Totally Blowing Shit Up Tuesdays: Paging the Darwin Awards

Being a chemist, I always keep in the back of my mind what is going on with the reaction I'm about to do or am doing or getting ready to shut down. In the front of my mind, however, I usually keep the "what can go wrong with this motherfucker" file. Can it heat up and blow yellow shit all over the top of my hood? Can it smoke and fume and blow black tar on the inside of my hood which I can conveniently hand over to one of my co-workers as I move to a new lab? Can it detonate forcefully and remove a hand or, worse, my tally-wacker? Will the explosion be that big? Maybe I should work on small scale more often in the hood.

The other thing I do is I look at all the shit around the reaction I'm doing. If it's going to suddenly shoot flames out of the top of the flask, perhaps I'll want to remove all the flammable solvents from the immediate area. If it can explode, perhaps I'll want to put up a blast shield so that nothing flies out and punctures a gas tank or another reaction or my lung. Is there another reaction running that might interact with this and thus make the situation worse?

And finally, I consider my outfit. No, no, I don't worry about the stylish duds I'm sporting. If I have a shit ton of hot chemical blown all over my person, I want to be able to strip off my soiled clothes (and my soiled underclothes). I might also want to protect my eyes, so that I don't have to remember how gloriously awesome breasts are, but I can reaffirm for myself on a daily basis. Of course, reaffirm too much, and I'll go blind for other reasons. Curse you, nuns, you were right! Also, if I'm reaching toward something that's potentially going to explode or spew hot stuff at me, I want some gloves so that they can at least find my fingers when they're severed and--if not too mangled--reattach them.

With that in mind, let's watch this dumbass trying his best to win a Darwin Award:

Let's see how he did, shall we?

No goggles.
No lab coat.
Jesus Fuck Christ! This guy is apparently wearing Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Labcoat!
No gloves.
No blast shield.
Not working in a hood, where all those toxic fumes you've just created can by shunted out to mother nature.
Bottle of potentially flammable solvent sitting two feet from ground zero (or table zero, I guess). I think it's ethanol, but it might be a halogenated solvent, in which case, we just have to worry about it shattering and filling the lab with nasty vapors.
Stirring, boiling flask sitting two feet in the other direction. Probably a water-based reaction, but could be caustic and/or acidic.
Electrical cord running right through the blast area.
Boiling flask is not secured in any fashion.
Lighting shit on fire without a fire extinguisher anywhere nearby. But not to worry. The Big Bad Idiot Wolf huffed and puffed and blew the fire out.


That's a pretty good list right there. Not to mention, a rainbow-colored windbreaker is the ideal thing to wear when you're working in the lab. Granted, after blowing his eyebrows off, the rainbow-colored windbreaker was now striped in a very lurid brown color.

This is exactly why I shouldn't be a teacher--I'd kick this kid's ass for being so totally fucking stupid. And then I'd fail him. Insult to injury, baby. Basically, this guy was fucking lucky. Kids, don't try this shit at home. Or in the lab. Or anywhere near me.

But, if you do, at least wear goggles.

Quarantine!

By the orders of the Center for Disease Control and the Government of These United States of America, this blog is quarantined until such time as it is deemed to no longer be a threat to the health of the general populace.

Be warned that, if you have had any contact with this blog in the past week, you could be exposed to the dangerous and highly-deadly H1N1 virus. Or, you might get the sniffles and a fever and a nasty cough that keeps your husband up all night.

Please refer to this site if you are unfamiliar with the symptoms of the Artist Formerly Known as the Swine Flu.

Thank you for your cooperation. Wash your hands. Jiggle it twice. Eet mor chikun.

Warning Labels

Yesterday, for lunch, I bought myself one of those cans of Hormel chili. I must admit that, while in grad school, this was one of my staple foods (that is, until I met the Comely and Buxom and Easily Terrified and Gunshy Boudicca). I tried to recapture a little of that youthful enthusiasm for life and chemistry this weekend by buying and partaking of the Hormel chili.

I'm not sure about recapturing those things, but I will say that Hormel probably should put a warning label on their cans of chili. It should read something like "While the contents of this can are undeniably delicious, this product should be eaten and digested in a well-ventilated room."

Mercy.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Okay, let's just say that you're writing a book that's in the realm of historical fantasy. Stay with me here. And let's just say that you're kind of bored with the writing/editing/rewriting schtick, and you decide that what you really want to do is play around with heraldry and make some shields for some of your characters, because you have a bit of an artistic flair. However, you need an outline of a shield for that, right?

What's the thing to do if you need an image of a shield? You search "shield" in google images, right?

Now, let's just say--hypothetically, of course--that you do this. You may want to remember that certain feminine products are known as "panty shields".

With me still? Good.

Now, let's just say that you have your safe search turned off. Again, speaking in hypotheticals. You would do well to remember that there are some sick motherfuckers out there who would take and post pictures of, let's say, panty shields that were not in their pristine, straight-from-the-wrapper condition. And while this is a perfectly natural biological function, sometimes the viewer might need a bit of preparation before finding that upon his--or her--screen.

All hypothetically of course.

Now, while you all make sure your safe search is switched on, I'm going to be pouring bleach into my eyeballs.

Helpful Tips for the Coming Year

It's 2009, and a lot of you probably made some sort of resolutions. Mine? Give up abstinence and sobriety. Also, come out of the bushes a little more often.

I'm sure some of you pledged to be more "green" in the new year. Hopefully that doesn't mean you're going to swell up like The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man Al Gore. Seriously. Wow. Did he become a eunuch or something?

Anyway, I compiled a list of ways to be more green this year to help you, the reader.

1) Recycle. Especially paper. Plastic just gets remade into office chairs, but recycled paper can--almost--be made into usable paper once again. Or it gets made into cardboard which my kids can then transform into forts and other things to hamper my successful navigation of the living room. Also, something like 70% of the trash in our landfills is paper.

2) Install energy-saving bulbs. This will cut down on the amount of power you use, which means that's less coal and dead goats that we have to burn, thus reducing the release of the most nefarious gas of all: carbon dioxide. Also, cutting down on the amount of power you use will help you save some green--like in your wallet green. Fucking aye! Saving the planet and some cash, all in one neatly little coiled tube? I've got a heart of gold to be sharing this information with you. Be careful, though, with those bulbs when they finally do burn out because they're filled with mercury, which can damage fish, unborn children, and be seen low in the western sky right after sunset.

3) Eat more meat. Did you know that methane is a greenhouse gas? It's true. I'd get into the whole thing about IR-active stretches of the 4 C-H bonds in methane, but I can't really turn it into a sexual pun like I do most other science-based explanations that I offer up here. Think about this: All those farts you're cutting all day that you think no one can smell? Well, people can smell them, but since they don't stink like your feet, we mostly ignore them. Also, do you know what produces a shit-ton (literally) of methane every day? Cows. Eat more of them. They're fucking tasty. I hear pigs fart, too. Eat bacon; save a tree.

4) Turn the lights off. When you leave the room, flick 'em off. I promise, the boogeyman isn't going to jump out at you as you leave the room. Michael Myers, maybe, but the boogeyman, no. I mean, he's just there to dance. Or, you could be more like my wife and turn the lights off when she enters the room where I'm currently lounging. She's all about the saving of the planet.

5) Gamma rays. Irradiate yourself with some high-powered member of the electromagnetic spectrum. Go apeshit. Smash stuff. Wear a lot of purple pants. Forget how to conjugate verbs.

There you have it. Five ways that you can fulfill your goal of being more green this year. You can thank me in December.

On the Married Guy's Perspective

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Ladies, I Need Your Help

Well, actually I don't need your help. I'm asking on behalf of a friend. Honest. Okay, fine, don't believe me, but help me out, anyway.

I have a friend who is single and female and is going on a somewhat blind date this Friday evening. She's going to an "upscale casual" restaurant with this guy, and doesn't know what to wear. Like me, she's a chemist, so all of her clothes are of the "if I spill acid on this, I can just throw it away" variety.

So, any suggestions? She reads this blog, so just drop any nuggets of wisdom in the comments section.

In other news, I almost got into a fist fight today at lunch with some douchebag in a DirectTV van. Consider this part of my community service.

The War of the Seals

A long time ago, someone took the sap of a tree and let it polymerize, thus making latex. In time, people discovered there were lots of wonderful things you could do with this natural polymer: make it round, inflate it with air, and heat it in the presence of sulfur and you can get something for on your car; slip it over your John Thomas, and you can have yourself a guilt-free bout of naughty during shore leave; mix it with some cooking oil and you can correct your graphite-laden mistakes; cast it roughly in the shape of a woman, put a dark, curly wig on it, call it Dannah Dean, pump it full of air and--well, *nervous laughter* you get the idea. Rubber is pretty damned versatile stuff.

One other thing you can do with it is to shape it in the form or rings and saucers and it helps to create air- and water-tight seals on various implements you might find around the house or, let's say, lab. And that is where today's bugaboo leads us.

At first, there was the War of the Roses, then later came the War of the Worlds and then the War of the Ring and, somewhat recently, the War of the Flowers. The past two days, I have been fighting the War of the Seal.

No, no, not that seal. I leave that to the nefarious Canadians or Heidi Klum. No, the seals I have been fighting are the little rings that you deftly position in the proper places to create the aforementioned water- and air-tight connections.



It all started simply enough on Sunday, when my wife came home early from work. The toilet in the kids' bathroom had been making dripping, "snoring" noises for a couple of days, but I had not the time to fix it (there was a lot of couch-sleeping to do). After digging around in the tank for a while, I decided I needed a new rubber gasket for the connector between the tank and the bowl as well as a new flapper. Having successfully and (somewhat) dryly disassembled the toilet tank, I was off to Lowes were seven bucks later I was prepared to finish this task. I had even had the good foresight to buy new bolts for the reconnection of the tank to the bowl as the old ones were a bit corroded and Courtney Love nasty. Hooray for me, the Bob Vila of my age.

Having successfully returned home, it was a quick snap of the wrist and a bit of a turn in order to get the new gasket on as well as the new flapper. A couple of adjustments, and the flapper chain was adjusted to the right length. Then came the daunting task of reassembling the toilet, something which I have successfully done before.

As you might be able to guess, things did not progress quite as swimmingly as I had expected them to, else we wouldn't be here now, sharing this story.

I refastened everything back to where it needed to be, secured the bolts on the toilet, and had the rubber rings in their proper place. Things had been tightened just beyond finger tight, so as to avoid cracking the porcelain, and the water inlet flow was tightened so that things could now proceed. I turned on the water and was quickly inundated up to my ankles. While one side of the tank was sealed properly, the other was unleashing a cascade of water that put me in mind of the beautiful Angel Falls. This is approximately when I went on a 45-minute rant in which I taught my children several hundred creative new ways to swear. Finally, after being foiled at fixing the leak for about the fifth time, I stomped out of the bathroom and told my wife to take the children somewhere for dinner, because I wouldn't be able to cook after spending an hour + with my arms firmly ensconced inside the toilet tank.

Because my life is a sit-com, I completely took apart the whole set up and started at the beginning, tightening everything and setting the tank gingerly back on the bowl. I tightened the bottom of the bolts to secure the tank to the bowl, recited the Hail Mary and--just as my wife was walking out the front door--turned the water back on to discover that I had successfully stopped the leak. Dancing a joyous jig, I celebrated, and my wife asked if I wanted her to wait for me. I looked at the gallons of water on the floor and decided, "No, you go on ahead." I then cleaned up the bathroom floor, showered, and fell asleep watching football.

Fast forward to yesterday when I went to remove some solvent from one of my most recent reactions, only to find that the collection flask in the back of the hood was full. Dutifully, I emptied it, and then went about reassembling the apparatus. Much to my dismay, the seal for the collection flask--which should be circular--was rather ovoid. Needless to say, no seal was formed. I then spent the better part of ninety minutes tracking down a replacement seal, traveling from one person to the next asking if they knew if any spare seals had been shipped when the new parts had arrived here in the lab. Finally, and fortunately, I was able to find some, though I've been sworn to secrecy as to their location. A quick thirty seconds later, and I was in bidness once more and my vacuum was pulling top-notch.

What does the future hold in this war? Difficult to say. However, you can rest assured that I will no longer allow the little rubber disks to get the better of me. Long is the war, but my ability to out-think a lifeless polymeric disk will prove to be the factor that will tip the outcome in my favor.

Big News

I was going to post this earlier, since I figured out Jidai's big news pretty much from the moment his post hit the blogosphere. Being a father of two, I've been through this before, so I thought I'd offer him some helpful advice. What better way than through the webcomic Ctl+Alt+Del, and what better way than through a webcomic featuring a complete and total lack of bodily control.
It is completely appropriate, no matter how much you love your spouse/girlfriend/companion to react this way. Just make sure she tells you of your grand news while you're standing somewhere tiled or coated in linoleum.

Congrats, man.

Floored

Here's some advice for you, offered up free by yours truly. I'm just that fucking kindhearted.

If you want to boost your blog viewership, you should definitely pop in a link describing your disdain for shit-tastic cat art. I went through the hits and views over the night, and for the first time in a long time, neither "belly button torture sex" nor "Betsy Hagar pictures" topped the way people found me. I was stunned. Apparently, links to my blog are being tossed all over Shitty Cat Art Woman's livejournal pages, as all of her friends have stopped by. I'm guessing, thankfully, that the presence of the real Wizard Cat is the only thing that has kept them largely at bay. Either that, or it's the fact that I'm sitting here topless right now.

To that end, I'm keeping Wizard Cat around for a while. I'm going to try him out as the Blog Mascot. He may not be as handsome as Boxter nor as internationally renowned as Fernando, but Wizard Cat did pass his both his Potions and Charms O.W.L.s with flying colors. Plus, he's hours worth of fun if you give him a catnip mouse and then start dancing a laser pointer around on the floor.

Besides, I've long styled myself the "King of Thistles" on various internet outlets...such as yahoo mail and...uh...Runescape. And, every good king has a wizard for a chief adviser. If it works for the King of Id and King Arthur, I, too, shall drink of the wizarding advisory Kool-Aid.

Speaking of King of Thistles...I haven't touched it. I haven't even been working on King of Storms much lately. In fact, I haven't been working on much of anything lately. Feel free to blame it on my inherent laziness; I'll blame it simply on internet-based copies of Dice Wars. This isn't to say that I haven't done anything on it. It's amazing how you can plan battles and dialogue while playing Dice Wars. I haven't written or edited anything, but I have been doing things that don't require much in the way of putting letters on a screen. By the way, remember that whole "Meet the Characters" thing? Yeah, we'll be getting back to that soon enough. Damned basketball tournaments...To that end, I've kind of told myself to get King of Shadows edited and together without the major rewrites by the end of the month. I've also got the papers all sorted out to mail to the new agents for querying. I'll keep you updated there. Naturally, my uncanny excellent planning ability has me getting everything ready for mailing on a Sunday. Too bad I wasn't really good and have everything ready by July 4th. Brilliant, me.

Of course, all of these issues are now moot. Thanks, Wizard Cat.

Keeping Flower Girls In Line

I read this story today on CNN about people stressing over flower girls running amok and ruining their wedding:

Flower Girl Meltdown

I realize getting married is stressful and all...unless you're getting married to a charming, sweet, even-keeled romeo like me. However, I wish people would realize that children aren't the free radicals that everyone seems to make them out to be. A simple chat with them about how important their role is will help keep them in line. Nothing pleases either of my children more than being told that they are a great help and being very useful. Well, nothing aside from ice cream, fairy books, playing with the wooden train table at Barnes & Noble, that is. But I digress.

Besides, if that little chat with the flower girl doesn't work out for you, try reminding them that Sephiroth is lurking in the background.