From tob@cwis.unomaha.edu Sun May 16 17:38:45 1993
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Date: Sun, 16 May 1993 17:34:40 -0500 (CDT)
From: Tob Wood <tob@cwis.unomaha.edu>
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Subject: Fun with fire
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Today I am going to talk about pseudo-scientific experiments you can do
at home to entertain yourself and friends.
Fire Bubbles
Get yerself some calcium carbide. I don't know where, just get some. Call
around, and if somebody asks what you want it for, make something up. Now
go into your kitchen and find a rectangular baking pan (or anything
shallow, it doesn't matter). Fill it about half-way with water and add a
couple of good squirts of dish soap. I like to use Joy, but I'm sure
whatever you have sitting around will work. Stir well, but try to
prevent a build up of frothy suds.
Now dump in about a teaspoon of the calcium carbide. When this stuff
hits the water, it will start to fizz and if you do it right, bubbles will
start to form on the surface of the water. Pop these bubbles with the lit
end of a cigarette or a match. Foof! Fire bubbles. The gas inside the
bubbles is acetylene. Fun eh?
Well, enough of that. I really don't want to talk about chemistry, I want
to talk about my trip to the store. I went to the store with Dave. He
bought a load of food because he's having a dinner party tonight. I went
with him because I like to look around in grocery stores. I always look
for weird things that I don't know what they are, that way, I get smarter.
You can learn a lot at the supermarket.
I found three odd food items: Capers, Hearts of Palm and Kraut Juice.
Capers- Little bean or pea things. Didn't look good.
Hearts of Plam- little cubes of something marinating. Looked interesting.
Kraut Juice- Pickled cabbage puree. Bad news. What, are people supposed
to *drink* this? I asked Dave. Dave said, "That's gross". I said, "Yeah,
I would generally consider this stuff a bad idea. Who's diet includes Kraut
Juice?". I suppose I shouldn't talk; I eat some pretty weird stuff myself.
As a matter of fact, just this afternoon Dave and Mike saw my jars of
Textured Vegetable Protein. TVP is dried brown tofu and it looks a hell
of a lot like dog food. Dave said, "Tob, what is this stuff?"
I said, "Dog food", and proceeded to eat a few pieces right out of the
jar. Dave and Mike had cows. Dave said that I shouldn't eat dog food
because you never knew what was in it. I told him it wasn't dog food. I
shouldn't have; that would be a great rumor to get spread around: "Hey,
did you hear? Tob eats dog food". If anybody ever confronted me on this
I'd say, "Yeah, Alpo is rich and hearty, but I prefer Chuck Wagon for its
real meaty flavor."
So we had some fun at the store. I have fun everywhere. We had to wait
forever in line as we were checking out. I hate going to that particular
store because you ALWAYS have to wait at least 30 minutes. Drives me up
the wall. The only good thing that happened in line was the kid.
There was this little kid about 6 years old playing around with the
automatic door. He would open the door, stand in between, and jump out of
the way before they closed on him. He was doing this over and over much
to the consternation of patrons trying to exit. I went up to the kid and
said, "You know, if those doors close on you, they'll cut you right in
half. It happened to a friend of mine in an elevator."
The kid's eyes got huge and his face went pale. He ran to his mother
and clamped onto her leg. He was still clutching her by the time we left.
...........................................................................
Okay, you want to know what really gets me mad? Mirrors. I mean, how do they
work? Nobody really knows. If you've never thought about it before, let me
pose you this: If you stand in front of a mirror and raise your left
hand, your reflection raises its right hand. Okay fine. It reverses things
on a vertical axis of symmetry. So how come it doesn't reverse things on
a horizontal axis too? How come we don't see our feet at the top of the
mirror? Huh? Man, I tell ya, there are just some things we were not
meant to know.
Here's another one: Water. How come it doesn't burn?
As you well know, water is h2o, meaning that every water molecule is made
up of 2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Everybody knows this. Hydrogen
is extremely flammable, remember the Hindenburg? And you have to have
oxygen present for combustion. Now the way I figure it, water should be
the most explosive substance on Earth since both of these elements are
present. They used to use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as rocket fuel.
I asked my dad (who is a prominent chemistry professor) why water didn't
burn. He couldn't explain it to me, but I'm an idiot. He said it had
something to do with the way it was bonded. I didn't know what he was
talking about. I said, "Okay, but how come it doesn't explode?"
He told me to go away and quit bothering him.
...........................................................................
I've always thought Thomas Edison was overrated. I've even gone so far
as to call him a bonehead. I'm a big Nikola Tesla fan.
...........................................................................
I only have one pair of shoes with shoelaces. Go figure.
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Todays recipe is Tobkebabs.
Get some breakfast steak, some 8 inch bamboo skewers and some other stuff.
Cut the breakfast steak into half inch wide strips and soak them in
vinegar, salt, pepper, cayenne, and whatever else sounds good for about
half an hour. At the same time, soak the skewers in water for about the
same time. Chop up a red onion into one inch pieces and then go outside
and start your grill. I like to use a baby hibachi with six charcaol
briquets. Go back inside and thread the meats onto the skewers and
occaisionally add an onion slice. When they're all ready, brush them
liberally with Mongolian Fire Oil or La You or equivalent and stick 'em on
the grill. Cook 'em until they're done; this doesn't take very long. Eat
them right off the grill while drinking a nice varietal White Grenache.
These are so good that you will freak. I've eaten them two nights in a row
now. I was going to make them tonight too, but Dave is having a dinner
party, remember? Chicken or something. It'll be good.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Gotta go, Dave needs to use his computer and I have to communicate with Ken
about yo-yos. Everybody say Hi to Ken; he just joined us today.
Tob
P.S. If the Pillsbury Doughboy and the Hamburger Helper Hand got into a
fight, who would win? Have you seen the new Arm & Hammer baking soda
commercial? I'd like to see that box duke it out with the Pillsbury
Doughboy. I hate the Pillsbury Doughboy.
______________________________________________________________________________
| It's true! It's ALL true! (for explanation `finger' tob@cwis.unomaha.edu|
|____________________________________________________________________________|
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