Stupid internet gimmicks #304,033: AOL has a little gewgaw which will tell you which pet is best for you. It's telling me a gerbil would be better for me than a guinea pig, but that hermit crabs would be most preferable. (Both of mine are dead.) It also recommended hedgehogs, sugar gliders, degus, and skunks (it asked if having a legal pet was an issue, as it would be with ferrets, but said nothing about splenetic, bitey, less-than-domesticated species.) It's also telling me a horse would cost me $200 a month (by whose bleeding estimate? Open-plains squatters in Montana?) while a llama would only cost me $25; it did not rule out the formerly-popular but classically ill-advised potbelly pig. Wherever she is now, my old boss from the education department at the Pasadena Humane Society has got to be grinding her teeth.