Why have birds in Huntington Beach, California been flipping out over the last week? On Thursday, a pelican flew right through a car windshield (it lived). Meanwhile, the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center picked up three birds that we're apparently acting confused and fielded calls about sixteen more. Turns out, these birds may have domoic acid poisoning, the same illness that may have caused the 1961 northern California bird invasion that inspired Hithcock. From the Los Angeles Times:

Although toxicology tests aren't complete (there are no bird breathalyzers), such behavior usually signals domoic acid poisoning from eating algae, said Lisa Birkle, assistant wildlife director at the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach, which is caring for the pelicans...

According to news reports, thousands of befuddled birds rained down on Northern California towns in August 1961, slamming into buildings and even pecking eight humans...

Nobody is predicting a Hitchcockian invasion here, but Birkle urged Southern California residents to be on the lookout for pelicans acting disoriented or turning up in unusual locations.

Link (Thanks, Mark Pescovitz!)

UPDATE: Thanks to the readers who point out that The Birds was based on story by Daphne Du Maurier. However, Hitchcock apparently also drew inspiration from the 1961 invasion. Link to Santa Cruz Sentinel article

Earlier this year, I posted about how Hanson Robotics' amazing Philip K. Dick robot, an android version of the late SF author, went missing. Well, according to this New York Times story from today, PKD is still MIA. Unless this is a publicity stunt, the loss of the robot is a major bummer, especially on the eve of the July 7 release of the film A Scanner Darkly, based on his excellent novel. Apparently, David Hanson accidentally left the head, packed in an American Tourister suitcase, on an airplane when head to change planes on the way from Dallas to San Francisco. From the NYT:

After landing in San Francisco, he notified the airline, whose officials apparently found the head in Las Vegas, packed it in a box and sent it on the next flight to San Francisco. Mysteriously, it never arrived.

"It's hard to know where they went wrong," said Mr. Hanson. "Did it go on to another city? Did it get mistagged? Did it end up in a warehouse? What happened?" He still doesn't know, though he is in touch with America West every few weeks in a vain quest for answers...

For Mr. Hanson the missing android is an open sore, straining his relations with Mr. Dick's foundation and the author's two surviving daughters, who provided access to much of Mr. Dick's nonpublished materials, which were downloaded into the android's brain. Sorry, database.

It took Mr. Hanson and a team of other experts six months to build the robot, and required $25,000 from student loans and investors. He also regards it as an artist might a masterpiece, one of a kind and invaluable in its own right.

Link (Thanks, Thau!)

The "independent state" of Sealand, home to data havens and pirate radio operators, was ruined yesterday by a massive blaze. Snip from a local news report:

The so-called Principality of Sealand, seven miles off the coast of Felixstowe and Harwich, was evacuated at lunchtime yesterdayafter a generator caught fire. Thames Coastguard, Harwich RNLI lifeboat, Felixstowe Coastguard rescue teams, firefighting tug Brightwell, the RAF rescue helicopter from Wattisham and 15 Suffolk based firefighters from the National Maritime Incident Response Group (MIRG) were all called into action to tackle the blaze.

One man, believed to be a security guard, was airlifted from the scene and taken to Ipswich Hospital with smoke inhalation but no one else was on the Second World War gun emplacement.

Link.

Michael Bates of Sealand's royal family vows to rebuild: Link. No word yet on exactly how the fire happened, or whether foul play may have been involved, but:

There have been at least seven attempts by raiders to try to seize it from the Bates family with petrol bombs, shotguns and hand-to-hand fighting.

(thanks, Jake)

Reader comment: Bob Brinkman asks,

If Sealand was completely evacuated, hasn't it ceased to be a nation? My understanding is that nations MUST have a permanent population. If the sole occupant of Sealand was evacuated, Sealand ceased to be a nation. If that is the case, and Sealand now resides in British territorial waters, all thoughts of regaining sovereignty are most likely gone.

Robert de Bath says,

Sealand's status will not change because of this. The UK Gov doesn't see them as an independent nation anyway, and would therefore not 'claim' Sealand as part of the UK because they are already seen to be. They can get away with things because they are inaccessable but really all it means is that they don't have any busybody neighbours; they often go into town, like the rest of us, and can expect a knock through the door if the police would really like a chat.

Man with Bruce Jenner hair-do and fashionable white turtleneck uses strong language and unusual gesticulations to tell Charlotte, NC council members that he is upset by bothersome a "rogue helicopter pilot." Link (thanks, Coop!)

Bats Day in the Fun Park is the annual, unauthorized goth day at Disneyland. The eighth of these is coming up this August, and has metastasized into a weekend-long festival with a conference hotel, music, and a "black market" selling gothy stuff. The event culminates with a mass riding of the Haunted Mansion and a group photo of hundreds -- thousands? -- of goths posing with the Mansion. I'm moving to LA in about three weeks, so I'll actually be a local when the next one of these rolls around. I'm really going to try to make it this year.

Is there any kind of dress code?

You can dress to impress, but keep in mind that it may be very hot that day. From our previous trips we found out that Disney will not allow capes or fishnet stocking, on guys, to be worn into the park. You can try to wear them in, but keep in mind that you may be asked to take them off and place them back in you car. One of the main reasons that there is a dress code is due to the fact that Disney does not want anyone from the regular visitors mistaken any of us as one of their characters or cast members.

Link

Here's a happy computer video of what might happen if a big meteor hits earth. Link

I just stumbled across this amazing piece by Paul Di Filippo on the trials and tribulations of writing an article for Wired in 1998. It's scary and funny. And I owe Paul a long-overdue apology for dragging him into the ordeal in the first place. Sorry, Paul! Link to PDF file| Link to the Wired article

In honor of the 43d anniversary of Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room -- my favorite animatronic show in the universe -- How has linked to a bunch of Tiki Room media files online, including the song from the Tokyo Disneyland Tiki Room, and photos and postcards of the Tiki Room. The Tiki Room features many wisecracking, singing birds, flowers and totem poles, who perform classical music, the Hawai'ian War Chant, and Let's All Sing Like the Birdies sing, while making toxic, grampa-grade jokes. Link (Thanks, How!)

Charles Darwin's tortoise, Harriet, has died at the Australia Zoo near Brisbane. Darwin brought Harriet (then called Harry: Darwin was quite a naturalist, but an undistinguished tortoise-sexer as these things go) from the Galapagos Islands in 1835. I had the pleasure of meeting Harriet last spring. She was awesomely photogenic, and her keeper told us that she'd roamed free in the Brisbane botanical gardens, giving kids tortoise-back rides, until the botanists got tired of her eating the rare plants. At 176, she was thought to be the world's oldest living tortoise. Link (Thanks, WY!)

Update: Natalija sends in this story that suggests that Harriet was the second-oldest tortoise in the world.