CritterKeeper

17 September
 I can't believe you forgot the big one...
1859 – Joshua A. Norton contacts the newspapers of San Francisco, California, and declares himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States."  Mainstream historians would later try to revise history by portraying the Emperor as insane.  But does declaring yourself a ruler without the support of the citizens, religion, military, or other politicians really mean that you are insane?

Watching an old episode of NCIS: Los Angeles, of which I've caught fairly random episodes.  Hettie was reciting a character's background, and the hometown she gave was my hometown!  :-D
 
I'm sure to the writer it was probably just a dot on a map, but it's still fun to hear.  And maybe it's not just a dot on the map, maybe one of the writers is from there, or went to college there, or something.  The guy on MASH was a deliberate reference to the U of I, after all....

Stay off Twitter and social media of any sort for at least a day. Maybe several. And possibly also less respectable news outlets. I beg you all, in the name of God. I have seen an image I shall never be able to unsee and I may never be able to eat a mushroom again, or even look at one.

I think we may have to declare Godwin on the Nazi topic here before we slip into attack mode on each other. Let's try to get back to the general cultural appropriation topic if we can?

I've replaced the power supply too. But it took much more work than my grandfather's axe.

At least they know what the problem is, and thus have a good chance of fixing it!  And you could have been stuck in a boot in the hottest part of summer or in the bitterest, coldest part of winter.
wielding the silver lining polish again....

 
My Id, however, has made me into the most remarkable human being ever.  Just ask it.

I am having trouble keeping score in this blame game.
And despite the EGS Standard Operating Procedure, I don't see how we will be able to blame this one on Tedd.

Johnny Cash probably threw people for a loop by doing a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song.

I don't find actual cows attractive, but I do find cow-people attractive - at least the way Dan draws them.
I also love the power-exchange element here. Dan doesn't do a lot of art or storytelling which touches upon this (not counting Rhoda and Catalina's interactions, which are really open to interpretation) but when he does it has a tenderness and respect for both characters that I really appreciate.

Does a better job of making them still look like themselves while transformed, and I like the implied BDSM interactions and power exchange.  Went too far into unrealistic proportions for my tastes, and I just don't find cows particularly attractive, although it was pretty well-executed for what it is.  Facial expressions are good, body language is eloquent!

A fractured metatarsal is not what any of us had in mind when we thought, "The Prof deserves a break."

Presumably relevant to why Rhoda's hair is so long.
Edit: Unrelated, and not much of a surprise, but I figured this ought to be posted here as well:
 
 

Ellen uses "Show backside" pose.....
It's super effective!
 
Seriously, she's got a nice butt.

The Tropeless Tale (Obligatory Warning)
One of Mercedes Lackey's early books included a suspicious number of the monster's victims being the idiot jerk bosses of long-suffering computer programmers.  ;-)
Next time you want definitions, may I suggest onelook.com?  Then you'll be able to find a more complete range of definitions, such as (bolding is mine):
Oxford's "The underlying intentions or motives of a particular person or group.  ‘Yet one suspects that there is another agenda behind his attempt to subvert the global uniformity.’"  
Or Merriam-Webster's: 
1: a list or outline of things to be considered or done  agendas of faculty meetings
2: an underlying often ideological plan or program  a political agenda
Or from American Heritage:
n. a·gen·da
1. A list of things to be discussed in a meeting. 2.  a. A program of things to be done or considered: "King's broadening of the civil rights agenda to include issues of class, income, and employment" (James Carroll). b. Informal A usually unstated underlying motive: "Everyone has an agenda, whether he or she is honest about it or not" (Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger). 3. A datebook: bought a leather-bound agenda.  

A pair o ducks?

Oh be kind to your web footed friends...

I like the new seat on the bike.
 

Having seen Rhoda and Catalina together, Rhoda seems more like the old days when new kinksters had to spend time as subs before they were allowed to try out being a Dom/me.  She certainly seems to be coming into a more dominant role now!  Then again, maybe she's a switch and enjoys playing both roles in turn....
I feel the same.  The cliche may be to lose one's virginity in high school, but the reality is that I knew a fair number of virgins in college, too, and sometimes beyond that.
Most likely they have, if we apply our world's standards, but not absolutely.  Again, I've known couples who went around more than one base without ever hitting that home run until they were married.  Especially with what we know about sen....seyen....ololu.....part-Uryuoms, they value closeness much more than sex.  I can easily picture Grace wanting to snuggle, hug, and even kiss, without feeling the urge to go further. And Tedd, of course, at first would feel lucky for that much, and later he'd know that Grace didn't want it the same way he did, and might not want to make her feel pressured.  (In other words, maybe he was wiser that Second-Life-Ellen in that regard....look what happened to that relationship when she pushed for sex!)
Now this one I suspect is most likely!  After all, Elliot's main reason not to, according to Nanase at least, was "math."  Ellen and Nanase have zero chance of that problem, unless one of them makes a major change.
Absolutely.  No "things".  Just watching things.  And we've already debated whether solo is likely so no need to rehash here. ;-)
A bit surprising if he's the only "out" boy in his school, that no one else has come to him in private, but not impossible and/or not necessarily leading in that direction if it had.  A pity, because statistically there would be quite a number of LGBTQ+ kids at a school that size.  Heck, in the suburbs any time within the last decade or so, there'd probably be at least one QUILTBAG club!  EGS is showing its age a bit here.  Future kids may (hopefully) not even see such clubs as anything more significant than a chess club or a journalism club, or whatever kinds of clubs non-nerd-school schools have.
Hmm, I hadn't actually thought that relationship through to that aspect before.  Maybe it's because Ashley still seems so innocent.  But yeah, I could definitely see that as being the reason she was so affected by Bad Tom.
Fits with my experiences, too.  Whenever I see those statistics about how many teens have sex in high school, I always see the flip side too, that if X percent have had sex, then 100 - X have *not* had sex!
ADD/ADHD can have similar problems, due to being too distracted to pay attention to social cues.  Interrupting is a classic example.  If you don't notice that people look annoyed when you interupt them, then you're not likely to learn not to interrupt.  And then it's a mystery why people don't want to let you in on their conversations, and it feels like they just exclude you for no good reason.  (And if that makes you all the more determined to be in on the conversation....)
My default tends to be to assume everyone gets along and can be friends, until I get hit with a clue-by-four about it.  Even when I've had problems with someone, I still tend to think, Well, we seem to be getting along now, maybe we can be friends, until something overt happens again.
(Perhaps) Surprisingly often, that turns out well.  :-)

Oh, good.  I haven't hated this storyline, but it's not exactly something I'm interested in either, so I think if it had gone on much longer I'd have gotten annoyed, or even stopped reading for a while.  At this length, it's a somewhat interesting foray into a fandom I'm not familiar with, which lets me learn a little about it without having to immerse myself directly.
Here's hoping the next story has our main characters as themselves!

I remember watching The Transformers and G. I. Joe in the afternoon, after high school let out, when we were in the mood to give our brains a rest for an hour.  I started watching Transformers with the movie (the friend who had wanted to see it, had to explain stuff like why people were cheering when the good-guy boombox ejected little cassette bots to fight the bad-guy boombox's cassette minions), and  only watched Joe because it was on after Transformers.
My older sister and I were savvy enough to know the shows were trying to sell toys, and evaluating how they did it and how successful or blatant they were was part of the fun of watching.  We could appreciate the good writing and try to figure out where the bad writing went wrong, and see writing about new toys as a challenge the writers had to meet, rather than an automatic failing.  When my sister invented the Nocturnicons, she figured out gimmicks for the toys, like a bat who was a spy/had excellent hearing, and the toy was a Mister Microphone-type toy inside.  She also wrote a terrific short story with Starscream's ghost that was modeled after Steven King's short story "Survivor Type" (if you've read it, you will likely remember it the moment I say "med student stranded on a desert island").  I leveled the field by inventing some female Decepticons, again with the toys all planned out.
I don't recall doing as much of that with Joe but I was aware of the marketing elements there, too, trying to come up with things like an excuse to put everyone in new outfits (perhaps an "alternate universe" episode where you can make evil versons of the good guys and good versions of the villains, who just happen to be the same mould with different colors of plastic ;-) or create a new character who was an inventor as an excuse for new gizmos and their toys.
The challenge was to tell a good story in the process of selling those toys, to come up with interesting toys and well-rounded characters who were distinct from those that already existed.  And there were times when the shows managed to do all of that, if you paid attention.  I honestly think a good show will sell more toys than a bad one, even to little kids, and I think at least some of the writers and people in charge got that.  Every writing class or group I've been in has used challenges as an exercise, like "write a story with only dialog" or "write three paragraphs with your main characters, not using the letter 'e' at all" or "write a scene set in an unusual place, where the setting it an integral part of the story."  These shows were a great example, basically "write a half-hour episode which introduces this new toy, in a way that will make kids like the character and want to buy it."  Sometimes, having to follow restrictive rules can lead to wonderfully creative stuff.
 
....I'm still disappointed in them for not coming out with a Starscream's Ghost toy made of clear plastic....

An Angst Induced Awakening perhaps?

I wonder if Lucy is going to claim the Queen Bee-atch crown now that Diane is outgrowing it?  She has potential to make Diane's life miserable, if she wants to solidify her position as top of the heap of those who use and insult others to make themselves feel bigger.  And she's already been casually cruel to Rhoda, back when she was mousey and submissive, even though they were supposed "friends"....

This reminds me.  Last year when my neighborhood was evacuated for Darth Irma, I went to a Middle School about ten miles from my home.  The school was not designated a "Pet Friendly" shelter, but a lot of people brought their pets anyway.   A few small classrooms wound up stacked to the ceiling with portable kennels and pet carriers.
Was it right or wrong to put these pets into those cramped conditions?
Aside from the pet problem, and the fact that the shelter did not provide cots as you often see on TV, the school wound up being a well run shelter.  I have only complements for the Red Cross, the Manatee School District, The Manatee Sheriff's Department, The National Guard, FEMA, and the Volunteers, mostly organized by the Red Cross and the School.  

Having seen Rhoda and Catalina together, Rhoda seems more like the old days when new kinksters had to spend time as subs before they were allowed to try out being a Dom/me.  She certainly seems to be coming into a more dominant role now!  Then again, maybe she's a switch and enjoys playing both roles in turn....
I feel the same.  The cliche may be to lose one's virginity in high school, but the reality is that I knew a fair number of virgins in college, too, and sometimes beyond that.
Most likely they have, if we apply our world's standards, but not absolutely.  Again, I've known couples who went around more than one base without ever hitting that home run until they were married.  Especially with what we know about sen....seyen....ololu.....part-Uryuoms, they value closeness much more than sex.  I can easily picture Grace wanting to snuggle, hug, and even kiss, without feeling the urge to go further. And Tedd, of course, at first would feel lucky for that much, and later he'd know that Grace didn't want it the same way he did, and might not want to make her feel pressured.  (In other words, maybe he was wiser that Second-Life-Ellen in that regard....look what happened to that relationship when she pushed for sex!)
Now this one I suspect is most likely!  After all, Elliot's main reason not to, according to Nanase at least, was "math."  Ellen and Nanase have zero chance of that problem, unless one of them makes a major change.
Absolutely.  No "things".  Just watching things.  And we've already debated whether solo is likely so no need to rehash here. ;-)
A bit surprising if he's the only "out" boy in his school, that no one else has come to him in private, but not impossible and/or not necessarily leading in that direction if it had.  A pity, because statistically there would be quite a number of LGBTQ+ kids at a school that size.  Heck, in the suburbs any time within the last decade or so, there'd probably be at least one QUILTBAG club!  EGS is showing its age a bit here.  Future kids may (hopefully) not even see such clubs as anything more significant than a chess club or a journalism club, or whatever kinds of clubs non-nerd-school schools have.
Hmm, I hadn't actually thought that relationship through to that aspect before.  Maybe it's because Ashley still seems so innocent.  But yeah, I could definitely see that as being the reason she was so affected by Bad Tom.
Fits with my experiences, too.  Whenever I see those statistics about how many teens have sex in high school, I always see the flip side too, that if X percent have had sex, then 100 - X have *not* had sex!
ADD/ADHD can have similar problems, due to being too distracted to pay attention to social cues.  Interrupting is a classic example.  If you don't notice that people look annoyed when you interupt them, then you're not likely to learn not to interrupt.  And then it's a mystery why people don't want to let you in on their conversations, and it feels like they just exclude you for no good reason.  (And if that makes you all the more determined to be in on the conversation....)
My default tends to be to assume everyone gets along and can be friends, until I get hit with a clue-by-four about it.  Even when I've had problems with someone, I still tend to think, Well, we seem to be getting along now, maybe we can be friends, until something overt happens again.
(Perhaps) Surprisingly often, that turns out well.  :-)