I will tastefully refrain from linking to the Hamster-oriented Onion gag this week.

I really doubt that the tube joints were designed to be permanent. As I recall from long ago, rearranging them was half the fun. On the other hand, the joints are probably designed to be a bit stiff so as not to *accidentally* come apart.

Is it possible to soak the tube-joints in warm water? There might be crud in there that is increasing the coefficient of static friction.

http://www.habitrail.com/

Oh, here's a clue:

"Habitrail makes it even safer for you to build passageways for your pet. With the use of the patented Lock Connector found only with Habitrail,
you can securely connect the Trails and Add-Ons in place. All you have to do is rotate the outer ring of the Lock Connector causing the pressure
points of the rubber and plastic to meet locking the Trail or Add-On in place. "

So, rotating the ring the other way should unlock it. What the other way is is left as an exercise to the reader.

I just now noticed.

Also, congratulations on your new hamster!

I also don't know if they were offical brand-name 'trail parts.

Do you have any really big plier things?

something like this?

It's kind of a "Victory or death" option, using those.

"squeak or cheeble," by the way, is bliss.

My fingers probably remember, but that doesn't do much good.

Disclaimer - I don't know what the coefficient of expansion for this stuff is. It works well for glass/glass and for glass/metal.

Rats are darlings, very social and altruistic and friendly and alert. Too bad they raise welts where they walk on my skin and cause me to cough blood.

Oh, and there's that whole yersinia thing, too. But that's hardly ever an issue in the domestic beast.

(How likely would it be for y'all to get a recording of his teeny tiny cute little roar? Aw...)

You might also want to run them through the dishwasher so that any residual disease-bearing germies will be killed before the new occupant arrives.

>I haven't a clue to answering the main question, but I'm amused by the namephreakism of a Tor intern named Torie.

It's purely coincidence, I swear! Or is it?

Meanwhile, in Habitrail Space, no-one can hear you scurry.

Hedgehogs sneeze aggressively when upset. It's a kind of explosive, jerky, "tschew!" that makes their quills stand up. As a defensive mechanism it is, um, not exactly frightening.

Congratulations on PB! May he provides loads of fun for all.

(But I must say I am having some trouble putting the concepts of "hamster" and "roar" together.)

Torie of Tor's Torque? And you thought it sounded like a tiny velociraptor too! If you wear a torc, that would be perfect.

OK, Christopher, lay off the intern (intorn?). Stop torturing hir. Even if s/he is one of the Tories.

Hampsters are so cute.

I might get one instead of a dog, I'll put an amplifier around it's neck so when it roars burglars will run away.

I know, it's torrible of me.

Years and years ago, with the older Habitrail pieces, I twisted them in opposite directions while trying to break them apart as if they were sticks. If I was lucky, one section would pop out of the connector in one piece. I'd leave the connector on the other piece use it that way. There was a medium risk of breaking the tube. I wasn't a patient person then, either, and this was just another application of my traditional kill-or-cure mode.

I wish I'd thought of the soapy water. I bet that would have helped. Most of the joints didn't have gunk in them, but the lubrication might well have been a huge success. Of course, one's hands would also be slippery.

Sounds like the new joints are better designed...assuming they work the way they say that they do.

P.S. Habitrails and their kin are no damn good for gerbils. My gerbil (first fuzzy pet I'd been allowed to have since they diagnosed me with asthma some decade previously) chewed his way out of the cage before Christmas morning, and my parents had to hunt the critter down before they could give him to me.

I don't think so; the chains would concentrate the force on a few tiny points, so I'd be afraid they'd shatter the plastic. At the last NESFA work session, one of the tool geeks brought a variant that uses a rubber strap instead of a chain; he's not answering the phone now, but I'll post later if I hear from him.

In the meantime -- have you tried glycerine? Available at many pharmacies, slightly water-soluble (so it will come off more easily than baby oil), won't attack most plastics, more slippery than soapy water and won't leave a deposit (since it's a liquid rather than a solution).

I had the most luck with discarding sabot designs, although given the irregular shape of hamsters, perhaps a better analogy would be shotgun shell cups. Fashion these out of scrap cardboard with a hot glue gun in the obvious way, making sure to crimp in the nose to ride over internal bumps in the tube rather than hanging up; tamp wads of tissue paper around both ends of the hamster to keep it in place while you load. Fill the lower section of the tube with your fuel-air mixture as usual, and--

Oh. You're using these to keep them as pets. Er... never mind.

Very truly yours...

Your interns have names? Ours don't. Or do you just call them all Torie for convenience? (cf. Offred.)

ATM.

http://www.boa-uk.com/boa_constrictors.html

I'm leaving out the more bizarre things my brain came up with, like Activate Terrible Marshmallows.

I'm sure it's something simple and common, but my Cylert-deprived brain isn't getting it.

My suspicion is that Tories are a specialized type of Igor.

Ginger used to squeal (very pig-like too) when she got upset until I discovered scratching her nose would calm her down. The bridge of her nose was soon quite bald. I hated mucking out her cage (I was 8 or 9 and had no money, so I shredded newspaper by hand) but I liked Ginger, not least because she bit my older sister.

Unfortunately I adopted Ginger when she was 6 (she was free, and I guess I wanted my own pet besides the family dog) little knowing that the guinea pig's average lifespan is around 7. Ginger's tenure was short, but I remember her fondly.

Now, with four indoor cats, I can't justify adopting another in-house rodent, but there is a gray squirrel whose main territory is our back yard, and she's become the outdoor mascot. She's missing a bit from her right ear (how I distinguish her from other squirrels, who are legion ever since I bought two bird feeders) so her "name" is Tippy.

Tippy boldly comes right to the glass kneewall of the sunporch and peers in--even with the cats chattering insanely on the other side--until I step out with peanuts in the shell. She'll come within reach to grab a peanut and often stops long enough to stuff two into her mouth before she heads off to stash them. She'll also come all the way across the yard to the deck if I rattle a peanut at her. The other squirrels invariably dash for the trees.

Last year just after we moved in Tippy dug up and ate all but two of 24 anemone coronaria bulbs from the window boxes, and she would dig in the pots of kitty grass for the oat seed, but it's no worse damage than four marauding felines have caused indoors sometimes.

I even like the cooperative arrangement. "Hand over the peanuts and I leave the bird feeders alone."

murgatroyd, I can't remember who it was here who told us that capsacin has no effect on birds. I'm told that mixing red pepper flakes with birdseed will keep squirrels out of your feeder, while the birds eat from it happily.

You can still feed Tippy if you want to. But she'll no longer be able to blackmail you!

Among the horrors of the universe I've never been exposed to, a Generic Torgo tops the list. The original is so bad, Dear God in Heaven what's a generic like?

I also had a guinea pig that my father spoiled so outrageously with gifts of carrots that the piggie would scream if it heard him coming down the stairs, just to remind my dad that presents of carrots were not optional.

Good luck with your new hamster!

It was not unlike watching one of my cats chase its tail, catch its tail, and then yelp and run off because someone had bitten its tail.

And people think Tex Avery made all this stuff up.

Next up: "The Spit Take -- Low Comedy or Vital Survival Trait?"

Hamsters are used to living in underground warrens. Multiple paths to the same places will be fine. I expect that hamsters, like rats, are better than humans at figuring out the maze of paths between chambers. Evolution has made them experts.

If they're anything like the rats I have here, I'm not convinced. They're truly dull creatures.

Many Thanks

So it seems to be a bit of "viral" marketting/small time revenue generator; at least as much as it is useful information.

This moose would also like to point out that Post #23 by Dave Bell is absolutely hilarious.

(IMO, natch.)