Gary "The Nipper" McSlitherson

Gary has arrived! And he's beautiful.

Went to Newport last night to pick him up, and got to choose from six snakes. The father has a beautiful pattern of blotches on him, and the mother is orange, so Gary has the best of both worlds - the same pattern as Daddy, but with orange patches rather than brown. Pictures will be along shortly.

He's a feisty little blighter, hence his nickname (the breeder I got him from was calling him Nipper). He's still a little shell-shocked from the move, but he fed last night and seemed pretty satisfied with his new surroundings. He had a bit of a strike at me this morning, but as he gets used to being handled he'll be better able to differentiate my hands from food. At the moment he's about a foot long, and really skinny, but apparently they can grow up to an inch every week! Eventually he'll be between four and six foot, and might even live into his early twenties. A snake, it would seem, is for life, and not just for Christmas.

Watching him feed is amazing. At the moment he'll eat twice a week, but a fully grown corn snake only needs to eat once every two weeks. Imagine eating two weeks worth of food in one go, and swallowing it whole to boot! That's a lot of Wispas. No wonder they need to chill out for a couple of days after that!

Stereotypes, snakes, and Whitesnake.

Latest news on my new snake, the plan of action is to get him tonight. I've spoken to the breeder and she's got six for me to choose from, and is going to let me play with the adults for a bit too. Joy. The vivarium's all set up and raring to go, and I have some little baby mice in the freezer (aw). I've chosen a name for him, and that name is Gary. I say him - they haven't been sexed yet, but I figure Gary's just as good a name for a girl, right?

However, as exciting as my new acquisition is, it's raised a few issues. Being a fan of heavy metal, recently getting heavily into Guitar Hero (I'm well stuck on Welcome To The Jungle on Expert - any tips?), enjoying the odd smoke, living in a loft, having a pet snake: am I becoming a tired "rocker" stereotype? I certainly hope not, but if you throw in my love of 80s cartoons and Batman comics, it looks more and more likely. Should I embrace my stereotypical existence, knowing that it is at least my existence, and that I just happen to have turned out like this, or should I take up knitting to buck the trend?

Speaking of 80s cartoons mind, last night I watched Transformers: The Movie for the first time since 1990. I didn't realise back then, but it's essentially an hour and a half of 80s power-metal ballad-backed fighting. Awesome! And Lion's theme tune is fantastic. Apparently the guitarist is one Doug Aldrich, who for the last five years has been lead guitarist for Whitesnake. Filling Steve Vai's shoes - now that's a tall order.

Here is the erstwhile Mr Aldrich:

At least I'm not the only stereotype, eh?