Ringo... he's a hamster. He's an enigma. He's a role-model. He's all these things and more. Pause with me, one moment, and let me tell you a tale... a tale of a hamster named Ringo. R-I-N-G-O, R-I-N-G-O, R-I-N-G-O, and Ringo is his name-o. Ringo's not like other hamsters. He's gifted. He's really f'ing weird. He can put himself into a trance and stay in it for at least a quarter of an hour. Gazing off into the distance, as if he's thinking of a better place -- some big hamster wheel in the sky. And he thinks, and thinks, and thinks. And we have to yell "Ringo!" just to break him out of his hyptonic state.

I know a lot of you are probably rolling your eyes, thinking, "Listen, Matt... a hamster page? Nothing's more pathetic than webpages with picture of people's pets. Like we care." But, please, before you say that -- f'k off. He's my hamster. (Well, it's Kelly's hamster too.) So, it's cool. I can write whatever I want about him. Besides -- need I remind you -- this is Ringo we're talking about here. And he's deserving of this little tribute.

He's an escape artist... that Ringo. Take the lid off the cage for just one second and the little bugger's crawling up over the railing. I'm not sure what he'd do if I didn't always pick him up and place him back in his cage. Would he jump off the railing? Would he simply hang out on the railing for a little while? Would he be trapped? I know... he'd probably fall. Rule #1 of The Hamster Rules, hamsters never jump. They never leap. They fall.

I've never known a hamster to be graceful. They go "plop." Why do they go "plop?" It's a mystery to us all.

Uhm... this isn't a hamster. Yahoo! Pagebuilder doesn't have any pictures of hamsters in their animal clip-art library. So here's a picture of a capybara. It's sort of like a hamster. Only slightly more retarded-looking. It's Ringo's retarded half-cousin, Jeb. He's from the outback *.

* The steakhouse, not the country... smartass.

Click here to scurry back to hamster, lampshade.