Recently, I decided it was time to change things up a bit and switch my google alerts. Before I had my alert set to notify me of all whale related stories. So everyday I received five to 10 emails about about whales, sometimes relevant and other times about sporting teams called “The Whales” or stories about a “whale” of a good time or yet another news story about the twitter fail whale.

So I thought it would be fun to change my alert to “lobster” and see what’s in the news about my favorite crustacean the California spiny lobster. Let me tell you, this has been an eye opening experience because pretty much every single story is either about the well-known restaurant Red Lobster or it’s about a lobster recipe. Apparently, lobster is a highly recommended New Year’s Eve dinner dish. And of course there’s recipes for lobster bisque, but there’s also much more creative suggestions such as lobster ravioli, lobster mac and cheese, fire-roasted lobster and lobster scrambled eggs.

All the lobster recipes made me wonder…if whaling was legal would all the google alerts be about whale bisque, whale and eggs and fire-roasted whale tails? Blech. Just the thought makes my stomach churn. So I start 2011 being extra grateful that whaling is illegal because I don’t have the heart to read about whale recipes. I’m going to stick with the lobster google alert a little longer, but if it’s really only a recipe and restaurant reminder, no thanks.