there's a rat in my kitchen, what am I gonna do?

We finally have closer, more detailed images of what Phoebe, the most mysterious of Saturn's many moons, looks like.

First and biggest on my list of the puzzling Phoebe: why does it orbit in an opposite direction from the other moons? Now we finally know: because Phoebe didn't start off as one of Saturn's moons to start with!

And there's a new alloy on the block. Aluminum is light, but not strong; iron is strong but heavy. To get high strength without iron's hefty weight, high-end manufacturers have gone for titanium, traditionally, but that's on the rare side, and expensive to boot. Now a team of South Korean material scientists have manipulated iron, aluminum and nickel together as nano-particles, and discovered a metal alloy with the tensile durability of iron, but the weight of titanium. And it's going to be relatively cheap to make.

So, in Caledon chat earlier this afternoon, I brought up a shop's Midnight Mania board that was currently offering baby rats. I didn't think EVERY gentle wanted a set, but I thought it might generate handy companions for street urchins, if nothing else. Someone--I forget who, my apologies--asked if they were full-perm.

They were not. I brought up another store, Flecha Creations, which I thought might have a similar sculpt, possibly, and was told that Flecha is currently in DMCA notification over several items they apparently lifted from Skyrim game servers. So...until that's resolved one way or the other, they're out.

Marley Blogfan offers a full perm, sculpted white rat kit (though one supposes it's potentially tintable/texturable) for L$89, down from L$199. It appears to be just a sculpted object, though with the listing of LI count, and the UV map in the box, I could well be wrong.

Then there's FLOOD. Flood offers these ratty options:

• Full perm rat baby: L$300, mesh, but while it's full perm, the rat comes pre-textured?
• Full perm adult brown rat: L$325, mesh, also comes pre-textured?
• Full perm adult white rat: A rather rotund offering for L$325, also pre-textured
• Full perm black rat in running pose: L$325, also pre-textured
• Full perm stretching white and black rat: Smaller, so L$275, also pre-textured (what is this pre-textured thing??)
• Full perm small grey/brown mouse: Also L$275, though not a rat, I thought similar enough I'd toss it in
• Full perm curled sleeping mouse: Also L$275; this one and the above are again pre-textured
• Finally, the...err..newborn??...variety: Full perm baby rat: L$275, and the...skin texture, I guess...is already on the thing.

So there you have it. Sort of a...rat roundup? Or something.



Cheers?