The Princeton Review is a 'school'???

In Metro's bizarre alcohol zoning laws, yes it is.

When my ex-husband opened The Basement, he was not permitted to sell domestic beer because he was within 100 feet of a day care center. It was not a problem that the day care center was basically next door to a brother,aka "spa" Tokyo Sauna.

Ridiculous. Reason #176 it is so difficult to open and make a profit on an independent restaurant in Nashville.

I'll never understand the appeal of live lobster tanks. They're the cockroaches of the sea and not attractive to look at.

Plus I just feel sorry for them. It would be like walking into Morton's and having some wet-eyed calf stare at you from a pen, as if to say, "Please don't eat my mommy."

Here's where I hear Michael Pollan's voice saying, "You must shoulder the moral responsibility of taking the animal's life if you are to consume it. You must own up to the act." And here's where I tell Michael Pollan's voice to shut the hell up and pass the filets.

McFerret took the words out of my mouth. Unbelievable.

A lobster may be ugly, but it's got a nice ass.

carrington - my coffee just came up through my nose thank you very much.

Now I can show what a redneck I really am and say I've never gotten the whole lobster thing. And in the whole "tank" issues, why is it just lobsters? Why aren't there tanks for crabs and mussels and fish? Heck, rabbits and ducks in cages. Moist-eyed calves, suckling piglets.

Great idea! I'm envisioning a combination restaurant and pound.

That brings me to a restaurant concept that would help put an end to both hunger and overcrowding. I call it The Modest Proposal. To paraphrase a saying from the world of poker, if you look around the table and don't see the specialty du jour, the specialty du jour is you.

My restaurant concept is called Darwin's. Each table is built over a terrarium or cage where species devour each other while you dine. The menu is titled "Natural Selections." When the kitchen runs out of an item, they pronounce it extinct. Obviously, it has a great singles scene.

Pink, have you been watching Motel Hell again?

And as a child who loved monster movies, Harrihausen, and cephalopods, I can still recall with fascination the first time I beheld a lobster tank.

There's this sushi joint in LA where behind the sushi bar they kepp a tank full of critters. As you order, the chef grabs 'em, beheads 'em, slices 'em, and serve 'em.

And speaking of gross, didn't Fudduckkers or Buttf***rs or whatever it was called had sides o' beef hanging from hooks as decor?

In Korea, in some seaside towns, you can go to a market that's right on the water, buy yourself a few critters, then walk a half-block or so up the road to a restaurant where you hand them your purchase, sit down and wait for them to slice it up. (These restaurants often also have tanks in the front window.)

Incidentally, this is how I know that squid can actually scream.

BTW, Screamin' Squids is an awesome name for a band... but like the Lobster myth, how does a critter born sans vocal chords is supposed to holler?

Well, it has a beak. All I know is that the ajuma pulled a small squid out of the water and put it in a bowl--and then, as we haggled over the price, the thing tried to crawl out of said bowl (it looked eerily like a hand as it attempted this), and let out a shriek that all but scared the piss right out of me.

Steve:

That's IS weird. Could be the syphon/propulsion tube?

and as a 15 second-flat squid cleaner, I most familiar with them beaks