{blog_title}

p. Mr. Bsag was trying to remember the proper term for baby hamsters this evening (I forget why), and—embarrassingly given my profession—I couldn’t remember either. We hit Google for an answer, and in the course of our search, found the World’s Cutest Hamster Picture [“here”:http://www.hamsterific.com/Hamsterpics/FNF/Black-Pearl.jpg]. This little smasher is a Djungarian hamster (Phodopus campbelli, also erroneously known as a Siberian hamster—”Ee’s no rat! Ee’s ‘amstair!”). The males of this species show extremely unusual behaviour for mammals; they [“act as midwives to the females”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/720421.stm], pulling the babies gently out of the birth canal, and cleaning off the placenta to clear their airways.

p. The term is ‘pups’, by the way, just in case you are on tenterhooks. Obvious, really.

p. There’s a rather sad and dusty gap on our computer desk where the old iMac was. As well as the embarrassing [“keyboard problem”:http://www.rousette.org.uk/mt-static/blog/archives/000516.html], we’ve been having some problems with the screen shimmering when the hard drive is being accessed. Luckily, I did actually get an extended warranty with the machine when I bought it, because for once it wasn’t a complete rip-off. As the expiry date was looming, we decided to get it in for repair.

p. I did this with some trepidation, as there’s probably no limit to how inefficient they could be in getting the fixed computer back to us, so we could be without it for months. The silver lining around this particular cloud is that if they can’t fix it (or can’t fix it within 6 weeks) we’re entitled to a new Mac, which would have to be a nice LCD screen iMac as Apple doesn’t make our model any more. I almost feel guilty about salivating over the possibility of a new machine while our trusty old Graphite is away.