Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Paul: Magical Octo for World Cup

So the world cup just ended in South Africa and SPAIN WON!! Normally I'm actually not a huge soccer watcher (besides that movie She's The Man with Amanda Bynes back in high school...anyone? tampon up the nose...anyone?? just kidding) but when those around me are gleaming and sweating with intensity, energy, and concentration, you really have to join the hype to feel its awesome-ness. AND I DID!! I watched a few games and then parts of other games and besides from feeling really tired for those guys running back and forth on the huge field--I rather enjoyed myself!

But here's my animal related scoop. I know that you know I'm going to talk about Paul the amazing ESP, magical octopus from Germany that can tell the future, but I'm going to tell it anyone...one for the books! (And for those anti-soccer people, they should still know about paul's amazing-ness)
So who is Paul anyway??
Paul is this cool octopus originally from England, but transfered to a Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany. He correctly predicted the winners to all 7 of Germany's World Cup games as well as the winner (aka Spain) in the final.

How's it done??
Paul was presented with two boxes that had the flag of each of the opponents on either box and both boxes had Paul's dinner in it...and whichever box Paul eats from is deemed the winner.

Is this shady....???
Yes...maybe....only a tiny bit...but no one's quite sure yet. So octopuses are colorblind, therefore the exact colors of each flag shouldn't matter to him much. However, they can detect brightness and some flags can be brighter than others so that might have something to do with it, or perhaps the mussel/oyster inside one box was a bit better smelling or juicy or larger than the other.

Point is...we should take this whole thing with a grain of salt. BUT it's still pretty cool. When Paul predicted Germany's loss to Spain, his own countrymen sent death threats to have him turned sushi!! (how rude!) but he's safe again after predicting Germany's win for 3rd place, so no worries! As of now, Paul is officially retired apparently and will be making no further predictions---sadness, I wanted to win the lotto or something! (now he gets to sit in a tank completely decked out in soccer gear AND a World Cup replica, can you believe it?!)
Anyway...read here for when Germany hated him and read here for news on his retirement OR just type "paul the octopus" and you'll get a zillion listings!