^yep, just periodically dies and comes back to life

Link?

Haha, wow, I just read about as much as I could stand about the outrage over this kid.

I figured he was just another 14 year old who loves Pearl Jam (the username, the South Park avatar, the relentless appreciation of Eddie Vedder's horrendous singing). I've only read three or four posts and they all said the same thing. No big deal, it happens all the time.

To actual MB members: first of all, if you don't know how web sites like this earn money, do some research. It's common knowledge in the business world of IT that you can make a little bit of cash engineering this kind of site and you should know that every time you post, you earn a tiny bit of money for somebody.

I presume this guy is someone's son doing like a summer internship. I remember when my dad invited me to work at his firm when I was a kid. Of course I didn't do it (they performed background checks and stuff) but I surely would have taken the opportunity if all I had to do was sit in my room and talk about my crappy taste in music and ban IP addresses.

Anyway, welcome to MB son. Pay attention to its content and you might actually learn something about music before you have to go back to school.

We sort of did, actually. I like to think I helped inspire him to get his late pet rat Atticus.

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._2506630_n.jpg

As for Jay, I think he's here so that administration can be even more efficient at shooting down ideas and to keep our mods in line. ;)

Such a cute rat. I see the resemblance now.

Is it safe for rats to eat that much sugar?
I used to work in a food cart on a city street and my coworker always threw bits of chocolate chip cookies to the nearby squirrels. They loved it and always came back for more. It seemed to me like he was probably slowly poisoning them but I never bothered to do the research and call him on it.

Rats are quite tolerant when it comes to food, like we are, but eating the world's biggest muffin with glazing would probably not be healthy to a human so it's probably not exactly healthy to a rat. But, on the other hand, pet rats have very short lives in any case (~2 year average in Norway), much of which can be attributed to horrible breeding, so I doubt it would have much effect on an average sort of lifespan unless it was a regular thing. I believe this is a picture from Atticus' birthday celebration.

Rats can tolerate theobromine which is the stuff in choclate which is poisonous to some animals like dogs. Whether or not it's poisonous to squirrels, I've no idea, but it's possible. Adult animals typically can't properly digest milk either, but I guess that should just give them the runs. :p:

I have to ask tore what is the reason for your rat obsession? You have loved them for some time.

If you'd ever owned one, you would understand :love:

"My" first rat was actually one my sister got when I was 6. It was a large buck of a male called Pelle and I used to take him everywhere. He got to 3 and a half years of age before he died so for a quite a while, I was that kid with that big fat rat on his shoulder - or sleeping in his T-shirt. He often used to run around my room when I slept and would sometimes wake me by crawling under my pillow (I slept with my head under the pillow) and lick my face. He also used to scratch me up pretty bad when he climbed around on me, but I sorta got used to it. :p:

I've loved them ever since and have had many pet rats. Sadly, my wife is allergic so although we've had 7, I think it's stopped until there's some very effective allergy medication out there.

As I'm a rat interested biologist, I've also got a good grasp on rat genetics and take a general interest in breeding, although it's not something I've done personally. I've written a couple of guides for norwegian breeders on basic rat genetics and tried to get a breeders database website going some time back. The guy who was going to develop the database stuff never got his thumb out of his ass so the whole thing fell apart.

Basically, they're the best pet you can get :) This is part a subjective statement, but also a bit objective. The amount of happiness you get back for the little time and effort generally required to keep them is very high and they're very intelligent little guys, or girls, full of personality who will quickly become your friends if you let them.