kaie's journal

My bedroom door no longer opens all the way. But I have assembled an exercise pen where Clarissa and Sally can take turns getting a little bit of exercise. (In a pinch, it could even be used to house a fourth (!) rescue.

Holly had two mummified fetuses removed today. She is recovering from surgery now. She is one of four bunnies received from a kill shelter last Monday; she had not been eating well or acting like a healthy rabbit. I brought her in for an exam today as bunny lady and I both felt that she was simply not doing well, more so than could be expected from the stress of relocating to a completely new home. She had radiographs (X-rays) taken as the vet felt a hard mass near her kidney, which revealed the two fetuses. An ultrasound indicated that they were not viable (alive) and after running blood work, we opted to ask him to perform the surgery. Upon examination, it turns out that she had indeed been spayed, and these had been the result of an ectopic pregnancy (outside the uterine horns where rabbit fetuses normally develop). As they were located up near her kidneys and would have been hidden by her intestines when the spay was performed, it is understandable that they had gone undetected until the tissues got to the point where they were causing her health to decline.

In the middle of all this, I rushed to a dual adoption interview with other rabbits (the original plan had been to get Holly checked out, and to include her if the vet judged her to be healthy), only to discover that one of the adopters had basically bowed out for the day. We then had to rush back to the vet to get Holly before they closed.

On the plus side, Miranda is going to a very good home, and we hope that she will eventually bond with her new housemate.

On the minus side, we are out a rather large vet bill (donations accepted via http://www.rabbitalliesct.org/), and we remain in overload status.

Currently passing it up to Laharl.

So I've been playing Sims 2 for something more than a year now, and I've only just noticed that sims will, if at all possible, avoid doors/doorways that are set in diagonal walls.

I thought one of the great architectural selling points of the game was the use of diagonal walls for things like doors and windows? So why do the doors not work (sims will exit the house, walk all the way around, and enter the room from an outside door) and certain windows disappear? (They are treated as buy mode objects, not build mode, so if a family needs to move out and move back in again, suddenly half the windows are gone.)

Nabaztag - Nabaztag (lots of Flash, apologies, but - cute!)

... is it wrong that I find this to be utterly hilarious?

Amazon Rank

ETA 1 and 3: More here and here.

ETA 2: I should also note that, as a bookstore employee of five or six years now, a book's sales rank is incredibly important. There is a reason the store corrals the bestsellers into a prominent area; people walk in all the time and want to know where they are. The majority of people don't care about books that don't sell well; they won't buy them, and they won't read them. Not ranking certain books hurts the authors. And, of course, removing them from search - so that people who know exactly what book they want still can't buy them - is completely ridiculous.

Note that:
Heather Has Two Mommies,
And Tango Makes Three, and
Uncle Bobby's Wedding
can all still be found at a competitor.

Things I've learned part eleventy-billion and two:

1. If you create a toddler or child with parent, then move them into another household, then kill off the parent to orphan the child, the child will not be related to any of the other sims on the lot. This means that you cannot use the Encourage reaction to modify personality. Sims subsequently added to the family were not be able to teach the toddler any skills.


2. You will need at least three controllable sims to start a restaurant business: a chef, a server, and a host(ess). In the early stages, the server can act as a greeter.


3. Seating that works one day may stop working the next day. Starting with two counters and barstools caused a jam when the third customer appeared. Therefore, I added a table with two chairs. The next day, the only possible seat was one of the chairs at the table; the barstools and counters no longer counted as usable seating. Note that customers do not want to share tables.


4. Elders are not recommended for operating a business; they are forever running to the bathroom and complaining that they are uncomfortable. You will need to use adults who have maxed out their aspiration benefits so that their needs don't drop as quickly.


5. As a side note, having at least one witch stocked with the ingredients for the mood-raising spell helps keep the business open long enough to make money each day.

Why do people pay money for a pet from a breeder, or worse, a pet store?

How can they live with themselves, when they go home, knowing that their local shelter has animals who will be euthanized when they can't find homes for all of them?

By paying the breeders, they cause them to breed more animals.

By not adopting shelter or rescue animals, they cause them to die.

By not spaying or neutering their own animals, they create the potential for more animals to be born, who will not find homes, or who will take homes away from older animals in need. (Not to mention the very simple fact that they will basically cause their own pet to die from cancers of the reproductive tract.)

Why is this so hard to understand?

I am so sick of humans.

( Read more... )
Also still sick, but getting better.

However, I'm not in a position not to ask.

Bunny lady's own computer started dying a few months ago. It's probably about five or six years old - was quite good at the time of purchase, but right now, it's basically teetering on the edge of self-combustion. She managed to get an old laptop donated from a friend; this is five years old but was running quite well, with up to date programs. It already had Office and I loaded GIMP on it so that she could edit and post rabbit photographs on Petfinder. We thought everything was fine.

This newer computer now refuses to turn on. She is going to try and get someone to fix it (she's not that computer savvy, and honestly, what do you DO when your laptop won't even power on for more than one second?) but I'm not going to keep my fingers crossed. I mean, everything I've touched (about six computers, one PSP, one PS2, the stereo I bought my mom, the stove we bought for the apartment, don't even talk to me about telephones) has gone up in flames, messily - I actually pay for warranties these days.

Does anybody have a laptop or desktop tower that they are not using, and are willing to donate to rabbit rescue? We are basically screwed if her old computer doesn't limp along until she can get some kind of replacement. Half of her rescue correspondance is through email, as are most of her records.

So my scout finally unlocked EDF Soldier. However, I'm currently having a raging internal debate over who should get an EDF pupil, or if I should simply transmigrate an existing unit.

In other news, I thought I'd try out Sims 2 for the PSP. The load times are excruciating. I thought the lag on my PC was bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfS-vHIU2VE&eurl=http://icanhascheezburger.com/&feature=player_embedded

.... so the only way to transmigrate a demon (humanoid) into a monster or vice versa is to transmigrate into a prinny first, correct? Because only prinnies have access to both types of units when transmigrating?

Also, Princess does NOT know the meaning of sharing. Or even not eating someone else's apple slice. She seriously does not believe that apple belongs anywhere except in her mouth.

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Have I ever mentioned that I hate filing tax returns? At this point, I'd be willing to pay more taxes if they'd just stop making the whole thing so freaking incomprehensible.

I used to file the giant 1040 form instead of the 1040EZ, because I couldn't figure out how to put down the fact that I was a student on the EZ form.

When they started e-file, I couldn't use it because the instructions were even worse than the ones on the paper forms. The time it took to load and page through the immense pdf of instructions would also cause me to time out.

This year, there were three different potential student-related tax deductions. I came very close to not claiming any of them because I couldn't figure out which one I qualified for.

I am also filing both of my state returns on paper, because I can't figure out the e-file instructions for those, either. I'm still not done, because I'm going to have to go line by line through the CT return to find out if I am supposed to pay state income taxes, or if they really are going to refund the entire thing to me. I don't need them coming after me because I can't tell if I entered something wrong on their webform and don't know how to check.

I really don't understand why they have to always withhold too much money from my paychecks.

Apparently, the World of Disgaea art book neglects to mention that one also needs a level 100 Rune Knight. ARGH.

... to a Celestial Host. ( Read more... )

BSAVA: "Vitamin K is synthesized by caecal bacteria, and, providing a rabbit is able to ingest its caecotrophs, deficiency is unlikely." [10]
Harcourt-Brown: "Vitamin K is produced by caecal microorganisms and is a constituent of caecotrophs. ... Deficiencies are unlikely to occur in pet rabbits." [36]

BSAVA adds that lucerne/alfalfa is a source of vitamin K.

Posted to save quotes for future use in letters to companies who produce rabbit food pellets, asking them to stop the use of synthetic vitamin K3, also known as menadione dimethylprimidinol sulfate, as research suggests that it may not be safe and veterianary medical textbooks suggest that rabbits obtain sufficient vitamin K from cecotrophy.

So Princess is busy washing her face, wash wash wash, wetting her paws and using them to clean her fur, busy busy busy, and Umaro oh so casually yawns, stretches, and stuffs his head right underneath her tongue. Now, for some reason, despite being something of a rabbit-cidal maniac (still), Princess likes to groom things (the floor; my sheets; any and all stuffed animals), so she automatically gives his head a few licks too. She stops after a second and resumes her own grooming. He waits a few minutes, then does it again, and she obliges - again.

I do know that he also grooms her - he's responsible for two temporary bald patches on the top of her head, where she can't reach.

More VK2 notes: ( Read more... )