WHAT THE DUCK?… Squid dines on a duck egg now and again, and is accustomed to paying for such culinary luxuries. Unlike a private equity firm in New York, which is alleged to owe nearly $100,000 for ducklings and hatching eggs from Metzer Farms in Gonzales. Metzer, which raises no fewer than 29 breeds of waterfowl, is suing Couak Capital Group (pronounced, yes, Quack – even with Squid’s slippery inflection, phonetics can be phun!) to collect on its feathered friends, plus 18 percent interest over six months. Couak is a subsidiary of the international investment firm Rosedale Cooley, with a self-proclaimed “aggressive go-get philosophy.” (Squid takes note of the absence of “pay up” in “go get.”) Metzer’s poor ducklings are headed to a bankrupt farm that New York Department of Conservation spokesperson Michael Bopp says has been violating water discharge regulations since 2004. Couak is lending to the ailing farm, and has been dubbed a “white knight” of economic growth antics by local Long Island bloggers. The Couak quack-ups thought they were being pranked when one of Squid’s colleagues informed them of the suit, filed Dec. 23 in Monterey County Superior Court. Suggests Metzer: Pay your bill.


PARTY ON… Salinas’ own Cuddly Hero of the Masses, aka Mayor Dennis Donohue, will be celebrating “a New Year, the Arts, Healthy Eating and a New Term” during the first First Friday Artwalk of 2011. Check him out, along with the kids of Samz School of Rock, at the Fox Theater starting at 5:30pm. (You know the Fox – it’s one of those increasingly rare Oldtown businesses actually still in business.)


CROSSED UP… Squid draws dipshit tipsters like a Trader Joe’s parking lot draws doofus drivers – they arrive like the tides, steady and smelling funny. The best one of 2010, though, might be the one Squid got just the other day, right before the end of the year. “At the corner of Del Monte and Figueroa, when the light changes, a voice tells people to walk… in Spanish,” came the insight. “WTF is going on that the box speaks in Spanish.”


Squid can’t resist Squid’s talking GPS lady. Squid’s talking microwave oven is Squid’s BFF. So Squid had to check out the crossbox Squidself. 


The research was revealing. “Fifteen seconds to cross… Figueroa,” the voice says. When crossing in a different direction: “Fourteen seconds to cross… Del Monte.” So yes, it does speak Spanish, as we all do every time we say “Soledad” or “San Francisco,” and Dutch every time we say “484 Van Buren.” Here’s a tip: That paranoid informer should start listening more to automated robots and less to the xenophobic voices in his head.