Remember this little feature? Of course you do. I get on here, blow my own scientifically-laced trumpet, and then you tell me how much more fun I would have made your science class if I was your teacher. We all laugh, I get a swollen head (not that one...unless YOU'RE making the comment...you know who you are...), and then we move on to bigger and better things: namely, for you, life. For me? Booze.
Anyway, remember that fantastic little featurette I brought you a while ago where some cat filled a bottle with liquid nitrogen and then shoved that mother up into a watermelon? Comedy quickly ensued? Surely you remember it! If not, here's the link for a refresher course.
Caught up? Better? Let's go.
So long, watermelon; we barely knew ye. Except that there are thousands of your brethren lying in fields all over the country, just waiting to have all sorts of disturbing escapades involving detonations and swiftly expanding pockets of gas. Or perhaps other fates await you. We shall see, won't we?
That brings us to this week's episode--as if these things have been episodic...you can't go several years between installments and keep it a series, right? What the hell kind of person would do that?
Point taken.
I stumbled upon this video yesterday and, well, I'll admit...I have no idea what's going on here. What is their motivation? I can't read or understand Japanese, but my main guess is that their motivation is that they are "guys" and the watermelon was just sitting there begging to be wrapped in rubber bands. And, oh, the results are magnificent.
Oh, thank you, internet. Only here could I see a watermelon wrapped in rubber bands give a money shot to a bunch of bored--yet creative--kids. Awesome. It's kind of like the watermelon, accepting its fate, decided to exact one last bit of revenge on the way out. I hear that stuff burns--even coming from a watermelon!
There's not much science-y going on here. The combined pressure of the 500 rubber bands wanting to get back to their non-stretched forms was greater than what the cellulose of the watermelon's rind could withstand. With the inelastic fruit rind quickly collapsing, all that pulp on the inside needs to go somewhere. And go it does! Boom. Fruit salad for everyone!
Well, except for you, Sisyphus-cat. You keep rolling that bitch up the hill.
Avert your eyes, space travelers, because we're going to get this explosions going early and you are going to swear off your intended mode of travel in about thirteen seconds. Behold the mighty spectacle of your GPS not working quite so well as it could:
Now that, my good people, is what blowing shit up is all about! *pauses for a second* Let's completely forget about the amount of money that went up in one incendiary flash of rocket-fuel and liquid oxygen. Did you totally see how that shit was raining down from above? All fire and brimstone and you'd think Loki had picked his flaming sword back up and was going all Sodom and/or Gomorrah on the Cape! Destruction of that magnitude is the most exhausting thing anyone can engage in, aside from soccer.
Think about this for a moment: you're an average Joe rocket scientist. The world to you is all force vectors and Greek letters and silly shit like that. You drive to work, minding your own business, proud of the fact that you're going to put a new GPS satellite into space so that fathers driving their families on vacations don't have to stop and ask for directions when--WHAMMO!--you've been knocked on your ass by a concussive shock wave tearing through the sky five times the speed of sound. Your ears are bleeding from the force of the noise that just ripped through your skull like a bullet through wet tissue paper. The sky is on fire, and it's headed toward you. You're dazed. You're confused. And every year, they stay the same age!
Well, damn, you think. Chalk one more up to combustion kicking the living hell out of potential energy today. I guess it's back to the drawing board! This is, of course, after you've jammed wadded-up kleenex in your ears to stem the flow of blood and pulled your eyes out of your hippocampus where the force of the blast wedged them. Firmly.
I think I'll just go to lunch and we can sweep this thing up and start anew, you continue thinking, gathering the charred remains of your briefcase. You blow out one piece of paper which is still, comically, aflame. You pull on the tattered remnants of your blazer and you head out to the parking lot where you climb into your car only to realize that the wheels are melted to the ground. And Steve Martin is riding shotgun.
"Hello, Bob," you say, after dialing your cell phone and becoming mildly peeved that you're getting less than ideal reception, tiny pieces of GPS satellite slowly spiraling around you, "yeah, I'm going to need you to come out to the parking lot of my place of employment. I think I've totaled my car. Yeah, see you soon. Buh-bye."
And this is just, to quote the dispatcher, "an anomaly of the Delta II launch vehicle." Imagine if a real meddlesome headscratcher had occurred.
Granted, this can be turned amusing based on no one getting injured, which is fucking amazing. In case you missed the cause of the explosion, they determined a seventeen-inch long crack in one of the boosters caused some fuel to leak, a flame to get in, some oxygen to comingle up in that bidness, and then BOOM HEAD SHOT!
Recently, in the lab, I've been working with a lot of iron powder. The stuff is great in that it does exactly what I want it to with minimal side reactions. For a chemist, that's like getting a lap dance with a happy ending. There's very little mess, it gets the job done, and the only danger is leaving some of the iron in your sample when you take an NMR. That's the equivalent of lipstick on your collar and an angry wife.
Anyway, aside from its electron-donating capabilities (making it a reductant...remember kids, LEO the lion goes GER!), iron is pretty cool stuff, chemically-speaking. Of the myriad of reactions I've done in my day, the ones involving iron seem to work the best. It might not be the sexiest metal to throw into your reaction, but it sure is reliable and it gets the job done. Iron is kind of the Pittsburgh of the periodic table.
Now that I'm done with metaphors for iron and its chemical potential (I see it as a metal with HUGE upside!), there was one thing that caught my eye on the side of the bottle when I cracked it open and started slinging the fine, steely-gray powder around the balance area. It caught my eye because it was colored over in pink highlighter: CAUTION! Highly Flammable!
Flammable? Iron? Oh really?
And then I thought on it some more. Iron, by its very nature, enjoys coupling with oxygen. A lot. In fact, iron and oxygen get rather kinky: two irons and three oxygens are known to bind up and share one another freely back and forth. We tend to call it rust.
So, it only makes sense that iron would be more than happy to react with the oxygen in the air. And, as I hope I've shown you time and again, fine powders love to react explosively in the presence of an ignition source. And if you don't believe me, well, here is a safety video about iron "fileings" (it hurt to type that) that you may tickle your eyeballs with:
Despite the lack of production quality, the terrible misspellings (which I shan't repeat here) and the diligent commentary...I actually like that video quite a bit. I'm being quite honest here. Essentially, the reaction was the one I described above, iron + oxygen + flame = fast rust.
Fe0 + O2 ---> Fe2O3
Kinky.
Now, if you're like me (that is to say, "girthy"), you've used those heating pads before, where you open the pad up and put it on your body and you eventually begin to feel it warming up. It's supposed to help loosen "tightened" muscles, and provide all the relief that icy hot gives, just without the burn and the cloying aroma of menthol. Usually, I start to purr like a kitten about five minutes after they're on and then scream like a banshee thirty minutes later, because they've become too warm. I'm a sensitive little spanker.
It's the same reaction, though. The pads are packaged in nitrogen, which won't bind to the iron, meaning no reaction. Once exposed to air, and the 21% oxygen therein, the iron begins to rust, releasing energy in the form of heat. The heat is then transferred to your muscles, where it acts like a topless Thai massage therapist, working away all the tension and soreness that a spate of failed reactions in the lab can leave you with. Science can be sexy!
Oh, and then there's that other thing about iron being reactive and explosive. We've seen it several times before, just under the a different name. When we mix iron(III)oxide (rust) with aluminum powder, we get one of the formulas for thermite.
Thermite always leaves me a little worked up after watching it do its thing.
The lesson here is, yes, even iron can be flammable. And you should totally read and believe the labels on the sides of the chemicals and practice the utmost in safety in all lab settings. Nothing good will ever come of an accident in the lab. Shut up.
Oh good Lord. Whoever decided that we shouldn't have any three-day weekends between the beginning of the new year and the end of May should be publicly horse-whipped, perhaps even nude, somewhere in Vermont. We haven't even made it through January yet, and I'm looking forward to the holidays, 2011 style.
Or, if not the holidays yet, at least a weekend where I can be somewhat lazy and not wrestle dead flora out of my living room and into the woods next to my house. There's no need for the Ents to come mooting around this place; I let that tree live the life of Riley for at least two weeks after it should have been relegated to compost. House guests and fish smell after three days; Christmas trees get dry, brittle and leave rings of needles everywhere for you to sweep up later.
Fortunately, the house is mostly recovered from the holidays. I sure haven't recovered yet. Something about my ass and the couch becoming one for a period of nearly two weeks puts the damper on that whole "ambition" thing. So, I don't know about you, but I need a pick-me-up. Since I don't really drink anymore, and I have all the naked women I ever need lying in my bed right now, I guess I'll have to exercise some other vice.
Oh, hey, videos of explosions!
Here's one of someone who...didn't know what he was doing, or at least has a hard time figuring the heat of enthalpy of a reaction. He also didn't realize that constricting the area for the explosion to take place in was a very bad idea.
In case you missed it, he's lighting a mixture of acetylene gas (the stuff they put in blow torches) and oxygen. Oxygen is there to support the combustion of the organic gas. I'd write out the balanced equation, but you guys don't come here for science, you come here for videos of shit being blown up and egregious use of the word "fuck".
I want you to pay special attention to how the hood sash ends up after all is said and done in the video. To say it was left askew would be an understatement; homeboy's lucky he still has both hands, use of his eyes, or even that he still has a head.
Granted, at least he tried being safe with his explosion gone awry, unlike this dumbass:
Too bad that ugly-ass shirt didn't get taken out in the explosion, Mr. Goggles Would Ruin My Fashion Sense.
Well, it's still a long time until May, but watching these videos does take away the pain of the long slog through the ass-end of winter and the opening weeks of spring. How long until college football starts back up again? Nine months? Fuck.
Last week, I related the story of the bomb threat that happened here Tuesday night and snarled me in traffic. It turns out that the bomb looked like something Wile E. Coyote would put together in order to catch the Road Runner. Perhaps it was someone's ill-advised commentary on Time Warner Cable's "blazing fast" Road Runner internet package. If so, might I suggest that the giant crossbow mounted on a sandstone outcrop might have been more socially-acceptable, not to mention clever.
With this in mind, it was with a jaded curiosity that I heard that there was not one, but two bomb threats yesterday in my fair city. What the hell is going on here? Was I correct, and there's a criminal mastermind in our midst, plotting to terrorize us with the ever-present threat of explosive detonations? Do I need to start wearing a cape and a cowl?
Not only were there two bomb threats nearly simultaneously, but the bombs were within a few miles of one another, and not that far away from the original pipes-tape-and-rope bomb lookalike. Could this actually be a threat to truth, justice and the American way?
No, it turns out that one of the "bombs" was a suitcase filled with dental equipment. A quick x-ray showed the contents inside the case were nothing more than weapons of plaque destruction, ready to battle against the evils of gingivitis and tartar build-up!
So, if this was a dud, then what of the other bomb threat?
Well, that one had a little bit more teeth. Turns out, it was a World War II era mortar shell. How the fuck that ended up buried in someone's backyard, I haven't a clue--and neither does the guy who came across it. Most likely, the previous owner of the house was a collector or something, and it somehow got buried in the backyard. The good thing was that the mortar shell wasn't a threat to detonate as the charges and wiring had been removed. It was just a very dangerous-looking paperweight at that point.
However, I don't fault the owner of the house for shitting a solid gold brick and calling the bomb squad. I sure as fuck would have. The guy seemed kind of cool about it, though, in some of the interviews that I heard and read. But I'm guessing that it was a relief to discover a mortar shell in your yard and then discover that it was inert. Major "Phew" moment there...
So, it seems as though I can keep the superhero outfit hidden away for yet another week and everyone can sleep easily knowing that I'm not on the prowl looking to take down any criminal deviants.
However, I will warn you that, if evil is afoot, I'll be the sock of justice to cover it up...
I had to deal with a tragedy here of late. It's been kind of hard for me to deal with emotionally, especially since this is mostly my fault. Guilty conscience and all. Anyway, I had to lay to rest a dear friend.
My grill has finally come to the point where it's no longer practical to use it. Mostly because I set it on fire last week. Totally accidental, I assure you. It's been a constant companion for six years now, so I'm a little sad to see it go. However, the six-year accumulation of grease and fat from all the various food that I've cooked on it was the final doing in of this once noble beast.
The other night, I had some kabobs that I wanted to cook, so I thought I'd put some aluminum foil on the grill, warm it up and then cook until the meat was seared on the outside and then--according to my plans, at least--I was going to yank the aluminum off the grill and then slow cook the meat and vegetables until they = delicious.
So, that was the plan.
I went out, put the aluminum foil on the grill grate, and lit the clean-burning, even-heating propane. Everything was fine. I went inside to get the kabobs ready, as they had been marinating for a couple of hours in the fridge. This task took me all of five minutes. As I was getting ready to take them outside, I looked out the kitchen window.
"Odd," I said to myself, "there seems to be a lot of smoke in the backyard..."
I continued on my merry and blissfully ignorant way. As I came down the steps of the back deck, I looked over at the grill to see smoke and flames billowing out of it. I had, of course, put the lid down on the grill so that the heat would be trapped inside.
"Curious," I said to myself, approaching the bubble of hot air and smoke that enveloped my grill and the porch of the building where it sat, "this should not be happening."
I was bold enough to lift the lid of the grill to find the entire bottom converted into a howling inferno. The voices of the damned screamed forth from the billowing clouds of flame that were erupting from the grill. It seems as though the aluminum foil I had so cleverly put on the grill a few moments before had deflected the heat and flames down, catching the accumulated grease and fat on fire. And when one little bit of that mess caught, the whole fucking thing went up.
"This cannot be good," I said to myself, and quickly turned down the heat, then thought better of it and turned the gas off. The grill continued to burn. I stared at it for a moment, transfixed. Then, suddenly, in the depths of my over-active-imagination, I envisioned a stream of melted, burning fat dripping from the base of the grill down onto the propane tank. My pulse quickened, my breathing grew shallow, adrenaline coursed through my veins.
Certainly--according to my twisted vision of reality, at least--the propane tank was about to go up spectacurlarly. I was going to die.
So, I did what any red-blooded Frenchman American male between the ages of 32 and 45 would do: I ran for my fucking life! I quickly ducked back into the house where I peeked out at the grill from the window in the living room, as if watching the neighbors partaking in some sordid affair.
"Is dinner ready already?" my wife asked.
"Uh...no," I said, expecting at any moment for the grill to go kaboom!
"What the hell is going on then?" she asked. I explained myself.
Eventually, we stir-fried the kabobs (which required taking them off the skewer, thanks) and they were delicious. And, I'm happy to report that my grill did not detonate. However, if it did, it would have looked something like this:
When I eventually came to reinvestigate the charred, smoking remains of my grill, it was a sad sight. Amazingly, it had burnt hot enough to cause the aluminum foil to fall apart. What wasn't left in shreds in the bottom of the grill had coated the outside of the grate. Everything in the tub of the grill was black, some of it still sizzling, but the burner was much the worst for wear. Rusted and falling apart, I knew then that it was time to bid adieu to my friend, the grill.
Which brings me to the next phase of my life: loving a second grill.
I went to Lowes yesterday because they were having a sale on grills. I got a smaller version (I really don't need three racks as I only ever really used two in my old grill). The lady who unlocked it for me made no bones about how she wasn't going to help my fat ass cart off or load the grill in my car. In fact, I think she actually said "Here." as a means of telling me it was mine. More excellent customer service from America's Home Improvement Headquarters.
Fortunately, it has two wheels so I carted it off to my car, where I realized that it was just that much too wide for the back of my car. However, if I could just angle it...but I couldn't find the right angle.
Then, three angels appeared. Three very Southern, very paint- and sawdust-covered angels. They were angels because, well, one of them was wearing a California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels hat. So there.
But, they helped me load the grill in my car, and one of them even went to get some twine so that we could tie everything shut. They were very pleasant, very friendly fellows, and I'm eternally grateful to them. True Southern Hospitality at its finest.
I explained my plight about the burnt grill to the ringleader, a squat and swarthy fellow named Billy. He listened, then got a big grin on his face.
"Jesus, man, don't admit to anyone that you set your grill on fire!" he told me. I laughed and then reminded him that half the fun is telling the story. I thanked them once more, and I was off. I made it home safely, the new grill is in the back yard. I think tonight, I'll have my final send-off for the old grill.
I'm thinking a Viking funeral is the only proper way to send it off.
Last night, we had a situation down here in North By God Carolina. One of the interstates that goes through my shithole fair city was shut down right before rush hour picked up because of a bomb threat. The threat was called in for the bridge that was at the intersection where the interstate passes the big mall on the south side of the city. So, not only is there all the traffic of people trying to get home in the evening, but there was also the combined traffic of mall traffic as well as people going to eat dinner.
In short, things were a mess.
Of course, last night I also needed to get gas before driving home, and I decided I needed to mail my parents' birthday card (Mom's was yesterday, dad's was Monday), which only exacerbated the situation. I could feel the vein throbbing in my head as I studied the rear end of the car in front of me for a good 30 minutes until I could get to my exit. And I don't even use the interstate that was shut down, but everyone else was diverted onto my road for the ride home as means of a detour.
Anyway, while stuck in traffic, I also thought about the guy who called in the threat. Apparently, there was a "mysterious package" in the area of the bridge. Our crack team of law enforcement was on the scene! Or, actually, they were using the DOT cameras on the bridge to look for the package. No bomb-sniffing dogs, no one on the ground, just a guy looking through cameras trying to find the mysterious package. Or the white van. There's always a white van. Apparently, to be a true criminal, you need to drive a van: black for chi-mo's and rapists, white for murderous psychopaths. If you're an ecoterrorist, do you drive a green van? Just a thought.
Eventually, what looked like three paper towel tubes taped together and painted black was found, and the bomb robot went in to retrieve it. There was dramatic footage of the robot shooting some kind of liquid onto the concrete divider on the road, and then robot then gleefully chugged over to another area where it was, presumably, patted on the head and rewarded with a quart of thirty-weight.
In the end, thousands of peoples lives were disrupted because someone didn't get hugged enough as a child and needed to make this desperate cry for attention. It got me to thinking about what the criminal "mastermind" should have done. He should have called in the bomb threat, left his little paper towel tube bomb there for everyone to see. Then when the police rerouted the traffic onto other major thoroughfares to keep everyone safe, he should blow up one of the bridges used for the detour filled with people trying to get home.
This would then immediately be followed by the phone call telling the police that he wanted some grossly large sum of money deposited into his off-shore account, or another bridge goes up. This is, of course, followed by an hour-long stand off in which general panic grips the area, searches are done of other bridges, and finally Batman shows up to save the day.
However, my wife was impressed (terrified?) about my coldly calculated counterstrike to the bomb threat and coming up with a plan for what the mastermind should have done. So, apparently, I'm either a psychopath, or I have a knack for developing particularly evil villains.
Because I'm not friends with one of the Olsen Twins nor do I have a bunch of pills conveniently located in my medicine cabinet, let's hope it's latter and not the former.
What? Too soon?
[EDIT]: Oh man, I just read the full story about the bomb threat. There was, in fact, no bomb threat called in. Someone saw some trash alongside the road, and called 911 telling them that a suspicious package that looks like it could be a bomb was alongside the road.
Nice.
On top of that all, the Keystone Kops Durham Police force suffered an injury when one of the deputies was shot during a "weapons malfunction".
You know what's funny? When someone says they want to try to get back to posting everyday, and then don't post for three consecutive days. Hilarity. I have good excuses (they involve spending "time" with "family" and "being a father" and "cleaning up a nasty virus that was eating my computer on Sunday"), but I won't spend them here. I'll save them for another day.
So, I thought I would try to make it up to you by posting videos of explosions. Everyone loves blowing shit up, right? I thought so!
Anyway, as we've gone over here before (oh, look at that, the "imperial we"...not too full of ourselves now, are we?) an explosion is simply an expansion of gases more rapid and forceful than the container that is holding them can withstand. So, if there's too much pressure too fast, then boom. And giggling, though that's more a side effect, at least so long as everyone still has all their fingers, toes, eyes, balls...what have you.
It would, therefore, make sense that, if you have the liquid form of something that prefers to be a gas at room temperature, and you warm it up quickly, there's a good chance there could be some of that rapid expansion of the gas with cataclysmic results.
Like, say, a plastic bottle full of liquid nitrogen thrown into a warm pool...
That's short, sweet, and to the point. I like it, especially since the lights of the pool look green.
Obviously, the liquid nitrogen would warm to the temperature of the air--albeit slowly(-ish)...plastic is an insulator, after all--and the bottle would explode. However, with the water jacketing the bottle and helping transfer heat more efficiently, the bottle goes off faster and, presumably, harder (there's not as much time for excess gas to leak out). And, since it's underwater, you get sexy wave action.
But what happens when you really heat the living shit out of liquid nitrogen? Oh, it's time to call in some thermite:
Perhaps not as satisfying as other thermite reactions shown on here, but it was still kind of fun watching the liquid nitrogen boil away and the pool of molten metal piling up on the cinder blocks.
Plus, thermite is always cool. Heh. Explosion humor.
So, to answer your questions about yesterday: things went well. I wasn't able to do my presentation because of a software incompatibility issue; I had a more up-to-date copy of MS PowerPoint than the school's computer could handle. So, instead, I spoke extemporaneously to the kids about what it is I do in the field of neglected diseases, and then I talked to them about chemistry. After that, we looked at the periodic tables, and then I did my experimental examples. Glowing water? A total fucking hit. Freezing cold ice packs? Knocked their socks off! Baking soda and vinegar volcano? Probably wouldn't have wowed them as much if I wasn't such a showman.
Take that red, seizure-inducing strobe light guy!!!
Most importantly? My daughter wasn't embarrassed to have me be seen in public. She even wanted me to stay and eat lunch with her.
I'll take that father of the year award now, thankyouverymuch.
As I mentioned yesterday, I decided against bringing a canister of highly flammable solvent and matches to an elementary school. Oh, sure, they have fire extinguishers and insurance and such, but I didn't want to be THAT guy. You know, the guy who burned down the school? The hero to countless elementary school delinquents for my legendary case of accidental arson? Yeah, him.
However, a couple of kids did ask me about explosions.
"Do you know anything about explosions?" they asked.
Fuck and to the yeah, little ones. Gather 'round whilst I tell you all about the best ways to blow some shit up!
Okay, so I didn't precisely tell them how to blow some shit up, just that yeah, you can make some explosions. Especially if you crank the lid on the bottle real tight before running away and pretending like you weren't in the area at all that day. *insert angelic halo here*
Mostly, they wanted to know about dry ice and dynamite/TNT. I reminded them that TNT was discovered by Alfred Nobel, and that the world was so thankful for his gift of high-grade explosives that they named an element after him: Nobelium, number 102.
Instead of talking about explosions and dynamite and dry ice and shit, let's just get to the video. And what a video it is. May I present to you, Fire in the Fireworks Factory!
Around the 1:22 mark, did anyone else think that billowing smoke cloud looked a little like Godzilla?
This whole thing was magnificent...unless you're that poor sonuvabitch holding the camera there at the end. It makes me wonder: If you piss yourself does that slow the flames down and give you just that much longer to writhe in agony and terror during your final moments...
Anyway. I like how things started out slowly--a pop here, a bang there--then, when things got out of hand, they really got out of hand. And it was all building toward that final blast. Personally, I really enjoy the slow motion, where you can see the shockwave traveling through the air and the surrounding buildings as it races toward the camera. That, my friends, is an explosion.
So, what have we learned today? Aside from explosions are awesome if you're not standing near them? The lesson here is that fires in fireworks factories are a lot more aesthetically pleasing than fires in other buildings. Plus, an enormous vat of barium chloride makes lovely green fireballs in the sky when it explodes.
As you may recall, the old blog broke. Yes, it came back, but it wasn't an easy battle, exorcising all those demons in there. That, unfortunately, was only the beginning of my woeful travails.
On Monday of last week, my computer at work was infected with spyware. *gasp* Yeah, who knew that surfing around on the internet would lead to such a thing! Not I. I swear! Anyway, I got the one where the wallpaper is replaced with a big black box with red letters that reads "Warning! Do not use this computer. It is infected with spyware. You're a very dirty pervert, and you should be punished. This is only a small way of atoning for your sins, you filthy, filthy man. Buy our product, and we'll completely clean up all this here spyware for you. Convenient, no?"
I may have paraphrased that a tiny bit. However, you get the point.
So, not wanting to pay for their product (which would, undoubtedly, put moreChinese espionage programs spyware on the machine), I decided to run a sweep on my own. The computer already had spybot on it, so I ran that. The program did it's duty and I erased a couple hundred dozen things, and I figured things would be good. Only thing was...the spyware warning wallpaper was still there.
I didn't think much of it. I went home Tuesday night, logging off, hoping that it would be fixed when I logged back on. Maybe it needed that switch in order for the spyware to no longer be there. Except, it was still there Tuesday morning. So, Tuesday when I went home, I shut the whole system down. Maybe that would do the trick.
Wednesday...I couldn't log in to the computer. At all. Well, I take that back. I would log into the computer, and the computer would immediately log me right back out. Uh, not good.
Top that off with a phone that wasn't answering when I would pick up the receiver and would randomly cut off and hang up during the middle of a conversation, and I had one dysfunctional desk. I had to call IT and get them to fix me up, which meant reformatting my computer (but it also came with a memory upgrade--nice!). I was more than happy to hand it over for the day, especially if it meant the computer would run faster.
I had all that going for me last week. Along with getting this site up and running so that I could make the switch as seamlessly as possible (thanks, everyone, for understanding and joining me over here), I was getting a little stressed over the amount of gremlins that were plaguing my life.
But, it doesn't stop there.
Moments after Santa squeezed his fat ass back up my chimney, my dryer, overloaded with Holiday Cheer, up and died. Kaput. This dryer is no more. It was not pining for the fjords.
That, I could deal with. A trip to Lowes and the very next day, one large man and two gremlin apprentices carted off my old dryer (after I, alone, unhooked the broken one and hauled it out onto the deck, by myself!!!) and installed the new one. Runs like a top. Dries clothes. Everything you could possibly want from a dryer.
Not one to be upstaged by dryers or HTML code or computers and telephones, my television has decided to start blinking. At first, it was a short, momentary thing, where the picture would blink down into a tiny, dancing ball of phosphers in the middle of the screen. Now, it's doing it more often, so much so that it's no longer a blink but more like a short nap. Interested in finding out where the picture has gone, the sound is now following it.
This could be the straw on the dromedary's back. On one hand, I have the combined President's Day and Super Bowl deals that I can take advantage of. On the other hand, I really wasn't looking to spend $400-$500 on a new television right now. We were planning on replacing the television later in the year, perhaps as a Christmas present, but now...how can I possibly make it through a day without my daily dose of smug Canadian elitism without viewing Jeopardy? How, dammit, how???
So, I present you this: the cathartic end to a parade of technological wonders kicking me in the nuts and stealing the money out of my wallet--blowing up a computer.
I'm not sure which amuses me more, the epic mullet hanging off the back of the camouflage kid's skull or the dude on the bicycle casually cruising along in the background whilst a bunch of hooligans are detonating the cpu of a computer like it's an everyday occurrence.
Being that the mullet's not nearly greasy enough, I'm going with the dude on the bike.
Don't run away, this isn't what it, at first, appears to be. It's not a sports post, I swear. It's a sports-related post. The fine hairs have been split. I admit it. Run away if you must, but know that you're missing one helluvan explosion later.
Fine, you can skip to the explosion. Just know that you're missing some decent back story.
I lied, the back story isn't that decent.
So, this was the first season for the Dallas Cowboys in their new stadium. You know the Cowboys, right? America's team, except everyone I know hates the Cowboys, and those people who don't hate the Cowboys that I know, well, I'd rather say that I didn't know them. Unless you're one of them, Bored Neo-Classical Eric, and then I'd say you're the exception to the rule. And I think that we can all agree that you are a rather exceptional individual.
The Cowboys moved into a $1.15 Billion Temple of Hedonism this past fall, which seats 80,000 comfortably, with the ability for another 31,000 people to mill about and stand and watch the game. The stadium is replete with Blue Stars, an enormous high-definition video screen stretching from one 20-yard line to its opposite, hundreds of high-definition television screens littered throughout the expanse, so that you don't have to actually watch the game on the field, and cage dancers dressed as Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.
With the Cowboys moving into the new Cowboys Stadium, the city of Dallas had to do something with the old Texas Stadium, where the Cowboys used to play (you know the place with the hole in the roof so that God could look down and watch?). The most obvious solution is to blow that fucker up...which is exactly what the plan is.
Ah, but here's where the story takes a bit of a twist. Because it's the Cowboys and they are, after all, America's team, someone had the bright idea to get a sponsor to sign on to help defray the costs of the destruction. Sounds insane, especially during a period in our economic history that can best be described as "woeful", right?
Enter Kraft foods. They have decided to pony up $150,000 to have their name on as sponsors for the destruction of Texas Stadium.
Of course, the destruction of Texas Stadium (and the clean up afterwards) is going to cost the city of Irving, TX about $6 million. Oh, and the money Kraft is donating is to be split evenly, with $75,000 going to various charities in the area, as chosen by the city of Irving, and $75,000 worth of its products are being distributed to area food banks and homeless shelters and such. So, while Kraft is officially sponsoring the event, most of the money being traded is actually going to help people in the area. You can read about it all here.
And that got me to thinking: I could totally use a sponsor for totally blowing shit up Tuesdays. And while I would willingly distribute money to area charities, I think I could do without $75,000 worth of Kraft macaroni and cheese. See, when I was doing that whole "work in the bookstore" thing between undergrad and grad school, I ate a lot of Kraft macaroni and cheese at the bookstore. A lot.
Look, I was living cheaply, trying to pay off my student loans, and then I bought an engagement ring. So, I had to cut back, and macaroni and cheese was cheap. So I ate a lot of it. Like, I ate so much that I can't really cook it now without getting a little sick to my stomach. Just thinking about it has kind of caused me to get queasy here at my seat. So, perhaps it's best that these foodstuffs are headed toward Texas.
Anyway, that's a nice story and all, but we're here to see shit go boom, so I found another video compilation of buildings being imploded. Enjoy the art of explosive entropy:
Yes, I know that was Yanni playing in the background. The buildings falling on themselves and the relative close-ups of the explosions should offset any unmanliness inherently brought on by the mustachioed and well-coiffed Greek.
Plus, admit it: when that large part of the bridge dropped straight down into the river below, you got a little aroused. It's okay; you're among friends.
God bless whoever realized, "Hey, turkey is delicious. Deep-fried foods are delicious." A pause for some brooding contemplation. Suddenly, "I wonder what happens when you deep fry turkey?!?!?!?!?"
Clearly, expressed in equation form, this is what you'd get:
Turkey + hot oil ------> DELICIOUS!!!!!
My first experience with fried turkey was at Notre Dame. One of the maintenance guys, a gregarious fellow of middling years with a pervert's moustache named Ross, threw some ass-kicking good tailgaters. Every year, for the last football game (you know the game, the one where Charlie Weis loses the game, honoring the seniors the only way he knows how) he'd get a half dozen turkeys and deep fry them. Since I was usually busy drinking myself into a stupor (Bob Davie was the coach...need I say more?), I wouldn't get to Ross' tailgate until all that was left of the turkeys were some well-picked-over carcasses. I will say that whatever meat I could pry from the ransacked remains of the birds was pretty effing delicious. Clearly, this is enough scientific data to support the above equation.
However, as with all good things in this world (nuclear weapons, running with sharp objects, the comedy of Emo Phillips), fried turkey has a dark side--and I'm not just talking about the legs. That's what's known as ham-fisted comedy, my friends.
No, the problem with fried turkey is that, typically, idiots are doing the frying. And when you have idiots, you have the potential for disaster.
Yes, whose drunk ass idea was that? For, I would like to salute you, Mr. Drunk Ass Genius!
Anyway, yes, I know that this was a contrived video. The people set it up so that they could send flames spewing forth into the night. My only wish is that the camera hadn't been on its side, though that angle does help with the perspective of just how effing big the fireball was. Yahtzee! That's a spicy meatball! And any other lame catchphrases you can think to insert here. BAM!
There's three main reasons for the fryer to go all napalm on you like this, and all are avoidable.
The first is fairly obvious: don't overfill the fryer with oil. But, is it that obvious? No, I don't think that it is, otherwise shit like this wouldn't happen all the time. The problem that most people overlook is that when oil is heated, it expands, thereby taking up a greater volume than what you originally put in. So, while it looks like the initial amount of oil that you added to the fryer won't cover the bird, you're probably wrong. Be sure to follow the fill line, kids. The people making the fryers actually know what they're doing.
The second biggest problem is dunking a turkey too fast. While it's true that some things are better when done fast and hard and hot and faster and harder and harder and oh God yes, yes, yes--ahem. Sorry. Got sidetracked. While it's true that doing some things faster--like driving--are really satisfying, take your time inserting the turkey into the fryer. It's not going to cook any faster if you throw that shit in there rather than slowly inserting it. Remember what Aesop and his tortoise taught us in kindergarten: slow and steady wins the race, you cocksure hare.
Now, the third problem is entirely scientific. If you put a partially-frozen or frozen bird into the fryer, you're asking for trouble. And by trouble, I mean you're going to go all Johnny Storm, without the benefits of yelling "flame on" first (and also without the benefits of diddling Alicia Masters...rowr). We'll assume, based on some of the recipes I've seen round these here innernets, that the oil bath you're dunking your turkey into is 350 degrees F. Water boils at a paltry 212 degrees F. This means that when you're frying up captain frozen poultry, you're taking ice and inserting it into an environment which is already above the temperature of its boiling point. This causes the ice to rapidly melt and form steam, which expands. Hot steam likes to rise up, and so it goes out the top of your fryer--violently--splashing oil down onto the open flames below. Oil + fire = Chinese buffet and bandages. Despite how delicious it is, no one really wants crab rangoon on Thanksgiving.
So, to review: 1) don't overfill your fryer; 2) don't dunk the turkey like an Oreo into milk; 3) don't try to fry a frozen turkey. And, just to be safe, make sure the fryer, heater and propane tank are away from any structure you feel particularly attached to.
Also, while I have your attention...please stop saying "boiling oil". Oil doesn't boil. Boiling means that you go from liquid to gaseous form. Most cooking oils (and rendered animal fats used to dissuade besieging armies) burst into flame well before they reach boiling temperatures. Thank you. I'll end my rant now.
With a tip of the hat to my good friend, Scope, I bring you this week's version of blowing shit up. Except...well...I'm not blowing shit up. But, I am ripping holes in things with cascades of molten metal.
A couple of weeks ago, back when I showed the pumpkin and the thermite reaction, Mr. C asked the question "It said it [thermite] could burn through the hood of a car, the engine block, and concrete. True?"
I could simply tell you the answer. But if Seymour Skinner has taught me anything about the conservation of angular momentum, it's that people learn better when you show them rather than explain to them. So, I humbly offer the video below.
Heh. They destroyed that car because it was French.
And, yeah, I know. There was no concrete under the car, so I didn't technically answer Mr. C's question. However, I can assure you that, with enough thermite, it will destroy the concrete underneath the car's engine block and bonnet. Remember, as they point out in the above clip, thermite burns at around two and a half thousand degrees Celsius. That's quite warm.
But, thermite's not just good for destroying the engine block of a car. And, frankly, I'd be doing you, my friends, a disservice if I didn't show you that thermite can also be used for the entire, wanton destruction of the entire car.
Don't believe me? Well, then you don't watch enough Mythbusters...
Sorry about the shitty quality of the film. It's the best I could find.
Okay, so Jamie said that thermite burns at 4500 degrees. That was in degrees Fahrenheit. Still, it's damned hot, as evidenced by the smoldering lump of bubbly steel left in the wake of Adam and Jamie's little "experiment."
So, if this is an experiment, then what is the reaction? Well, a "thermite" reaction is simply a metal oxide and another metal mixed together and, when heated, the oxide is transferred and a lot of extra heat is released during the course of the single-replacement reaction. For what we've seen twice above, this is the balanced chemical equation:
Fe2O3 + 2Al → 2Fe + Al2O3 + heat
I say the oxide is "transferred", but that may not be entirely true. The oxygen could, conceivably, come from the atmosphere. I don't know if anyone has done isotopic studies to make sure taht the oxide from the iron is ending up on the aluminum. Also, I don't know if 18O (O-eighteen) is stable at two and a half thousand degrees.
That's just one type of thermite, though. Another common form, used in welding (especially in the rail industry), uses copper instead of iron:
3CuO + 2Al → 3Cu + Al2O3 + heat
Anyway, the net product is one bitching hot reaction and, as Jamie says in the second video, it's really, really satisfying. Fortunately, the tires blew up during the course of the melting of the car with thermite. Hooray thermite! Hooray explosions!
Last Thursday was Guy Fawkes' Day in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. What? You good folks across the pond thought I forgot? Hell no, my friends. I was just saving it up for a special day. Too bad it fell on a Thursday this year because Guy Fawkes was the ultimate in Totally Blowing Shit Up Tuesdays. He's also right up there for being the ultimate Fail in history.
So...who is this Fawkes guy, many of you might ask, and just what is his connection to massive detonations? Well, Guy Fawkes was, in all respects of the word, a fall guy for the Catholic Restoration movement that gripped England while several wars were being fought on mainland Europe revolving around Protestant and Catholic tensions. In 1605, when Guy was getting involved with the Catholic Restoration in England, James I was King of England. See, King James I (who was also James VI of Scotland) ascended the throne of England when Elizabeth I died, who was also a Protestant. When James continued the persecution of Catholics along with his adherence to (I'm assuming) the Church of England, the English Catholics became restless and decided to take matters in their own hand.
James was married to a Dutch princess, with whom he had three kids, most notable among those was his eldest daughter, Elizabeth...who was Catholic. Since she had a legitimate claim to the throne of England (and Scotland), she became integral in what was later known as the Gunpowder Plot. The head conspirator, Robert Catesby, hatched a plot to blow up James, his wife, most of the protestant aristocracy and nobility, and all of Parliament, Catholics included. Acceptable casualties, move along, I guess. At the same time--most likely during the confusion fomented by the explosion--someone would kidnap James' children, thereby setting up his daughter Elizabeth to become the next queen of England. As she was Catholic, this would restore Catholicism to the kingdom and, presumably, she would then funnel monies toward King Philip II of Spain who was leading the Catholic fight on the mainland of Europe.
Guy Fawkes had spent some time on the continent, fighting in the battles for the Catholic side, and had garnered some experience in handling and detonating explosives. He was selected to take care of the exploding 36 barrels of gunpowder--some 1800 pounds--due to his experience handling explosives. So, on the night of November 5th, 1605, Fawkes was found in a chamber beneath Parliament. After stuttering around for a bit and offering up a fake name, someone poked around under a pile of wood and coal and discovered the ass load of gunpowder Fawkes had smuggled in and hidden there. He was arrested immediately.
And what would that much gunpowder do? This, but presumably on a much grander scale:
Watch that a few more times. If you're like me, then that will get funnier with each subsequent viewing.
Fawkes was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he was tortured until finally he offered up the names of his co-conspirators. Unfortunately, they were all either already dead or captured. Finally, on January 31 on 1606, Fawkes was executed. He climbed to the gallows himself and threw himself from the platform, breaking his neck and thus saving him from being drawn and quartered.
However, it was encouraged around the kingdom on November 5th to celebrate the king's escape from the assassination plot. The preferred celebration was setting bonfires, and children would burn little dolls made up to look like Guy Fawkes on the bonfires (though this practice has fallen out of vogue). Eventually, fireworks were also added to the celebration. The celebration is carried out throughout the commonwealth, stretching to South Africa, Bermuda, New Zealand and especially in eastern Canada. Since fireworks were outlawed in Australia in the 70s, the celebration has faded away.
Because I'm one of those word nerds, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the term "guy" to refer to a man came from Guy Fawkes, though the "guy" was originally used to describe and ugly or malformed men. When the word moved over to North America, it lost its negative connotations and is now just used to refer to a man.
And, also because I'm chock full of nerdly information, the mask that V wears in V for Vendetta is a Guy Fawkes mask. Fawkes has been a symbol for anarchists for quite some time, which fits in well with the character of V from the graphic novel and the movie adaptation.
Of course, Guy Fawkes was the inspiration for the name of Fawkes, Dumbledore's pet Phoenix, which again makes sense with the whole death in fire symbolism.
Conveniently enough, Guy Fawkes night next year will be on a Friday. Start preparing your bonfires now.
I might have misled you all a little bit last week. See, while that pumpkin terrified the living hell out of the four-year-old version of me, thus removing the pall over my eyes and allowing me to see pumpkins as demonic, orange globes that they truly are, this time of year isn't hell for me. Mostly because I don't live in a pumpkin patch. If I did, however, I think I'd probably be a touch more anti-pumpkin than I already am. At this point, I don't fear the pumpkins so much as I did when I was younger; I'm bigger than they are (mostly). The thing I dislike most about pumpkins? Scooping their innards out while carving them. But, I do it, because of paternal mandates and parental instinct to make happy holiday memories.
Plus, pumpkins make an excellent pie. And cookies. And, I'm not opposed to a little pumpkin-pie-flavored creamer for in my coffee. And, as Tennyson ee Hemingway pointed out a couple of weeks ago, they make excellent soup. Thanks for the sharp reminder, my antipodean friend.
They also make excellent projectiles.
As Del-V mentioned last week, there's an annual event in the wilds of Delaware centered around throwing, heaving, launching and shooting pumpkins as far as humanly possible. Being that I'm both a man and easily amused, this event really excites me--perhaps the two are intertwined, I dunno, kind of like a caduceus or something similar. I have vowed that, someday, I will attend the Annual Punkin Chunkin event live and in person. I mean, a place like Millsboro, Delaware can't be too tough to find, right?
My attention was brought to the Pumpkin Chunkin contest through a special I saw on Discovery Channel one Christmas. I think it was my first Christmas after moving to North Carolina, and while everyone was getting the midday meal ready, my brother-in-law and I sat and watched this show about how a bunch of people design and build their own machines to hurl pumpkins as far as humanly possible. It involved trebuchets and mangonels and onagers, so you know I was hooked. We actually got yelled at for holding up the meal because we wanted to see if some guy with a massive trebuchet could set a new world record. Since no man stands between my father-in-law and his holiday meals, we had to miss the final throw and eat delicious, homemade food. Oh, the agony.
As an aside...how fucking cool would it be to just own a trebuchet?
Anyway, I thought that, since we've just been through the pumpkin's greatest month when not in pie form, we could step away from blowing them up and just watch them get thrown toward the horizon.
Here's a nice little example of some of the contraptions used to punish our favorite orange gourds. It's taken from the 2004 competition.
I realize that there's nothing, technically, being blown up, but it's still effing cool, right?
Because I like to go that extra effort to try and bring you guys the good stuff, I read through the rules for the competition. Well, I can safely say this isn't some Mickey Mouse Horseshit Dog and Pony Show (as my grandfather used to say). You've got to actually know what the hell you're doing to be out there firing off your trebuchet and hurling your pumpkins into the distance.
Have I mentioned how cool it would be to have your own trebuchet? I have? Okay, then let's move this along.
Anyway, there's seven adult divisions in the Punkin Chunkin contest: air cannons, centrifugal, catapults, trebuchets, human power, human power centrifugal, and torsion catapult. I won't get into the specifics of each kind, but obviously air cannons use compressed air, trebuchets are catapults with huge counterweights on them, and centrifugals are machines that spin, generating enough force and energy to convert the pumpkins into tiny dots and craters.
In case you're wondering, there are also youth divisions for competition, broken into 11-17 year old teams and under-10s. In a word, that's effing awesome.
And, when you're done watching the pumpkins flying off into the wild blue yonder, you can head down the road and drink yourself stupid at the Dogfish Head Brewery and maybe make some girls feel really uncomfortable on the boardwalk at Rehobath Beach. Oh, Delaware, with your teeny, tiny landmass, your fighting blue hens, your three counties, and your abundance of cities that start with the letters "Mil" (Milton, Milford, Millsboro...), who knew that you held so many wondrous and delicious creations?
By the way...Delaware Board of Tourism...I'm totally available to whore myself out for your state. Just say the words and sign the checks. I even promise to talk about something other than your duty-free liquor stores.
In case you haven't been paying attention--and why should you, right?--I've had a bit of a theme going throughout the month of October. Oh, you picked up on that, did you? Well, good. I meant for you to.
And, no, it's not about me being angry and bitter when not lovingly plied with coffee every morning, noon and night. No, I'm talking about Tuesdays and how we've been blowing up pumpkins on them. Even on days when I'm supposed to be expressing my undying and wholesome feelings of love and lust and anything else starting with "l" for my wife, we had exploding pumpkins.
And do you know why I've blown up a pumpkin for every Tuesday?
Because I fucking hate pumpkins.
It's true. I'm pepophobic.
It all happened in those halcyon days of my youth. I was no more than four or five, I believe. My father was taking me trick-or-treating. It was just he and I, so either my brother wasn't born yet or he wasn't old enough to join us. I guess there's an outside chance that this could have happened when I was seven, but that would have made him three and he probably would have been with us.
Anyway, we had just gone to my Uncle Duff and Aunt Jan's house for tasty sweets. That meant our next stop along the way would be my Aunt Caroline and Uncle Marlowe's house (small town America, remember), and then a stop at my cousin Jamie's and then back down the hill to home. We used pretty much the same route for most years, only branching out later in life when I could walk further and haul my load home, because my dad wasn't going to carry it...not so much because he was trying to make a man out of me, but mostly because he had to carry my little brother and his candy.
So, as we were heading toward Aunt Caroline and Uncle Marlowe's, there was a big, kind of spooky-looking white house that sat at the corner of the alleyway that went to my aunt and uncle's house. It was one of those houses whose exterior was at one point white, but under years of neglect and somewhat harsh weather conditions, the paint had turned dingy and drab and in several places had been stripped away and hung in long, tattered tapers from the clapboards. The porch, as well, was mistreated and misused, with insipid gray boards bowing and buckling on the ends, no two matching up and making a proper seam.
Sounds like a perfect house to take your kid to, right?
Well, the light was on, so my dad decided we should reap some extra ill-gotten gains there. As I mounted the creaking, bowing steps, I noticed to the left of the door, a jack-o-lantern staring out toward the street. It sat between the door and the window that overlooked the porch. It was poorly-illuminated by the porch light, which hung on the right-hand side of the door. However, the jack-o-lanterns face glowed with a preternaturally evil light.
Not to mention, this thing was fucking huge. It was easily as big as I was back then, at least height-wise. I could have easily crawled inside it's hollowed-out shell. There was no way in hell I would do such a thing, however, because it was pure, unadulterated evil.
I only say this because, as I approached the door, the jack-o-lantern cackled at me. Madly. In a deep, resonant voice that smacked of paternal confessions shortly after lopping off your hand.
"Happy Halloween, Little Boy," the pumpkin boomed, cackling once more.
This rather unnatural series of events scared the living fuck out of me.
It was at this point that I did what any five-year-old who just had the living fuck scared out of him would do: I started crying. I ran off the porch just as the woman who lived in the house came running out to scold the pumpkin for scaring me. I remember seeing her bend over in front of the jack-o-lantern and waggling a finger in its face, telling it that it was a bad pumpkin for scaring me. However, the pumpkin responded to her scolding in that same harsh, forbidding, booming voice, rendering her attempts at allaying my fears moot.
She tried to encourage me to come up on the porch, but I would have none of that bullshit. I just wanted to leave. My dad, however, tried to coax me up onto the porch as well. I still refused. He then tried to explain to me that the pumpkin had a microphone hidden inside and that there was nothing to be afraid of. Great. A pumpkin with electronics wired inside? The pumpkins were turning into fucking cyborgs? No thanks. I remained steadfast--and teary-eyed--in my refusal to climb onto the porch.
So, the woman brought me my candy. I don't even remember what it was. I just wanted to get out of there. Finally, after receiving my hush money sugar-infused treat, we continued on our way, first to Aunt Caroline's, and then home.
And that, my friends, is why I love seeing these obnoxious orange orbs getting their explosive comeuppance.
I love how that one guy sought shelter by standing in front of the semi trailer. Brilliantly done! Encore!!!
Now, I love thermite. You love thermite. We all love thermite. That fiery concoction of aluminum powder and ferric oxide has made an appearance here on several occasions. Each time, it's warmed our souls (and chewed the hell out of whatever it was raining down on). It's so fantastic that it gives you a little warm feeling deep down inside. In fact, my toes are a little warm just thinking about it now.
That being said, this could be the dumbest thing I've ever seen:
The one chick did have some big tits, though. Big tits or not, you won't find me sticking my hand down into a mostly-sealed container trying to ignite thermite and then attempting to run from it as it shoots liquid metal cascading down onto the benchtop in front of me. I'm guessing that was water she was shooting it with there at the end, but still, I personally wouldn't get that close to it.
Remember this little feature? Of course you do. I get on here, blow my own scientifically-laced trumpet, and then you tell me how much more fun I would have made your science class if I was your teacher. We all laugh, I get a swollen head (not that one...unless YOU'RE making the comment...you know who you are...), and then we move on to bigger and better things: namely, for you, life. For me? Booze.
