Well. In my tiredness, I couldn't remember much. But now, it's somewhat better. It just came to me, suddenly. One of the classrooms we entered for a game session had Cyanide & Happiness comics pinned up on the wall. I was like, what? I mean, any reader of that comic strip would know how much sexual reference, violence, and other things it uses. Of course, there are the milder themes like plays on words and breaking the fourth wall. It is, of course, cool to see a comic which I am a fan of inside a college classroom.
Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net
Fun with dry ice.
I used a voucher to go get a quart of ice-cream from however-you-spell-it. And they gave me a few pieces of dry ice which got out and started messing around with. Of course there was the usual thing where I drop it into some water and let it bubble away, while I watch it happily and giggle retardedly. And then me, being me, decided that there had to be better ways to play with dry ice.
It instantly occurred to me that a single chunk of dry ice would sublime into a massive volume of gas. If I could get it to change states quickly enough, I could create a propulsive force strong enough to seriously annoy some people.
With that happy prospect in mind, I quickly gathered a small plastic jar and some warm water. Placing a nice diamond shaped chunk of dry ice into the jar, I dunked in the water and tried to cap it. Whitish smoke was spilling out of it like someone who's life ambition is to have cancer. When I slammed the lid down and screwed it shut, it started hissing really loudly and I swear, there was a menacing vibration as I dropped it into the sink and ducked under the table.
Waiting in anticipation of that oh-so-happy moment most people call an explosion, I looked upwards at the pipey underside of the sink. And waited.
And waited.
Finally, I resigned to the fact that I wasn't going to get my zeeky boogy doog of the day. My not so brilliant setup was actually void of water after I looked at it again. There was still a big chunk of dry ice, and even some regular ice encrusted around the bottom of the jar. Apparently(obviously), the hissing noise was the gas escaping out of it, and at the same time, blowing out any remaining liquid water. That made the whole thing slow down and -almost- stop.
Now, again, being me, I'm going to work on a proper design for a dry ice bomb. The main flaws in my first one were probably that the lid didn't close tight enough, and the plastic walls of the jar were too thick anyway.
But it's probably going to be a while before I get my hands on dry ice again, so ice-cream time!
-Joe