Don Edwards

Yes, that should be about the same.

Pu-erh, the way I do it: Use really hot water and a tea ball. The first steeping takes maybe 45 seconds to a minute. The second, when you're finished pouring use your other hand to pull the tea ball out - it's done already. The third, fourth, and fifth (yes, sometimes it's good for five, and for the really old stuff I've heard of people going for six or even seven but when you're talking a 10-gram sample like that costing a couple hundred US dollars...) take progressively longer from that starting point. The traditional way: be sure to use a teapot and strainer. First steeping, pour water into the pot directly onto the leaves from fairly high up. Immediately dump the liquid down the sink. Refill the pot, a low pour this time, and let it steep until you like the color. You can repeat the latter as long as you get color and flavor you like.

As a computer systems analyst I spent 30+ years figuring out conditions for a situation and writing extremely-detailed plans to achieve a desired outcome...

Maybe talk with your neighbor and see if it would be okay to put a sign on that door identifying which unit it's part of... perhaps even a sign under it saying something to the effect of "Unit B is over thataway --->" ...

If the stuff actually had any pork in it then it would definitely NOT be kosher. The combination of any real meat and any real dairy is not kosher, but fake meat (that contains no animal flesh) and real dairy could be okay.

While it wouldn't surprise me to learn that Sirleck drains his hosts fairly quickly, remember that it's nothing unusual for a human who has reached physical maturity to last another six decades. So double-time aging would give him 30 years. The problem is not preparing for the next host; it's preparing the next host and the wealth-transfer. In order to not be caught out by behavior changes or a sudden disappearance, he needs a new host who has no strong attachments and can explainably disappear from the host's current setting. The problem with pre-identifying and pre-preparing such a host is that originally-suitable people tend to either acquire disqualifying social and economic connections, or disappear without your help. Hmm... how to find a host quickly... 1) Call up FarFromHere University, which is let's say somewhere in California, and offer a paid internship for an undergraduate in business management. 2) From the applicants, pick a few who are near the bottom end of plausible academic qualifications and who are NOT from anywhere near the university - or Moperville. Say, from east Texas. If their applications contain no mention of family, good. Hire private investigators to look into their friendships and social and romantic entanglements. What you're really looking for is the fewest and weakest such. You also care about good health and healthy habits - you don't want a host already partly wrecked. 3) Get your chosen intern on-site. If you can do so without actually changing hosts, seize control. Otherwise, praise said intern fulsomely and express great paternal affection. 4) Offer the intern a permanent position effective immediately. Get him/her to agree to drop out of college. 5) Mention that you're dying and have no heir. Adopt the intern. Alter your will to make him/her sole heir. 6) Change hosts. So now you have a host who's about 20 years old and in good health, with no connections, who is the sole heir of your previous host. You're good for at least a couple decades. When the time comes to do it again, be sure to pick a different university and an intern from a different town.

They didn't. That's Mamase who got transformed. And the point was that they can do "stuff like" (not necessarily exactly the same as) "transform yourself and other players ... part animal forms, mental and physical changes, outfit morphs, heightened attraction" without needing some fairy-created suspicious board game. Which they demonstrated by doing a part-animal-form transformation with mental and physical changes and an outfit morph on a target of convenience. What's surprising is that Nanase accepts it so calmly without explanation. Or maybe she was sitting in the next booth and overheard what's going on. Akiko finding it more entertaining than disturbing is rather plausible, assuming she's figured out that big sister is involved with a bunch of people with magic. (On the other hand, Nanase shouldn't be quite so eager to take her 8-year-old cat-eared mother home before the change is reversed. She should know by now that absent a deliberate reversal, the duration of such things is unpredictable and can be long.)

I have seen cats peacefully time-share choice spots even when overtly hostile to each other.

My first thought on reading that was, Zig Zag doesn't literally float unless she's in water.

I haven't gotten around to updating my blog in a long time... I have some stuff I intend to dig out and post to it, right after the Procrastinators Anonymous meeting (which was postponed again). Alien America

"had". I would assume he's been using that spell pretty much every day - he generally seems a lonely fellow - so he's built up a bit more power by now. How much more, to be determined maybe.

Midichlorians do not actually explain anything. How does all this law-of-physics-defying power get into this bucket? Well, this bucket contains all these other little buckets. That's nice, how does the power get into those little buckets? And what they purportedly attempt to explain didn't need explaining. It's magic, okay? This is actually plausible, but again, it didn't need that sort of quantifying. One of the greatest Jedi masters ever is saying that this individual is exceptionally powerful even for Jedi - isn't that good enough?

If that were a new picture, I'd ask if there are brown recluse spiders in your area - and if the answer was yes, tell you to get to a doctor ASAP. Brown recluse spider bites don't usually heal on their own - they get worse. MUCH worse. But if it were a brown recluse bite from 2013, and you hadn't already been to a doctor, you'd probably be missing that arm by now. Which I think you'd notice and figure out that a doctor was needed.

I'm wondering if Nanase's feelings about Ashley are, in part, jealousy.

Aside from seers, I don't see a reason to think that magic-users under the old rules are more likely than random people to be magic-users - and learn about their powers - under the new rules. The only sure reason DGB would have an advantage is that they are *already* organized with established communication links... assuming a sufficient share of said links are non-magical in nature.

In carry-on luggage, probably not. In checked luggage, probably no big deal. (We once forgot that there was a meat cleaver left in a suitcase from a road trip. At the airport we were randomly picked for luggage search. The guy pulled out the cleaver, looked at it, and said "Good thing you're checking this suitcase.") Or she could have the whole chest shipped. Or sweet-talk the fairies about where they put her chest when it's first established. (Or, of course, start over on a new chest when she gets home.)

You don't think Yuggoth is a fun guy?

A high school large enough that most students don't know at least the faces of everyone else in their class, has more than one.

Yes. (the XID number varies.) Maybe they shouldn't have varnished the cache server.

Tick them off, I don't see a huge problem - they all are pretty much in control of themselves. Threaten their friends... uh, I'll be over there. WAY over there.

No, it would be the One True Bowtie. Two triangles, opposite each other but sharing one common vertex.

So... is Rhoda jealous because Hanma was sitting next to Catalina, and choosing to use a showing-off method to correct that misarrangement? Or is Rhoda angry because Hanma shrank Catalina? (either way, the fact that the "GROW!" sound-effect looks so much like "GROWL" seems appropriate.)

I easily go through >200 of pu'erh a year, and the pu'erh I'm used to is good for at least four brewings - usually five. (The stuff I have right now occasionally manages 4 decent cups, but sometimes even the second is lame.)

The odd thing I've noticed in the US is that the large majority of statements that certain types of people ought to be killed, come from people who are quite proud of being unarmed and threaten people who, among other attributes, tend to be relatively well-armed. Somehow I don't see that working out quite the way the threateners expect. Particularly since they generally include the military and police as targets for their hatred.

And then put a shrunken fairy in Susan's box, have her summon a copy of it, and shrink that. (Sad to say, the cover is vastly better than the book.)