CritterKeeper

Does anyone know Magus exists except Pandora and the body-thief?

So I shouldn't even joke about Kitty being Ashley's internet girlfriend? (Deliberately choosing an example we know isn't true, since Dan has admitted he only just came up with the Kitty character, in the hopes it can be taken with more humor than annoyance -- apologies if I've failed in that goal....)

Hmm, perhaps they went astray when my mailman apparently accidentally marked my house as vacant? (True story)

On, or close enough to be an easy walk. I was more thinking of restaurants that also serve alcohol, rather than bars whose main purpose is alcohol, but the bars are very close to campus, and some of the restaurants are within campustown. Basically, the university is in between two cities, part in one, part in the other. The main university campus and the immediate surroundings are campustown, but busses and bike routes or lanes spread out into both cities, too. The whole twin city feels the presence of the university, both as a major employer and as the source for lots of student customers (and their families on certain weekends). Certain areas, like one of the downtowns, tend to have several bars that students frequent. People who are underage are allowed in, but not suppose to drink, or at least that was the case when my parents took me to hear irish music in the bars around St Patrick's Day.

Now there is a phrase you don't see nearly often enough, online or in real life! Part of what I love about this place, we have such great people!

*twirls parasol, plays with vortex manipulator* Two packets? Oh, two of your pay packets? Okay, but anything I catch, I keep!

People can't seem to teach their dogs to behave in public at a high enough rate, why should they do any better with their kids? That has never made sense to me, any more than Victorian worries about seeing naked ankles. Eh, on campus most students walk or take the bus. They deliberately make it very expensive to have a car, otherwise they'd need about ten times the land just for everyone to park. Campus has a large number of bus routes, excellent bike paths, and plenty of sidewalks and paths. It's one of the things I really miss in the suburbs.

Well, the concern about killing good bacteria is what I'd read in the past. We get a heck of a lot of FDA notices and emails at work, so I guess they changed focus at some point and I missed it. That, and worries about whether triclosan affects hormones.

Thinking about it, the blonde hair just doesn't go with transforming into an otherwise-brown squirrel. Why would her hair be blonde? Shouldn't it be the same color as her fur, or at least a similar/related color?

Maybe it's the difference between black, oolong, green, and white tea? Hmm, wonder if they brew roobios, too, that would probably make you ginger....

I dunno, despite the eyes, blonde Ashley looks too much like Sarah to me. I liked the black hair with either green or varying highlights, but I hope Dan isn't going to stray too far from her roots, so to speak.

Doesn't seem like as much effect as a single cup has had in the past. I am not complaining about this, not at all; I definitely prefer such transformations stay within the realm of the physically possible. As it is, this is enough to set off a gleeful if juvenile cry of "Boobies!!!" but not so big as to get in the way. :-D I do wonder why the tea didn't affect her shoes; wouldn't flip-flops with teeny little straps fit the, ah, outfit better?

Or at least his thinking pigtails are an extra-girly trait. And the thing I just noticed on re-read....well, it wasn't re-reading the comic or commentaries, but Professor Tomoe's biography on wikipedia: I hadn't noticed the part about being a charter member of the group that runs the contest! (Note that the contest predates PUNY by over a decade, so there's nothing hinky about him winning ;-)

Ooh, a challenge! (I strongly suspect mlooney's protests and threats serve the same purpose as Jerry's hammers) Yeah, perhaps a normal use of her spell wouldn't have done quite so much, but the combination of it being her first, poorly-controlled casting, and his strong desire for the spell to happen at that exact moment, would make it a near-certainty that he'd have as much change as possible/desired. The maid outfit does possibly reveal that catgirls aren't the only fetish at least one of them has. Wonder what else may be revealed by such transformations? (Other than Elliot thinking that that one sweater-dress was cute ;-)

There's also the chance that the teenager asking you to buy them liquor, or the customer making it obvious they're making a straw purchase for a teen, is working for local law enforcement, wearing a wire, and being videotaped.... I usually had the opposite problem. I had no interest in drinking, but looked old enough to. I grew up in a college town, and often was friends with older students through clubs or social organizations. I'd go somewhere with them for lunch, they'd order a pitcher of beer, and the waiter would bring enough beer glasses for everyone. I'd usually hold mine up and tell them pointedly, "Excuse me! I'm sixteen, you might want to take this back...." Occasionally they'd then sheepishly (but correctly) card the rest of the table, more often they'd just take the glass and disappear without a word. It was almost enough to make me want to call up the cops and ask if they were in need of a teenager to check which bars and restaurants were ignoring the law.

I suspect the religious restriction aspect came up more as an excuse for Dan to comment on the fact that a government which is supposedly open to all religions, still bases many of its laws on the dictates of one particular religion.

"I considered having Arthur kick a puppy and talk loudly during a movie, but I think it's adequately clear that I'm not trying to make him likable. Authorial intent counts for very little, however, so it's entirely possible you might like him just fine. Just keep in mind that I have that puppy on standby and directions to your favorite movie theater." -Dan, in commentary for this strip :-)

Welcome to the party, Swordsmaster! Pull up a lawn chair, Akiko will be serving refreshments in the Dread Gazebo shortly!

The problem with them is that they kill bad bacteria and normal flora, which allows later bad bacteria to more easily fill the niche left vacant by the normal bacterial flora.

Not even really preventively. They've been used as "growth promotants," meaning they'd give animals a low dose of antibiotics every day, just because someone figured out they'd grow a little faster and be ready for market a little sooner. Talk about a perfect recipe for creating resistance! It's one of the stupidest things I know of, and one the profession and government are only now cracking down on. "But surely the drug companies can pay for all that expensive research! Why should government get involved?" And people wonder why drugs are so expensive and research is so meager and erratic. IV fluids are more than just water. Blood and other body fluids are a certain concentration, and we have to add enough electrolytes (and/or sugars) to make the fluids the same concentration, or bad thigns happen. And yes, they have to be sterilized, which means most third world countries can't afford very much of them. Unfortunately, there isn't a waiting line, where all bacteria become resistant to one antibiotic and then the next. Even simple penicillin, the antibiotic in use the longest, still has plenty of cases where it's perfectly usable. Bacteria can both gain and lose resistances over time.

That's part of it, but only one part. In a first world country, IV fluids can correct the dehydration diarrhea causes before it becomes too severe, and anti-diarrheal medications are readily available (Pepto-Bismol, Immodium, etc) to reduce the fluid loss in the first place. Labs can identify the bacteria or parasite responsible, and medications targeted to the cause are easily and cheaply obtained. Heck, we have enough resources to do all of that for our pets, let alone human beings. I do much of that every week!

The guy who went into the women's lockerroom wearing board shorts clearly *wasn't* trying to pretend to be transgender, and thus shouldn't be on that list. The facility had every right to show him the door or call the cops. There are laws against videotaping and spying on and all the other misbehavior, whether it's committed by a man or a woman, cis or trans. How may incidents of men pulling that same kind of crap in men's rooms can you find if you look for it? Men spying on or videotaping boys changing in the men's lockerroom, for example. Kids need to be protected in both cases, and I'm betting the latter is a lot more common. Personally, I rather like the "companion restrooms" that you can often find situated in between the men's and women's rooms, for opposite-sex parent-child pairs or handicapped people with an assistant of the opposite sex. I've also seen more than one bathroom where each individual stall had a real door and its own sink (this was twenty or more years ago, mind), and having that set-up in the handicapped stall seemed to be standard in Florida on my recent visit. It wouldn't cost any more to build two rows of alternating sink and toilet than to build one row of sinks and another row of toilets. Why have anyone share a bathroom with anyone else who doesn't want to? And hey, if every bathroom were individual, then we would no longer have a long line in the women's room while the men's room has stalls sitting empty. Maybe men would have to wait a few minutes for a chance to pee for a change, poor babies. ;-) (Note: I have yet to find a synonym for "handicapped" that everyone seems to agree to for more than five minutes, and I use that term mostly because, in chess, for example, a player is given a handicap when they'd be kicking everyone else's butts easily if they weren't. That's the term I'd prefer if I qualified. No offense is intended.)

Bit of an anticlimax if that's it for Kitty, but maybe there are further hijinxs planned for her in a future storyline, perhaps one where darling Katherine is the star instead of a bit part. ;-) (Yes, I know Kitty being a diminutive of Katherine isn't canon, but it isn't refuted yet, either. So there.)

Yup, and if you read their recommendations, that's exactly what they advise when it's too rainy for SODIS. Collect the rainwater. Just have to make sure the container(s) it's collected into aren't contaminated. It won't kill everything in every water supply, but what they've proven is that people who practice SODIS get less diarrhea than their neighbors who don't when both use the same water supply. In third world countries, diarrhea can be lethal, as well as keeping kids out of school and parents out of work. I wouldn't turn my back on a new cancer treatment just because it only reduced cancer deaths instead of eliminating them completely, the same applies here. :-)

A quick search says that the six hour standard time for SODIS is in "mid-latitude" areas, so Florida should be okay. So when I visit the Conch Republic, I just have to make sure I leave any refilled bottles of water sitting in the sun, preferably on top of a reflective corrugated roof, for a full day before drinking it. Good to know. (ETA: A little further reading, they say the ideal range for SODIS is between 15 and 35° (north or south). Key West is at about 25° N, so it's smack in the middle of ideal.)