What the title says... here's a few thoughts on the subject, based on stuff that's been going on recently:
Have a heatwave. I can usually keep functioning until 11pm quite happily, but I've struggled lately. It's been particularly awkward at work - I seem to have spent several hours feeling like I'm wilting all over the till.
Play Antichamber. Acquired recently when it came up on a Steam sale, taken more than 5 hours so far... and I don't even know how much of it I've solved. It's unspeakably confusing. Non-euclidean geometry, things changing behind your back (which often happens in my dreams, but now it's happening on my PC monitor too!), and sundry other very odd game mechanics. Makes you miss the comparative linearity of Portal.
Change all the windows in your house and get paranoid that something's missing. It's especially confusing in the porch, because the new front door has a lot more glazing than the old one, and lets in a lot more light, generating the subconscious assumption that it must have been left open by mistake. Which is confusing when the door's actually shut. Still, the new windows are, in themselves, very nice, and the new front door key has the added bonus of looking not so much like a key as we know it, Jim, but more like some fragment of the Enterprise which has gotten lost in time.
Get your new hamster to eat something which you don't know isn't poisonous. After a longish period without any hamsters, we've had two new ones in the last week: Smokey (Ben's fourth), and Muffy (Sophie's fifth). I went to clean my teeth last night, and found Muffy's cage temporarily sited on the kitchen table, and the rodent busy munching on a bit of christmas cactus which was accidentally poking through the bars. I had no idea whether or not christmas cacti are toxic, so I pulled the plant out of reach (which left the hamster looking a bit confused!), and scuttled off to google the thing. The internet seemed to concur that christmas cacti aren't poisonous - the worst that might happen is a bit of gastric upset and vomiting, but nothing life-threatening - so I could sleep easy. But still, while it lasted, one more thing to help fry my brain cells...
Any other suggestions?
- The Colclough
Showing posts with label Hamster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hamster. Show all posts
Saturday, 3 August 2013
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Happy days...
The last 48 hours or so have been pretty good ones. Barring the ones I spent failing to get to sleep, that is 8p
The artwork is going well. I finished Stained Glass V on Saturday, started SG VI on Monday, and am very pleased with both. River III and untitled variations no. IV are also coming along more or less as planned. Piccies follow:
River III (WIP)
untitled variations no. IV (WIP)
Tim's been writing some music for one of my in-development animation projects, and it's very cool. Not ready to be shown off yet, but it's one more reason I'm chirpy at the moment.
My new Lego arrived last night. Made my evening, needless to say. And before you all start saying "but I thought you were almost 24..." - there's no such thing as "too much Lego" or "too old for Lego"; those are myths invented by boring people. I haven't had any new Lego in years, and I've tended to put Christmas and birthday money in savings, but this time round I decided I'd actually use some of the cash to buy something I wanted, so I ordered a custom-designed Lego set, with new equipment for Doctor Murkum's private militia.
Some of Murkum's men with their new uniforms, blasters and aircraft - the one in the blue fighter craft is Atkun, the chief engineer, and the one with the white top is Gonce, the cook.
The guinea pigs are gone. I always said they were a bad idea, and eventually everyone else (except Sophie, of course) has come round to my view on the topic. This morning, Ben and I were handed the offending rodents in a box and asked to take them for one last trip, in the general direction of an animal shelter on the far side of Wokingham.
I did get there in the end, no thanks to our satnav which spent the whole journey claiming it couldn't find a GPS signal, while I navigated using memory, road signs, and the odd atlas check by Ben. I decided I don't like driving in Wokingham. Too many confusing one-way streets and stuff. But that's not the point - the point is, it might have looked for about four months like I'd lost the debate, but as of today I have absolutely definitely won. No more pets bigger than a hamster in this house, I don't think.
Speaking of rodents: Dusty is quickly turning out to be a much better critter than the guinea pigs ever were. He's followed Scribbles' footsteps, quite literally, taking his first evening stroll around my desk on Monday. He tried nibbling all sorts of things (including the curtain), but fortunately seemed to decide he didn't like the taste of any of them. I did get a bit worried when he started showing an interest in some coins I'd left lying around, and it looked for a moment as if he was about to stuff a 20p in his cheek and never give it back, but then he changed his mind and waddled off to taste the speaker cable instead. He's incredibly similar to his predecessor, including having big tufts of hair growing out of his hips and making him look like some sort of overgrown fluffy earwig, and including a tendency to jump off the side of the desk and perform dusting services on the way down.
Statistics:
- The Colclough
The artwork is going well. I finished Stained Glass V on Saturday, started SG VI on Monday, and am very pleased with both. River III and untitled variations no. IV are also coming along more or less as planned. Piccies follow:
Stained Glass V (complete) & VI (WIP)
Tim's been writing some music for one of my in-development animation projects, and it's very cool. Not ready to be shown off yet, but it's one more reason I'm chirpy at the moment.
My new Lego arrived last night. Made my evening, needless to say. And before you all start saying "but I thought you were almost 24..." - there's no such thing as "too much Lego" or "too old for Lego"; those are myths invented by boring people. I haven't had any new Lego in years, and I've tended to put Christmas and birthday money in savings, but this time round I decided I'd actually use some of the cash to buy something I wanted, so I ordered a custom-designed Lego set, with new equipment for Doctor Murkum's private militia.
The guinea pigs are gone. I always said they were a bad idea, and eventually everyone else (except Sophie, of course) has come round to my view on the topic. This morning, Ben and I were handed the offending rodents in a box and asked to take them for one last trip, in the general direction of an animal shelter on the far side of Wokingham.
I did get there in the end, no thanks to our satnav which spent the whole journey claiming it couldn't find a GPS signal, while I navigated using memory, road signs, and the odd atlas check by Ben. I decided I don't like driving in Wokingham. Too many confusing one-way streets and stuff. But that's not the point - the point is, it might have looked for about four months like I'd lost the debate, but as of today I have absolutely definitely won. No more pets bigger than a hamster in this house, I don't think.
Speaking of rodents: Dusty is quickly turning out to be a much better critter than the guinea pigs ever were. He's followed Scribbles' footsteps, quite literally, taking his first evening stroll around my desk on Monday. He tried nibbling all sorts of things (including the curtain), but fortunately seemed to decide he didn't like the taste of any of them. I did get a bit worried when he started showing an interest in some coins I'd left lying around, and it looked for a moment as if he was about to stuff a 20p in his cheek and never give it back, but then he changed his mind and waddled off to taste the speaker cable instead. He's incredibly similar to his predecessor, including having big tufts of hair growing out of his hips and making him look like some sort of overgrown fluffy earwig, and including a tendency to jump off the side of the desk and perform dusting services on the way down.
Statistics:
- First 12 for '12 status: 10 down, 2 to go
- Latest book read: part of 1 Kings from the KJV
- Latest film/TV watched: Michael Palin's Sahara, part 2
- Latest music listened to: Golden Cube OST (WIP) by Timothy Johnston
- Latest edible item eaten: beefburger
- Predominant colour of clothes: blue and grey on the outside; red t-shirt underneath
- Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook and Excel 2007, Firefox (tabs: Blogspot Dashboard; Blogspot Create Post; MatNav 6.1), Windows Media Player 11, Skype
- Webcomics posted today: n/a
- The Colclough
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Hello, You
I seem to say that to hamsters a lot. Hello, you. And as of this afternoon, we've got another hamster for me to say it to.
I've just come downstairs from watching Scribbles' successor move into his new home. He's called Dusty, and is the spitting image of Scribbles two years ago - what with the similarity in appearance and the fact that we had both from the same pet centre, I can't help wondering if they're related. Is Dusty Scribbles' great-nephew or something? Who knows...
For the record, Dusty is Ben's third hamster, our seventh hamster overall, and our ninth rodent. Yes, I've been counting. Not sure exactly how old he is, but I'd hazard a guess of between one and two months.
I'm not allowed to handle him yet. Nobody is until at least Tuesday, and even then it should really only be Ben and only very carefully. I don't even have a photo to show you. But I thought that his arrival should be noted here anyway.
The big thing for me, of course, is that I hope Dusty will continue the tradition of Ben's hamsters not biting me. I'm quite fond of that tradition, as you might imagine. I've forgiven Taffy for her toothy debut, but I still hope it won't be repeated. We'll have to wait and see.
Oh, and I wonder if Dusty will continue Scribbles' habit of going to the toilet behind my monitor?
Me Stats:
- The Colclough
I've just come downstairs from watching Scribbles' successor move into his new home. He's called Dusty, and is the spitting image of Scribbles two years ago - what with the similarity in appearance and the fact that we had both from the same pet centre, I can't help wondering if they're related. Is Dusty Scribbles' great-nephew or something? Who knows...
For the record, Dusty is Ben's third hamster, our seventh hamster overall, and our ninth rodent. Yes, I've been counting. Not sure exactly how old he is, but I'd hazard a guess of between one and two months.
I'm not allowed to handle him yet. Nobody is until at least Tuesday, and even then it should really only be Ben and only very carefully. I don't even have a photo to show you. But I thought that his arrival should be noted here anyway.
The big thing for me, of course, is that I hope Dusty will continue the tradition of Ben's hamsters not biting me. I'm quite fond of that tradition, as you might imagine. I've forgiven Taffy for her toothy debut, but I still hope it won't be repeated. We'll have to wait and see.
Oh, and I wonder if Dusty will continue Scribbles' habit of going to the toilet behind my monitor?
Me Stats:
- First 12 for '12 status: 6 down, 6 to go - half-way to securing fourth place, I guess
- Latest book read: still A Brit Different
- Latest film/TV watched: Wallace & Gromit's World of Invention
- Latest music listened to: can't remember
- Latest edible item eaten: bit of chocolate; banoffee pie before that
- Predominant colour of clothes: blues and greys
- Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook and Word 2007, Firefox (tabs: MatNav 6.1, twice; A White Horizon; Blogspot Create Post), Skype
- Webcomics posted today: n/a
- The Colclough
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
One Less Light
Farewell, Scribbles - best of rodents and last of the Intergalactic Hamsters. Thanks for everything. Rest in peace.
- The Colclough
~~~ Scribbles ~~~
August 2009 - 13 December 2011
- The Colclough
Thursday, 13 January 2011
From Yesterday
Yesterday (Wednesday 12 January 2011), I did something I hadn't done for about six-and-a-half years: I went for a repeat viewing of a film at the cinema. There had previously been exactly four films I saw on the big screen twice each: the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Shrek 2. As of yesterday, this exclusive list has expanded to include Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
As so often happens with films based on books, I spent a lot of the first screening worrying about how much it had changed from the source novel. That, and being distracted by popcorn management issues. This time round, it was more a case of sitting back and enjoying the ride. I suspect the projector might have been ever-so-slightly better focussed this time as well - or my glasses were cleaner. The rest of the family all seem to be in agreement that Dawn Treader is better than its immediate predecessor Prince Caspian, but I'm not so sure - not that I think VotDT has gone downhill, more that I didn't dislike Caspian as much as a lot of other people seemed to do. Both have their flaws, but both did pretty well on the whole, IMHO.
Also while in town, I acquired a webcam. I went into WHSmiths with £40's worth of gift cards to use, and after pootling around the whole place two or three times I decided that the webcam for £39.99 seemed like the best option. The book section was mostly full of GCSE revision guides (I've got a first-class BSc, so those were a bit beneath my level), travel handbooks (I have no travelling ambitions), and vampire novels (I avoid vampire novels on principle, and I fail to see why so many other people are rabidly obsessed with the blighted things). So webcam it was - and according to the price marked on the shelf, it would conveniently use up both gift cards.
Then I got to the till, and the computer only wanted to charge me £8.74. So I've still got over thirty quid's worth of Smiths vouchers to use, and no idea what to use them on - you can only have so many pens in your collection before it starts getting a bit silly - but then again, a new webcam for less than nine quid isn't to be sneezed at.
Which leads me to Skype. Yes, guilty... after all my ramblings about how much I dislike social networks and will refuse to join any, blah blah blah, you might think I've gone and betrayed the cause by having got a Skype account. But I don't think it counts, really. After all, it's not about posting banal, vapid nothings to be read by the public en masse (I'm looking at you, Facebook), it's about one-to-one realtime conversations - with added video-ness so you can see who you're talking to.
And finally, talking of seeing stuff, here's a photo of my latest acrylic painting, completed yesterday afternoon:
The idea is very simple: a blissfully happy hamster sitting on his own little planet made of solid cheese and supporting an ecosystem of broccoli. It's got a bit of a The Little Prince vibe going on - I read the book once, years and years ago, and even though I've long since forgotten most of it, this bizarre image has stuck in the back of my mind ever since.
I've now started work on another, abstract painting. Photo to follow in due course.
As for today... I've got a 'do' list as long as your arm, and writing this post is just one of many, many things to get done. So I'll wrap up now and get on with some of the others.
- The Colclough
As so often happens with films based on books, I spent a lot of the first screening worrying about how much it had changed from the source novel. That, and being distracted by popcorn management issues. This time round, it was more a case of sitting back and enjoying the ride. I suspect the projector might have been ever-so-slightly better focussed this time as well - or my glasses were cleaner. The rest of the family all seem to be in agreement that Dawn Treader is better than its immediate predecessor Prince Caspian, but I'm not so sure - not that I think VotDT has gone downhill, more that I didn't dislike Caspian as much as a lot of other people seemed to do. Both have their flaws, but both did pretty well on the whole, IMHO.
Also while in town, I acquired a webcam. I went into WHSmiths with £40's worth of gift cards to use, and after pootling around the whole place two or three times I decided that the webcam for £39.99 seemed like the best option. The book section was mostly full of GCSE revision guides (I've got a first-class BSc, so those were a bit beneath my level), travel handbooks (I have no travelling ambitions), and vampire novels (I avoid vampire novels on principle, and I fail to see why so many other people are rabidly obsessed with the blighted things). So webcam it was - and according to the price marked on the shelf, it would conveniently use up both gift cards.
Then I got to the till, and the computer only wanted to charge me £8.74. So I've still got over thirty quid's worth of Smiths vouchers to use, and no idea what to use them on - you can only have so many pens in your collection before it starts getting a bit silly - but then again, a new webcam for less than nine quid isn't to be sneezed at.
Which leads me to Skype. Yes, guilty... after all my ramblings about how much I dislike social networks and will refuse to join any, blah blah blah, you might think I've gone and betrayed the cause by having got a Skype account. But I don't think it counts, really. After all, it's not about posting banal, vapid nothings to be read by the public en masse (I'm looking at you, Facebook), it's about one-to-one realtime conversations - with added video-ness so you can see who you're talking to.
And finally, talking of seeing stuff, here's a photo of my latest acrylic painting, completed yesterday afternoon:
#003: Hamster Hamster
The idea is very simple: a blissfully happy hamster sitting on his own little planet made of solid cheese and supporting an ecosystem of broccoli. It's got a bit of a The Little Prince vibe going on - I read the book once, years and years ago, and even though I've long since forgotten most of it, this bizarre image has stuck in the back of my mind ever since.
I've now started work on another, abstract painting. Photo to follow in due course.
As for today... I've got a 'do' list as long as your arm, and writing this post is just one of many, many things to get done. So I'll wrap up now and get on with some of the others.
- 11 For 11 status: 8 down, 3 to go
- Latest book read: still Stuart Olyott's commentary on Ephesians
- Latest film/TV watched: Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
- Latest music listened to: Cylinder and Miserable: Official Webcomic Soundtrack (WIP), written by Timothy Johnston with some interference from yours truly
- Latest food/sweets/whatever eaten: bagel and cowjuice for breakfast
- Programs and web pages currently running: Outlook 2007, Windows Explorer, Skype, Firefox (tabs: Blogspot Dashboard; Blogspot Create Post; MatNav x2)
- Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1127; Alien President #8
- The Colclough
Monday, 22 November 2010
There's hamsters and there's hamsters
I mentioned a few posts back that my sister Sophie's hamster Coco had died. Well, a new one turned up about a week ago - this time it's small, female and vicious.
In three and a half years, we got through five different hamsters (four and a half, if you make allowance for the fact that Scribbles is still alive), and none of them ever bit me. Five hamsters, average lifespan more than a year each, and no bites at all. Scribbles often goes to the toilet behind my monitor, but that's not the same thing.
I held Taffy for the first time last night, and she chowed down on my finger, without the slightest provocation, within the first minute. Blood was fetched, and Taffy quickly earned Hamster Non Grata status. Apparently I'm not the only one to have found her bad side, either.
Now, one does wonder: why is Taffy so much more aggressive than all her predecessors? Clearly not all hamsters are created equal.
I shall leave you to chew on that question.
- The Colclough
In three and a half years, we got through five different hamsters (four and a half, if you make allowance for the fact that Scribbles is still alive), and none of them ever bit me. Five hamsters, average lifespan more than a year each, and no bites at all. Scribbles often goes to the toilet behind my monitor, but that's not the same thing.
I held Taffy for the first time last night, and she chowed down on my finger, without the slightest provocation, within the first minute. Blood was fetched, and Taffy quickly earned Hamster Non Grata status. Apparently I'm not the only one to have found her bad side, either.
Now, one does wonder: why is Taffy so much more aggressive than all her predecessors? Clearly not all hamsters are created equal.
I shall leave you to chew on that question.
- The Colclough
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
A Life Concluded
Some blogs you see coming from a mile off. Others you find yourself writing at a moment's notice. This is one of the latter type.
I've just buried Sophie's hamster, and got a little traumatised, so what follows is an exercise in catharsis.
We had Coco for about 14 months. He was Sophie's third hamster, and our fourth overall (out of five to date - Ben has been keeping hamsters too). Although Coco wasn't one of the rodents that first inspired my dissertation film The Making of "Intergalactic Hamsters", he was one of the two who ended up featuring in it, so I had a bit more of a connection with him than I did with some of the others.
He seemed happy and healthy at the weekend, and I really don't know why he died. I just looked in his cage this morning and he was sprawled on the floor, already gone.
Sophie doesn't know yet, as she's away on a church youth holiday until Friday. I'm not looking forward to the explanations when she gets back.
But in the meantime, I've given him a decent burial. He's in the raised flowerbeds in our back garden, along with his three predecessors, Hammy, Nibbles and Daisy. I put him under a large stone, partly to mark the spot, and partly to stop the neighbourhood moggies digging up the grave. By 'decent burial', I don't mean it was very elaborate - I just wrapped him in some tissue paper, along with a tiny little book that has been blu-tacked to the outside of his cage for months and months. (I've been pragmatic a few times and pointed out to Sophie that hamsters can't read, but she's always insisted that it doesn't matter, and that he liked the book anyway, so it seemed an appropriate addition to his send-off.) What I meant by 'decent burial' was more that, despite the simplicity, I tried to do it all with a certain amount of dignity. It's what Sophie would have wanted if she'd been here.
So... it does seem surreal how fast you can go from not knowing/thinking there's a problem, to writing about the funeral in the past tense. Such is the fragility of life on Earth, I suppose. How people cope without any conception of life after death I have no idea. If I thought this life was all there is, I'd probably have lost the will to live and gone raving mad by now. Thank goodness for eternity.
- The Colclough
I've just buried Sophie's hamster, and got a little traumatised, so what follows is an exercise in catharsis.
We had Coco for about 14 months. He was Sophie's third hamster, and our fourth overall (out of five to date - Ben has been keeping hamsters too). Although Coco wasn't one of the rodents that first inspired my dissertation film The Making of "Intergalactic Hamsters", he was one of the two who ended up featuring in it, so I had a bit more of a connection with him than I did with some of the others.
He seemed happy and healthy at the weekend, and I really don't know why he died. I just looked in his cage this morning and he was sprawled on the floor, already gone.
Sophie doesn't know yet, as she's away on a church youth holiday until Friday. I'm not looking forward to the explanations when she gets back.
But in the meantime, I've given him a decent burial. He's in the raised flowerbeds in our back garden, along with his three predecessors, Hammy, Nibbles and Daisy. I put him under a large stone, partly to mark the spot, and partly to stop the neighbourhood moggies digging up the grave. By 'decent burial', I don't mean it was very elaborate - I just wrapped him in some tissue paper, along with a tiny little book that has been blu-tacked to the outside of his cage for months and months. (I've been pragmatic a few times and pointed out to Sophie that hamsters can't read, but she's always insisted that it doesn't matter, and that he liked the book anyway, so it seemed an appropriate addition to his send-off.) What I meant by 'decent burial' was more that, despite the simplicity, I tried to do it all with a certain amount of dignity. It's what Sophie would have wanted if she'd been here.
So... it does seem surreal how fast you can go from not knowing/thinking there's a problem, to writing about the funeral in the past tense. Such is the fragility of life on Earth, I suppose. How people cope without any conception of life after death I have no idea. If I thought this life was all there is, I'd probably have lost the will to live and gone raving mad by now. Thank goodness for eternity.
- The Colclough
Coco as he will be remembered - alive and well and sitting on a QWERTY board, in a publicity still from the set of "Intergalactic Hamsters".
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