Escarpment

Another photo dump of the nice overnight trip to Niagara Falls shortly before school started. I was happy that I got to go somewhere this summer, and it was pretty fun and at a nice pace for once. Stayed at the Embassy Suites hotel and had dinner at The Keg in the hotel, which surprisingly was also the site of the breakfast morning buffet. Hot breakfast to-order + The Keg seating = very nice. Some generic falls pictures out of the way first:

The Falls

View from Embassy Suites hotel room


American Falls


Horseshoe Falls


Maid of the Mist


Niagara Scow (center right) - the old ship that's now stuck upstream of the Horseshoe Falls


View of some hotels on Canadian side - Embassy Suites at center left


Horseshoe Falls as seen from the Maid of the Mist

Bird Kingdom


Free-Flying Aviary - it's like the Toronto Zoo pavilions where you get to walk around inside where the birds are flying, and there were surprisingly a lot of birds there.






Bearded Dragons and Turtle - Bird Kingdom also had a reptile section where they had a LOT of large snakes and lizards.

Niagara Falls Botanical Gardens



Castor Oil Plant


Tomato Garden - they had a large vegetable garden with squashes, pumpkins, cabbages, rhubarb, carrots, hot peppers and such growing at the time.


Lantana Camara - actually an extremely invasive species and known as a "noxious weed".

Butterfly Conservatory - Part of the Botanical Gardens



Owl Butterfly - seen from the top - the namesake owl eye pattern is seen when the wings are closed up










Butterfree used Gust!

Early

Last year I made this post where I commented on finding a bird's nest in my front yard. Well this year it turns out that the nest became occupied (or a new nest was made in the same place) by a family of robins. Unfortunately we were too late to catch seeing the eggs, but we were able to observe the robin mother as she was brooding until the eggs eventually hatched, the babies developed into fledglings, and then left the nest. When I read up about the nesting habits of robins online, it matched rather well with what I observed happening with the robin in our front yard. Since they decided to reside in the lilac bush right beside our window, we were able to spy on the nest frequently, probably to the chagrin of the birds as they often stared at us when they noticed our presence.

Initially, we mostly saw the robin mother sitting in the nest, so we suspected that she had eggs in the nest. She sat there for most of the day, always awake with eyes open. I admired her ability to do that without getting insanely bored. During this time I never really saw the robin father come to the nest. The mother is shown in the hidden nest here:

Soon after the eggs hatched to yield three babies, and the mother began to make occasional trips to find food. The babies were still really small and most of the time were covered by the tall sides of the nest. Only when the mother returned would they immediately pop up from the nest, straining their necks to get at the food. This is a shot of the baby birds shortly after they hatched.

Eventually the babies began developing some plumage. Their characteristic red bellies began to show too. At this point the mother was still brooding during the day and especially during bad rainy weather. However, the birds eventually grew larger, to the point where it was almost comical since the chicks were all barely wedged into the nest. By then I rarely saw the mother near the nest again, except at night. However both the mother and father showed up at various points in the day to feed the fledglings.

The mother sitting on the fledglings:

Fledglings when mother was absent:

After about 2-3 weeks fom hatching the babies will have developed enough to be able to start learning to fly. Eventually they will leave the nest out into the world, mildly assisted by the parents as they try get independent at flying around and finding food. This matched with what I saw on the day when the fledglings finally left the nest. It was then when I was able to actually get a good look at their feathers.

Fledgling perched beside nest, ready to leave:

Fledgling on the front porch as it was leaving:

I was a little saddened when the robins were gone, and hoped that they would be ok. The survival rate of robins in the wild is understandably low. I was glad that all three chicks survived long enough to be able to leave the nest, at the very least. I managed to get some shaky camera footage of one of the fledglings that was perched beside the nest on the day they left the nest. Two of the fledglings left the nest around noon, but this one in the video stuck around until 6pm. Not sure why it did that, but I hope the parents didn't forget about it.

Apparently robins may nest twice in a single year during the summer, but at two different nesting sites. I found the robins in our front yard in mid-July, so this was probably the second time in the summer, if it had nested before. I'm glad I was able to observe something like this so closely, and it reminds me of the duck family that also lived in our front yard a few years ago. I guess there is just something about the front yard that birds really like? The website I read states that robins mainly determine their nesting site by judging the ability of the spot to support the nest from below, which is why they often nest at the base of places where branches fork out. It also explains why the robin I saw last year at Wonderland would nest immediately below the tracks of The Bat. There sure is a lot of structual integrity there, but I would still think sitting under a roller coaster all day would be detrimental to the robin...

Most info I read about was from this site: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/robin/

Early to bed, early to rise
The future is for those who get up early
He who arrives first, stays better
Morning time has gold in its mouth
He who sleeps doesn't catch any fish
The early bird catcheth the worm

Sockets in the socket pool

One of the above is real and the other is in fact a candy dispenser. I thought it was pretty good for simply being an imitation toy, down to having the removable battery cover. In fact, you press the B button down in order to shoot the candy out from the front of the remote.

Last week I had my three wisdom teeth removed (I apparently don't have a fourth wisdom tooth) and it seems I had a lucky recovery because I didn't experience the massive swelling and pain that a lot of people get. It meant that I didn't need to take any of those painkillers prescribed. Aside from the disgusting taste left by the stitches in the wound the experience wasn't bad at all.

The recent propane blast was a bit unsettling to me due to its magnitude and having been awake at the time to feel and hear it. It's good that very few got injured in the incident. It served as a wake-up call to the fact that there was a volatile storage facility surrounded by residential areas. This wouldn't have happened in SimCity, where if you build residential and commercial areas too close to industrial areas, even if you were only trying to give them power and water, the citizens will only give the illusion of moving in but then quickly disappear in droves leaving blackened, rotting plots of land behind that will never recover again no matter what you do even if you tried moving the factories away man I was bad at SimCity.

When I visited the Toronto Zoo this summer the butterflies were actually out in the Indo-Malaya Pavillion so it was interesting to see them flying around everywhere so closely you.

While cleaning boxes of old schoolwork I found that poem I did from Gr.12, which reminded me of the awesome Doppelganger poem:

Self-Reflection

I woke up from my dream
at last.
The world still seemed an illusion.
Surrounded by tunnels,
the lobby was silent and still.
I was almost unnerved.
The seated black-cloaked man
pointed towards
a symbol above a door.
I went deeper,
but it wasn’t my preference.
A creature pointed to a green door.
I ignored it
and wanted to go another way, so
I shouted,
but a force drove me into the door.
I was uncertain,
walking deeper into the dark.
I was compelled to turn back but kept
moving to a random direction.
I ran
at last of my own will,
and there a great entity
was guarding something.
I realized that I

had found my portal.

I realized that I
was guarding something.
And there, a great entity,
at last of my own will,
I ran,
moving to a random direction.
I was compelled to turn back but kept
walking deeper into the dark.
I was uncertain,
but a force drove me into the door.
I shouted,
and wanted to go another way, so,
I ignored it.
A creature pointed to a green door,
but it wasn’t my preference.
I went deeper.
A symbol above a door
pointed towards
the seated black-cloaked man.
I was almost unnerved.
The lobby was silent and still
surrounded by tunnels.
The world still seemed an illusion.
At last,
I woke up from my dream.

Galaktoboureko

Yummmm...

Ended up going to Wonderland: Behemoth was very high but it somehow felt more secure than it looked. I think it's the highest coaster that I've been on so far.

Speaking of bird nests (from last post), while lining up for The Bat we spotted a bird's nest tucked on the supports directly under the roller coaster track. There was a robin settled in the nest, apparently unaware that a coaster cart is noisily speeding by 15cm above its head. Eventually the robin flew off, revealing that there were actually baby birds in the nest. Hopefully they won't have hearing problems later on.

Also, saw The Incredible Hulk. Yes, it is better than the first one.

Currently trying to make plans for Summerlicious. Winterlicious was great, so hopefully Summerlicious is ok too. It's nice getting a set dinner for $25 when the restaurant lists that a usual dinner for two people is $100-$150.

I found this fun tool called Wordle from Sandwalk (who found it from Expression Patterns). It takes a block of text that you enter and makes a little visual cluster out of the words, with the size of the words changing according to their frequency in the passage. I plugged some stuff I had to write recently:







It's addictive for a while :P

Finally, fun summer weather = hail

Things Happened

Most of which are not very interesting.

Highlights:
- 2nd year was dealt a finishing blow
- FeMan, 404 Forbidden Kingdom
- Darwin: The Evolution Revolution @ ROM
- WiiWare -> Dr. Mario
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- The damage of the game disc of said Brawl
- Finally finished Tigana
- I found out that I liked crosswords, but am still terrible at them
- Started playing iSketch again to find that all the regulars are now using crazy pseudonyms and are all "teehee I won't tell you who I am"

Also, found a nest in the tree in the front yard:



It looks very well made. Reminds me of the duck nest, except back then the duck was still there. That was when I found out that ducks made loud wheezing noises to make you go away.

Future forecast?
- Visit to Wonderland, which is now exponentially less paramount
- Victory of Eagles
- Trauma Center 2 (!!!)

Exam Schedule
CLA201 - 04/22 - 9-11am - SEEL
BIO250 - 04/24 - 2-5pm - VAN
CHM247 - 04/28 - 9am-12pm - VAS
HMB265 - 05/02 - 9am-12pm - VAN
PCL201 - 05/07 - 9am-12pm - VAS

4/5 exams in the same place, therefore I did not get lost.

IL NOSTRO MONDO STVPIDO

Somehow this week has managed to be the culmination of almost everything that I initially feared could go wrong with taking public transit during winter. Compared to this, the fiasco on Friday could be a mere passable event.

Highlights of the week include:
● Almost being late for a midterm
● Being late for a lab session
● Being trapped on a VIVA bus for over three hours
● Almost missing Chinese New Year's Eve dinner
● The most hours ever spent studying on a public transit vehicle in a single week
● Writing a midterm for the worse course I have ever taken

Initially, I thought that the storm this week would be way more mild than last week, with less snowfall but a chance of freezing rain. As a lesson learned I immediately registered the Winter Storm Hotline into my cellphone. Sadly, the storm ended up being very wet and voluminous...

Wednesday morning provided a little scare as one of the ever fragile subway stations decided it would lose all power, grinding the whole line to a halt. However this is not all that unusual, and luckily that was the only interruption that morning. I normally arrive over an hour before the start time of the miderm, and I managed to arrive before the midterm started.

Later that day, there was an optional review session for the pharmacology course from 5-6. Initially I wasn't going to attend due to the professor being notorious for creating more confusion and havoc in her "clarifications", but in the end I stayed...for a reason best left unbiased by hindsight.

Because of this, upon reaching Finch station at 6:59pm, there ensued a great one hour wait in the snowstorm, by now at its peak. At least I had practice from last week. But the reason for the delay was that there was apparently some major series of accidents north along Yonge, causing a blockade immediately along the VIVA route. No buses arrived until an hour later, during which time amassed a sizable amount of snow on the platform, people in the station, and water in my shoes. Although during this time I was able to see flashes of lightning in the sky, which is apparently really rare during snowstorms.

Since the whole Finch/Yonge intersection was literally frozen in place, the bus driver headed up normally along Yonge, but reached an impasse at Clark station, where we too remained immobile for an hour. In addition to freaking about about having a lab the next day and a midterm on Friday, there was a man onboard who seemed to be suffering from a mental disorder which caused him to scream shrilly every now and then, effectively scaring the hell out of everyone on board.

There eventually formulated a plan to divert the bus through some residential streets and connecting to Bayview via John St., before turning back towards Richmond Hill Center. Awesome, let's inch along the road faster, please. Unfortunately, the plan, although with very good intentions I'm sure, involved driving into one-lane roads and over a very steep hill. This effectively amounted to being trapped in the bus for a further two hours.

During this time the atmosphere on the bus instead grew rather relaxed as we all accepted our fates in the blue-coloured tomb. Everyone grew accustomed to the random wailing of the aforementioned fellow. However, another dilemma was still present, which was that today was Chinese New Year's Eve. The tradition says that on Chinese New Year's Eve, you must dine together with your family in order to ensure good luck for the new year, a rule that my family adamantly abided by. It's either that or be cursed for the rest of the year or something. As it was currently about two hours from the end of the day, you can see why the frequency of stressful phone calls I received from home was increasing.

My father was previously stuck on the roads too but eventually reached Richmond Hill Center and we drove home. After spending about 5 minutes charging back and forth up the driveway which by now was covered in a foot of snow, our family had Chinese New Year's Eve dinner at 11:15pm.

The following day involved arriving late for the lab, rushing in short-breathed followed by a few other stragglers, but understandably we were still allowed to write the quiz normally administered at the beginning of the session and granted a zero if you were late.

Friday was a whole different dimension of stress. This involved the pharmacology midterm. However, this was no ordinary midterm. It was also no ordinary course. PCL201, up until last year, was effectively a bird course (well, as bird-course-y as life sci courses can go at UofT). This year, there was a new professor. And she decided to do things her way. This includes:

● Being excessively rude towards her students. She seems to view every reasonable request as a threat to her position or status, belitting us for wanting things that every other professor willingly provides.
● This includes lecture slides which she provides in a format which requires a magnifying glass to read without permanent damage to the eyes. When students made the request to change the format, or at least provide the Powerpoint so that the students could do it themselves, she outright refused.
● The lecture slides consist of cut and paste from what seems like Google Search images.
● She makes many, many mistakes during her lecture. She mixes up very important terms such as "hydrophobic" and "hydrophilic" which can totally change one's understanding of a concept, as well as mixing up drug names (Digoxin? Dioxin? Didroxin?).

Obviously the last straw came when marks were directly involved, as is always the case in UofT, it seems. The class average on the simple 10 question MC quizzes were dramatically low. They were the kind of quizzes that are simply supposed to "make you review" and allow you to get 10/10 on for almost every one. Most of the more adamant students appealed to the student council for pharmtox and they actually held a student meeting for the issue. Now that the midterm has passed, no doubt there will be an even greater source of enmity towards the professor.

As of yesterday, over 50 people had dropped the course. Which makes one sarcastically wonder what retake % this course will receive at the end of this semester.

Luckily on a much lighter note, tomorrow is the day of the VGL concert in Toronto! Hooray. As well, I just bought Our Dumb World today which is written by The Onion, and it is basically the best book in the world on the world.

On a more grave note, there is an organic chem midterm next week. Owch.

Winter Storm Warning

Scenario: Must get down to campus for 11:00am Scientific Terminology class

7:00am
- Wake up

7:45am
- CP24 announces that there are no delays for subway routes

8:00am
- Get a ride to Scarborough Town Center

8:30am
- Radio reports that UofT Mississauga campus is closed

9:00am
- Arrive at Scarborough Town Center
- RT is delayed; wait in packed RT platform

9:30am
- Arrive at Kennedy station

10:15am
- Arrive at Spadina station

10:30am
- Arrive on campus
- Get internet access
- Discover that UofT St. George campus is closing at 11am

10:45am
- Finished sobbing
- Depart for home

11:25am
- Arrive at Finch station
- Wait 25 mins for VIVA Blue

12:15pm
- Arrive at Richmond Hill Center
- Wait 20 mins for VIVA Purple

1:00pm
- Arrive at Enterprise
- Walk down to Unionville station
- Wait 10 mins for Kennedy bus

1:30pm
- Arrive home

1:45pm
- Type whiny post
- Cry about lost time and tokens

Immunoprecipitation

In lieu of the impending snowstorm today I went into the Wii Weather Channel and saw a weather icon I hadn't seen before. It turns out that Rankin Inlet is experiencing diamond dust. Wow, that sounds pretty intense. Are there sharp crystallic fragments of ice blowing around outside? What did they do to upset Shiva?

As it turns out, diamond dust is kind of like fog, but instead of being a cloud of water droplets, it is composed of a cloud of ice crystals.

Diamond dust is similar to fog in that it is a cloud based at the surface; it differs from fog in two main ways. Generally fog refers to a cloud composed of liquid water (the term ice fog usually refers to a fog that formed as liquid water and then froze, and frequently seems to occur in polluted valleys such as Fairbanks, Alaska, while diamond dust forms directly as ice). Also, fog is a dense enough cloud to significantly reduce visibility, while diamond dust is usually very thin and may not have any effect on visibility (there are far fewer crystals in a volume of air than there are droplets in the same volume with fog). However, diamond dust can often reduce the visibility, in some cases to under a mile (1600 m).

Source

The sunlight reflecting off all of the tiny ice crystals into your eye causing glittering flashes of light results in the term "diamond dust".

On a related note, it turns out that Rankin Inlet was competing with Iqaluit to become the official capital of the territory of Nunavut, but we all know how that turned out : (

"i left when he started talking...about HI HI HOW ARE YOU"

In light of an astronomy project, I went up to Aurora last night and went stargazing. Retreating to as dark an area which could be found, I looked up and saw what I believe were the most stars I have ever seen. This may be due to the fact that I have never stepped outside at night in Markham during one of those legendary "clear days". Even so, trying to find Polaris was disconcertingly hard, as all the stars around the general direction of "north" were either absent or engulfed in a huge mass of clouds. This leads me to conclude that the skies of ancient Mesopotamia must have been absolutely lucid because I can't comprehend how it was they could spot things like Saturn every day in the sky.

So the effort of braving the 5 degree night to find Polaris wasn't quite rewarded. Howeer, I did manage to get a glimpse of the "stars" which are so very hard to see.

Well that is, unless the star exploded a few million years ago, in which case that star isn't technically there...

Also, it was the "good" daylight savings switch today, the one that gives the illusion of gaining more time. :D

GER PICK-UP

So right now is way past the time when you realize university isn't fun. The first sets of midterms have already passed, and the next set starts soon. I have a biology writing report which demands you stuff information found in a ten-page scientific article into three single-sided double-spaced pages. An astronomy project expects me to be able to fully identify constellations in the sky...we are in Toronto, and it seems the professor hasn't noticed the little quirks about Toronto's sky, which is that there are no stars, only smog.

Earlier this month someone had a seizure during a phys chem lecture, which obviously caused a big clamor. Right after that I went to astronomy, and someone shouted "Call a doctor!" after the guy beside her "fell unconsious" and dropped the bottle he was holding. Personally, it just looked like he fell asleep, not unconscious...

In regards to commuting, I have sadly witnessed a sharp increase of subway beggars, who jump to and fro between subway cars pushing their Tim Hortons cup into your face as they pass while you're sleeping. I guess it is very effective as all the people around you have already been concentrated into a small area for you.

Also recently, the revelations about finding high levels of lead in products is really confusing to me. A few months ago everyone was happy with their toy cars and building blocks, and then suddenly everything has too much lead in it. It's as if quality testing just realized "Holy crap, we forgot to test for lead" and then found out everything had a lot of lead. I wonder if this was like when we found out that saturated fats were bad, and that everything actually had saturated fats.

This month is also Nintendo freebie month. They sent me a spiffy pack of DS Lite styluses a long while ago for my Brain Age 2 purchase. They're also sending out some Wii Remote jackets for people who actually still have problems not treating the remotes like a javelin.



However the change in publishers for Nintendo Power I do not like as much, as they no longer give you the option to choose a free gift when you resubscribe to the magazine, only a barebones website which forces you to get a player's guide you really don't need.

Also, contemplating SSBB:



This is what happens when I wait too long to post.

Whetted Curiosity

Last night there was much hopping through deep snow. This morning there was much wading through deep puddles.

Bottom of pant legs...so wet...

Snow Night

It just started snowing like crazy an hour or so ago. So apparently all class after 5pm today are cancelled.

Urban warming got beat and we managed to get a quarter of a Snow Day. Oh burn.

Now about getting to the restaurant...

Bond of Freedom

Today we had a special Mardi Gras themed lunch in the caf, and it was really good. The reason we're having a Mardi Gras themed lunch at this time of year is unknown. I mean, it's definitely a Mercredi.

Slush! Luckily air pollution will keep us from having a Snow Day. :(

Egg Bagel

It's going to be real cold!

Also, linguistics is interesting. And maybe I'll see Pan's Labyrinth tomorrow.

And now I can set my cellphone to tell me to stop forgetting the laundry.

Dupe

Deceived by physical and chemical cues, the wasp Campsoscolia ciliata tries to mate with the orchid Ophrys speculum. The labellium, or lower lip, of the flower has roughly the size, shape, and fuzziness of a female wasp; male wasps apparently cannot distinguish between them. As a result the orchid is pollinated by wasps that visit one flower after another searching for a mate.

D'oh.

Only halfway through mid-terms. Darn...

Mr. BS Pilot

As I was reading The Science Book, I quickly realized that I've lost all memory of what we've learned the previous school year...again. Familiar names and terms kept flashing by...but I could never exactly remember what it was about. I guess it's good to be reminded of them so that the start of university will have less of a negative punch to it, with the new experience of lectures and whatnot. Orientation might help lessen the tension too.

"The Aristotelian name of the tomato, for instance, had expanded into Solanum caule inerme herbaceo, foliis pinnatis incisis, racemis simplicibus (Solanum with smooth herbaceous stem, incised pinnate leaves and simple inflorescence). This name is less convenient than the Linnaean name Solanum lycopersicum." - Naming life

"What's more, electrons, previously regarded as particles, sometimes behave like waves. We seem to need both models. As Sir William Bragg quipped in the 1920s, 'On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays light behaves like waves, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays like particles, and like nothing at all on Sundays.'" - Wave nature of light

"There were three obvious clues. First of all, Uranus had until 1822 been accelerating, but had then become retarded." - Discovery of Neptune

Press any button to begin, n00b! LOL OMG

Here -> Fabulous -> Calgarian* -> Here

* - Actually from Banff.

I arrived back in Toronto on Friday morning. Seeing as I'm unable to properly put together and organize a brief yet coherent summary of the trip, I'll give you random tidbits of it.

- My chance of getting lung cancer has probably increased 60% thanks to the casinos.

- NEVER bring put anything fragile into the Fragile cargo of Air Canada. While I was "deplaning" into Toronto I watched from inside the plane as our "fragile" box was jerked from the conveyor belt and tossed unceremoniously into the cargo trailer, where it landed on its side, and remained on its side even when we went to pick it up. Luckily the only casualties were a few slightly smushed cakes and muffins.

- And speaking of food, Vegas had lots of it. (The first pic was from Bellagio's buffet.) I was quite happy.





-Got some awesome books, including (finally): Eats, Shoots and Leaves. I even visited the Calgary Public Library, which has an unnecessarily phallic logo.

- I also picked up this pretty bismuth sculpture from Banff. You can't really see its true colour due to the orange light from the camera, but it's pretty and metallic.



- "The weather in Toronto is currently about twenty-two degrees, with a flu - Excuse me, I meant a few clouds." - Flight Attendant

Finally, a clip from one of Bellagio's fountain shows. It was really amazing, but we only watched two of them before we dashed off for some air conditioning to brush off the forty degrees celcius sweat. Although I heard it was pretty hot in Toronto too.



That's all I care to post about right now.

And also:

Unnecessary Censorship

Baby Got Bible

Electroplankton

Summer is the best time to go bug hunting and fishing in AC:WW. The range of varieties available is extensive. Fishing becomes most exciting because you can catch things like seahorses, blue marlins, clownfish, and even:



Sharks! :o It's cool because when you see their silhouette under the water you actually see their dorsal fins.

On an even cooler note, tonight I just saw another one of these dorsal fins sticking out and caught it expecting another shark, perhaps a hammerhead. But instead this thing came out:



The huge thing at the top left, bigger than the coelacanth beside it. It's an ocean sunfish, and according to Wiki, they do often get mistaken for sharks because they often swim close to the surface, so the game got it right to that aspect.

Apparently the sunfish also occationally breach from the water, and sometimes the float sideways near the surface so that birds can come down and pick food off it. The breaching is probably a method of expelling more parasites from its body. :S

Worth more than its weight in gold

Article and images from Discover magazine April '06 issue.


Nemo Goes To College
Dean Pomerleau's pet goldfish, Albert Einstein, knows how to play fetch, a feat the Pittsburgh-area engineer hopes will earn his calico fantail a listing in Guinness World Records as the world's smartest fish. Albert the goldfish has also learned to nudge a soccer ball into a goal and to do the limbo.

"I spend half my life telling people fish aren't stupid," says Culum Brown, a zoologist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand who puts fish through mazes to study cognition. Brown says salmon can learn to feed themselves by pushing a lever, and some carp are trained to come when called so that workers using them to clean up algae can transport the fish from one lake to another. He has also observed that rainbow fish recall the location of an escape hole in a fishing net a year later.

Fish brains have a structure very different from those of other vertebrates: They develop inside out. Although these brains don't have the same parts, they seem to do the same things. "Unfortunately, there are only about three labs in the world that work on fish brains, so it's taking a long time to catch up," Brown says.

In nature, memory equals survival. Fish learn from one another which to mate with and which not to fight with, where to eat and how not to get eaten. Brown enjoys picking up a fishing rod and engaging in a battle of wits: "There's something to be said for outsmarting them!"

- Jessica Ruvinsky

Don't Be A Litterbug!

Just two more obstacles for this week until March Break. Then it's done.

Today was a day of Toronto Zoo-ing. There was much fun to be had in the wintry weather. There was an otter rolling in the snow, a hermit crab escaping certain doom, lots of tiny lizards fighting over a cricket, and a python ingesting a rabbit. It was dead, I think. The rabbit.

Otherwise it was pretty much the same zoo as before.

One day, I need to go to the Canadian Domain. That isolated corner of the zoo, way back there.

Etc: "A favourite superstition of Yorkshire people to bring good luck on themselves is to throw a hairy caterpillar over their left shoulder whenever they find one!" - A Dictionary of Omens and Superstitions

Etcetc: