I have the results of the Sheylara.com Great Hamster Giveaway! There are 17 winners! Congratulations to you all!

I’m really pleased with the response to this contest. The only regret I have is that I don’t have enough prizes to give to everyone who participated.

Not to fret, though. I will be holding more contests in the future, so watch out for them!

Okay, I’m announcing the winners now! Is your name on the list?
(Click here to see pictures of the prizes)

Sheylara.com Great Hamster Giveaway Winners

1. Jane Foo - Pink Princess Castle
2. Syndicatee - Cosy hamster cottage
3. Cannie - Hamster house and bathroom
4. Kewrious - Hamster wheel
5. Clarissa - Hamster bed with cooling pad
6. Annisha - Hamster couch with cooling pad
7. Danny - Hamster Bathroom
8. Bunny - S.A.M. feeder
9. Winston - Capsule hamster bathtub
10. Issura - Cardboard playpen
11. yukita - Cardboard playpen
12. modchip - Mini food dish
13. CJ - Grow your own grass
14. xing - Hamster ball
15. boa51186 - Feeding bottle
16. Kochier - S.A.M. elbow tube
17. GeekStars - Wood carrot chew toy

Thank you for your enthusiastic participation! I really enjoyed reading all your answers, too! ;) I will be sending all of you an e-mail soon about your prize collection.

Some interesting facts

• The draw was conducted using a randomiser. First drawn person got first prize and so on.
• Jane (1st) had 55 credits.
• Cannie (3rd) holds the record for most credits earned — 64.
• Danny (7th) is the luckiest, being the only contestant with only 1 credit to win a prize.
• Most of the winners had at least 20 credits. Two winners had below 10 credits.
• There are four outside-Singapore winners — Malaysia, Philippines, Canada and UK.

Well, that is all. I hope your hamsters like their new toys!

Categories: Hamster Tales
16 Comments »

The Daily Banner Contest portion of the Sheylara.com Great Hamster Giveaway has started!

If you don’t see the new banner on the right, please do a full refresh on this page. (Press the Shift key and F5 key together.)

Remember to check back once every 24 hours to get the new question. Send me all the answers only at the end of the contest!

If you’ve signed up for the contest and didn’t receive an e-mail from me, please check your spam folder.

If you haven’t signed up, you have until May 6! The contest ends at 23:59pm (Singapore time), after which entries will not be accepted anymore.

Sign up here.

Good luck and have fun!

Categories: Hamster Tales
9 Comments »

I’m not giving away hamsters, of course. What I’m giving away are my hamster stuff because I don’t have time to keep hamsters anymore.

So I’m doing a giveaway contest for everyone to have fun and win stuff! Let’s have a look at the prizes.

The Prizes

They are mostly brand new. Some have never been used. Those that have, have only been used for two months and have been thoroughly cleaned, so they’re good as new!

#1 Pink Princess Castle

#2 Cosy hamster cottage

#3 Hamster house and bathroom

#4 Hamster wheel

#5 Hamster bed with cooling pad

#6 Hamster couch with cooling pad

#7 Hamster bathroom

#8 S.A.M. feeder

#9 Capsule hamster bathtub

#10 Cardboard playpen

#11 Cardboard playpen

#12 Mini food dish

#13 Grow Your Own Grass (hamster food)

#14 Hamster ball

#15 Feeding bottle

#16 S.A.M. elbow tube (x2)

#17 Wood carrot chew toy (x2)

How The Contest Works

Perform easy actions and get credits! Each credit you earn gives you one chance to win. A lucky draw will be conducted at the end of the contest. As long as you have one credit, you’re in the running for a prize. But get as many credits as you can to improve your chances of winning!

Simple Rules

1. Use the same name and e-mail address for all the actions you perform so I can keep proper track of your credits.
2. E-mail all entries (or questions) to hamster@sheylara.com.
3. People living outside of Singapore can take part and win! (You just can’t win the Pink Princess Castle, unless you’re willing to pay for shipping).

Ways To Earn Credits

1. Post a comment here saying “Sign me up!”. (1 credit)
2. Write a post on your blog about this contest, linking to this page. E-mail me the post URL when it’s done. (5 credits)
3. Ask your friends (who are not taking part) to write a post on their blogs about this contest. E-mail me the post URL when it’s done and remember to say your name so I know who to give the credits to. (5 credits per post)
4. Put me on your blogroll or links page. E-mail me the URL when you’re done. (3 credits)
5. Participate in the daily banner contest. (1-3 credits per day)

Daily Banner Contest

1. Every day, you will see a different question on the contest banner on my blog’s side bar.
2. Each question will be displayed for 24 hours, so check back every day to see a new question.
3. Write your answer and hold on to it.
4. There will be 20 questions in total.
5. At the end of it, e-mail me all the answers you’ve collected.
6. You don’t have to answer all questions, but more questions answered means more credits!

The first question will appear on April 17, 2008. Remember to check every day to get the daily question! Once a question is gone, it won’t be shown again!

Prize Collection

1. Winners will be notified by e-mail.
2. For people living in Singapore, I will specify a time and place for everyone to collect your prizes.
3. For people living outside of Singapore, I will mail the prize to you, but allow 6-10 weeks for shipping.

That’s all! It’s very simple! Sign up now, tell all your friends and win some really cute hamster stuff!

Start earning credits now!

Categories: Hamster Tales
52 Comments »

I didn’t want to blog about it when it happened because it was too disturbing an event to blog about.

But a month has passed since Picnic and Pixie died, and I’ve kind of accepted the situation already.

I guess it’s alright to talk about it now.

First of all, I don’t know why and how. One day I woke up and they were dead.

We buried them in the garden.

Later in the night, the Goonfather asked me, “DO YOU THINK THEY WERE MERELY HIBERNATING?”

I stared at him, bug-eyed, and declared unconvincingly, “NO.”

We rushed down to the garden to dig them back up.

We had wrapped them individually in white Ikea table napkins. We didn’t have fancy hamster coffins at our disposal.

So we dug the napkins back up and got into a sort of a argument.

“You open it.”

“No, you open it.”

“No, you open it.”

“No, YOU open it.”

“No.”

It was late at night and dark in the garden. Only the dim, yellow glow of a torchlight illuminated the lumps of napkins laid out before us.

The napkins were unmoving. Damp. Flattened. Little stain dotting a corner that looked suspiciously like blood but could be mud.

We went through a few more cycles of the “You open it” argument. We rationalised the situation. We looked at each other helplessly. We stared at the napkins for minutes, willing them to move.

Finally, we said, “they’re dead,” and buried them back.

I don’t know why and how they died.

We googled it. We considered hibernation because their bodies were relatively soft when we found them. (Dead hamsters are supposed to be stiff.) But we don’t get winter in Singapore so it’s not that possible. Picnic and Pixie lived in our air-conditioned room where the temperature never goes below 18 degrees celcius. Hamsters go into hibernation (or, more accurately, a state resembling hibernation) only around 10 degrees celcius or lower. And dwarf hamsters aren’t known to hibernate.

The Goonfather said Picnic’s cage had smelled bad. Even though I washed it and changed the bedding less than a week before.

So, my babies are dead.

But that isn’t the entire reason why I haven’t published a Hamster Tale in ages.

I do have a few more stories archived in my mind, pictures archived in my hard disk. I just need to write the stories but I haven’t had time to tackle them.

But I will get to them eventually.

In the meantime, I’m deliberating whether to get more hamsters.

I have $300 worth of hamster housing and supplies sitting in a corner of my room.

I miss my naughty, tyrannical Picnic and my sweet, innocent, timid Pixie.

But I don’t want to kill another pair of hamsters. I don’t know how Picnic and Pixie died but they did die under my care.

Picnic died buried under wood shavings. I couldn’t find her at first and thought she’d escaped her cage.

Pixie died in her favourite tube connector, next to the door that’s supposed to open into Picnic’s cage.

I’m moving house next month so I can’t get new hamsters right now.

I guess I will think about it after the move.

Categories: Hamster Tales
39 Comments »

[Hamster Tales Part 8]

In Part 7: Picnic proclaims herself Queen of the Castle and thrills at committing all sorts of heinous crimes against sister Pixie, such as theft and attempted murder.

Day 11
Saturday, 5 January 2008

The girls have now been separated for three days. I figure that they (read: Queen Picnic) need more time alone to repent their sins.

This morning, I wake up uncharacteristically early (sevenish) to the sounds of hamster wheels spinning. The girls are running on their respective wheels. Nothing new to see, so I mosey to my computer to check my e-mail and perform daily rubbish.

Half an hour has gone. I decide to go back to bed.

So I’m walking to my bed and, like a waking dream, I suddenly see, on the floor, a hamster looking at me cutely.

Wha…?

She bolts to her right and disappears under the bed.

“Fugg,” I say, and give chase.

I kneel beside the bed and look under. I can’t see her. It’s dark and a mess in there. Boxes and junk and dust.

“Come out, you silly. The dust will make you sick,” I tell her.

She doesn’t answer.

I sigh and get up to find out who’s the little runaway. I see Queen Picnic snuggled under her royal tissue shreds. That means Pixie’s the imp.

I shake a yoghurt fruit drop out of its packet, knowing that it’s a futile endeavour.

Holding the teensy weensy treat in my fingers, I announce to the general direction of the bed, “Come out, little girl. I have your favourite treat.”

No answer. No excited clamouring. No eager beady eyes scuttling up to me for a treat.

Of course not.

I look around the room helplessly and then I see her again. She has magically appeared under my computer table.

I didn’t even see anything run past me. I crawl slowly to her, holding the treat out teasingly. She zips around the table and burrows underneath my pink mushroom bedroom slippers.

I hold out my hand, on which a teensy weensy treat lies.

“Oooh, lookit! Yummy yoghurt fruit drop!” I tell my mushroom slippers.

No response.

Ever so slowly, I lift the slippers. No hamster. I look under my table again. No hamster.

No one ever told me that hamsters could teleport.

I get up and walk around the room.

There she is. She’s gone and teleported herself under the Goonfather’s table.

“Come here, you silly rat.”

She dashes for the bedroom door.

Oooh, they can run, too?

“Nuh-uh. I’m not opening that door for you.”

I want to make a grab for her but I don’t want to hurt her or traumatise her.

Besides being skilled at teleportation, Roborovskis are also really, really fast. You’d need to swoop down speedily and you know how force equals mass times acceleration (or summat; I can’t believe I still remember that) and I fear I might squeeze the life out of her if I were to swoop.

I don’t know what to do, so I play wild goose chase with her while I attempt to talk her into giving herself up.

“You don’t want to live outside your cage, little one. There’s no food, no wheel, no yoghurt fruit drops.

“And there’s evil feet stomping around that could stomp on you, and there’s evil icky dust all over. Oooh, yes, evil icky dust and evil icky other things that can make you sick.

“And hungry. And cold. And miserable.

“Oh, look, Picnic is stealing your stuff.”

I can’t seem to convince her. She continues to gleefully escape my every advance.

She’s now running about within an open area, making circles. I make a half-hearted attempt to trap her with my arms so I can grab her, but she’s too fast.

She heads for the bed again but I perform a flying leap to block her access, like a hero soceer goalie leaping for the ball.

She changes her mind and runs to her cage.

Aha! I see my chance. She’s run herself into a corner.

I dash towards her and grab a cardboard hamster box to block her escape.

She’s now trapped and she zips back and forth within her prison till I’m giddy. Slowly but surely, I move things around to reduce the size of the trapped area.

Finally. The area is now so small that she has hardly anywhere else to go. I lower a hamster ball (containing a yoghurt fruit drop as bait) and wait for her to climb into it.

She clambers on. Not necessarily for the treat; most probably because she has nowhere else to walk.

I scoop her up and gently lower the ball into her cage. She sits in the ball petrified for a moment. She refuses to walk out, as if I’m going to make her go to the dentist.

“Go on,” I say encouragingly.

My voice breaks the spell that’s keeping her rooted and she scrambles out of the ball. Then she starts scooting around the cage like a rabid monkey. She’s acting like I’m Godzilla and she’s running screaming hiding running screaming hiding like how it happens in the movies.

“I’m not going to eat you up. You’re my pet. I feed you.”

She doesn’t believe me and continues running screaming hiding.

I leave her to her cinematic delusions and examine her cage to discover how she escaped.

Up her clay house and through one of the gigantic air-ventilation holes that the Goonfather had drilled into the lid, is how.

I had asked him to make little holes. Cute little drilly holes. But noooooo, he had to make beeeeg holes because he had bought a new drill bit that made beeeg holes.

I can’t reverse the hole, so I move her little clay house to a corner of the cage, far away from the holes in the lid. The other furniture are slippery and unclimbable, so there’s no way she can escape now.

Unless she teleports.

I put a milk cookie in the cage, to send across the message that her cage is a wonderful place to live in where one can find surprises and treats ever so often, so one shouldn’t want to escape such a wonderful place.

She finds the treat and eats it happily, her morning adventure all but forgotten.

If she weren’t so cute and lovable, I’d make me some hamster stew.

Categories: Hamster Tales
19 Comments »