So I watched a bit of America Before Columbus last night...it wasn't really that exciting. In fact, the most interesting part was the description of the program that DirecTV gave me:

"Evidence reveals that the country had millions of inhabitants before Europeans arrived."

I mean, I personally had no idea that there were indigenous people--or, as I call them "Native Americans"-- living in this country before it was colonized by Europeans. Thank god the evidence "revealed" this astounding revelation!

I wonder what happened to these "Native Americans"? I sure hope we didn't take their land, wipe most of them out, and expose them to diseases that they'd never been exposed to before, thereby killing even more of them, and then offer them reservations to live on as consolation for the havoc we wrought upon their land and their lifestyle. That would've been kind of a dick move.

Rin and I took Dashiell to the vet yesterday, because he hasn't been doing so well lately. The vet thinks he has a respiratory infection or possibly pneumonia, so he's on a course of antibiotics in a meat-flavored vitamin solution for a couple weeks. Which he hates taking XD. I have to have someone else hold Dash while I squirt medicine into his mouth, which means I have to wake up at 7AM so that I can give Dash his morning dose at a time when someone else is home. Plus I've been feeding him baby food every few hours (since he hasn't been eating very well). And I haven't really been sleeping very well this week, so I'm exhausted today XD; It's worth it if it makes Dash feel better, though. He seems to be doing a bit better today, but I'm not sure if that's because of the meds or because I've been making an effort to make sure he eats and drinks properly. Maybe a bit of both.

Also, I finally figured out that I could email myself pictures from my cell phone (and I've had this phone how long?) so now I've got a bunch of crappy (but adorable) pictures of ratties past. I've been panicking about getting my pictures off my phone lately because my mom's phone (the same model as mine, but slightly older) died unexpectedly a couple months ago, and I didn't really have any way of getting photos off my phone (I have a micro SD card, but it got stuck in my phone and no one can get it out XDD). Plus, I might be getting a new phone soon (my brother just got an LG Versa, and now I totally want one)!

Yeah, I'll stop babbling and go back to watching Top Gear, now XD.

From Pubmed.gov (via NCBI ROFL):

"The effect of wearing different types of textiles on sexual activity was studied in 75 rats which were divided into five equal groups: four test groups and one control. Each of the four test groups were dressed in one type of textile pants made of either 100% polyester, 50/50% polyester/cotton mix, 100% cotton or 100% wool. Sexual behaviour was assessed before and after 6 and 12 months of wearing the pants and 6 months after their removal. The rate of intromission to mounting (I/M) was determined. The electrostatic potentials generated on penis and scrotum were also measured by electrostatic kilovoltameter.
...The polyester-containing pants generated electrostatic potentials while the other textiles did not. These potentials seem to induce 'electrostatic fields' in the intrapenile structures, which could explain the decrease in the rats' sexual activity."

Rat pants. XD

I'm curious as to how they got the tiny pants to stay on without them being chewed to pieces and/or wriggled out of almost immediately.

Someone needs to duplicate this study...and take pictures...and post them all over the internet.

For me, the best part of Halloween (besides getting to dress up) is the week after, when the Halloween candy goes on sale. I mean, who doesn't like cheap candy? Kimberly Daniels, of Kimberly Daniels Ministries International, for one. According to her, these fun-size holiday treats are the work of Satan! Or at least his minions. From Charisma magazine:

The word "holiday" means "holy day." But there is nothing holy about Halloween. The root word of Halloween is "hallow," which means "holy, consecrated and set apart for service." If this holiday is hallowed, whose service is it set apart for? The answer to that question is very easy—Lucifer's!

...During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.

I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.

Oh, that crafty Satan. Trying to tempt us with delicious half-price Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! Quick question, though: Are the praying witches part of the manufacturing process, or do they just visit random stores and pray over the candy there? If I had some Easter candy, would the 'holiness' of my chocolate bunny counteract the evil of black and orange M&M's?

Also: The reason the root word of 'Halloween' is 'hallow' is because it's a shortening of 'All Hallows Eve' (more specifically, the Scottish All-Hallows-Even), which is the day before 'All Hallows Day' (also called 'Hallowmas' or 'All Saints Day'), a christian holiday which honors the various christian saints. It's true that Halloween also has roots in the festival of Samhain, but a lot of supposedly christian holidays are like that.

BRB, I'm off to exorcise* my leftover Halloween candy.

* Did I say exorcise? I meant eat.

My birthday was nice, but relatively uneventful. Rin bought me Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin (I'm halfway through it right now. Did you know that the first bony-headed fish's (I think it's called an Ostracoderm) head was made of a bunch of teeth that had fused together? With enamel, and pulp and everything. Nature is weird), and I managed to avoid having a questionably clean tiny sombrero put on my head when my family went out to dinner (just imagine how many heads that thing's been on. Euurgh).

Sunday, Rin and I went to the mall that we never go to, and bought rat plushes. The cashier seemed pretty interested when I mentioned that Rin and I both had pet rats. She was amazed that they would come when called and could do tricks, and she asked what they eat and where they lived. It was pretty cool talking to someone who didn't just say: "Eww, Rats!" and look at me as if I had just admitted to creating mutant strains of dangerous bacteria in my basement. I also bought a couple of Simon R. Green books, and Rin and I bought a couple of Push Pops from the dollar store, because neither of us had had one for a really long time. They were just as delicious as I remembered XD.

Today, my brother is home from school with the flu. He's been sick for the past couple of days...but that hasn't stopped him from playing WoW. And coughing all over the keyboard, mouse, and monitor in the process. I had to wipe down the entire desk, computer (including the keyboard and mouse) and computer chair with Lysol before I could even think of using the computer XD. It wouldn't be so bad if he would actually bother to cover his freaking mouth when he coughs. Oh well.

I have the weirdest urge to draw steampunk art right now. I blame steampowers.

Y HALLO THAR BIRTH MONTH.

Somehow, even though I know that Halloween is the last day of October, I'm always surprised when it's immediately followed by the first day of November. I'm beginning to think it's some sort of defect in my brain.

ANYWAY...I ended up spending Halloween at Kat's with Rin and Deidre and some other friends. It was a lot of fun. We played a bunch of random games, including a bastardized version of Balderdash! (where we opened the dictionary to a random page, picked a word we didn't recognize, and made everyone come up with a fake definition). My personal favorite word picked was 'fagoting' (my definition involved writing slash fanfic about canonically straight chracters, I think XD), but a close second was 'robalo' (Rin's definition was 'The act of being robbed by a buffalo XD). Also, I think there was something about sexual acts involving mashed potatoes XD. We also watched a Halloween episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (poor Giles, all alone in his house with his big bowl of candy and his awesome sombrero XD), and played a game which involved hiding and finding objects in the dark and leaving clues as to where the objects were hidden also in the dark and getting groped repeatedly by someone dressed as the Cheshire Cat also also in the dark! XD To be fair, I was wearing my corset jacket as part of my "costume" (I was a vampire...lol, I'm so original), which squishes in my stomach and shoves out my boobs, so it's actually kind of hard NOT to grab them XDD.

So, yeah...it was fun XD. I also handed out candy at my house for a bit beforehand, and a lot of kids liked my half-assed, thrown together-in-two-seconds vampire costume XD. It was basically my corset jacket, a pair of those customizable Scarecrow fangs, and a fake rat (my real rats have a tendency to take blind leaps in random directions if they hear loud noises, so I decided not to bring them to the door XD). Oh, and my 'I'm not dead yet' shirt from Spamalot XD. I thought it was appropriate.

I just realized my birthday is on Friday XD. WTF.

The past few days have been a lot of fun. On Friday, I went with a couple friends (and a friend-of-a-friend) to check out Frightmare Forest. It was a lot of fun, but quite muddy, and not particularly frightening. I think we probably annoyed some of the costumed performers, because Kat decided to act insane during the "group therapy session" (an interactive bit of the haunted forest/asylum) and we were talking and laughing through the entire thing XD; I didn't find it scary, especially not the second attraction, where you basically walk through the forest. We walked through the entire forest without seeing any of the performers until we got to "the vacuum" (which was actually the scariest bit of the whole thing for me, but that's because I'm mildly claustrophobic XD). But it was still a lot of fun, and afterwards we went to Wendy's and then went to Kat's house and played Apples to Apples for three hours XD. I love that game.

Sunday, Rin and I hung out for a bit and I got a rat-shaped window cling XD I love it. I don't care if it's a Halloween decoration, it's staying on my window forever...or at least until I move out.

Yesterday, I went over to Kat's house again, and she, Deidre and I had a writing party. Kat's mom (I think?) inherited a publishing company of some sort, and Kat's been working on trying to get a Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Comic/Graphic novel arm up and running. So she and Deidre have been working on stories for a while now, and I brought a few of the ideas I'd already come up with, and decided to start trying to actually develop one of them. I've got an outline of the first chapter/part/whatever and a bit of a possible second chapter so far. But it's definitely a lot farther than I've gotten with most of my crazy comic ideas XD. It's nice to be able to bounce ideas off of other people, and have them bounce ideas off of you, and to be able to work in a relatively non-distracting creative environment (there was a dog, but she's adorable and a total sweetheart, so it was fine XD). I'm kind of stuck for ideas for the second chapter-y thing, but that's the advantage of having other people around when you're writing.

I'm going over there again tomorrow to work some more. Hopefully I'll make some more progress XD.

The Large Hadron Collider, the gigantic particle accelerator built by CERN has had it's share of problems. Only a couple of weeks after it was first switched on, there was a problem with the electrical connection between two of the superconducting magnets, which caused a helium leak, and damaged several of the magnets. One of the scientists working on the LHC was arrested for suspected connections to Al Qaeda (no, seriously!). But all major, ambitious scientific projects like this one have troubles. When the Hubble Space telescupe Telescope was launched, it had a flaw in its mirror which drastically lowered the quality of the images it was producing. So these problems are totally normal, right?

From the New York Times:

A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

...Wait, what? This theory (scientifically speaking, it's really a hypothesis and not a theory) sounds crazy, but this is particle physics we're talking about here. It's always been the realm of the counter-intuitive notion and the just plain weird. Plus, one of the originators of this theory, Dr. Holger Bech Nielsen, is considered one of the founders of String Theory, another fucking weird theory, but a fucking weird theory which is true. At least, as true as anything can be in a world where cats can be both alive and dead simultaneously.

But what about the grandfather paradox involved here? If the LHC has created a Higgs Boson particle in the future, which causes a ripple which sabotages* the LHC in the past (our present), then the LHC would have never created the Higgs boson, and there would be no need to sabotage the LHC, so it would still create the Higgs boson...and so on and so forth in that fashion until we're all hopelessly confused. Apparently that's not a problem:

While it is a paradox to go back in time and kill your grandfather, physicists agree there is no paradox if you go back in time and save him from being hit by a bus. In the case of the Higgs and the collider, it is as if something is going back in time to keep the universe from being hit by a bus. Although just why the Higgs would be a catastrophe is not clear. If we knew, presumably, we wouldn’t be trying to make one.

...I'm so confused.


*I'm not sure if I should be using past tense or present tense here. Not only are particle physics and time-travel confusing, they make other things confusing as well!

Yay, I've got a cold! Guh. I sound like my vocal cords have been rubbed vigorously against a cheese grater XD. Also, I really need to stop watching QVC. They've almost convinced me that $149.82 (or 3 easy payments of $49.94!) is a great deal for a cashmere blend trench coat. All the people who have called in seem to be treating their telephones like the speaker at a drive-thru, and they all sound like that lady from Poltergeist. Y'know, the one with the really high-pitched voice? *shudder* Creepy. I want to stop watching but I can't. It's a serious problem XD.

Anyway, here's a pointless book meme.

ABC Book Meme

For this meme, you list a favorite book that starts with each letter of the alphabet. If you don’t have a book for a letter (such as Z or X) than you can substitute a favorite book that simply has that letter in the title (ex. The Lost City of Z or Hot Six by Janet Evanovich). However, you can only do this a maximum of 3 times. (Z, X, and Q. But not Z, X, Q, and V.) Books can be of any genre from fiction to non-fiction to poetry to textbooks.

( List of Books under here... )

Sometimes, I really hate computers. Not often, but...The internet has been cutting out all day, mostly while I've been trying to read multi-chapter fanfics XD Which is a slight annoyance. Add to that the fact that none of the web browsers on this computer will recognize that it's actually connected to the internet (except for Firefox, and only in safe mode), despite the fact that it obviously IS connected to the internet, and you have one seriously pissed off (and confused) Alpha-Rat. Most of the other programs that require an internet connection are all working fine. I don't know if that's a problem with the ISP, or with the computer, or the router or what (with this computer's history of problems, it's probably the computer XD). At least I have have internet access now.

Anyway, some relatives from Oregon are going to be visiting either this weekend or the next. My Aunt and Uncle and one of my cousins will be coming down for a couple of days (the other cousin apparently just got a new sports car and would rather spend her time driving it than visiting us. I can't say I blame her XD). I'm not sure if I'm excited yet or not. It's always nice to see them, but...I dunno. I'm sure I'll be happy to see them once they get here, and I'm just in a bad mood right now because I accidentally fell asleep on my back last night and now my neck and shoulder are messed up for some reason. I also fell asleep while Ollie was still out, so he ended up being out of his cage for like, 7 hours, and I had a bit of a rash on my neck for awhile after he fell asleep on it. I think I'm becoming allergic to my rats =P.

Also, these things are awesome. And not just because they have retractable, spiked, jointed pseudo-genitalia on their foreheads. XD

First up, we have a quote from a Parade Magazine article called "Preventing Fatal Dog Attacks" (which, despite what the title might lead you to believe, offers no real useful advice or insight):

Jim Graham, a councilman in Washington, D.C., wants to bar pit bulls from the nation’s capital. “Anyone who has been near a pit bull can tell you why they need to be banned,” Graham says. “There is something endemic in this breed that prompts violence and cruelty when raised in the wrong hands.”

What. The. Fuck.

Any animal can become aggressive if it's raised by irresponsible/abusive humans. If, instead of cuddling with and generally spoiling my rats, I began starving them and dangling them by their tails for hours on end, I wouldn't blame them if they decided to take a bite out of me* (rat bites are definitely not as serious as a bite from a large dog, but they still hurt like a bitch). Pit bulls are not any more aggressive that any other dog, and they're certainly not cruel.

Next up, who's being denied health care for unbelievably fucked-up reasons now? The answer is, in a broader sense: America, but in a narrower I-want-to-run-outside-and-yell-"WTF?!"-as-loudly-as-I-possibly-can-preferably-while-utilizing-both-my-true-and-false-sets-of-vocal-cords-for-dramatic-effect sense: victims of domestic abuse. Yes, you read that correctly. From The Huffington Post:

With the White House zeroing in on the insurance-industry practice of discriminating against clients based on pre-existing conditions, administration allies are calling attention to how broadly insurers interpret the term to maximize profits.

It turns out that in eight states, plus the District of Columbia, getting beaten up by your spouse is a pre-existing condition.

Sometimes I wish that I believed in a hell, so that I could at least have the satisfaction of knowing that the assholes responsible for things like this would get what was coming to them. (Although given the God of the Bible's stance on women in general, I might be out of luck anyway.)

And remember, government-run health care/the public option are EVIL, EVIL SOCIALIST MARXIST COMMUNIST FASCIST ideas, which will ration care, kill old people, and make us pay for those evil transsexuals' sex-change operations!!!!one!!**


*I hope that if I ever did start starving my rats and dangling them by their tails that someone would have the good sense to punch me very hard in the face, and then kick me in the ribs a few times for good measure.

**Oh noes! Also, I find it hilarious that the people who actually believe these things use the words 'communism/marxism' and 'socialism' interchangeably. And then they randomly add in 'fascism'. BECAUSE COMMUNISM, SOCIALISM AND FASCISM ARE ALL THE SAME THING AND NOT AT ALL CONTRADICTORY PHILOSOPHIES, AMIRITE? Makes me wonder if they actually know what any of these words they're throwing around mean.

1) Dinner on Thursday was fun. We went to Three Samurai (which is billed as an 'authentic' Chinese/Japanese restaurant...but of course, this is the Midwest, so it's not that authentic XD) and split a few sushi rolls (except for Rin who's never tried sushi, and has no desire to do so). Philadelphia rolls are my new favorite thing ever. The barbecued eel is a close second XD. Deidre talked about living in New Orleans and visiting India (jealous!) and Kat talked about the publishing company her mom inherited, and which she's helping to get started again. She asked Rin and I if we had any well-developed comic ideas that we could write/draw to add to the company's repertoire...I wish I did. Most of the ideas I've come up with have only a basic premise. There are a couple I'd like to develop more, but I don't know if I'll be able to flesh my ideas out into a full-fledged story with like, y'know, plot and character development and stuff XD. I'm terrible at both of those things. Which is why the only "good" things I've ever written are a few strange little short stories, most of which are told from the perspective of a sanity-impaired, undeveloped narrator. It's like reading an H.P. Lovecraft story, only not nearly as good, and with fewer unnameable horrors from beyond the stars. (Also, I never use words like 'cyclopean' or 'eldritch' XD.)

2) My dad bought The Beatles: Rock Band on Friday! It's a lot of fun...although the psychedelic dreamscapes in the background of all the Abbey Road songs are really distracting. I'll look up during a break in the notes, and before I know it, I'm failing the song because I didn't notice the notes start up again XD. That might say more about my attention span (or lack thereof) than about the design of the game, though XD. At least singing the songs is easy enough. And the opening cinematic is one of my favorite video game openings ever.

3) I heart Judge a Book By Its Cover. Just sayin'.

I'm going to be going out to dinner with a couple friends I haven't seen in awhile tonight! I'm really excited...and a teensy bit nervous XD. I'd be more nervous if Rin wasn't going to be there, too XD. Last time the four of us hung out, it was a lot of fun (I can't recall exactly what we did...I do remember playing Apples to Apples and drinking (fairly decent) cheap wine at some point, though XD).

Also, I totally want one of these giant rats. Unfortunately, they seem to only exist in the Mount Basavi crater in Papua New Guinea. They're freaking adorable, though. AND, they're one of the largest "true" rats in existence (the animal that the film crew examined weighed 1.5kg, or about 3 lbs, 4oz...which is about 2 lbs more than even the largest domestic rat I've ever owned XD. It also measured 82 cm (~32 in) long. Which is probably a good 8-10 inches longer than any rat I've ever owned XD). I love how completely unfazed it is by the film crew, too. It's not trying to bite, or acting scared of them at all. It's probably never even seen people before.


Anyway, here's another book meme:

( Nothing is forever...though boredom, I must say, gives a remarkably good impression of it. )

Yep, I got more rats. Two of Ozzy's brothers, who have been christened Dashiell (after Dashiell Hammett) and Arthur (after no-one-in-particular, although Rin keeps calling him 'Arthur Fonzarelli' XD). I ended up taking them because all the other babies were going off to new homes, but Rin really wanted to keep Arthur (who at this point in time had been jokingly named 'Skeletor', for reasons which are clear to no one). Unfortunately her mother has this weird idea that male rats smell more than female rats. Which is silly. I mean, male rats have a sort of musky odor, but it's not unpleasant...it makes them smell like Fritos XD. And none of my male rats have ever smelled worse than my female rats, despite their rather disgusting tendency to wallow in their own pee, which they seem to derive a perverse enjoyment from XD.

ANYWAY, Rin's mother wouldn't let her keep any male rats, so I took Arthur (and Dashiell, since I was rather fond of him as well) so that she could come over and see him whenever she wanted, and because I can't resist more rats. Ever. XD

And now, on to the pictures! Lots of them.

( Pictures of rats new, semi-new and old under the cut... )

this post took forever to finish, because I kept screwing up/accidentally deleting bits of it XD. First LJ somehow logged me off in the middle of working on the post, so when I tried to post it, not only would it not let me post, it had deleted half of the work I did. Then I accidentally deleted the other half while trying to recover the first half XD. Because I'm stupid. Then the image codes wouldn't work because I wasn't logged into my Photobucket account. Then I messed up a tiny bit of coding (I left out a quotation mark! *GASP!*), and it took me five minutes to actually figure out what I'd done wrong because LJ kept pointing to a different line of coding which was perfect. GAH. XD

From now on, anytime I do something stupid, I will cite this article to prove that it's not my fault that I'm such a dumbass...it's all that extra fat I carry around! Then I will go eat a can of frosting and stare blankly at a wall. From LiveScience

A new study finds obese people have 8 percent less brain tissue than normal-weight individuals. Their brains look 16 years older than the brains of lean individuals, researchers said today.

Those classified as overweight have 4 percent less brain tissue and their brains appear to have aged prematurely by 8 years.

The results, based on brain scans of 94 people in their 70s, represent "severe brain degeneration," said Paul Thompson, senior author of the study and a UCLA professor of neurology.

...Obese people had lost brain tissue in the frontal and temporal lobes, areas of the brain critical for planning and memory, and in the anterior cingulate gyrus (attention and executive functions), hippocampus (long-term memory) and basal ganglia (movement), the researchers said in a statement today. Overweight people showed brain loss in the basal ganglia, the corona radiata, white matter comprised of axons, and the parietal lobe (sensory lobe).

Because the brain scan results of people in their 70s are totally applicable to the population-at-large, amirite?

If you actually read the study in question (as the person/s who wrote this article clearly neglected to do), it's even explicitly stated that they don't believe there's any correlation between obesity and brain volume:

"The correlation between BMI and brain volumes is unlikely to be direct in the sense of one causing the other; therefore, it is of interest to identify factors or mechanisms that might tend to cause brain volume reduction and obesity in the same subjects."

But of course, that's not nearly as exciting as: "ZOMG, teh fat makes your brainz melt!!!111! Derp!"

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Fortunately, the closest book to me at the moment happens to be Why Evolution is True by Jerry A. Coyne. Otherwise, I would've been forced to grab one of the many romance novels my mom has lying around and you might have been subjected to some godawful, euphemism-filled sex scene. (Actually, I checked the next closest book, and the relevant page/sentence was only a hypochondriac (fake) butler complaining about his lumbago XD.) Anyway:

Hidden here are special features, "vestigial organs," that make sense only as remnants of traits that were once useful in an ancestor. Sometimes we find "atavisms"--throwback traits produced by the occasional reawakening of ancestral genes that have long been silenced. Now that we can read DNA sequences directly, we find that species are also molecular palimpsests: in their genomes is inscribed much of their evolutionary history, including the wrecks of genes that once were useful. What's more, in their development from embryos, many species go through contortions of form that are bizarre: organs and other features appear, and then change dramatically or even disappear completely before birth. And species aren't all that well designed, either: many of them show imperfections that are signs not of celestial engineering but of evolution.
Stephen Jay Gould called these biological palimpsests the "senseless signs of history." But they are not really senseless, for they constitute some of the most powerful evidence for evolution.

1) I can finally access LJ again! yaaaaay. I couldn't get it to work reliably for THREE DAYS. D=. If it had been any longer, I may have gone slightly mad. And that is oh-so-very sad XD.

2) I should never have started reading Tony/Control fanfiction XD. Or Jack/Neddy for that matter. It's taken over my brain. On the plus side, I was inspired to draw something slightly more substantial than a doodle. I suppose it could even very generously be referred to as a sketch. It may or may not ever be inked, colored, and posted XD.

3) You know you've been up waaaaaaay too long when you repeatedly misread 'Jesus' as 'Jeeves' without realizing it. (I was most interested to learn, however, that deism is anti-christian because it denies the divinity of Jeeves. XD)

4) Apparently there was some hullabaloo (that's right, I said hullabaloo) last week in Des Moines about some ads on city buses that were part of a campaign by Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers. Some fundies got upset about the ads, complained to DART (Des Moines Area Regional Transit), saying they wouldn't get on the buses if they had the signs on them, the ads were taken down. Iowa's Governor, Chet Culver who I voted for, but only because he was the Democratic candidate and I didn't know any better said he was "disturbed, personally by the advertisement".

And what did these disturbing, offensive pro-atheist advertisements say? "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." Those damn militant atheists and their, er, inoffensive statements of fact! How dare they admit that they exist! And where children could see it, too!

Fortunately, after meeting with representatives from IAF, DART decided to resume posting the ads on city buses. Cue blathering about the vast atheist conspiracy to corrupt America's cherished moral values (and buses).

So, Rin (or rather, her Dad) finished building her four-foot-tall multi-level rat cage on Sunday, so I finally got to take back one of my smaller rat cages, which also meant I could take home the two babies I'd laid claim to! So I brought home two boys, Felix and Ozzy (My mom keeps complaining about how I end up giving my rats names that almost go together XD Milo and Ollie, Felix and Ozzy...). They're both adorable little fuzzbutts. Adorable, loud, little fuzzbutts XD. It's been awhile since I've had rats who were active enough to actually disturb my sleep at night XD. They're constantly burrowing underneath their bedding (which is really funny to watch, especially if they run into something while they're doing it XD). The only problem is, Felix doesn't actually have any visible testicles. But he doesn't have any girlie bits either, at least not that I can see (and I've checked rather thoroughly...because I am very, very paranoid XD). I'm almost positive he's a boy, who just happens to have undescended testicles. But I can't help being paranoid.

( Enough words. Time for pictures! ...Which will, in all likelihood, have words underneath them. )

Also, I've been searching around for audiobooks to listen to lately, and I found out that Glenn Beck did a reading of "The Tell-Tale Heart" on his radio show a few years back. I'm not even joking. I wanted to cry. On the plus side, I found lots and lots of shiny, pretty audiobooks to listen to, including some of my favorite Neil Gaiman books, "The Call of Cthulhu" (read by Gareth David-Lloyd, which amuses me for some reason XD), and some Alexander McCall Smith books that I've been meaning to read forever, but never got around to. So now I get to listen to Hugh Laurie read them instead! =D