Toss Your Salads.

It used to be that spinach and some Olive Oyl might be fine starting ingredients for cooking, but it seems Popeye's muscles might atrophy a bit over the next while as North America faces a health scare over fresh, bagged versions of the green stuff that inevitably sticks between your teeth, making you look like a hockey player.

32 brands of spinach have thus far been yanked from grocery stores in the United States and Canada, to ebullient shrieks of delight from children everywhere. It seems the organic spinach was a bit dyslexic, not content to just be a tremendous source of Vitamin C, thinking instead that it was supposed to also contain Vitamin E.coli. Don't worry, kiddos, we can certainly fill that vacant spot on your plates with parsnips. Universal groans.

I'm just awaiting conspiracy theories that this is the work of Al-Qaeda and their quest to rid the world of leafy, green vegetable-eating infidels. Ah, plant the seeds of destruction...

And, in other late-breaking salad news, Faisal had, appropriately enough, sent me this picture of a bagged salad yesterday. And yes, that is a frog nestled inside. Ribbit. Surprisingly, it didn't croak. Not quite E.coli, but some unwanted protein nonetheless. Many similar-type hoaxes make their rounds of the Internet on a regular basis, so I tend to immediately be skeptical and look them up. Ah, joys from the immediacy the Internet provides a curious mind, read: geek. This one is, apparently, still inconclusive -- and there is precedence of frogs in bagged salads. Might be good with some French Dressing, though I'm not sure the lil' guy is certified organic. Still doesn't top my having a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1987 and finding that it still had two feathers attached. And yes, I ate it anyway.

One of my personal favorite Internet pranks was the so-called National Geographic Photo of the Year hoax where a shark attacks a military diver hanging from a helicopter. Yeah, because the Great White really lurks in waters under the Golden Gate bridge. As an aside, rumours of any sharks inhabiting those waters -- and hence deterring potential escapees from Alcatraz -- are also apparently false, the result of strategic storytelling by prison guards.

This has been a week the agriculture industry hopes we can leaf behind as they set to work raising new baby bib. Hopefully tomorrow will bring news of a different appetizer which is, well, more appetizing than today's.

Above: Charlie had a long night partying with the students next door. Needless to say, he was feeling a little worse for the wear this morning. Too much catnip. "Need me some latte. Purr-fecto."

Below: And on the heels of the spinach scare (and frankly, he's not overly fond of frogs, unless it's Kermit, either), Charlie's sticking with yogurt. Or at least sticking his tongue into it.


"Enough! No more, UD! Is that bloomin' camera permanently affixed to your hand when mom's not around? I'm shy. Really. And hungover. One more and I'm gonna' go Sean Penn on you. Is mom ever comin' home? Dang paparazzi. Where's my treat? I so need a latte."