RIP Punchy

Before I left to start my day today, i noticed Punchy trying to escape her tub. I then noticed that she was getting awfully big, and made a note to escape proof her tub accordingly. In between getting dim sum and attending a lindy swing class, she managed to escape her tub and kill herself. I found her in my roommate's trashcan. I'm trying to figure out what happened. Did she fall in and die on impact? Did she eat something poisonous in the trashcan? Did she eat something poisonous, and then, in her reduced state, fall in the trashcan and die on impact?

I'm a little sad that Punchy is gone, but it's not Chess-sized sad. For one, I didn't own Punchy for as long-mere months. For another, Punchy was a biter. Of everything. Wood, fingers, plastic tubes. She drew blood on a regular basis. However, I am sad. I feel like the Era of the Hamster has come to a close. Gone are the plastic tubs, the colored tubes, the cut wood homes. I tossed all the aspen bedding, and the hamster balls. The apartment is a little bit more empty, a little bit more sterile.

New Stuff, Old Stuff.

I got a nifty new digital camera. It's kind of ironic that I got it the same day I accidentally erased all the pictures I had stored on my laptop's hard drive. I'll be starting fresh, capturing new memories, etc, etc, etc.

I tested it out this weekend at my parent's house:

They have these ugly bobble head dog dolls with really scary eyes. Why? I don't know. These are also the people who owned a Talking Billy Bass. You know, the wall mounted fish that sang whenever someone set off its motion sensor. Yeah, they loved that thing.

The camera also has a touch screen, and came equipped with a stylus type toy that lets me decorate the pictures a la Microsoft Paint:



You can also stamp the picture with a set of icons included on the camera. For some reason the anime-style throbbing headache sign was included:



I wish I had gotten the camera earlier. One of the worst parts of losing all my pictures was losing the photos I had of Chess over the three years she was my friend. Here's a repost of my favorite picture of her, stolen from Spiffy:

Good bye Chess. May your hamster wheel always be spinning in that big tub in the sky.