Help Rescue Animals in a Click!

Hey animals! Sorry for the *ahem* lack in posting today. Nothing much seemed important, I had to take care of my friend's cat, and... you get the point.

In a sort of apology, I'm posting at 11 pm with a cool link just for you! I've been meaning to put this up for a while now, but with summer I've been getting lazier and more forgetful. 

Do you love animals? Do you want to help them but are either too busy or too lazy to get off your butt and/or computer and take action? 

Then visit The Animal Rescue Site, where you can help the rainforest, give shelter pets food, and protect endangered animals with little to no effort for free.

Here's how:

1. Click here to go to the rainforest page. All the other pages where you can help shelter animals or help end world hunger can be reached through links at the top.

2. Bookmark the page or pages you want.

3. Every day you have access to a computer, click the button/s. 

I've been doing this for a few months now, so I'm pretty sure it's reliable. My guess is that all of your clicks are entered in a sort of anonymous petition.

It may not seem like it could help at all in any of these endeavors, but really any positive action is better than no action at all. Indecision and idleness is as bad as the issue itself.

Goodnight and see you in Jamaa!

AJ Jolt and Comments!

Hey animals! Welcome to a new and exciting daily edition on Animal Jam Stream, minus the exciting! 

Every day there are new things to discover, and on Thursdays every other week they build up into a massive tidal wave capable of destroying a small town! Cool, huh?? Well it's only cool if you have some scuba gear with a lot of oxygen stored inside, because you're going to need i– hey look, the wave has come early! AAAAAAAAAAHGHHHHH!!

Ok, onto business. *gets out sunglasses* The new item of today is sold in Jam Mart Clothing.

Hey, it's the ladybug from Jamaa Township! 

I wonder how it looks on a panda.

Next up, instead of answering your comments directly, I'm going to answer them here, right in this post. Going back to a post to see if your comment was answered can be forgotten, and one of those questions is a popular one.

 Ok, here we go!

"The search is over! But you can't use it unless you have 150$ to spare. Dang, I was looking forward to using that wonderful font. How about the other font that AJ uses? Do you know what it's called? The kind of blocky but very cool looking font? Know what I mean?" – wolfpaws4330

Yes, I do know! In fact I use it a lot in photoshop for blog graphics, like my header. It's called Tiki Island and if you look closely, you'll see that it's the same exact font they use for that creepy show Spongebob Squarepants!

Unlike the other, more expensive font, this one is a luckily quick and free download. For information on how to download and use Tiki Island, click here, and once you think you know the ropes, click here to go to the download page!

One font used on AJ (the chat font) is CC Digital Delivery, and the other chunky font is Tiki Island. Next comment!

"Wow.. that sure is a hecka lotta money. I don't really pay attention to buying more fonts (it's my mom that does that. it depends on her job). AND I have a question. Doomypanda, is it okay if I buddy you? Jam on!" – jhana

Of course it is! It always is, just after I clear my list out a bit. Next comment!

"Doomy, could you please get on? I really want to play with you. I'm qwertycat1211. Send me a jamagram just to know when you're on. Thanks!" 
– qwertycat1211

Ah, sorry, I can't be online much today– but its okay! I'm guessing your urgency is because I said I would remove everyone from my buddy list who I never talk to, but "talking" included Jam a Grams and commenting, too. I meant removing those who I literally have no idea about how they got there, which make up the majority of my list.

Besides, after I clear up my list I will resume accepting every request.

Thanks for commenting, everyone! :)

From the vague title, I'm sure you're wondering what "AJ Jolt" is, and I'm sure you've guessed by now that it's an Animal Jam blog. But what makes it so special that it deserves a feature on a single post?

Because it's my IRL best friend's blog!

You know her as Furryfruit73, depict, the one who deleted her other blog about a day after me announcing her return, Zuchinnii, and a whole slew of other weird usernames. She has over 15 accounts!

She asked me to feature it, so I'll do more than that. Hey, you got a whole section of a post dedicated to you!

She opened up a new blog called Animal Jam Jolt, which she updates frequently enough. Let's hope she sticks with this!

Click here to see it!

This post just won't end, will it? 
Don't worry, it's just a Jamaa Street Fashion snap!

Her animal's outfit matches her name!

This is an all-blue color scheme with only two items; Rare Star Glasses, and Freedom Leg Armor.

And finally, this big dumb post is over! It's been fun, hasn't it? Well it certainly took me an hour to type up.

Jam on, animals!

Buddy of the Month – August!

Hey animals! Thanks to Qwertycat1211 for reminding me, yes, I'm finally posting the monthly featured buddy for August.

But before I begin, I just want to give out a quick notice. While I do accept almost every buddy request, only a few of you have formed a sort of relationship with me i.e. having a conversation. My buddy list is quickly overflowing into the 90's, so I will be taking people off that have been my buddy for a while but I never really knew.

This does not include people who I've talked with at least once.

Well, onto the BOTM! 

Queen Icyfox only recently (last month) buddied me, and we've been talking for a while. She's quiet, calm, and while she never seemed like the type to have heated debates, we have conversations that go on long but are never boring.

Thanks for being my friend, Queen. :)

Before I go, I wanted to show you all something that may be good to know for my fellow AJ bloggers out there. 

What is this? It's the default Animal Jam font! I've found it at last... After all these years of perilous journeys and disappointments, it's finally found... *wipes tear from cheek* It's the discovery of a life time...

It's called CCDigital Delivery, and can be downloaded by google searching the name, but there's a big bad catch to it...

It costs... *exasperated gasp* ...money.

And too much of it. I don't know much about money, but $149? Thats far too much, even if it is a beautiful font! Just when I was getting my hopes up...

Well, AJHQ must want to make Animal Jam the BEST if they're spending over a hundred dollars on a luxury font family.

If you see that price and aren't taken aback by it, I think you need to go sit in the corner and think about how many bags of potato chips you could buy with $150. Think about how many life size inflatable aliens you can buy with that... heck, you could make an army. You could make an army AND still have a few potato chip bags left.

Now think about no potato chips, no inflatable aliens... only a lousy downloaded font. Feeling sad? Good.

See you in Jamaa, and as always, Jam on!

Best and Worst Pet Foods

Hey jammers! Once again, for the millionth time, I'm sorry for forgetting to post. Long story short, my brother keeps hogging the computer for 90% of the time, and I have garden club. 

If you listen closely, you can hear a lobster crying in the distance because no one thinks he's useful.

As another example of my laziness, I'm going to skip the new item today and focus on less news-ish content. You probably know the new item has something to do with ice cream and benches. A very sticky sweet bench. Kind of gross, if you think about it.

Remember when I used to do informational posts? Info posts? Does that ring a bell at all? I've decided to do a very short one here that as you may have already guessed from the title, is for pet owners– specifically cat and dog owners.

Something that I think people don't put much thought into is what they feed their pets. Well, sure you can talk to a veterinarian or go online to see which food is highest in nutrients, but there is a whole lot more in many commercial pet foods than just nutrients. The back of a Purina cat food tin shows what looks like over 50 ingredients, each more hard to pronounce than the last.

BHA, poultry by-product, and even corn can be extremely harmful. If you own a dog or a cat, or even know someone who owns one, you may want to read on to find out what exactly is in what you feed your pets that may be making them sick or act weird. 

–or even if they seem alright, damage isn't always obvious. 

First, I'll show you what exactly those weird ingredients are, their affects, and some pet foods that are both nutrient-rich and healthy. 

Before I begin, I hope you already know that you should never ever feed a dog sugar, chocolate, spices, bones that they could choke on, garlic, or hot sauce.

The following is found in popular pet food including but not limited to:

 Kibbles 'n Bits, Pedigree, Ol Roy, Gravy Train, Purina, IAMS ProActive Health, Alpo, and Beneful

Negative content 1: BHA/animal fat preserved with BHA

BHA effects: Scientifically proven to cause tumors and cancer.

Negative content 2: animal fat (on its own)

Animal fat effects/origins: "animal fat" can be from anything from diseased cattle to euthanized shelter pets to even roadkill. The euthanasia is not removed, and I'm pretty sure you've already speculated that disease is part of this.

Negative content 3: Yellow 6

Effects/origins: A yellow colored dye that is known to cause tumors in the kidneys and adrenal glands. 

Negative content 4: Propylene glycol

Effects/origins: Can be toxic if consumed over months– as if as frequently as pet food.

Negative content 5: Ground corn/corn germ meal/any thing that says "corn"

Effects/origins: It may sound innocent, but corn is completely indigestible to dogs and is the leading cause of canine food allergies.

Negative content 6: Soybean meal

Effects/origins: Indigestible

Negative content 7: meat byproducts of any kind

Effects/origins: Byproducts are deemed unfit for human consumption, so you're feeding your pet garbage basically.

Negative content 8: Dried beet pulp

Effects/origins: Beets are ultimately sugar, and in case you don't know, never ever feed a dog sugar. It's toxic, causes stress on the pancreas and adrenals, resulting in diabetes. 

Okay, but what are some good, healthy things?

Overall, dogs need at least 90% (good) meat content to be good and healthy, and no grains, but rice is less harmful. It's impossible for a dog to digest corn, wheat, or soy.

Here are some good kibble ingredients:

Sweet potato – Very good and easily digestible.

Potato – Easily digestible, good starch.

Peas – Good, simple fiber.

Guidelines for a good meat-based meal:

1. Stay away from unnamed animal sources for meat. No meat byproducts, no "animal fat," no "liver," no "digest," no "meat/bone meal."

2. In the ingredients, make sure the two mainly advertised (on the cover lid) ingredients are first on the list, like chicken or tuna. 

3. EVEN IF YOUR DOG ACTS LIKE THEY LIKE IT, THAT DOESNT MEAN ITS NOT DESTROYING THEM FROM THE INSIDE OUT. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH.

4. To be basic, choose a dog food with none of the harmful ingredients listed farther above.

In repetition, here is a list of THE WORST brands:

Pedigree, Kibbles 'n Bits, Alpo, Gravy Train (cringe), Purina Dog Chow, Beneful Original, Ol'roy...

Here are some OKAY brands:

IAMs Healthy Naturals, Pro Plan, Purina Beyond One, Science Diet, Eukanuba, Diamond brand,

 Finally some GOOD AND GREAT brands:

Blue Buffalo, Blue Buffalo Wilderness Taste of the Wild, Canidae, Wellness, Wellness Core, Innova, Diamond Naturals, Solid Gold, Acana, and Evo.

But what is the absolute 100% best diet? 

Raw diet including the meat, bones, and organs or prey animals such as poultry, cattle, venison, pork (If frozen for over three weeks), rabbits, rats, mice, and guinea pigs. Dogs can also be given veggies in small amounts, but no more that 10-15% of their diet can be vegetable. It is also important to grind/blend the veggies up in a food processor. Dogs can not digest the cellulose walls to get at the nutrients inside so its important to break the walls yourself.

Of course, not everyone can afford that. If you have enough money, save the raw diet for special days...

But read more on what a "raw" meat dog diet is online before you do anything drastic.

And before I conclude this info post, here are the sources for all this information, including the forum topic I learned this all from:

http://www.chickensmoothie.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=917201

http://www.naturalnews.com/012647.html
http://www.preciouspets.org/truth.htm
http://www.purelypets.com/articles/whatsinfood.htm

http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php ... ngredients 

http://dogfoodanalysis.com/

I hope this post can save pets and make their lives healthier and happier.

As always, jam on!

~DoomyPanda

Overview of Animal Jam Insiders

Hey jammers! Over the weekend I got the new Animal Jam Insiders guide, and read through it all during the afternoon.

 It was pretty good! There were a few minor errors; most that are acceptable for a guidebook for a game that constantly changes, but overall it was great! The layout was nice and while I'm sure only long-time players are going to buy it, Animal Jam Insiders certainly is an informative thing to start with on AJ.

It talks about all of the basic stuff; how not to be scammed, information about each animal and land, but even if you think you know it all already there are some interesting pieces on inspiration for each land, as well as information on that particular environment.

Even though in a year or so AJ will be completely different and this guide will be a puzzle missing pieces, there is some interesting educational content about everything! From rocks that move on their own to the koala's dietary habits, this guide keeps the "Animal" in Animal Jam.

To begin, here is a brief overview of what this guide includes, ordered by frequency:

1. Educational material about nature, which actually is pretty interesting.

2. General knowledge you would normally be acquainted with after playing for a few months.

3. A whole new elaboration of the story of Jamaa.

4. Little bits to give us guesses on what new things will come, but nothing clearly stated.

It takes a bit long if you read every single page, and took me about an hour and a half to read without pause. If you get this and are serious about reading, make some time!

Before you continue reading, here is a key:

Probabilities for the future are colored green.

New information is blue.

Things of note are brown.

Part 1: Jamaa's Beginnings

The whole book begins with a newer and (in my opinion) better take on the ever-changing story of Jamaa. I'm not going to copy everything down word-for-word and make people who already ordered the book feel cheated out of their money. I'll leave the majority out, but focus in on the major changes.

This is a possible *spoiler*, but to repeat, this is not the whole story.

It focuses in on a peaceful time in Jamaa. Everyone is together and happy... but then they're not. They become exclusive in friendships, which causes underlying tension in their world.

Next thing you know, phantom portals are popping up everywhere! Mira's tears are not mentioned anywhere, much unlike the originally told story. 

The phantoms all look the same and act the same, but the main thing the phantoms are antagonized for now is the pollution they spread into the air, the water, and into the earth. Pretty scary, actually.

Mira's creation was not told anywhere, but may be added on later. Mira and Zios are no longer Sky Mother and Sky Father, but guardian spirits. They may or may not be different words for the same things.

Heartstones are introduced! Heartstones were referred to in a very old Jamaa Journal around 2010, either by the same or different names. There are Heartstones for each species, and when a new animal is discovered, it isn't the animal being discovered, but the Heartstone! No wonder why there are so little animals in Jamaa in comparison to real Earth.

And finally, after some events I'll leave you to read about in the book, some loose ends on Mira and Zios' disappearance are tied up. They're sucked into phantom portals!

This will probably lead the way to a brand new adventure– quite possibly the last and the hardest one –where you have to rescue them!

The story is much more fleshed out and longer than the older ones, and is actually pretty good for something AJ might write. This short blurb doesn't really do it justice, so if you're getting the book, don't be discouraged by this new information.

Part 2: Hints

There aren't many really obvious hints about future events or abilities, but here are a few... hints of hints that you may want to take note of.

1. Heartstones are said to have been hidden in the basement under the Chamber of Knowledge. Confused? Find the trap door on the first floor.

2. On the list of animals, a special symbol was noted to be next to aquatic animals, or animals you can play as that can go to places like Kani Cove. This symbol was next to a crocodile, but as of now you cannot swim as a crocodile. Crocodiles can swim in salt water, and they haven't been getting much attention from players recently so this would be a very likely thing to happen in the future.

3. Hints are still being dropped about the bridges breaking. In the Alpha Notes, Graham remarks "[...]the bridge has not broken– yet. I wonder what will happen when it does..." (page 116). As of now, all signs point to the bridges breaking finally at some point during some update.

I wonder in the future how many of these predictions will prove right!

Part 3: Things of Note

Looking through, I found at least one thing that could prove unfortunate if the player takes action on it. On the wolves page, it says that Arctic Wolves can be purchased only with a gift card while they can be acquired in the Diamond Shop. I'm pretty sure this is a mistake.

For now, this is all I have on the new AJ Insiders guide. I will add on to it maybe at a later date, but for now...

Jam on!

~DoomyPanda