CritterKeeper

I think of Transformers, I still hear them voiced by Peter Cullen, Frank Welker, Christopher Collins, et al (plus Eric Idle, Leonard Nimoy, and Orson Wells), with a soundtrack featuring Spectre General and Stan Bush. :-)

There's always Burke and Hare. Then your only cost is beetles.

It was more the "Especially with Sam" part I was responding to. As she's not going to have sex with Elliot, and she hasn't dated anyone else (in canon), she's no further from it with Sam than with anyone else; if anything she's closer as they at least have a date arranged, a stage she has not yet reached with any theoretical competition. Not every person who's trans chooses to ever have surgery, or is able to afford it. And not everyone who does puts the rest of their life on hold until they can. Being close enough to someone to reveal he's trans and being close enough to be ready/willing to have sex with them may come in either order, or simultaneously. As for the physical side of things, as Mary Callahan told her space alien husband when she proposed to him, and he objected that they didn't know if they were sexually compatible, "I can see fingers and a tongue from here, anything else is gravy!" If you feel that a penis must be involved for it to "count" there are a number of shops and web sites where they can be acquired, in various forms and with various extra features. Possibly NSFW, I loved how Questionable Content addressed the question, by remembering it's none of our business what anyone looks like down there. ;-)

From Freefall, a favorite web comic: "There's a funny thing that happens when you know the correct answer. It throws you when you get a different answer that's not wrong." -Dr. Bowman

Played...by....William....Shrapnel?!?

And why wouldn't she be able to lose her virginity with Sam?

Closest I've seen lately was an article on how particular breeds of dogs are prone to particular genetic mutations that cause obesity, and they're likely to be useful models for research into curing those same mutations in humans. Hasn't resulted in chubby werewolves yet, or at least if it did they didn't mention it.

Now, now, let's not let this turn into a domestic disturbance. (We had a hard enough time getting the cats turbed in the first place....)

Ever read the Jenny and the Cat Club books when you were small (or had smalls to read them to)?

My sister banged up her knee a couple of weeks before out trip, and the bruises migrated downwards from there all the way to her ankle by the time she headed back home. N=1 but maybe a sign your bruises taking a similar path isn't all that unusual, FWIW.

There once was a woman from Venus.... No, no, if we're going to quote Data reciting poetry, there's only one real option: Ode to Spot "Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature.Your visual, olfactory, and auditory sensesContribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,A singular development of cat communicationsThat obviates your basic hedonistic predilectionFor a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents.You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.Oh Spot, the complex levels of behavior you displayConnote a fairly well-developed cognitive array,And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend."

I'm not sure if my cough is just allergies or if I've got some sort of sinus infection and/or walking pneumonia developing. I had a little bit of a cough before going to Orlando, and hoped it was allergies to something local that would clear up in a different climate. It seemed to be not so bad the first several days, not going away but possibly lessening a bit. Then I switched from the practically-brand-new Sapphire Falls Universal resort to Disney's Pop Century. This place is old enough that they're in the process of remodeling buildings eight and nine, which form a sort of triangle with building seven. Guess which building they put me in. Yup, the old but not yet remodeled one right next to the construction. I'm beginning to wonder if the old building has a mold problem, because that's the one thing that had a definite reaction on my allergy tests, and my cough seemed to be worse in the morning, after sleeping in that room all night, than it was during the day, out and about in the pollen and whatever else. If I'd notice the pattern earlier, maybe I could have asked for a different room, but it being Memorial Day weekend, I'm not sure they'd have had one to give me. Today my sinuses ache and my cough seems to still be worse. I've been taking an antihistamine and pseudoephedrine, and have now added a honey cough drop. Maybe it's just a cold? I wouldn't mind a cold, they at least go away after a week or two!

Glad to hear they liked them! Give kitty a snuggle from me! At least one or two of those were me, too. Anything we can do to make this easier on you, short of quitting our jobs and moving there to be your full-time chauffeur and nursemaid, let us know! We've very occasionally done a house call, but in our case the limiting factor is often the fact that we have to have a tech along to hold the cat or dog for stuff like blood draws or injections. Not to mention pets hiding under beds or in junk-filled basements. At least your podiatrist can be reasonably sure you won't try to bite him as he's dragging you out of a closet.... Tell him all your imaginary friends online thank him for the house call! My dad's PCP did a couple of those, too, and I know my current PCP has been known to do them -- it's a rare breed now, but they're not extinct in the wild yet! Hmm, maybe you should offer him some of that ale you can't drink yourself, as a thank-you? ;-)

I found my old iPod Shuffle just before my trip, and was listening to it at the airport and on the plane on the way out. This is the original Shuffle, a white stick on a white cord to hang around your neck, with 512Mb of songs on it (of commensurate age). I won the thing at a veterinary conference. I also own a Video iPod, called that because up until then they'd only played music. Too bad the folks got rid of the TRS-89 and my Commodore 64, I could start a museum!

Did someone mention coyotes? Caption is a bit off, it's actually outside the Animal Kingdom, not the Magic Kingdom....we'll see if the fix on the Imgur web site propagates to here or not.....

Having grown up on the University of Illinois's main campus, as well as getting two Bachelors and one Doctorate there, I would get rather irritated at anyone who assumed that the U of I must be in Chicago, as if the whole rest of the state didn't exist! The main campus is in Champaign-Urbana, thank you very much. (Of course, the U of I didn't really help matters by referring to themselves as "UIUC", being the only ones who ever put Urbana before Champaign, but that's another gripe....) It was also rather irritating when I was a student and people would ask me which suburb I was from, but I do admit that the odds were in their favor on that one.

We sometimes give a doggie a sedative and see what's called "paradoxical excitation" happen. Current theory is that the sedative hit just the perfect dose for the part of the brain that puts the brakes on the rest to be put to sleep. Coffee-as-sedative is reported a lot in people with ADHD. Sort of like Ritalin, the coffee provides just enough stimulation to wake up the control centers of the brain, and they rein in everything else.

It's a quote from Doctor Who, when he offers someone the chance to join him in the TARDIS. "All of time and all of space....where do you want to go?" I think my first answer would be The White City. That is, the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, the World's Columbian Exhibition. It was a massive affair, a huge attraction for its day, with wonders of the modern world far and near. I've been hearing about it for years, and it would be really cool to see it in person. Then, I'd like to go somewhere with dragons. Nice ones, mind, not ones that eat virgins and burn villages down that get too clever and decide to run out of virgins all at once. Something like the dragons on Pern, or in How To Train Your Dragon. Or even miniature dragons, like fire lizards or Flinx's minidrag. I'm sure what I'd want to see after that would depend on how the dragons turned out. So, how about you? If you could go any time or place in the near-infinite universe, where would you want to go?

Ever thought to yourself, "Why the heck hasn't someone already invented this? I know I'd buy it/do it/use it!" Now's your chance to share all those brilliant ideas. Who knows, maybe someone who has the time/ability/savvy/money to make it happen will see it here, and turn it into a reality! (And if they're really nice, they might even give you credit, a thank you fruit basket, a lifetime membership, or a teensy little piece of their millions -- but don't count on it, there's no way to prove they got it from here....) We can discuss how to make things practical, but please don't criticize unless you can be constructive about it. :-)

I also have been told I've hit my maximum allowed number of Likes for a day, usually when I'm pretty sure I haven't hit Like nearly as many times as they claim I have. Thanks for making the pictures possible! Thanks to Mrs for acquisition and Prof for posting!

Nice to hear they're being proactive, with things like the scopolamine patch, and are getting you meds when you need them instead of hours later. Kudos to this team. (They also may have benefitted from reading the reports on how things went last time, of course -- the second doctor always has an advantage over the first!)

Not exactly. When the target was described as being about two meters across, there was a general grumbling of protest. Luke reassured the person sitting next to him (Wedge?), who exclaimed it was impossible even for a computer, that the shot wasn't impossible, he used to bulls-eye womp rats in his T-16 back home, and "they're not much bigger than two meters." But it was certainly not an easy shot. The first attempt, taken by a different pilot using his targeting computer, impacted near the surface instead of going down the shaft. Only a precise hit would set off the chain reaction that would destroy the Death Star. Luke understood then that the targeting computers just weren't accurate enough, and if they kept trying using them, there was too high a risk his shot would miss, too, and there just weren't enough of them left for another run. My impression was that normally, a computer is a lot more accurate than a human, but in this case Luke had the Force on his side tipping the odds back in favor of a computer-free shot.

Wild chickens aren't all that numerous. The rest of them are selected on factors a lot more commercial than whose eggs they brood.