's faces (a fact that I thought I'd established beyond a doubt in my book), the girls were not deterred, as you can see.

Apparently in Japan, even lobsters, along with most schoolgirls above the age of five, now keep in touch primarily by mobile phone.