Don't Land Or I'll Shoot

"Alas, poor Yorick Astro! I knew him [not], Horatio Dear Reader, [yet he was] a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me fleas on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorr'd in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it."

Worthy of Shakespeare it is, even bastardized.

You may or may not know that the Dutch currently have an astronaut on the International Space Station, orbiting some 350km above the planet's surface. Apparently this event has proven inspirational to more than the budding scientists in the country.

At the old-new year change festivities, which in Netherlands include the explosion of massive amounts of fireworks, two 20-year-old youngsters tied a mouse to a firework--to send him to space? The youngsters are not forthcoming on their reasons. They were discovered before the unfortunate rodent was sent into the ether, but the mouse died a few days after the incident. No worries, the Dutch take animal cruelty seriously and the hooligans will get their punishment.

At any rate, the mouse, nicknamed Astro, has now been stuffed and is being put on display at the Fries Natuurmuseum in Leeuwarden. Eww. (My gorge rises at it.)

But what actually made this a Daily Wot topic was the casual mention of the company Astro is now keeping at the Fries Natuurmuseum. Among other exhibits, he's joining the Domino Sparrow. Now this is the event you really need to try to get a clear picture of in your head.

Domino Day was an annual event in Holland from 1998 to 2009. Each event combined the efforts of domino-chain experts to try to break the standing record for the number of dominoes falling in a single chain-reaction event. In 2005, this event was set up in Leeuwarden. Yes, the same town as the Natuurmuseum. Four million dominoes stood waiting for their big day, just four days away, as the experts continued working on the setup. Each attempt at the record involved around 4.5 million dominoes (4.8 million in 2009) precisely placed to hopefully be triggered in one huge domino fall.

The Domino Sparrow was curious. Finding a way into the building (birds do that from time to time), the Domino Sparrow appears to have appreciated the pattern on the floor made by all the standing dominoes. So much so that he decided to land on some of the dominoes, triggering a fall that eventually took down 23,000 dominoes. No further damage was done because the dominoes are arranged in sections with gaps that are kept in place until immediately before the event begins, and the shouting and efforts to catch the bird kept him from landing again.

The Frisan Expo Center called in animal experts, who called in a hunter, who spent several hours attempting to catch the sparrow with nets and sticks. Eight hours after the sparrow entered the building, he was shot.

It's probably my own dysfuntion, but the only thing I could think of was, "Damn that guy must have been a really good shot."

As the sparrow in question was a member of an endangered species, the shooter was fined. Animal rights' groups were outraged and a bounty was placed on the dominoes. The domino event went on as planned, the bounty stood uncollected (thanks to heightened security by the Expo Center) and the Domino Sparrow's stuffed body was put on display in the Natuurmuseum in Rotterdam until 2007. It's now housed in the Natuurmuseum in Leeuwarden.

Animal rights debates aside, I really had a time trying to wrap my head around the tension in the room when the people setting up these dominoes have invested thousands of man-hours and they realized there's a bird in the room and then the bird actually lands on the dominoes and they begin to fall. I freak out if dinner doesn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I'd have lost my entire mind.

Today's lessons: Mice cannot get to space on fireworks. And don't touch the Dutch dominoes; they'll shoot you.