There's been rumors going around, it's been on the DL but yes it is true, Lahar is breaking up.

Here is some info on the last show, there are more bands TBA but it gives you a date to go for.

Sat​​urd​​ay,​​ Jun​​e 7th​​ @ The​​ Via​​duc​​t in Tac​​oma​​
W/ Mas​sac​re Tim​e, and​ mor​e TBA​

Kee​p che​cki​ng out​ the​ir Mys​pac​e for​ mor​e inf​orm​ati​on to com​e:
www.myspace.com/lahar

It's that time of year, the Boston Buddies 2008 Calendar is up for sale and this year Genma is in it!

Click the link to see each month's page, or if you're interested in ordering:
http://www.cafepress.com/boston_buddies.186806382

When in Washington State beware of falling cows

http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_110605WAB_falling_cow_hits_minivan_JM.1e34a65e4.html

If I Didn't Have Dogs...

I could walk around the yard barefoot in safety.


My house could be carpeted instead of tiled and laminated.


All flat surfaces, clothing, furniture, and cars would be free of
hair.


When the doorbell rings, it wouldn't sound like a kennel.


When the doorbell rings, I could get to the door without wading
through fuzzy bodies who beat me there.


I could sit on the couch and my bed the way I wanted, without taking
into consideration how much space several fur bodies would need to
get comfortable.


I would have money ....and no guilt to go on a real vacation.


I would not be on a first-name basis with 6 veterinarians, as I put
their yet unborn grand kids through college.


The most used words in my vocabulary would not be: out, sit, down,
come, no, stay, and leave him/her/it ALONE.


My house would not be cordoned off into zones with baby gates or
barriers.


My house would not look like a day care center, toys everywhere.


My pockets would not contain things like poop bags, treats and an
extra leash.


I would no longer have to Spell the words
B-A-L-L, F-R-I-S-B-E- E, W-A-L-K, T-R-E-A-T, B-I-K-E, G-O, R-I-D-E


I would not have as many leaves INSIDE my house as outside.


I would not look strangely at people who think having ONE dog/cat
ties them down too much.


I'd look forward to spring and the rainy season instead of
dreading "mud" season.


I would not have to answer the question "Why do you have so many
animals?" from people who will never have the joy in their lives of
knowing they are loved unconditionally by someone as close to an
angel as they will ever get.


How EMPTY my life would be!

Genma is in "The 3rd Annual World's Coolest Dog & Cat Show", please vote for him! (Just click on the little box below) :)



"Naughiest dog"


"Costumes and shades"


"Tonuges/slobber"


"Smiles and grins"

I saw this on the news last night. How scary!

*A MUST READ FOR DOG OWNERS*

http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/xylitol.asp

I survived my week of over-nighters. Ah, they suck! After getting off work at 4am yesterday, I came home and slept until Andrew got off work. Yes, about 12 hours of sleep and I was STILL tired.

Monday is inventory, I'm hoping I don't have to work an over-nighter again.

PS: I just woke up to my phone beeping, talking (yes, talking - it's telling to please name who I would like to call), and lighting up every few seconds. Andrew's cup fell over last night, and spilled ice tea all over my phone. Thank god I have insurance it, otherwise I would be freaking out cause it's only a few months old and I spent over $300 on it.

http://www.komotv.com/news/6798647.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal testing of recalled pet foods turned up a chemical used to make plastics but failed to confirm the presence of a cancer drug also used as rat poison. The recall expanded Friday to include the first dry pet food.

The Food and Drug Administration said Friday it found melamine in samples of the Menu Foods pet food involved in the original recall and in imported wheat gluten used as an ingredient in the company's wet-style products. Cornell University scientists also found melamine in the urine of sick cats, as well as in the kidney of one cat that died after eating some of the recalled food.

Meanwhile, Hill's Pet Nutrition recalled its Prescription Diet m/d Feline dry cat food. The food included wheat gluten from the same supplier that Menu Foods used. The recall didn't involve any other Prescription Diet or Science Diet products, said the company, a division of Colgate-Palmolive Co.

FDA was working to rule out the possibility that the contaminated wheat gluten could have made it into any human food. However, melamine is toxic only in high doses, experts said, leaving its role in the pet deaths unclear.

Menu Foods recalled 60 million containers of cat and dog food, sold throughout North America under nearly 100 brands, earlier this month after animals died of kidney failure after eating the Canadian company's products. It is not clear how many pets may have been poisoned by the apparently contaminated food, although anecdotal reports suggest hundreds if not thousands have died. The FDA alone has received more than 8,000 complaints; the company, more than 300,000.

Company officials on Friday would not provide updated numbers of pets sickened or killed by its contaminated product. Pet owners would be compensated for veterinary bills and the deaths of any dogs and cats linked to his company's products, the company said.

The melamine finding came a week after scientists at the New York State Food Laboratory identified a cancer drug and rat poison called aminopterin as the likely culprit in the pet food. But the FDA said it could not confirm that finding, nor have researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey when they looked at tissue samples taken from dead cats. And experts at the University of Guelph detected aminopterin in some samples of the recalled pet food, but only in the parts per billion or trillion range.

"Biologically, that means nothing. It wouldn't do anything," said Grant Maxie, a veterinary pathologist at the Canadian university. "This is a puzzle."

Meanwhile, New York officials stuck to their aminopterin finding and pointed out that it was unlikely that melamine could have poisoned any of the animals thought to have died after eating the contaminated pet food. Melamine is used to make plastic kitchen ware and is used as a fertilizer in Asia.

An FDA official allowed that it wasn't immediately clear whether the melamine was the culprit. The agency's investigation continues, said Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine.

In a news conference, Sundlof and other FDA officials said the melamine had contaminated a shipment of wheat gluten imported from China and purchased by Menu Foods from an undisclosed supplier in the United States. At least some of the that wheat gluten was used in all the recalled wet pet food, according to Menu Foods.

Menu Foods said the only certainty was the imported Chinese product was the likely source of the deadly contamination, even if the actual contaminant remained in doubt.

"The important point today is that the source of the adulteration has been identified and removed from our system," said Paul Henderson, Menu Foods chief executive officer and president. Henderson suggested his company would pursue legal action against the supplier.

New York remained confident in its aminopterin finding, said Patrick Hooker, commissioner of the state Department of Agriculture and Markets. Hooker added that neither aminopterin nor melamine should be in pet food, but that it was unclear why the latter substance would be poisonous to the cats in which it was found.

"While we have no doubt that melamine is present in the recalled pet food, there is not enough known data on the mammalian toxicity levels of melamine to conclude it could cause illness and deaths in cats. With little existing data, many questions still remain as to the connection between the illnesses and what has caused them," Hooker said.

Wheat gluten, a source of vegetable protein, is also used in some human foods, but the FDA emphasized it had found no indication that the contaminated ingredient had been used in food for people. The FDA said it would alert the public quickly if the melamine was found in any foods other than the recalled pet food.

About 70 percent of the wheat gluten used in the United States for human and pet food is imported from the European Union and Asia, according to the Pet Food Institute, an industry group. Menu Foods used wheat gluten to thicken the gravy of its "cuts and gravy" style wet pet foods, FDA officials have said.

One veterinarian suggested the international sourcing of ingredients would force the U.S. "to come to grips with a reality we had not appreciated."

"When you change from getting an ingredient from the supplier down the road to a supplier from around the globe, maybe the methods and practices that were effective in one situation need to be changed," said Tony Buffington, a professor of veterinary clinical sciences at Ohio State University.

The FDA's Sundlof said the agency may change how it regulates the pet food industry.

"In this case, we're going to have to look at this after the dust settles and determine if there is something from a regulatory standpoint that we could have done differently to prevent this incident from occurring," he said.

http://www.komotv.com/news/6666262.html

By Associated Press Watch the story ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Rat poison was found in pet food blamed for the deaths of at least 17 cats and dogs, but scientists said Friday they still don't know how it got there and predicted more animal deaths would be linked to it.

After the announcement, the company that produced the food expanded its recall to include all 95 brands of the "cuts and gravy" style food, regardless of when they were produced. The company also said it would take responsibility for pet medical expenses incurred as a result of the food.

The substance in the food was identified as aminopterin, a cancer drug that once was used to induce abortions in the United States and is still used to kill rats in some other countries, state Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker said.

The federal government prohibits using aminopterin for killing rodents in the U.S. State officials would not speculate on how the poison got into the pet food, but said no criminal investigations had been launched.

The pet deaths led to a recall of 60 million cans and pouches of dog and cat food produced by Menu Foods and sold throughout North America under 95 brand names. Some pets that ate the recalled brands suffered kidney failure, and the company has confirmed the deaths of 15 cats and two dogs.

The latest death, a Yorkshire terrier named Pebbles, occurred Thursday. The dog died of kidney failure after eating some of the food. Her owner, Jeff Kerner, said he was contacting an attorney because he wanted to prevent another pet tragedy.

"Before they put this stuff in the bags, there should be some kind of test," said Kerner, of Sherman Oaks, Calif. "I can't just let it go. Even if they just change the law."

The company expanded the recall - which initially covered only cans and pouches of food packaged from Dec. 3 through March 6 - after the FDA alerted it that some products remained on store shelves.

There is no risk to pet owners from handling the food, officials said.

The Food and Drug Administration has said the investigation into the pet deaths was focused on wheat gluten in the food. The gluten itself would not cause kidney failure, but it could have been contaminated, the FDA said.

Paul Henderson, chief executive of Ontario, Canada-based Menu Foods, confirmed Friday that the wheat gluten was purchased from China.

Bob Rosenberg, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Pest Management Association, said it would be unusual for the wheat to be tainted.

"It would make no sense to spray a crop itself with rodenticide," Rosenberg said, adding that grain shippers typically put bait stations around the perimeter of their storage facilities.

Scientists at the New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell University and at the New York State Food Laboratory tested three cat food samples provided by the manufacturer and found aminopterin in two of them. The two labs are part of a network created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to keep the nation's animals and food supply safe.

"Any amount of this product is too much in food," Hooker said.

Aminopterin is highly toxic in high doses. It inhibits the growth of malignant cells and suppresses the immune system. In dogs and cats, the amount of aminopterin found - 40 parts per million - can cause kidney failure, according to Bruce Akey, director of Cornell's diagnostic center.

"It's there in substantial amounts," Akey said.

Donald Smith, dean of Cornell's veterinary school, said he expected the number of pet deaths to increase. "Based on what we've heard the last couple days, 16 is a low number," Smith said.

Aminopterin is no longer marketed as a cancer drug, but is still used in research, said Andre Rosowsky, a chemist with the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

Rosowsky speculated that the substance would not show up in pet food "unless somebody put it there."

Henderson said Menu Foods does not believe the food was tampered with because the recalled food came from two different plants, one in Kansas, one in New Jersey. Menu continues to produce food at the two plants.

The company, already facing lawsuits, said Friday it is testing all the ingredients that go into the food.

"We have a lot of work to do, and we are eager to get back to it," Henderson said. "This is a highly unusual substance."

When asked whether there would compensation for medical bills for sick pets, Henderson said "to the extent that we identify that the cause of any expenses incurred are related to the food, Menu will take responsibility for that."

A complete list of the recalled products along with product codes, descriptions and production dates was posted online by Menu Foods and is available at http://www.menufoods.com/recall/. The company also designated two phone numbers that pet owners could call for information: (866) 463-6738 and (866) 895-2708.

http://www.menufoods.com/recall/product_dog.html

That is the entire list of all recalled food (the recall only affects the cans/pouches) for dogs and cats. Click on the brands of food for the entire list.