So a couple of weeks ago, Jason Sizemore over at Apex Books asked me whether I’d be interested in writing a guest blog entry for them (Actually, he referred to it as a Celebrity Blog which, of course, gave me pause because I‘m a celebrity in much the same way that Joe the Plumber or Kim Kardashian are celebrities. In other words, not.). To be honest, I can barely keep up with my own blog but, for whatever reason (ie. I was suffering from anoxia at the time) I agreed to do it – provided I was given a topic. I was thinking something along the lines of “mosquitoes” or “favorite Japanese adult film stars”. Instead, I was offered a choice of three possible topics. I chose one – or a variation thereof. Anyway, you can find my incisive and thought-provoking “Celebrity” Guest Blog, titled “I Should’ve Stuck to Rubber Chickens” here (http://www.apexbookcompany.com/blog/2009/03/joseph-mallozzi-i-shouldve-stuck-to-rubber-chickens/). Also, check out the other far more interesting entries on the site.
A quick reminder to all those interested in joining in April’s book of the month club discussions: we’ll be discussing the books in April. And, in case it’s too much trouble to allow your gaze to wander over to the right sidebar for the details, allow me…
Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl?, Brian Michael Bendis (illustrated by Mike Avon Oeming)
From the publisher: “Heroes glide through the sky on lightning bolts and fire. Flamboyant villains attempt daring daylight robberies. God-like alien creatures clash in epic battle over the nighttime sky. And on the dirty city streets below, Homicide Detective Christian Walker does his job. Walker has to investigate the shocking murder of one of the most popular super-heroes the world has ever known: Retro Girl. He is teamed up with spunky rookie Detective Deena Pilgrim, and the murder investigation takes them from the seediest underbelly a city has to offer, to the gleaming towers that are home to immortal beings. As shocking, hidden truths about Retro Girl come to light, Walker finds that to solve this crime, he might have to reveal his own dark secret.”
Five time Eisner award winner Brian Michael Bendis is one of the most successful writers working in comics today. Some of his major works include Jinx, Torso, a 55-issue run on Daredevil, and a staggering 110-issue run on Ultimate Spiderman. If you’re looking for a book with a clever story, engaging characters, and witty dialogue, then look no further than Powers which, incidentally, is in active development as a live-action series at FX (they of The Shield and Damages). And fear not, fans. He’s writing the pilot script himself.
Discussion the week of April 6th with author Brian Michael Bendis.
The Big Over Easy: A Nursery Crime, Jasper Fforde
From Publisher’s Weekly: “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, and, well, you know the rest. But was Humpty’s fall an accident, or was it murder? It’s up to giant killer Jack Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division to get to the bottom of it. Humpty was quite a ladies’ man, but a few people thought him a bad egg. Jack has a number of suspects, a new partner to break in and gloryhound/antagonist Detective Inspector Chimes to deal with.”
Author of the hugely popular Thursday Next literary detective series, Wodehouse prize winner Jasper Fforde is often mentioned in the same breath as Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams for his wildly inventive narrative. His writing has been described as “stunningly imaginative“, “utterly delightful”, and “sheer gut-busting fantasy“.
Discussion the week of April 13th with author Jasper Fforde.
Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Ellen Datlow
From the publisher: “Compiled by multi-award winning editor, Ellen Datlow, this collection commemorates the second centenary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth. It features Poe-inspired tales by some of the finest talents in the field, including Kim Newman, Pat Cadigan, Sharyn McCrumb, Lucius Shepard, Laird Barron, Suzy McKee Charnas and others. This all-star line-up has several Hugo, Edgar, Tiptree and British Fantasy Award winners.”
Over the course of her career, editor Ellen Datlow has received the Shirley Jackson Award, two Bram Stoker Awards, two Hugo Awards, three Locus Awards, and eight World Fantasy Awards. Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe is her latest anthology.
Mailbag:
Shawna writes: “Now that I think of it, it seems as if, especially in the later seasons, SG-1 went to a lot more random/weird/funny places than did Atlantis. Will Universe have occasional moments of random craziness like that?”
Answer: No plans to have any SGU characters attend a reading of the Vagina Monologues.
My Name Is Scott writes: “Will the Atlantis movie take place during it’s time of release, or will it take place prior to SGU?”
Answer: Both the events of the SGA movie and the events of the SGU premiere take place “around the same time period”.
Laura writes: “On a completly other topic, Joe, I’ve been wondering, what are the differences between all the levels of producers (ie. supervising, co, etc) (besides pay)?”
Answer: Quite honestly, it depends on the production. The producer title can signify anything from a financial backer, sometime contributor, creative decisionmaker, budget manager, or someone who’s agent scored them a vanity credit.
Thornyrose writes: “How are the experiments in home cooking going?”
Answer: Excellent. Today, I made a stuffed pork loin with sautéed broccolini. Also, a mix of ground beef, carrots, peas, and rice for the dogs (and Lulu in particular whose stomach has been a might sensitive of late).
Sparrow_hawk writes: “Wish me luck: tomorrow I’m helping my mother move out of the house I grew up in, where she has lived for 50+ years (and near as I can tell has not thrown out ANYTHING in that entire time)!”
Answer: Good luck! I’d offer to help but I think I did something to my back during yesterday’s weightlifting session. I’m really annoyed because I rented the pick-up and everything.
Delynn writes: “Oh, pretty please can we see David Blue’s shoes? I hear they are quite awesome for footwear!!!”
Answer: Maybe when he eventually swings by to do his fan Q&A here, I’ll get him to post a pic of his favorite footwear. The red strapless pumps are to die for!
Deeinsouthafrica writes: “Talking about self-inflicted alcohol poisoning scenes, what happened to the weird food choice of the day (liquid edition)?”
Answer: We were just talking about that Thursday night. It’s just a matter of finding a weekend where everyone is free. I received a surprising number of volunteers for The Weird Food Purchase of the Day: Strange Alcohols Edition. As opposed to say, the paltry turnout for that time I sampled the fish sauce or the squid ice cream.
Hugh writes: “ If a MALP is sent through every time to check an adress, then they must lose quite a few MALPs to space gates. How do they get them back when they’re just floating through space?”
Answer: Usually, you don’t.
Mika writes: “On the weird foods list, from the outback I can strongly recommend kangaroo (they grin more & have more flavour than cows). If you’re drawn to the legendary witchetty grubs, go for cooked (scrambled-eggy) not raw (barely-not wriggly).”
Answer: I’ve tried kangaroo. There was a place near the studio that used to cook up all sorts of burger. One afternoon, the entire writing department sampled kangaroo, bison, muskox, ostrich, and caribou. With disastrous results. To quote Carl Binder: “There’s a wildebeest stampede going on in my stomach!” As for grubs – if someone were to tell me they actually tasted good, I might consider it. But all indications are that raw or cooked, they pretty much taste like crap.
Anais33 a ecrit: “1) Tout le cast de sgu à été dévoiller entiérement?
2) SGU se passera sur les même endroits de tournage que pour sga et sg1 ?
3) Que faite vous pour que vos chiens n’attrapent pas de tique?”
Reponses: 1) Non. 2) Non. 3) Ils prennent des médicaments spéciaux.
Translation: 1) No, the entire cast has not been revealed. I’m assuming that, sooner or later, they’ll make an announcement about James, Franklin, Brody, Park, Riley, Spencer, etc.
David Blue writes: “Hahahahhaa … you’re awesome.”
Answer: I’m alright awesome. You, sir, are Awesome (note the capital A).
Craig MD writes: “Is there a date set for its television premiere by the way? Or is that still classified at this point too?
Also, while they must be incredibly busy, any chance of getting some of the cast members for a Q and A?”
Answer: Not sure if they’ve announced a date yet. Last I heard, sometime in the fall. And, yes, I’ve approached the various SGU cast about eventually doing some fan Q&A’s. All positive.
dune knight writes: “alright i asked about watchmen because it shows extremely flawed superhereos so i wanted to know if the stargate universe team are a flawed version of SG-1.”
Answer: I wouldn’t describe them as “flawed versions of SG-1”. However, like any human being, they are far from perfect.
Dayna Barter writes: “How do people get added to the writing staff? Are they recommended by agents? Do they send in a spec script? Become a personal slave to one of the producers? Offer up a first-born…right arm and a leg…?”
Answer: This is where a good agent earns his commission. When a series is greenlit, a good agent will contact the production and find out if they’re looking for writers, staff or freelancers. The agent will pitch the writers they represent who they feel would be a good fit. Based on the pitch, provided the production feels the writers are indeed a good fit, the agent will be invited to send in some writing samples that best represent the work of the potential candidates. For our show, one hour dramas, original pilots, and even features work best. We’re not necessarily looking for SF samples and certainly NOT looking to read a Stargate spec. Based on these samples, a writer may or may not be invited to pitch. We tend to prefer phone pitches – around three solid ideas with a beginning, middle, and end. I’ve detailed past pitch sessions gone awry in previous blog entries but, suffice it to say, doing your homework will go a long way toward impressing. Know the show (if it’s already on the air), know the tone, learn how to pronounce the names of the main characters. Depending on how the pitch session goes, the writer may be invited to call back with a more detailed pitch or invited into the room so that we can all break the story. Once the story is broken, the writer heads back home to work on the outline. If the outline is solid, they go to script. And, if they do a great job on the script (instead of a merely serviceable job that will require someone to completely rewrite them) AND we’re looking to add to our roster, they may be invited to join the show’s writing staff. That’s how it works, more or less.
Trish writes: “I’m sorry poor Lulu is still having problems. Would allergy shots work?”
Answer: Don’t think so. The problem is I’m not exactly sure what it is she’s allergic to. I switched her to the fish-based dog food only to have her throw up her body weight last night. I’ll see how she does with beef.
Gilder writes: “Seeking empathy…our favorite independent pizza place burned yesterday. Total loss.”
Answer: Condolences. Carl and I are still mourning the loss of the Budapest Restaurant. Sniff. I’m getting all choked up thinking about it.
Belouchi writes: “I see your point in why it won’t make much financial sense, but given the fact that project twilight is in fact a big budget two parter episode of around $7million USD, I presumed that your marketing department had much more manuverability with respect to what channels they would use to get the product aware. I also thought about the idea since the SG1 movies seemed to rely heavily on advertisement since it was a direct to DVD product and the generated sales incurred would be crucial. Was I wrong?”
Answer: No, you’re not wrong. However, only a certain amount is budgeted for marketing and, rather than spend it on webisodes that reach a comparatively smaller audience of fans who already know about the show, we would be better served reaching out to potential new fans through other means.
AMZ writes: “So tell me Joe, did anything unusual happen to you on Friday the 13th? Or anyone else for that matter?”
Answer: My dog was sick.
AMZ also writes: “I know a lot of Universe info is under wraps at the moment, but I was wondering, when you said Brad’s script Fire had “enough angst to trigger an anxiety attack…”, did you mean angst as in Serious Conflict Angst or more the Rebel Without A Cause/A Lot of Whingeing From Characters Angst? Or was it more a XXXXX type of angst?”
Answer: All three.
Ytimyona writes: “I have a terrible problem with ending my stories, screenplays, and pretty much everything I write, actually. I get going and suddenly find myself with only one page, paragraph, or line left before I go over the limit and can never manage to come up with a satisfactory ending!”
Answer: In the case of the short story I’m working on now, I had the opening scene in my head for ages, married it to a premise I’d been kicking around for a while, and came up with the ending I needed to work toward. Al…most…there…
Hey Joe,
Don’t be so hard on yourself! You’re better than alright awesome. You’re actually awesome. Not as awesome as David Blue, who is capital *A* awesome, obviously. But awesome nonetheless. 😆
And I think David Hewlett’s head just exploded.
I wish Lulu good luck with the beef.
Trish
Hey Joe – Long time, no blog.
Sorry to hear about Lulu’s tummy troubles. My friend’s lab has digestion problems too. My friend is now making her own dog food by adding lightly steamed organic veggies (cut in bite size pieces) to organic “toddler” jar food, supplemented with home made doggie biscuits. Doggy seems to be doing better, than with any commercial food, even the pricey kind.
Besides being super writer, producer and blogger, maybe you can create a whole new line of doggie foods in your kitchen!!
Take care
Mr. M wrote:
What about the Athosians or the Genii or…? How do they keep from accidentally taking a Space walk?
That would mean that the same gate would activate every time someone dialed Earth from offworld and that’s not what happened. Russians always returned to Russia and SGC teams to the SGC. By your definition, they can’t both be the dominant gate, so which was the lesser gate and why did the other teams never end up at the dominate gate?
Anne Teldy
Mr. M wrote:
Sheppard retrieved a frozen replicator and a space coffin with a Puddle Jumper. Why not the MALPs?
Anne Teldy (feeling lousy and in a picky mood)
Speaking of restaurants that serve odd burgers. There is or was a place on Walker Road in Windsor, Ontario. That served everykind of animal burger under the sun. Though in my case I tended to stay with your standerd Beef!!!
Hi, Joe
Question about Lou Diamond Phillips, press release describes his character as “the chosen leader of the ill-fated expedition”.
So what about Everett Young? I saw alot of websites listed him as one of the main casts, even listed before Robert Carlyle and Justin Louis.
Hiya Joe,
Just popping back in to say hi after a really long conference in San Fran. Caught up on all the blog entries and, as always, eagerly read the mailbag entries.
And now for some bad news. You may (or not) remember that I spent my first two months on your blog with my wrist in a cast. Well, when in San Fran and lurking through the world’s greatest used book store (Green Apple Books), I picked up a rather large volume called “Secrets of the Pyramids” and promptly tore the muscle from the bone in the very same wrist!
So, it’s surgery, more time in a cast, and another two months of one-handed typing. It’s really hard to get scripts done that way.
Still eagerly anticipating Amanda’s blog, hopefully my questions made the cut.
~Pol
Hi Joe, I usually try to mind my own business when it comes to other people’s pets, but have you tried any of the Hill’s Science Diet Prescription Diets? They’ve worked wonders with my Greyhound and my Cocker who both have allergies. Hope Lulu’s feeling better soon!
Radar had itch problems until we put him on lamb and rice dog food. Worth a try!
Joe I thought that switching dogs food around like that makes them sick?? I heard when you switch their diet you have to leave them on it for a week or two so they get, for lack of a better term, acclimated?
Joe: Glad you got Ellen to participate. From what I’ve heard, the Poe anthology is really good.
Mr. M…you are always totally awesome. That was a nice blog entry on Apex.
@ David Blue
Yes, you are Awesome. Can’t wait to get the SGU party started.
@Anne Teldy – wave, wave, good to see you on line again.
Glad you got your Internet issues resolved, at least to the point where you can get on line – however slow. I think you mentioned, the second slowest..eh?
Once again, I’m missing the club. Neither our library nor the nearby bookstore carries any of the titles. Which is ok I guess, as the last book I read cover to cover was 2 months ago. *sigh*
Sure hope Lulu evens out soon. Home cooking worked for my friend’s retriever who had both strange itches & a delicate tummy; well worth the effort.
Joe, maybe you already do this with Lulu, but I thought I would mention it. My Golden Retriever/Border Collie mix had a sensitive stomach too. When I started feeding her 3 small meals a day, it greatly reduced her throwing up percentage.
My copy of Poe: New Tales Inspired By Edgar Allan Poe, should arrive Monday. Joe, can you tell me what kind of questions one would ask the book editor? What exactly does the book editor do? I just want to be prepared for your review next month.
Anne Teldy – Not to worry. I am often “feeling lousy and in a picky mood” too, but I have no excuse for it. Take care, mind the nurses, and I hope you feel better.
Hmmm… [I] have still been known to dabble in science fiction literature.
Haha really Joe? You don’t “dabble,” you read voraciously!!! Also, I’d call Twilight Zone a scifi show. But that’s just me, and I haven’t seen them all, so maybe I’m not the best judge. Oh, and rubber chickens=awesome! 😉
@David Blue: You are totally Awesome with a capital A. Looking forward to your guest blog 😀
Looks like we have some awesome BotM guest blogs to look forward to as well. 🙂 Should’ve gone to the library while I was downtown today though… I went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! That was the extent of my spring break “vacation.” It was a pretty neat place to visit… seeing the hand-written original lyrics to songs like “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and a bunch of Beatles songs was just awesome! Okay, I’ll stop gushing now =) But if y’all are ever in Cleveland, I recommend visiting the R&R HoF!
I’m thrilled to read that your short story is almost done and will be published. What was the block you had, and how did you get past it?
Ooops. Sorry. That bit about only dabbling in scifi lit was a joke, right? I fail. Obviously, I need more sleep than I am currently getting… night!
Sidenote: Books of the month for April? Not the easiest to find.
Answer: No plans to have any SGU characters attend a reading of the Vagina Monologues.
That’s a pity. Though in fairness, it did take SG-1 several seasons to reach that level of casual silliness. Here’s hoping SGU makes it far enough to do the same.
Hey Joe,
I know you love Octavia Butler. Check this out.
Source:Publishers Weekly
Apparently they’re in need of an artist.
Do you think it will work? Have you seen the graphic adaptation of The Great Gatsby?
Cheers, Chev
Coucou Joseph!
Merci pour vos réponses =D
Je suis impatiente de découvrir le reste de cast et les nouveaux lieu de tournages =D
Des médicament? et cela n’est pas dangereux? je ne cinnaisser pas cette technique. Nous on lui met un liquide sur le dos et il est protéger pendant 3 mois.
Vous ne savais pas pourquoi votre femme, jewel, martin, carl , alex L, Brad w…ne veulent pas m’accépter dans leur contact facebook? leurs compte est t”il privée?
Passer une bonne journée! Bisou
David Blue writes: “Hahahahhaa … you’re awesome.”
Answer: I’m alright awesome. You, sir, are Awesome (note the capital A).
On behalf of the WooHoos I have to disagree with you Joe. As far as we are concerned you and your fellow SG PTB are all AWESOME! (note all the capitals ;))
Bonjour,
J’ai vu qu’une francaise a posé une question en français alors je vais tenté d’en poser une aussi en éspérant que vous comprendrez!
Apres avoir vu les 5 saisons d’Atlantis, j’ai pu voir que aucun français ne fait parti de l’expedition! Pourquoi?
Si il y a besoin je veut bien aller aider pour la cuisine (française) ou le ménage!
Merci
Aw come on. If it’s a space gate, you send a puddle jumper through with a big electromagnet on the back of the puddle jumper. Sheppard (or anyone else with half a flying skills and the required genes) slowly butts into the MALP, brings the jumper home. Staff puts cushion under the butt of the MALP, electromagnet releases, cushion+malp are removed and taken to Zelenka for any repairs that may be neccessary, and puddlejumper hatch can be opened to get the people out.
Voila.
Sure beats the idea that a half a million dollar malp is left behind each time they dial a space gate, which should be fairly often if we look at how much they “get around” in the pegasus galaxy.
Wasn’t there some episode of SG1 or SGA where they mentioned they even only *had* a few MALPs, and each lost one was a problem? (something like, “even if we had another malp” in the dialogue or something?)
I dont know why but i always thought it would be interesting to see an episode having rodney go through the gate while carrying a zpm and something totally weird happens. zpm becomes lost in hyperspace, like it got absorbed. I dont know much about zpms but zero-point energy could be from hyperspace, right? vacuum energy, dark energy, etc, its all the same to me. anyway, I wanted to show you how confusing science can be for the average guy. so how do you guys research the science involved? an episode like ‘matter of time’ needs alot of prior understanding of quantum stuff and how it works with general relativity.
what got me thinking about that is that im taking a philosophy course about the atomic bomb and the science that led to its creation. and its pretty heavy stuff. and of course i couldnt help but think how naqahdah fits in there.
Ye gods, we’re coming up on the next round of BotM club selections so soon? I’ve been busy ripping through my too-large backlog as much as work allows. I’ll probably be recommending a couple of them as potential BotM club selections, or at least as something for folks to pick up. Enjoyed the mailbag, most especially the breakdown on the process of finding a new writer for the shows. I’d like to think in an alternate universe one of me followed that path. Meanwhile the me me will continue to enjoy being on the fan side of the equation, looking forward to many more seasons of quality entertainment.
Was just wondering: with different projects going at the same time, do you ever have trouble “quieting the creative monkeys,” so to speak? How do you pick out and focus on one project or story at a time, or do jump around and do little bits on everything randomly so that remains unfinished, possibly for all of eternity? (This is what happens to me.) Setting deadlines for myself is seemingly pointless. Any advice?
Hey Joe, where were you? We waited as long as we could, but you never showed up. We really needed that pickup – barely got everything into the van.
Joe wrote:
Oh, yeah. That’s what they all say! 😉
The move went much more smoothly than I had expected (in spite of Joe’s absence), though we still have vast numbers of unopened boxes that will be dealt with over the coming months.
LOL!!!!! @ Trish (Whovian). I hope David doesn’t choose today as the time to pop in to read Joe’s blog. ; )
Joe, I was wondering if you know why David’s head would explode? : )
I was looking around at some of the SGU threads on GateWorld and found this incredibly long thread debating (among other things) whether or not SGU would lose viewers if it included an openly gay/lesbian character. I was wondering if there had ever been discussions among the writers for including an openly gay/lesbian character, either in past shows (SG1 and SGA) or in SGU.
Dear Joe,
My Jack Russell Terrier used to start throwing up his lunch every now and then. A couple of times when we went to the vet’s office instead of telling me to put him on a bland diet or something he would take an x-ray. Then I would get a call asking me if I was missing something. It turns out swallowing half a rawhide bone (or something) and having it get stuck in his gut was not good for him. As well as my checkbook after paying for the $800.00 rawhide. I hope your dog did not do the same but good luck with her.
Sincerely,
Irene
@ Sparrow_hawk – I think you and Joe are conspiring to get me to read more books! If I do, I won’t have time to post here anymore!
Heeeeeey….
Anyhoo…I went to the library and picked up On the Spur of Speed by Fender, and read the bowsprit scene. The similarities with the short story I read 30 years ago are uncanny. It seems the writer did publish something as early as 1973 (under a different name), so I wonder if he was the one who penned that story, and later incorporated the gist of it into this novel. If not, at least this is close enough to satisfy my longing to read that old story again. It will suffice!
The search also took me to a relatively new historical naval fiction site, and that has certainly brought back fond memories of endless debates over Forester’s simplicity v O’Brian’s attention to detail, and whether or not Lambdin was writing historical naval fiction, or soft porn. 😆
Joe – I hope Lulu is feeling a bit better. Any news about Jelly’s condition? If you think you have problems, I have one cat that licks all the fur off her butt (we call her baboon butt 😛 ), and then there’s Cowboy, who – although neutered – humps his catnip toy about 6 times a day. It’s quite embarrassing when we have company over, and he decides to put on a floor show. And you canNOT get near him when he’s going at it or he’ll tear your arm/hand/foot/leg/face off – literally. Figures I’d end up with all the dysfunctional cats. 🙄
A quick question or two if you have time – Will the SGA movie reveal anything new about Wraith culture/society or biology? And will the relationship between characters (and characters themselves) advance any?
I ask this because many seemed to stagnate during last season – Ronon was all goon, Teyla kinda faded into the background after so many possibilities opened up for her in The Queen, and Sheppard just grew more intolerant and icy. I also noticed that a lot of the dialogue from episode to episode was a bit redundant. I don’t mean to sound overly critical, but I suppose I’d like to see something new, without rehashing things already said or done before.
Thankies for your time. 🙂
das
Thanks for the link to your guest blog for Apex Book Company, a really interesting read. I remember in that podcast you and Lou Anders did that Lou said very few of the scifi writers he used to interview actually read science fiction, so I think it’s a matter of what interests the individual writer.
In your case, Joe, I’d say you have a wide range of scifi-related influences so it shouldn’t really worry people that you don’t watch a lot of scifi television. Besides that, it’s important to look at things outside of the field you’re working in so that you have a broader view. Which, in turn, broadens the views of all those people who ask about what scifi shows you watch (yay).
Oh, by the way, thanks for answering my question about the angst, it really clarified things for me. Now I’m definitely looking forward to seeing all three forms of angst together.
Looking forward to the next BOTM Club, too. “Powers” is in transit to me, “The Big Over Easy” part of my current reading and “Poe” on my Find-At-Any-Cost List.
Was it Lulu who was sick on Friday? And if so, is she ok now?
Amz
You wrote:
“I‘m a celebrity in much the same way that Joe the Plumber or Kim Kardashian are celebrities. In other words, not.”
So we won’t be seeing you on dancing with the stars?
Yay! Jasper Fforde! I like him as an author. His books really make me think… and give me indications of which books are good reads. Now if only I can find just one of his books around Melbourne – maybe I should just go to a bookstore and order them, instead of just looking to see if they have them. Save me a lot of time and trouble.
Our problem with dogs and digestion was a little different but it does involve homemade food.
Years ago my wife and I adopted two Shelties, one of whom was allergic to corn. We fed him a product called Ken-L-Ration Bis-Kit, which contained no corn, for several years, until all local stores quit carrying it. We’d gotten so used to feeding the dogs store-bought food that we forgot about the allergy–when the corn-free food disappeared from the stores we switched to a name brand product with corn. Soon Sidney began to suffer, scratching and biting his skin so severely that he lost all the hair on his rump (this was when we discovered that when a dog gets a tan on his pink-white skin, that tan is kinda purple-black–ick).
We took him to the vet and she told us that this was a sign of a food allergy–dogs were most often allergic to corn and wheat.
We did a serious head-slap at our memory loss and decided to try home-made. We browned ground turkey and mixed it with rice and carrots (and sometimes peas). All Sidney’s problems cleared up very quickly–so we fed them that diet for nearly ten years. They were healthy and happy until old age got to them.
Just a testimonial to homemade dog food.
Thanks for the dog pics–we haven’t adopted any new pups because my job situation is, shall we say, fluid.
And we hope Lulu gets better.
Joe,
I don’t know if this is going to reach you (or anyone important to the Stargate franchise), but you need to know that the current stargate themes are getting a bit old and repetitive. The show needs something new, something adventurous, something that fans would ordinarily not expect. Therefore, I’ve come to the decision that I should help you with this (I’m a huge fan). Have you considered producing a spin-off called Stargate Atlantis: Infirmary? Loads of cool stuff must go on in the infirmary that the fans don’t get to know about. Plus, the new theme would intrigue people into wanting to know more, and therefore boost ratings. Perhaps fans of the hugely popular medical drama genre would consider watching. If given enough attention, Stargate Atlantis: Infirmary could be a great hit among fans! Consider my proposal.
Amelie.