Jesus H. Christ. Is anyone HOME in there? If you must rescue fish, then by all means, rescue them–guilty of that enough times myself–but don’t expect them to chug along, hale and hearty as any to ever leave the clean, well-kept tank of a reputable hobby breeder. I’ve explained and explained, and I don’t know any other way to tell you–IT JUST AIN’T GONNA FUCKING HAPPEN. Farmed fish are bred for numbers, not quality. Wal-Mart’s fish department is one of the more thoroughly disgusting places on the face of the planet. So are most Petsmart/Petco fish departments. What part of “poor quality stock, stressed to their limits” are you not getting? What else do I have to say? I don’t give a rat’s arse if you kept fish in 1970-something–dude, that was thirty years ago, and a lot has changed since then. Aquarium fish are big business now, and when corporations get involved, you can bet that quality is sacrificed for profit. That’s just the way of the world in this brave new millenium. Deal with it, move on and quit fucking whining.

P.S. Unrelated by subject, but same idea…

Dear MS Lover,
It is not 1996 anymore, you can no longer kindly offer to share your copy of Office with a computer-illiterate buddy who doesn’t use it enough to warrant its $200-$500 price tag, and your beloved MS is not your friend. Your “friend” treats its customers (or are they consumers now?) like thieves and forces them to prove they are not at every possible opportunity. Your “friend” requires products to be activated and tied to the hardware and checks via the internet to make sure that it has had the chance to gouge every possible cent out of anyone using its products, even if that person wouldn’t create or even open more than half a dozen Office documents in a year. OpenOffice rules!