Lucy, the lovely and very lively hamster on HamsterTracker.com, has passed away. She is survived by Mathijs van der Pauw, the Dutch software engineer who took care of her and made her the focus of his daily photoblog.

She looks so peaceful.

We miss you, Lucy.

In case you were worried, I'm not dead.

And now, as I alluded in my previous post, the Supreme, Omnipotent and Omniscient God of All Things Furry shall reveal his likeness.

The Furry commands you to surrender all of your disposable income. Now.

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The photo above is of a stone-pagoda-thing that I found while visiting my grandmother's memorial in Hangzhou, China. The grave site was one of hundreds erected on the face of a steep hillock, and — being the on-and-off adventurous child that I am — I followed the stone steps all the way to the top, where I found the pagoda. There was a rusty metal door, but it was chained shut. Luckily, the chain was long enough (and I skinny enough) for me to wriggle through the gap, and the Furry (see that gray mass? — more about him later) and I were able to enter, where we scaled a flight of stairs and found ourselves in a derelict chamber with arched windows. When I looked out, I could see the buildings around for miles. It reminded me of a similar climb somewhere in Germany, atop a vineyard hill. I hailed my dad halfway down the hillside, and my deaf great-uncle snapped a photo of us two hoodlums.

Of course, it wasn't till later that I saw the security cameras.

Anyway, this is just a preliminary sampling. And as I'm loath to reveal my likeness, finding some photos where I don't look like a complete doofus will take some time.