I got new rats. Two of them, female, white and brown and with a jet engine in their behinds, I’m sure. At the moment they’re terorising my blanket and climbing all over me. Their names are Trillian and Molly. :) Trillian from the Hitchhicker’s Guide To The Galaxy and Molly from the song Molly Malone.

The second night I had them I woke up at around 5 am, due to a strange noise I was hearing that wouldn’t go away. I grumpily got up and found the entire concept a cage ruined. The little critters are apparently still tiny enough to fit through the bars. Until I get the original rat cage fixed the problem is to be solved by… I don’t know yet.

Either way, they’re lots of fun. Pictures are to follow sometime in the near future.

My rats, Mikael and Akerfeldt, passed away recently in the span of a month or two. They died of old age, I imagine, since they were fit to be great grandmothers. My room feels a bit empty now and it’s a very unusual feeling to wake up in the morning, realising that you actually slept. They used to make a lot of noise.

A rat was the last animal that my mother wanted as a pet. She said it’s the only thing she hasn’t had yet… Technically, she still didn’t cause they were mine and kept me up… But her point remains valid.

I was really surprised by them, they were amazingly intelligent. They used the potty, played with all sorts of toys, they figured out how to eat dog briquettes hanging down on a rope… And they were the cleanest pets I’ve ever had. But then again, a guinea pig probably shouldn’t be used as a comparison.

Today, when I randomly strolled into the living room, the TV was on. Nobody was there so I sat down and took a break from… Can’t remember what I was doing. There was a film on Pop TV, I wasn’t very interested until someone called out a name, “Mengele“. That kept my attention for the next 5 minutes, but the film wasn’t much to my liking so instead of educating myself in that way, I turned on the computer and went wiki-ing. Mengele was always a fascinating topic, unethical, immoral or downright cruel people interest me. I didn’t find out anything new… It is still hard to believe that he remained hidden for 35 years and in the end, drowned. I wish his notes and diaries were made public, I would very much like to read them.

From Mengele I clicked away to Auschwitz. This will sound cold of me, but I like the word “Birkenau” it has a pleasant sound, despite it’s association. In the Wikipedia article, there as a picture, similar to the one above, “Arbeit macht frei” above the entrance to Auschwitz I. I’ve never seen that before, it surprised me. Killing people is one thing, but those words, they were mocking the inmates. They enjoyed torturing them. I don’t know why it came as a surprise, but it did.