NEVER TRUST A NUMBER THAT LOOKS THE SAME UPSIDE-DOWN AS IT DOES RIGHT-SIDE-UP

On June 6, 2006, the world trembled in fear as it awaited for the Lord of Darkness to make a horrifying reappearance on the world stage, possibly as a guest judge on the American Idol program. Less weeping and shrieking accompanied July 7, 2007, the luckiest day of the millennium, and even less has accompanied today, August 8, 2008. Why, we ask, is mankind not filled with dread at the possibility of a giant octopus rising from the sea and crushing civilization with slimy, suctionful tentacles? For if 666 is the Mark of the Beast, then 888 is the Mark of the Mollusk.

It's no accident that today is the opening ceremony of the Olympics, which are being held in the seafood-loving country of China. It's hoped that, if such a sick-making behemoth were to attack this mass gathering of people (because such behemoths rarely use secluded beaches in Alaska or Tierra del Fuego for their dramatic entrances), the billion-plus Chinese population would pounce as one, chopsticks at the ready, atop such a tasty beast, devouring it in a matter of minutes.

But is such cephalopodian savagery the only thing we have to worry about today? The number Eight, after all, is infinity lying down. Here are eight other eights for us to watch out for on this strange, topsy-turvy day.

CRAZY EIGHTS - Invented in the 19th Century by physicians at London's squalid Bedlam asylum as a method of keeping inmates insane enough to stick around and keep paying the exorbitant rents, this card game has been known to make normal men mad if they play it for 72 hours at a stretch without sleeping. Don't let it happen to you!

OCTOROON - In early Americana, an octoroon was an individual that had one great-grandparent of African descent, thereby making their blood one eighth African. As a racist term it was flung around as an insult to people who considered their bloodlines to be pure; a short-lived later attempt to use it as a compliment implying that you are not a completely inbred redneck was met with much head-scratching. If you attempt to use the term today, few people will understand what you mean, and confusion can be dangerous - especially when the confused person is a pilot steering a jet plane full of innocent people at a deadly height.

OCTOMAROON - An octomaroon is an octoroon of less than average intelligence. People of less than average intelligence are to be avoided.

EIGHT IS ENOUGH - A short-lived 1970s sitcom starring aging musical-comedy star Dick Van Powell as the father of three boys, who married another aging musical-comedy star, Ruby Buckley, who had three daughters of her own, creating a family that fit the title. Teen heartthrob Scott Baio got his start in this show as the family's pool flunky, Chichi, and that is reason enough to consider it inauspicious.

STOP SIGNS - It's a little-known fact that stop signs are octagonal, meaning they have eight sides. But don't try to count them or you'll get a lineup of impatient automobiles honking behind you, and nobody needs that!

OCTOBER - When Augustus Caesar was planning his famous war against the Gauls, he decided to play a trick on them by completely reconfiguring the Roman calendar. He told the Gauls his army would show up for the war in October (literally, "eighth month"), but then changed the calendar around so October was actually the TENTH month. The Gauls were already to fight in the month of August (the etymology of which is shrouded in mystery), and so when Augustus didn't show up after a while, they were like, fucking Romans, let's just go home and eat a primitive version of cheese. And so come October, when the Gauls were all snug in their huts, Augustus led his army to Gaulia and slaughtered them. This is also one of the origins of Halloween.

"EIGHT DAYS A WEEK" - If you listen to this 1964 Beetles hit on an eight-track player today, your hair will set on fire and your heart will explode and you'll lose all your money and you'll come down with diabetes and you'll get a toothache and your spouse will leave you and you'll crash your car and a tree will fall on your house and the world will end and you'll die.

V8 - This exotic blend of tomato juice and Colonel Sanders' special blend of seven herbs and spices was named after the V8 engine, which was originally designed to run on a similar organic blend before being shut down by Big Oil. If you drink V8 while listening to "Eight Days a Week" on eight-track while watching Eight is Enough on DVD and playing Crazy Eights with an Octoroon (and/or Octomaroon) while sitting in a car at a stop sign, and your birthday is in October, strangely, nothing is likely to happen, because all of these elements will cancel themselves out. If you are an octopus, however, you will grow to massive proportions and attempt to conquer the world. Just to be safe, though, you shouldn't do it.

PET FOOD NATION

Much has been written about the recent pet food recall, in which Chinese manufacturers added melamine (a lethal combination of cyanide, human fingernails, slag, and Wild Irish Rose) to dog and cat feed destined for American markets. We’re incredibly fortunate that our beloved kitty Neqa’el did not run afoul of this deadly chow, but the question remains: how did such a thing come to pass, and on such a wide scale?

It’s no secret that China has evolved into a kind of quasi-capitalistic Wild Wild East over the past few years. Under the secret leadership of Dr. Jonathan “Fu” Manchu, a half-British Ivy League graduate who is the occult force behind much of the nation’s perverse liberalization, China has embraced increasingly strange initiatives in its attempts to cut costs and inundate the world with its products.

Chinese culture has long celebrated quantity above all else. By maintaining the world’s oldest civilization, it has a greater number of years under its belt than anything the West can offer. Likewise, with the highest population in the world, there is no doubt that this nation puts great confidence in numbers. But far more sinister than either of these facts is Manchu’s covert plan to ensure that every piece of merchandise bought, sold, or consumed on the planet earth is a product of China.

It is not economic power that Manchu seeks in pursuing this insanely ambitious goal; rather, it is merely the pride of having the most impressive figures. If China can put more pet food on the market than any other nation in the world, it will be pleased; but only when China’s pet-food column has all the digits, and the rest of the world’s columns total zero, will Manchu be truly happy.

Of course, being a finite nation, China has only a finite number of resources, and so is forced to be creative. The age-old pet food mines of Szechuan can only yield so much kibble per year. The sad result of this inevitability is that Chinese pet food manufacturers are including more foreign additives, such as melamine, into the mix in order to pad the results. This is good news for Chinese accountants, but bad news for pets.

Luckily, signs are surfacing that Manchu is temporarily pulling back on his plans in a signal of appeasement towards dog and cat lovers the world over. In addition to slowing its pet food output, and hiring inspectors to insure that only the pure, uncut product of the mines will be distributed across international borders, two giant skyscrapers – one shaped like a cat, one like a dog – can be expected to appear in the Beijing skyline within a matter of weeks. It remains to be seen whether this is a sign of rapprochement, or merely another manipulative gesture designed to put us off the scent, as it were.