April 7, 2009 at 8:55 am
I’ve laughed and laughed and laughed at this video ever since a friend instant messaged me with the link. What a silly little hamster, running as fast as he can to escape the wok, but never making any progress.
“Why doesn’t he ever figure out it’s pointless?” I asked my friend. Then I started the video at the beginning and watched it again. But upon this viewing I started to wonder, are there things in my life that I am attacking like a hamster in a wok? Is there anything I am working and fussing and plowing at head on, making no progress, when it would be better to take another approach? If so, some highly evolved organism might be laughing at a YouTube video of me too.
Then I found this video of cats on a slide and started laughing all over again.
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Dawn - Partybluprints.com • April 7, 2009 at 12:24 pm
There are some days that I feel like this hamster! Just found your site through your twitter follow. Seems like lots of fun!
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Katharine • April 7, 2009 at 1:53 pm
You are so right, PQ–we all have some areas in our lives where we’re just like hamsters, running and running in place to no avail. And it’s damn funny sometimes.
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Rebecca Hoover • April 7, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Is it wrong that I feel bad for the hamster? I want to save him.
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Becky • April 7, 2009 at 3:23 pm
My health. I have Crohn’s disease and Fibromyalgia. So far. I strongly suspect that there’s something else going on that they haven’t diagnosed yet, too. I just keep doing the same thing, going to my doctors and saying “fix me.” They give me a pill or an injection and it helps for a little while, but never enough. I’m never better, and I’m never fixed. After a while they tell me, mostly indirectly by a lack of action or futher suggestions, that they don’t know what else to do for me. So I go to the next doctor and I say, “fix me,” and the whole cycle starts over again.
I most definitely feel like a hamster in a wok.
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stlwtr • April 7, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Thank you for saying that Rebecca. I thought it was just me!
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Annie • April 7, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Being a grad student, I feel like the hamster in the wok most of the time! That is exactly that I needed to read today to keep me motivated…. plus the videos cracked me up
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Quix • April 7, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Great videos, made even better by the choice of music in both of them, tee hee.
Sometimes I feel like that with trying to lose the last few lbs, but even if you’re just trying to get up the wok unsuccessfully it’s at least good exercise, right? :)
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kristisummer • April 7, 2009 at 11:01 pm
so funny. poor hamster :(
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Deb • April 8, 2009 at 12:11 am
Thought-provoking post. But I hate videos of people being cruel to helpless animals for their own amusement. Poor little hamster.
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Sarah • April 8, 2009 at 12:11 am
“Like a hamster in a wok,” should be a new catch phrase. My brothers used to do cross country and this crazy dude on the team would always yell, “Run like a goat!” Five years later and we still say it.
Also, saw your Tweet, Tom’s Natural Apricot deoderant works great and smells nice to boot. I wouldn’t use it on say, my wedding day, but great for everyday life and doesn’t have aluminum in it.
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K • April 8, 2009 at 7:19 am
Can’t see the video – but one of my guinea pigs does this on the slope at the end of the bath whenever we give her a shampoo. (We’re not being mean to her – she needs to be washed occasionally to prevent a skin condition.)
I think I have the opposite problem to the hamster – I think too long about how to tackle problems, instead of just going for it!
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PastaQueen • April 8, 2009 at 8:40 am
I am confused by a couple comments where people feel bad for the hamster. You know they’re not going to fry him and eat him, right? :) No one is making him run. He could just sit in the wok if he wanted. I feel like it’s the same as watching a hamster run in a wheel. My take is that he’s having fun running around.
I guess we can’t actually ask the hamster how he feels about. Sorry if that video makes some of you sad. I didn’t intend it that way!
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Jessica A. • April 8, 2009 at 11:04 am
Those videos are hilarious! I agree PQ I think the hamster was having fun, just like the kitties :) I do actually feel like sometimes I am like a hamster in a wok wow never thought I’d say that lol and gross but did anyone else notice the fact that there is a hamster poo in the wok?! Eww I hope they don’t plan on cooking with that thing later lol
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beth • April 8, 2009 at 12:12 pm
@PastaQueen – I seriously thought they were planning on eating the hamster at first. i was having thoughts about that scene from Disney’s the little mermaid with the chief and crab. or maybe i was just overthinking it.
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beth • April 8, 2009 at 12:14 pm
@beth – is it chief or chef?
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Big Legged Woman • April 8, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Are you kidding? Everything. Every day of my life I’m like a hamster on a wheel. Constant motion, nothing accomplished. I don’t know how to get off.
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Deb • April 8, 2009 at 10:00 pm
@PastaQueen – Yeah, I think we are smart enough to know they aren’t going to fry the hamster. But it’s clearly in distress trying to get out of there and to just sit and watch it for amusement seems just an eensie bit cruel. So it’s just not funny to me.
The cats, on the other hand, were cute and funny because they were just playing and were free to jump off the slide if they wanted to. They were not trapped and trying desperately to get out like the hamster was. That’s the difference to me.
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Julie • April 9, 2009 at 11:24 am
I love the kitty one, I’ve seen it before. I think just about everyone probably feels like they just can’t get to the top of the slide!
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Kristin • April 10, 2009 at 10:51 am
I thought both videos were amusing — but my husband’s response to the hamster in a wok was “ew, a rodent in a cooking utensil?!”
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gfe--gluten free easily • April 11, 2009 at 10:08 am
@Becky – I lead a celiac/gluten intolerance group. We’ve have members with both Crohn’s and fibromaylgia who have seen great improvement (e.g., going off fibor meds) by going gluten free. Please feel free to email me via my website.
Best,
Shirley
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gfe--gluten free easily • April 11, 2009 at 10:11 am
I’ve seen these types of videos before. Hysterical and disturbing at the same time, like you said. Yes, there’s a message there if we take the time to look at our own lives. How lucky we are that most of the things we repeat over and over again when we end up “going nowhere” can’t be captured in a 2-minute YouTube video. ;-)
Shirley
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