The gerbil is a stinky beast

A hamster tends to choose one particular location in its habitat to relieve itself, usually a spot as far removed as possible from its nest.  I gather that it's relatively easy to train a hamster to use the equivalent of a litter box, i.e. a small pan with absorbent material — put some of its old waste into the pan as a guide, and it will get into the habit of using the pan.

Gerbils, not so much.  A gerbil will relieve itself wherever it happens to be.

This makes an enclosed exercise wheel particularly nasty.  A wire-frame wheel wouldn't be as bad (at least if it was inside a cage), but the combination of the "liberating" effect of the exercise, the containment of an enclosed wheel, and the gerbil's willingness to tread in its own wastes makes such a wheel quite disgusting, very quickly.
 

Axe Apollo Space Academy

I don't watch much television; there are a couple of shows that I record, and play back while I'm using the exercise bike.  But ads for the "Axe Apollo Space Academy" have been saturating the air... so to speak.  All feature a Hot Babe encountering a Super Hunk (e.g. babe rescued from drowning by muscle guy), then Hot Babe sees a guy in a space suit and immediately spurns Super Hunk for Space Suit Guy.  Voice-over: "Nothing beats an astronaut."

Right.  Skyway Soap it ain't

I see from the contest website that the contest winners will go to Florida for "real astronaut training".  Final contestants "will win the chance to fly 103km up to space with space tourism company SXC".

Axe Apollo Space Academy.  Leave a man dweeb drenched in cologne.  Come back a hero dweeb encased in a space suit. (Most of us will appreciate the space suit. Really.)

Hmm.  "He had a faint sweetish musky odor.  Any crowded room smells worse on a hot day, but if I ever whiff that odor again, my skin will crawl and I'll be tongue-tied with fright." — Robert Heinlein, Have Space Suit, Will Travel.