A post I made broadly at Mon May 10 19:13:25 EDT 1999:

I just want to announce my two new family members: Hack and Slash, male
and female ball pythons, respectively, 29 and 28.5 inches in length,
about 8 months old.  Haven't weighted them yet (need a scale sensitive
to tens of grams, and forgot to use my sister's baby scale (she's a
midwife) while I was up there).

They're adorable and cute, and inquisitive and (mostly) happy and well
adjusted and docile (captive bred).  Yesterday was pretty stressful for
them: I took them to see my sister and mom and newphews and neice (3 out
of four of the kids loved them, although one just couldn't get the point
of gentleness).  So they got kept awake during much of their natural
sleep time (they're nocturnal) and were _much_ too cold most of the
time, which I feel bad about.  I'm leaving them alone for a few days
(they basically didn't move at all last night; they're exhausted).

However, they ate on Saturday (after only a day with me!), which, with
ball pythons (Python regius) proves that they're basically doing OK.

I'm very very happy to have them, this has been a long term dream.  So
I'm letting people know!

-Robin