Sunbird

@Quiver What does EQG4 stand for?

@TwiLyghtSansSparkles Although I don't have any personal experience with Frontline for dogs, I've found it to be pretty effective for my cats. (They have different formulas for cats and dogs, I believe.) And if other pet owners are saying the medication the vet recommended is ineffective or worse, harmful, I'd say you're absolutely right to be looking for alternatives. Strangely enough, vets don't always tell you the best thing for your pet. And now I'm going to go on a bit of a rant about feline diabetes. Because most inexpensive types of cat food are dry kibble type stuff, where the main ingredients are wheat, corn, or other grains, house cats can get Type II diabetes since they are carnivores and therefore not equipped to process all those carbs. When we discovered that our cat Tiger was diabetic, the vet recommended a diet of specialized high-fiber dry cat food. But my mom did some research on her own and decided to start feeding him a low-carb diet of wet cat food made mostly from real meat. Simply by changing his food, we were able to lower Tiger's blood sugar from over 400 (dangerously high) to slightly under 200 (still high, but not life-threateningly so). To get his blood glucose the rest of the way into the healthy range, we started giving Tiger insulin shots after meals just like you would for a diabetic person. So during a lot of my high school career, I would come home after school, feed Tiger, test his sugar, and then inject him with an appropriate amount of insulin. The vet did not like this. She told us we should be giving Tiger the same amount of insulin 4x a day without bothering to test his sugar. In reality, that's a great way to send your kitty into a hypoglycemic coma or even kill him. If you're giving him more insulin than his current blood sugar warrants (and it's impossible to know without a glucose test immediately beforehand), then it'll get dangerously low and he'll crash. And in fact, the same thing can happen with diabetic people who take medications like Metformin to lower their blood sugar if they don't pay careful attention to how the medication affects them personally, since it doesn't work exactly the same for everyone. My grandpa knows a guy whose wife actually DIED from taking too high a dose of Metformin because the doctor was adamant that she needed to take that much. So yeah. Don't necessarily take the vet's word for it just because they're the vet.

So apparently tonight's full moon is gonna be SUPER HUGE. Which is great, because I have an astronomy project to do that involves observing the full moon.

Also illegal in the States, if I'm pegging KR's age correctly at "high schooler."

Cue Slytherins singing "Weasley is Our King"...

I'm pretty sure she meant volleyball.

Are you a Smedry? Because you obviously have the Talent of taking my breath away.

Re: Smedrybuster2300, there's also the T-1000 Terminator robot in the Terminator movies. If you think of any other jokes or puns that you think you might've missed the punchline of, do let us know. Missing out on anything funny in the Alcatraz books would be a tragedy.

This meme is about The Dark Talent, but I promise it contains no spoilers.

@Zathoth Srsly? The bass line is the only part of that song I ever sing along with!

Of course I know it's not violent by the standards of anyone who's watched stuff like LOTR, Jurassic Park, Pirates of the Caribbean, or basically any superhero movie, but I was a lot younger then. There's plenty of movies and TV shows that don't bother me now, at 21 years old, that I would cringe to show a 6-year-old.

Finally started The Dark Talent today! I totally lol'd at the reference to Arthur Dent's bathrobe/towel ensemble in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I find some of their strips funny, but others, not so much, so I don't follow it devotedly. Mostly I just lol when I see one on Facebook.

When I was a child and some of my friends were watching the TV show, my parents didn't let me watch it because they thought it was too violent for a kid my age. (IMDB says it began in 1998, at which time I was 3, so I was probably somewhere around 5-7 years old when I became aware of it but didn't get to watch.) Since I still haven't watched it, I can't really decide for myself, but adult me of 2016 generally trusts my parents' judgement about this kind of thing. As for the games, my family only had a PC for gaming--mostly for financial reasons--until...I guess it was Christmas 2008 or sometime shortly after, because I remember that we got a Wii and Rock Band 2 at about the same time, when RB2 was still pretty new.

That's hilarious! There were some shenanigans that went on in my high school marching band too. One of the music department's three band teachers (one specialist each in brass, woodwind, and percussion) retired at the end of my junior year, so for my senior year a new guy came and joined the staff to be our brass specialist. Let's call him Mr. McDonald. He was fresh out of college (our school was his first teaching job), young, funny, and SUPER enthusiastic about like everything. During football games, he would often dance while the band was playing pep tunes. And his conducting during concerts was highly entertaining to watch too. I dare say Mr. McDonald was my favorite director I've ever played under. (And with all the music classes I took between 6th-12th grade, I worked with 11 different directors including him, so that's a significant compliment.)

@antgrgmn A keyboard! The longer I stand, the shorter I grow. While with life I do glow, the wind's breath is my foe.

@Delightful Obi-wan was played by Alex Guinness in the original trilogy and by Ewan McGregor in the prequels. Ian McKellen is the actor who plays Gandalf in LOTR and the older Magneto in the X-Men movies. @Dankness Ascendant Unfortunately I have never watched or played Pokemon, so someone else will have to answer your challenge.

Ok. What is so fragile that it breaks every time you say its name?

I received copies of Sara B Larson's books Defy and Ignite in the mail today--prizes from a Facebook contest I won.

Oh! I bet I can do this. 1. Belkar (barbarian) 2. Elan (bard) 3. Haley (rogue) 4. Durkon (cleric) 5. Vaarsuvius (wizard/mage) 6. Roy (fighter) WLIU name 9 actors who have been in at least one Star Wars movie, and the characters they played.

Raced through Nightshades all in one day because it was pretty awesome. Perhaps awesome enough that I'll want to write a review in the near future. I am angry at the cliffhanger, though. Starting on my re-read of Alcatraz vs the Shattered Lens tomorrow.

Longitude and latitude.

@Quiver What Delightful said. People focus way too much on the way others' bodies look and how they think others' bodies should look. Your weight has nothing to do with your value as a human being, so don't listen to anyone (including that cruel little voice in your head!) who tries to tell you that it does. We know you're amazing.

In the Mormon church, we set aside the first Sunday of each month as a "scheduled" day of fasting--it's not mandatory, especially for children or people with problematic medical conditions, but having it regularly sort of serves as a reminder that fasting can help one feel closer to God.