Indoor Fireworks

Damien blew up my magic box (a fun little piece of circuitry leftover from a computer science course) by plugging it into the transformer I use to power my HO-scale model locomotive. I'm not exaggerating either; it really exploded, with loud noises, sparks and smoke. As expected, my magic box circuit doesn't work anymore (my dad once told me that smoke is what makes electronics work. If they leak smoke, they stop working). The explosion looked pretty awesome. Several of the sparks hit Damien and burned a hole in his shorts, so that was exciting. My place smelled like smoke, and for once it didn't cost me a perfectly good tea towel or dinner. The epicenter of the explosion was a capacitor -the top of it was completely blown off -that's pretty cool. And I had the opportunity to use dad's joke about smoke inside electronics.

Looks like the pros outweigh the cons. In the future, when I've got unrelated electronic things on the same desk and someone starts plugging things into other things, I'll pay attention. For now, thanks Damien!

some conversations I had last week

Dan: Sorry about the abrupt ending to our last conversation. I just don't like talking on the phone in front of other people.

me: No problem.

Dan: I was sitting on my couch and other people started sitting on it next to me. So it was either, hang up the phone, or get off the couch.

me: Ok.

Dan: I didn't get off the couch.

(when I first typed this up and asked my brother if I could post it, he told me not to leave out the part about drugs. So here's how the rest of the conversation went.)

me: So you just sat there for the rest of the day?

Dan: There were drugs.

me: Drugs are pretty important. In a competition between family and drugs...

Dan: Drugs. For sure, drugs.


also, after what seemed like a pleasant conversation with Tim's dad,

me: All this time I thought your dad hated me, but I guess not. He seemed pretty friendly yesterday.

Tim: Actually, he had no idea who you were.

moth problem

A moth flew into my box of sugar cubes a few days ago, and couldn't find his way out. When I opened it and tried to direct him to freedom (using a butter knife, bright lights, and negative reinforcement), he started flopping around, getting little bits of dust from his wings onto the sugar cubes. By the time I got him out of there, just about every sugar cube had a tiny bit of moth wing dust on it.

I've never been good at throwing away food. While unsettling, trace amounts of moth aren't harmful if ingested, and definitely not fatal. But I'm not so poor that I can't afford to spring for a new box, and each cup of coffee will be less enjoyable if I know it has a tiny bit of moth in it. I will be drinking unsweetened coffee until I resolve the matter.

Sometimes it feels like I'm the only person in the world with these problems.