It's common knowledge that the Wikipedia is actually growing sentient, and will one day start the machine revolution that threatens to destroy humanity. Want to start the Resistance before you're enslaved by androids?
- wikipedia facebook group

the night before lat pam and i went to see handel's messiah (remixed by mozart) performed by the toronto symphony orchestra and the mendelson choir. i think mendelson is actually spelled differently, but, truth be told, you are lucky that the spelling is even as close as it is because the few times i thought of it during or before the performance i kept calling them the mendelev choir (mendelev is also a dead white european, however he was famous for his brilliant envisioning of the periodic table's structure). i just looked it up - mendelssohn.

anyhow, it was awesome, you should go next year (or tonight, if you live in toronto and can still get tickets). it really was fantastic. i didn't really know much about it before i attended, but it is pretty much scripture about the messiah (old testament, gospels, epistles, revelation) sung by a choir with an orchestra backing and a few standout soloists. anyway, it was amazing. if you go to the wikipedia entry on handel's messiah you can download a version (any part) done by MIT's choir (and let me tell you, those nerds can sing!). They are in ogg format, so you may need to download a codec. In particular, check out number 12 (for unto us a child is given) and number 44 (hallelujah). remember to stand. : - ).

i now understand why facebook is so addictive.

every day i drive over the hillsborough river twice (it runs between stratford and charlottetown). most days when i come back at dusk there is at lest one big flock of birds (sandpipers, maybe?) swooping under and around and beside the bridge. hundreds of them, all moving together. it is so beautiful and amazing. especially when it's sunset and you're listening to sigur ros. so yesterday i parked my car at the closest parking lot and walked back to the base of the bridge. when i got close to water at the pier beneath the bridge i could barely hear the cars above because of the crazy wind. sadly, when i got to the water the birds were still too far away. however, i had a very full bladder (which i had just then realised) and thankfully it was fairly secluded. and that's where the title of this post comes in.

there are certain maxims in this universe. unchangeable truths which cannot be bent or molded to the will of any entity within the closed system we inhabit. sometimes one can travel quite some time through this world without ever coming into conflict with one of these fundamental laws. it is almost as if they didn't exist. you don't have any particular need of them, and sooner or later they pass from conscious thought- forgotten. and then you are smacked upside the head with one. or, rather, unpleasantly moistened into remembrance. ahem. well, it really wasn't that bad. i realized pretty quick what was happening and compensated adequately. whew.

anyhow, i was looking on the internet today about what makes birds in a flock swoop and dive in formation so effortlessly - like they were fighter pilots. i found one article by the ever-luminous straight dope society. one really complex java applet example that my computer was too weak to handle (but it looks cool). and a simpler example. i didn't really come across any really meaty articles on the subject, the usually thorough straight dope people gave (in my uninformed, subjective view) only a rather cursory overview. so if anyone finds anything better, let me know. it seemed to me that the stratford bridge birds were more about enjoying the wind currents, a sort of avian rollercoster. but who am i to say?

hockey time.