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April 22, 2010

New guy
Posted by Teresa at 06:10 PM * 60 comments

small fuzzybutt ham
sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff
new cage! — and hey! food!
Photos to follow.

UPDATE: Photos here.

Comments on New guy:
#1 ::: MacAllister ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 06:27 PM:

Hurray!!! And congratulations on the new addition to your hamster-having status.

#2 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 06:39 PM:

Long may he (or she) live! (and happily, however long)

#3 ::: beth meacham ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 06:42 PM:

Welcome New Guy! He? She?

#4 ::: Kip W ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 06:47 PM:

Congratulations! Will you be having a hamster shower?

ps: The Hamster Gambit!

#5 ::: Benjamin Wolfe ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 06:50 PM:

Diminutive hirsute housemates improve everything.

Mine* just happens to be rather larger than the new hamster.

*Backstory: I moved a couple of years ago and within six weeks, had adopted my Feline Overlord, a large gray cat who I promptly named Totoro. I am a firm supporter of having pets of the quadrupedal and furry variety. Said cat will be heading off with me to graduate school in a few months, where I expect he will be a major factor in my mental survival.

#6 ::: Lin Daniel ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 06:56 PM:

awwwwwwwwwww!
is good.

#7 ::: Elaine ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 06:57 PM:

Hurray!

#8 ::: Hilary Hertzoff ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 07:01 PM:

Welcome little one. You've found yourself a good home.

#9 ::: Fred ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 07:03 PM:

Welcome aboard, little one.

#10 ::: Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 07:10 PM:

Yay! Congratulations! May Ham Fuzzybutt (or whatever you name him) live long, prosper, and give you much joy.

Benjamin 5: I am a firm supporter of having pets of the quadrupedal and furry variety.

I prefer bipedal, furless, featherless pets myself. Ones who are smart enough to call me Sir.

#11 ::: Stefan Jones ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 07:12 PM:

Congratulations!

Yes, pictures would be nice.

#12 ::: Fran Walker ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 07:15 PM:

Yay!

Just don't give him an intact hazelnut before you go to bed. (We made that mistake once. Said hamster was determined to gnaw through the shell and get the yummy nut inside -- and so he did gnaweth, noisily, for hours and hours and hours....)

#13 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 07:17 PM:

He. No name yet. Longhair, standard coloring. Eight months old, technically an adult but still a lightweight. He's an adoption case -- his first owners returned him to Petco for a refund, I don't know why.

So far he's being quiet, friendly, and sweet-tempered. He seems to like perching on the stromatolite in the back corner of the first level.

#14 ::: Fade Manley ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 07:21 PM:

Hurrah for hamsters!

*hastily looks up "stromatolite" for context*

Hurrah for hamsters on calcareous mounds!

#15 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 07:24 PM:

Welcome, o new hamster. Health and long life to you.

#16 ::: Jacque ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 07:27 PM:

New fuzzy hamster person! Welcome to the Fluorosphere!

#17 ::: Lydy Nickerson ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 07:43 PM:

Yay, hamster. I thoroughly approve of fuzzy citizens. I have a cat sitting on my lap right now, interfering with the typing of this.

#18 ::: Ruth Temple ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 07:49 PM:

Welcome the new hamster-friend
sniffing nose, stuffing cheeks
Welcome glist'ning eyes and rounded ears
'splore your new home, settle in
Welcome to the Fluorosphere
Welcome, welcome here.

#19 ::: elise ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 08:01 PM:

Hamster of newness! O frabjous day!

#20 ::: Melissa Mead ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 08:06 PM:

Welcome, little fuzzy guy!

#21 ::: Cally Soukup ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 08:32 PM:

Hi Fuzzybutt! Want a carrot?

#22 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 08:33 PM:

Yay, new pet! Will you be testing his cheek capacity in sunflower seeds?

#23 ::: Fade Manley ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 08:44 PM:

Mesocricetus auratus,
in tumulo calcis sedens,
ab totis magis amatus,
advenit.

Ei qui diutius lux facent
mesocriceti aurati
libenter exspectabant
picturas.

#24 ::: Mary Aileen ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 09:17 PM:

Welcome, new hamster-dude!

#25 ::: heresiarch ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 09:21 PM:

Yay!

#27 ::: Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 10:27 PM:

Nica picturas, Patrick!

I think he looks kinda like Einstein.

#28 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 10:27 PM:

Awwww. (cuteness)

#29 ::: Benjamin Wolfe ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 11:04 PM:

Aww. Fluffball.

#30 ::: Fade Manley ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 11:11 PM:

I am a-smote by the cute!

#31 ::: eric ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 11:26 PM:

He's cute!

Here's pics of the latest additions to our menagerie.

#32 ::: Marilee ::: (view all by) ::: April 22, 2010, 11:27 PM:

Such a cute boy!

#33 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 01:08 AM:

I wish my photos were better. Sorry about that. My camera batteries were running low, and I was rushing to get ready for the show.

I like the fifth one best. It looks most like him.

#34 ::: Anne Sheller ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 09:18 AM:

You will be happy to know that should you move to Columbus, Ohio, you will be allowed to keep hamsters without a permit. If you want a skunk or a water buffalo or a chicken as a pet, a permit will be required. You may not keep a kangaroo, giraffe, or Komodo dragon.

I, for one, welcome our new hamster overlord. Because for that is what I am doing.

#35 ::: eric ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 10:42 AM:

Chickens require permits?

#36 ::: Madeleine Robins ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 11:13 AM:

He has an intelligent and inquiring demeanor. I look forward to learning his name.

(Mulling over the notion of keeping a water buffalo for a pet, with or without permit.)

#37 ::: Fade Manley ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 11:36 AM:

Madeleine Robins, I am now compelled to reference this song.

#38 ::: ddb ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 12:46 PM:

Clearly there is considerable cute there!

#39 ::: Lin Daniel ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 12:47 PM:

ooooo
I can has hamster?

I had two when I was a kid. Called 'em Hamlet and Egglet. I was told they were both girls. I was told wrong. *sigh*

#40 ::: heresiarch ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 12:52 PM:

He looks like a Chesterton to me. Ches for short, The 'Onorable Meestah Chestor-TON for long.

#41 ::: Joyce Reynolds-Ward ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 12:56 PM:

Awwwww. The cute pixness overwhelms....

#42 ::: joann ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 01:24 PM:

Clearly thinking deep hamster thoughts. Awwww, indeed!

#43 ::: Bruce Arthurs ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 01:48 PM:

[thought balloon]
TO DO LIST:

1. carrot
2. wheel
3. World Domination
[/thought balloon]

#44 ::: Ericka Nielsen Barber ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 03:31 PM:

As amazingly adorable as all your fuzzies was/is. H/she is awfully pretty - like caramel & cream. Congratulations on the new addition!

#45 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 04:09 PM:

Very cute!

Eric #31, your chicks look pretty cute too -- looks like you've got quite a variety and those are hardly the usual little yellow fluffballs! (And *three* Easter-Eggers!) Are any of those males, or all female?

Lin Daniel #39: Yeah, when my sibs and I were kids, the pet shop guys said that our new gerbils. We ended up raising several generations....

#46 ::: Lydy Nickerson ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 08:55 PM:

So cute! Is he adventurous?

#47 ::: Bill Stewart ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 09:51 PM:

Petco's Hamster Ball Derby is this weekend - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/pets/detail?entry_id=61957

#48 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: April 23, 2010, 10:13 PM:

My sister and her then-husband bought a fat rat and named it Templeton. A few weeks later, they came home and discovered that they'd gotten Mrs Templeton. (They found a pet shop that would take the weaned pups. All ten of them.)

#49 ::: M Evans ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2010, 08:43 AM:

I am PJ's sister who had the pet rat. I loved my little rattie, who came when I called her, and who tried to groom my hair (not up to rat standard). I also had two hamsters, once, brothers, one of whom ate the other. Not overly fond of hamsters, me. Tree crabs are cool.

#50 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2010, 11:11 AM:

hi, sis!
(I didn't know you had hamsters. Only cats. And Mrs T.)

#51 ::: Sarah ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2010, 12:26 PM:

Lin @ 39:
My childhood hamster was Hamlet as well! He ate the face off of my Barbie doll. Traumatic at the time, but in retrospect, he was a *very good* hamster.

Welcome to the new guy! I look forward to more photos and tales of hamster derring-do.

(I don't think I'm a regular enough commenter for it to matter, but I've swapped out my former email address for one that actually works, which I think will show me as new blood all over again.)

#52 ::: Velma ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2010, 02:20 PM:

Cute hamster!

I was sorry to read about Aggie Maggie's death. She was a fine beast.

#53 ::: Earl Cooley III ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2010, 02:31 PM:

Innocent hamsters are being exploited in advertising to sell gaudily tricked-out boxy automobiles, even as we speak: they subject them to the psychological trauma of spinning in a hamster wheel, stuck on train tracks, with the warning clang of an oncoming locomotive, the terrifying sound of inevitability. Mercifully, we are subjected to only a fleeting glimpse of this horror.

#54 ::: Marilee ::: (view all by) ::: April 24, 2010, 06:01 PM:

Earl Cooley III, #53, that's a great commercial!

#55 ::: Syd ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2010, 07:04 PM:

1) I once had a hamster of about the same coloring as Master Fuzzybutt (name pending). She was a good hamster.

2) Not only is the commercial linked to by Earl Cooley III in #53 amusing of itself, I used to work in downtown Los Angeles and recognize many of the locations.

Ah, memories...

#56 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2010, 07:34 PM:

55
I can give you street names for some of those spots (they were working hard to miss all the more-easily-identified buildings). And they must have been filming on a weekend, because the streets aren't that empty on weekdays, not any time when the sun is over the horizon. (The lightpost on the bridge looks like the Broadway bridge over the river and the railroad tracks.)

#57 ::: Marilee ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2010, 08:58 PM:

P J Evans, #56, in DC, they just get permits to have the streets closed. Or the subway, which is worse.

#58 ::: Jim Macdonald ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2010, 09:05 PM:

And they must have been filming on a weekend, because the streets aren't that empty on weekdays, not any time when the sun is over the horizon.

One way to get a picture of an empty street, even on a busy day, is by using a long time-exposure.

#59 ::: P J Evans ::: (view all by) ::: April 25, 2010, 09:58 PM:

They don't usually close streets in LA - sometimes, but it's posted beforehand. Usually it's just 'traffic control' stuff - there's cops running breaks for mobile filming (they put the vehicle on a flatbed trailer, or they have cameras on a truck in front of the vehicle; I saw that once with a motorcycle that was actually braced to the camera truck). They'll also put up signs that say that you're going to be going through a filming area, and no you won't get paid if you show up in the finished product.

One of the dubious privileges of working downtown is that there's a lot of shooting around the area. There was a commercial for a General Mills cereal where all the brand-x boxes are on gray shelves, but the one they're pushing is on blue shelves - they filmed that one on the 5th and Olive corner of Pershing Square, and it took three or four days, what with building the shelves and all.

(We have, on several occasions, found ourselves in 'New York', and how they explain the very non-New York flora I couldn't tell you.)

#60 ::: Tina Black ::: (view all by) ::: May 22, 2010, 06:30 PM:

Very cute. Someday I have to teach one of mine not to bite.

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