i aM poStiNG oN My frIEND coUnt ZeRO's SiDEKicK

i aM wanTiNG t0 KnOW tHE HUNT rESuLTs

tHEsE keYS arE TOo sMALl foR PAwS

-YOUr FrIEnd, SPOOKY

Phatbusjay, those are excellent stickers. Thanks for sharing them with us.

A small branded band-aid dispenser from a dead dot com that thought it could change the world. A small dead roach that thought it could find some food in a sticky trap beneath my desk. And an exoskeleton glove that is running amok...

Couldn't resist. Three more pics. A bronze katydid. A bronze earwig. The park they secretly live in.

Sitting in a small park in Cambridge, I notice tiny bronze statues embedded in the cement. A small beetle. A small grasshopper. So tiny, people probably never notice them. "Public art" far below the public's threshold of perception.

slax0r, excellent pics! What a great blog-and-photo-journal you've started...will we get pics at sea? Will we get shots of sea monsters? UFO's at nite on the open ocean? Shots of you leaning over the railing and "feeding the fishes" because you forgot your Dramamine? :P Keep us posted!

And welcome to all the new bloggers posting here for the first time. Seems like traffic is really picking up! I love all the photos and stories, from the strange to the common, they're all wonderful slices of diverse lives from across the country. And props to mike for maintaining this site and continually improving it (love the new stylesheets idea). This place just keeps getting better and better...

Today's gallery features my new roommate, Spooky. For those of you who followed the Hitop Nation Halloween Photo-Scavenger Hunt, you might remember that one of the items was a pic of a cat and dog together. I stopped in a pet store and was able to hold a kitten they had for sale up next to a puppy. I kept playing with the kitten and completely fell in love with her, so I adopted her on the spot!

I already have one cat, a black domestic shorthair named Ariel who I adopted from my local animal shelter. I usually don't like pet stores that sell cats and dogs, "puppy and kitten mills" where the animals are unhealthy and overpriced. Especially because there are so many cats and dogs in shelters that desperately need homes. I frequently make donations to support local shelters in Boston, both money and old blankets (they always need blankets!).

But this pet store only sells a few cats and dogs, always purebred animals from reputable local breeders, and they take good care of their critters. In fact, I bought my python from them a few years ago. It's not a chain store, and the employees are very knowledgable. So I like and trust them.

Anyway, the kitten was the only cat in the store, and the people working in the store had been giving her lots of attention and love. She was happy and healthy, and came from a local breeder who specializes in Burmese cats. I know I know....why buy a cat when you can adopt a shelter cat?.....but this kitten completely stole my heart, and I felt that since I already support my local shelters, I could make an "exception" this time. At least that's how I rationalized it. :)

I named her "Spooky." She's a 4 month old Burmese kitten, and she has a lavender-cream coat and yellow-gold eyes. Her body is pretty strange (but normal for the breed)....hind legs longer than the front and her body is long and thin. She's very small but incredibly wiry and strong. When she plays, she leaps around like some bizarre kangaroo-crossed-with-a-ferret-with-long-legs Dr. Seuss kind of creature. Small. Strange. Perfect. :)

Three pics of Spooky today. Successfully taking pictures of a hyperactive kitten with the Sidekick's slow-scan camera is kind of like trying to catch tachyeons with an old piece of flypaper. I think I took 50 bad pics just to capture the three bad ones. :)

Hey everyone. Great scavenger hunt. I just want to say g'nite to everyone who participated on all the teams, or who went out solo for fun. It was fantastic to be part of the hunt, it's fantastic to be part of a great community here at HN, and it's simply the BOMB to own a Sidekick.

Pic of my NEW roommate....named Spooky....wearing her CATerpillar costume. I bought her tonite...a Halloween kitty!

Gonna scavenge some zzzzzzz's now.....

Did you know that ravens are considered to be the BEST scavengers in the animal kingdom?

Heh heh heh....

Happy Halloween! Scavenger Hunt is underway. Thanks, Hiptop Nation, for a fun and exciting event.

A man with no head. A head with no man. And a man's head in a derby. That's today's Halloween Gallery...