Cephalo-word Contest!!!

In celebration of cephalopods, Everything Octopus is holding a contest for our Followers. It's simple and fun to enter, plus you can submit as many entries as you want to increase your chances of winning!

"Win what?" you might be wondering...Win a FREE KRAKEN RUM POSTER, of course! A while back, Kraken Rum was giving these beauties away, but not any longer, making them a hot commodity in the octo-lovin' world. YOURS will arrive to you brand new and never opened.


To Enter...

1) You must be a Follower of Everything Octopus. If you're not already a Follower, go to the right hand side of the page and click "Follow" under the "Follow the Octopus" headline. You'll automatically get Everything Octopus updates and be part of a wild n' zany ceph-loving community!

2) Comment on this post with your very own made-up cephalopod word. Some of my favorites that I use frequently are octo-lovin', cephalophunk, tentacular, loverpus...you get the idea. All cephalopods are game, not just the octopus, so show some love for the squid, cuttlefish, and nautilus too. Have fun letting your imagination run wild!

Each comment containing your cephalo-word will count as an entry. YOU CAN ENTER AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT.

***Be sure to include your email address so that we may contact you and tell you you've WON! If your email is not included in your blogger profile (meaning that we can click on your name in the comment box to access it), then please add it to your comment.***

The winner will be selected by a raffle, meaning that if there are 100 coments, we'll randomly draw a number between 1 and 100, and the commenter that corresponds with that number is the winner.

The contest will run until midnight on Monday, May 3rd, and the winner will be announced on Tuesday, May 4th.

Get creative, have fun, and good luck!!!

Clash of the Titans Trailer: Release the Kraken

Here's one to satisfy the cephalophiles and cinephiles alike: The Clash of the Titans trailer!



The 1981 fantasy adventure based on the Greek myth of Perseus has been remade and will be released on March 26, 2010. The movie features Perseus's quest to defeat the Kraken, the gargantuan octopus-like sea monster.

Follow the link to read more about the kraken.

Everything Octopus Reader's Gift Pics!

Ever wonder what to give that special cephalophile in your life? Below are pictures from Everything Octopus readers of octopus-related gifts they received this holiday season.

Micah's octopus beanie baby

A beautiful octopus brooch that doubles as a necklace

Get your very own poster at KrakenRum.com

Captain Richard Rodriguez's family knows he much he loves octopuses! Below are three gifts featuring the Captain's very own octopus logo. Check out his maritime blog at BitterEndBlog.com
Custom card from sister.

Commissioned artwork made by kids.

Custom octopus logo ornament from wife.

Thank you for your contributions!

The Kraken Spiced Rum

Put a beast in your belly with The Kraken Spiced Rum! The website is incredibley fun with lots of octopus action and kraken lore. If you've got a few minutes free and need your octopus fix, then stop by and poke around.

And what's extra super cool is that you can sign up to receive a FREE Kraken poster - pictured below.

Octopus Mythology: The Kraken

Kraken are legendary sea monsters of gargantuan size, said to have dwelt off the coasts of Norway and Iceland. The sheer size and fearsome appearance attributed to the beasts have made them common ocean-dwelling monsters in various fictional works (see Kraken in popular culture). The legend may actually have originated from sightings of real giant squid that are variously estimated to grow to 13–15 metres (40–50 feet) in length, including the tentacles. These creatures normally live at great depths, but have been sighted at the surface and reportedly have "attacked" ships.





The Kraken has been a mainstay in popular culture for years, reappearing over and over again in literature and movies.

• In 1830, Alfred Tennyson published his popular poem "The Kraken" (essentially an irregular sonnet), which disseminated Kraken in English forever fixed with its superfluous the. Tennyson's description apparently influenced Jules Verne's imagined lair of the famous giant squid in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea from 1870. In the novel, seven giant squid attack the submarine simultaneously; however, all film adaptations to date (excepting one depicting a giant manta ray-type creature) have opted for one, unrealistically massive squid instead. Verne also makes numerous references to Kraken and Erik Pontopiddan in the novel.
  
  
• A Tolkien Bestiary by David Day proposes that the Watcher in the Water in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring was based on Kraken, though it seems unlikely that Tolkien would have placed the Kraken in fresh water. This view has been further contested by those who note that the tentacles of Tolkien's monster are nowhere described as octopus-like, though "The Watcher" does suggest a single creature. In the 2001 film version by Peter Jackson, the Watcher is clearly more similar to our modern view of Kraken.
  
  
• The book The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham details an almost apocalyptic scenario in which the massive sea creature is the main cause. Although it is made clear in the book that the 'Kraken' of the story is actually a process of invasion by ocean-dwelling aliens, it is still clear that the Kraken is the basis for these aliens and Wyndham's fictional narrator quotes Tennyson's poem in the preface. Presumably for this reason Wyndham has been cited as having based the story on the poem.
  
  
• In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, The Kraken is an enormous sea monster that does the bidding of Davy Jones by pursuing the souls of men who bear the black spot, a mark that appears on men who owe Jones a debt. Captain Jack Sparrow spends most of the movie trying to avoid the creature but is eventually forced to face off with it.
  
  
• In the 2007 film Juno, the title character relates an anecdote about a high-school student overdosing on behavioural medication, stripping off her clothes, and diving into a shopping mall fountain, declaring, "I am a Kraken from the sea!" It is later revealed that she was that student.
  
  
• The Kraken from Clash of the Titans appears in the Robot Chicken episode "The Munnery" voiced by Todd Grinnell. Poseidon releases the Kraken to devour Andromeda. Rejoicing that he is free, eats Andromeda, and heads to his old home only to find out that his wife has re-married. From there on, the sea monster's life continues to go downhill, unable to return to his original job and winding up slaving away at a fast food joint, until he finally hangs himself in a halfway house. This is all done as a parody of Brooks Hatlen's suicide in The Shawshank Redemption, complete with a Morgan Freeman-like voice-over entoning, "Like Andy always told me, get busy dying or get Kraken."