CritterKeeper

Tara's magic sense told her that Elliot and Ellen are twins, which gives us the possibility that Jerry could have similar magic sense and could be seeing Diane as Susan's sister because of it. Presumably an Immortal would have enough experience to not be confused by unusual configurations like Ellen/Elliot....but Jerry has only just reset, and we know that skills like hiding from other Immortals take time to relearn, so he may be mistaken about Susan and Diane, just as Tara was mistaken about how Elliot and Ellen are actually related.

Hmm, if I had the money, I think I'd get a Tesla/Prius/Smart Car for local travel, like commuting to work, and then just rent something bigger whenever I needed it. Got a set of bookshelves to take home? Rent an SUV or truck. Going on a long trip? Rent a really nice interior to enjoy for that time. Then take it back and you don't have it sitting in your garage unused or have to pay for all that extra gas and maintainence for the rest of the year. If I found I was renting the same sort of vehicle often enough, then I might buy one, but the number of times I've needed anything bigger or fancier than my Corolla have been few and far between.

As a Whovian, I'm all in favor of advice to run, but I do have to wonder where exactly you're supposed to run to if an Elder God or Old One is on its way....

These days, my crowd would just assume someone showing up in a suit at a more casual event was cosplaying the tenth Doctor. I had hair like Susan's for maybe thirty years, and I once wore a tie-dyed T-shirt to a "metal" concert. (Quotes because the lead band was Whitesnake, I think the other two were Bad English and Poison, not exactly heavy but it was fun!) I did get called a "god-damned hippie," but since it was by someone I had just beat to the last opening at the edge of the stage, I took it more as their failing than mine. I honestly hadn't thought about what I was wearing until that point, though! I agree that 80s styles were a lot more fun than grunge was. Grunge bands always struck me as whiney slumming-middle-class brats, and it annoys me to no end to hear people declare that Nirvana was the voice of my generation. When I got to my large animal rotations in vet school, I was relieved to discover that country music seemed to be where all of rock's sense of humor had disappeared to. (Too bad it got so political since then.)

I had a friend in high school with two younger sisters, and they and their mother all looked so much alike that it made me itch to do DNA testing on them to see if it was a case of human parthenogenesis. (Hey, if something as advanced as komodo dragons can do it, why not humans?) If mom's genes were so dominant, I could definitely see a half-sister on her side also looking alike, but I've lost touch so I don't think I could call her up and ask about cousins etc right now... ;-)

http://queenofwands.net/d/20040121.html

By some definitions, cows would qualify. Beasts that are used as machines to turn grass and grain into milk and steaks.

I picture her as a Hot Topic geek. It's a clothing store that tends to carry only the trendiest geeky clothing. Whatever comic book based movie is big just then, the new Star Wars movies, the Star Trek reboot, etc. Lucy would be one of those kids who says they *love* Doctor Who, but only actually mean that they love Matt Smith, who never botherd to watch any Eccleston let alone pre-hiatus stuff, and who quit watching the show as soon as he regenerated because They Changed It Now It Sucks. (TV Tropes link omitted because I don't dare venture there to get it.)

I guess you guys have the same sort of situation with bookstores as we have here? The chains drove a lot of the independent bookshops out of business, but now online sales and ebooks are endangering what we have left, so I try hard to buy my books from real bookshops whenever I can, which often is Barnes & Noble. At one point a co-worker dubbed me "She Who Walks On Rice Paper" because she was always backing up into me, not having heard me moving behind her. :-)

Nigel Bennett did that series of commercials for them, with a comically broad Scottish accent, declaring of the cereal, "But it's no' oatmeal!" (After tasting it, he is won over enough to amend that to, "It's a bonnie cereal.....but it's no' oatmeal!") At a convention, a real Scot told him with some teasing annoyance, "You're right, it's no' oatmeal -- we call it porridge, ya daft git!" He was playing an evil vampire on Forever Knight just after those commercials, and the blooper reel has a hilarious prank where the victim he's attacking is scripted to pull out a cross to ward him off, and instead pulled out a box of Oatmeal Crisp....Nigel's reaction is priceless!

Brewing a nice mug of white chai tea, which I tend to drink with honey but without any milk. Expecting to have a sausage and mushroom calzone shortly. I suspect pizza places do a brisk business the day after Thanksgiving.

I do tend to fold down the corners of pages with important information, or for favorite scenes in favorite books. It's my book, if I want to make a certain page easier to find, why shouldn't I? It's a lot more rare that a favorite book winds up held together with a rubber band, but it's been known to happen. When there were more used book shops I'd sometimes buy a new and different cover of an old favorite, too, but I don't get nearly as much chance to do that these days.

Suppose each trireme has ten archers. It would take a professional archer perhaps ten to fifteen seconds to grab an arrow, light it, draw, and fire. That's four to six arrows per minute per archer, or forty to sixty per ship, times 1000 ships. 40,000 to 60,000 flaming arrows coming down on that PT boat in the first minute alone is going to have a bit of an impact on how well they can aim that 120 rounds a minute from their guns. That is why I said who won would depend on how the ships were initially positioned. :-)

At work, we have an aviary which for many years had a colony of Lady Gould's Finches, a very colorful species best known for being pictured on a certain brand of computer monitors. Eventually, we reached a point where the remaining birds were too old to have any more babies, and their numbers have been shrinking, until we got down to two elderly birds, who the boss has now taken home for their retirement. She had been talking about taking out the aviary and having a fish tank or something boring like that instead. Well, she's finally decided to get more birds, and after redecorating the aviary with colorful stained-glass style clings on the windows, we now have a very pretty new pair of Lady Gould's, as well as a pair of Society finches. The male Society started singing within a couple of hours of being introduced to the aviary, and they all four seem to be getting along well. I hadn't realized how much I missed hearing cheerful music just outside the door next to my desk!

MST3K's Turkey Day Marathon, streaming live on their YouTube channel. :-)

The vet school I graduated from had a vet who was a fantastic teacher, administrator, fund-raiser, and alumni liaison. He knew everyone by name, from new students to long-past graduates, and everyone knew Dr. Erwin Small. It was a running gag to tell new students that the Small Animal Hospital was named after him.

Back to the PT and triremes, I get the impression from this discussion that who wins would depend on the starting positions. If we started the battle with the PT at a stop, surrounded by triremes, such that it couldn't move efficiently without having to plow through several rows of ships, and could be attacked from all sides at once, then the triremes might just win.

She could have done some thinking about it since it first came up, and just not discussed it with anyone else yet. Decided on her own not to go looking, or talked with her mom and already found out she was a singleton birth, or just logiced out for herself that a girl who is very similar to her might be a half-sister. She was still in more of an angry-Susan stage back then, although she'd been getting better, so maybe at the time she thought her dad might still be a part of this other girl's life and she wanted to avoid him no matter what. It'll be interesting to see which way Dan is going with this. :-)

Pompoms could be her maiden name. Susan was upset enough to cut off much of her hair, and then to keep dying it dark blue for over a decade, so it wouldn't surprise me a bit if she insisted on changing her name to match her mother's instead of her father's. Yes, her mother told her she shouldn't hate her daddy, but still. Servants don't have to be full-time. They could have a maid service come in regularly, a secretary to deal with mail and pay bills and the like, a landscaping service outside, etc. and still send them all home when their tasks are done. Heck, my mom has the Merry Maids come in once every couple of weeks to help her keep up now that she's getting older, and they just live in a regular house, not a mansion. Two very tidy people don't take nearly as much help as a large family would. I can definitely see a few Roomba scooting around, a central vac, automatic lawn sprnklers, etc. But I don't see Susan's mom scrubbing toilets or dusting the chandeliers. A maid service once a week, or perhaps rotating through the house doing a thorough cleaning of one floor or section at a time on MWF, seems likely. On the other hand, it's possible the house is left over from a time when they had more money, and now they can only afford the taxes and have to do all the inside daily maintainance themselves. I still don't see Susan's mom out on a riding mower or using a power hedge clipper, though.

*takes mlooney's List* *makes a note* *gives HarJIT a sharp look* *underscores a couple of times*

Susan et al are apparently alone enough to be discussing magic and vampires, so my big question is, where's Little Nase? Or Little San, or whichever version she'd be accompanied by. It's been established that Susan pretty much summons her little one(s) whenever she gets the chance, so I'd expect at least one to be hanging around. Originally, Susan was only able to summon one thing at a time. The fact that she was able to summon multiple fairies at once at the end of "Playing With Dolls" makes me wonder if she is now able to summon weapons while still keeping one or more fairydolls active, too.

Their first double album went double platinum, but their double bass players were injured in a double-decker bus crash; their manager was double-dipping with a double-entry bookkeeping system, and their double-dealing lawyer double-crossed them so that double jeopardy got him off scott free; and they eventually retired to Double Bay to open a new Double Mountain Brewery location. North of Shangri-La is a filk band, specializing in fitting in as many references to as many TV shows and movies as possible into every song, the more obscure, the better.

There's no law that says that a secret government agency has to have its headquarters in D.C., way off on an outer edge of the country. Chicago is a good central location, with a world-class transportation hub. The airport is actually in the suburbs, not the city proper, so a suburban location also makes good sense. It's not like a secret agency has a need to attend Congressional committee hearings in person, or follow open meeting laws. Communications have advanced far enough that it's pretty rare to have to meet with anyone in person anyway. A seasonal side note, the Butterball Turkey Hotline is apparently located in MoperNaperville...

There is one non-magic way. If Susan and Diane were a result of in vitro fertilization, then it's possible to grow the embryo for a few cell divisions, and then split the little clump of cells into two little clumps of cells. They could then implant one embryo in one mother, and the other in another. Not saying that's what happened, mind you, I seriously doubt that it was, but it's possible.

It may sound like a very odd thought, but given that most mental illnesses have a list of symptoms and say you must meet a certain number of them to qualify for the diagnosis....I sometimes wonder if it's possible to suffer from "clinical depression" without actually feeling the crushing unhappiness part. There have been times I've thought I show a number of the common symptoms, but don't actually feel depressed. Perhaps, some day, they'll decide that this is a Spectrum of disorders with associated syndromes, rather than one absolute specific yes-or-no disorder. Like autism spectrum disorders. (I have met a fair few people with what used to be called Asperger's who are annoyed that they no longer have their own separate diagnosis, but that's a different can of worms....)