» Pointless Experiments

Pocket rockets and other match experiments
When about 13, we liked to make pocket rockets. You remove a paper match from the book, lay a pin along it with the pointy end towards the tip of the match, and then tightly wrap a bit of aluminum foil around the head of the match. Withdraw the pin, and you have a pocket rocket. Slightly lift the inside coil of a paperclip to create your V2 launch ramp, and you're ready. Lay your new rocket on the launch ramp, which has been bent to produce a 45-degree launch trajectory, light a second match and hold it under the head of the rocket. You'll get a nice launch that results in a small, very hot projectile landing somewhere you wish it hadn't. Don't aim for cleavages. Trust me.
(Sat 26th Jul 2008, 3:07, More)

» Dumb things you've done

Throwing things off from high places
When I was in college, and thinking I could actually achieve getting a degree in chemistry (I didn't) and studying late into the night trying to learn on the eve of the final exam everything I'd been avoiding throughout the quarter while discovering all the positions of the kama sutra with my then girlfriend... what was I saying? Oh yes, I was studying frantically late into the night with a fellow miscreant, when we decided it would be wise to take a break. As it were, in the room where we studied, there sat a large office typewriter abandoned by a fellow student that we unanimously detested as being annoying and pedantic. We hit up the plan to throw this from a high place. We discarded the plan to throw it from the roof of the engineering building as having too much risk of having someone pass beneath and exactly the inopportune moment. So we decided to throw it from a bridge on campus. And so we did. And when we found that unsatisfying damage had been done to it, we fetched it and threw it down againg. And again. Three times rendered it unrecognizable as an instrument of producing correspondence, so being the conscientious students we were, we picked up as many of the big pieces as we could, threw them in the back of my friend's car, an proceeded to return to our fruitless studies. It was not to be, however, as flashing red lights alerted us to the presence of a police car wishing to attract our attention. The nice office wished to know what we had in the back seat, and when we acknowledged his desire, with some trepidation, he asked the question: "Please show me the serial number." It seems we needed to give proof that the instrument of our embarrassment was not stolen. After much poking, proding, and examination, we could not turn up any part of the unrecognizable mass of twisted metal, minute springs, wires, keys, platens, and typewriter-like parts that had anything like a serial number on it. So the nice officer led us back to the scene of our crime, and we proceeded to locate all the pieces we hadn't been able previously, for lack of the beam from the flashlight the nice officer provided for us. When we finally located a two-inch fragment of metal with a serial number on it, and the officer, thanks to the miracle of his radio, was able to determine that our hated colleague's device was not stolen, he began to point out every tiny spring we'd missed, so as not to be fined for littering. Several hours later, we returned to our studies, cursing our hated comrade all the more.
(Sun 23rd Dec 2007, 4:22, More)

» Worst Nicknames Ever

More than a nickname
I was in the University, and it was the first day of a class. The teacher's assistant was taking role. And one name he called out was "Rabbit." Naturally, I turned around to see, and here was this very, very, very blond girl, blond eyebrows, so blond she was almost albino. And with buck-teeth as well. And that was her true name.
Hateful hippy parents.
(Sat 20th May 2006, 4:37, More)

» Terrible Parenting

Not a Knucklehead
My dad once called me a "Knucklehead" in front of my family and grandmother. I've spent the ensuing 45 years attempting to prove otherwise, with limited success.
I'll probably have it engraved on my gravestone.
(Sat 18th Aug 2007, 0:26, More)