Even the giant ones can squeeze through openings no bigger than their beaks.
Their metabolisms allow them to grow very, very fast: for every pound of food an octopus consumes, about half is added directly to its body mass. Talk about masters of return on investment…
And, in a pinch, they can eat one of their own arms to survive, and presto! a new one will regenerate, just like that. (And we’re just starting to mess around with this stem cell stuff…?)

Still more staggering than these trumps of tentacled technology is the cephalopod’s apparent mastery of a form of language that blows our piddly word-based human modes of expression out of the water. Octopi are operating on a waaay more advanced communications platform, people… they use what virtual reality research analyst Jaron Lanier dubbed “post-symbolic communication”.

According to his description, “The octopus literally dances its thoughts through expression of a series of color changes and position changes that require no local linguistic conventions for understanding as do our words and sentences. In the world of the octopus, to behold is to understand. Octopi have a large repertoire of color changes, dots, blushes, and traveling bars that move across their surfaces; this ability in combination with the soft-bodied physique of the creature allows it to obscure and reveal its linguistic intent simply by rapidly folding and unfolding different parts of its body. The octopus does not transmit its linguistic intent, it becomes its linguistic intent. The mind and the body of the octopus are the same and are equally visible.”

Whoa.

So not only are they clearly using their insta-communications model to deceive us (um, what else would codified dot-and-dash messages indicate other than the planning of a hostile takeover?), but our entire self-help market will become these creatures’ bitch! They’ve got that whole “mind-body connection” thing in the bag!

So there you have it: our subjugation by the cephalopod is pretty much a certainty. Invest – or perhaps divest yourself of? – your meager land-based assets accordingly.

she witnessed an octopus build a wall of stone around its home

A wall of stone. A fucking wall of stone. THEY’RE BUILDING WALLS OF STONE.

Can siege engines be far away?

Say, would you happen to know where I can get some Red Wings tickets? My octopul overlord says he’s interested in going to a hockey game and I said I’d try to hook him up. I think the Joe is actually the seat of their government or something.

This is why I have an octopus for a financial advisor. His latest tip? I’m buying a couple hundred pounds of whitefish and throwing it in the water down at Rehoboth. According to my advisor, the returns will be *huge*. It’s a can’t miss. He also says short lemon wedges and breading.

I totally recommend getting an octopus financial advisor.