Gotta go

Riding a far too bouncy bus home from Golden Gate Park, I was reminded of the death of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Tycho was the one who got a whole island for the purpose of building his naked eye observatory.



He also lost his nose in a rapier duel and had it replaced by a fake nose made out of precious metals. And he had a pet moose. He was kind of a big, dorky, 16th century weirdo, that Tycho.



But I was thinking of him because I'd heard he had died from urine retention. The story is that he was at a royal ball and refused to use the Danish facilities until the king left the table. As a result, he developed a massive kidney stone and several days later his bladder burst. Altho' new evidence suggests he may actually have died from mercury poisoning ... he had a sideline as a alchemist, you see.



Regardless, it certainly wasn't the 3 glasses of mercury I had at breakfast that nearly caused my own breach of protocol on the bus ride home.