Glasses

I recently got new glasses.

I've had them for about two weeks now.

And I must say, being able to see has really changed a few of my day to day experiences.

I have pretty bad eyesight, cant see past my nose with my left eye, and my right eye is slowly starting to weaken. Even so, I was able to get by just fine without any glasses before. True, I had to sit closer to the board to be able to see anything, which meant the very front in physics and math class. Those classes were ones were a single detail missed from the board would end up screwing up my understanding later on. ( sitting in the front in physics class didn't really do me much good, I still had to stab myself in the leg just to stay awake.) But, having no glasses also gave some nice perks. For one, I never had to drive a car. Because of the fact that I couldn't see more than five feet in front of me, my parents couldn't insist that I practice driving a car. (Hush hush, I'm scared of cars, don't like riding in them, don't like driving them, that's why I take the bus everyday.)

One thing that I did notice upon receiving new glasses (my mother got them from china, so I first tried them on at home) was that the holes in the wall that I thought were pretty hard to see, were actually really stinking obvious. Which would explain how my parents had noticed them so quickly. Having glasses lets me see a lot of things, including things that I don't want to see. For example, upon going to school the next day I was amazed to find that the floors, walls, and general atmosphere of Kenney gym are even more disgusting when you can actually see. The amount of detail my nearsightedness had spared me before was completely negated by the poly-carbonate (I think that's what it is) lenses in front of my eyes.

I also developed some frustrating habits. Because my glasses were not custom fit (being made in china), they have the annoying tendency to slide down my nose. As a result, I unconsciously flare my nostrils the tiniest bit to keep the glasses in position. Sometimes I hold this for several hours,noticing only if I happen to see my reflection, or if someone happens to point it out.

Needless to say, I'm still getting used to my new glasses, and this time I hope they last a bit longer. The last few pairs had suffered severe dismemberment and I really hope to avoid that scenario this time around.

:-D  here's a list of how I lost my last few pairs of glasses.

1. stepped on them
2. sat on them
3. repeatedly dropped them (spread out over an interval of several months)

Black Friday shopping

Last Thursday I went Black Friday shopping. I’m well aware of the fact that Black Friday shopping isn’t related to the usual topics that I blog about. But seeing as how this is a significant first, I decided to make an exception.

It all started with a simple solution to a simple problem.

 Thursday morning, it was thanksgiving and we had no plans for what to eat. My mother was in China, and my pops is a bad cook (sorry dad, it’s true). To avoid a catastrophe, dad decided to drop me and my younger sister off at my older sister’s apartment. His instructions were simple; we were to mooch as much food as possible, and, if the opportunity ever arose, we were to sneak him some pumpkin pie (he was too old to go mooch food from a group of college students). So there we were, sitting in my sister’s apartment while she and a few of her college buddies whipped up some traditional thanksgiving food. After stuffing ourselves with duck (the 100% Asian group I was eating with, me included, decided that duck was preferable over turkey), chicken, stuffing, two casseroles, pumpkin pie, and a healthy brew of hot cider (some of the college kids had brought brandy and drank that instead) we kicked back on the couch to watch Eddie Izzard and play board games.

                 At around one in the morning, me, my older sister, her boyfriend, her Korean friend, (just a way to distinguish him from everyone else without using his name) and my younger sister squeeze into a 1996 Camry. As we approach the mall parking lots,we’re greeted by the sight of hundreds of cars, and not a single parking space. We circle the parking lots, playing musical chairs with the other twenty cars looking for parking spots. After several laps around the mall, we stalk a group of people exiting the mall, wait for them to get into their car, and dash into the parking spot before anyone else can steal it. Having secured an extraction point, the troops rolled out of the vehicle in preparation for an assault on the mall facilities. A rolling bombardment of cuts and sales had weakened the prices; we were ready to swoop in for the kill. The Korean friend talks about his goal of obtaining some cheap jeans. My older sister, always the ambitious type, plans on waiting till five am for the Sephora store to open. My younger sister makes some vague demands for shiny things. Both My sister’s boyfriend and I are just along for the ride. Me being a rookie, I wanted to see some pros at their finest on Black Friday, the boyfriend, being a good boyfriend, was there to keep my sister company. We enter the mall and walk through throngs of people, excitement was coursing through my veins; I was finally a part of a great American tradition. We head into the Gap, where my sister spots some jackets; the boyfriend is surprised and slightly annoyed to find that the jacket he is wearing is available for cheaper than what he had gotten it for. I wasn't particularly interested in buying clothing so I just walk around aimlessly. I catch sight of Mary Evans and wave. She asks me about what I plan on getting, followed by a joke about how only crazy people are shopping here. I recognize that she’s trying to hold a conversation, but at two in the morning my brain, along with my social skills are starting to suffer, and I just mumble. She bids me good luck and continues with her shopping. We head to Eddie Bauer next. The Korean friend catches sight of a coat he likes and engages in an intense conversation with my sister about whether or not it was worth it. He decides to get, reassured by the fact that it wasn't a final buy (non returnable). The sales lady notices that I am wearing an Eddie Bauer coat and makes some witty remark that I am unable to recall. We then head out to the other clothing stores. Forever 21 is jam packed and we wade through crowds for a while, nothing memorable happens there. We then head over to banana republic; I catch sight of my neighbor and the old white guy who rides my bus (he sits in the middle rows listening to heavy metal and rock music at a volume that cannot possibly be good for his hearing). Abercrombie and Fitch has some random ripped shirtless guy standing near the entrance. Women flirt with him the entire time that we are in the store. After another group of stores my legs are starting to give out. It’s nearing four in the morning and the endurance that I had cultivated from eleven years of swimming and four years of Uni fitness is failing me.  My sister allows me some time to buy coffee. I get a Grande caramel mocha latte with whipped cream and an extra shot of espresso. The sugar from the drink gives me a rush and as I enter Old Navy I start to get fidgety. The caffeine kicks in a little while after I start crashing. The Korean friend finds a pair of jeans that he likes but has to wait in a line with 50 people in it. The rest of the group ditches him and heads back to Eddie Bauer. At this point Sephora is minutes away from opening. We head back to pick up the Korean friend and make our way to Sephora. We drop by Teavana to get some free samples and walk under some artificial snow machines before standing outside the store to await its opening. I lie down and take a nap, hoping that nobody trips over me. The rest of the group continues shopping. After finishing at Sephora my older sister decides that it’s time to go home (she can’t shop very effectively when her siblings are sprawled on the ground near the store entrance sleeping). We climb back into the car and my sister drops the Korean friend back at his apartment. She then drops me and my younger sister off at home. I climb into the house stumble up the stairs, and collapse onto the bed. I don’t wake up until three in the afternoon, having bought absolutely nothing at the mall I ask myself why I even bothered going.

Here are some things that I learned from Black Friday shopping.

     When it comes to shopping, girls have superhuman endurance. My younger sister who insists upon going to bed at eight o clock every evening, made it through Black Friday without any side effects, she had gotten a shiny bracelet and considered the six hours of shopping required to obtain that one bracelet worth it. My older sister showed no signs of tiring throughout the entire endeavor.

       Black Friday shopping makes you feel really poor. It’s really sad when everything is 50% off and you still can’t afford anything L.

    Coffee makes you pee. I shouldn't have ordered the Grande. 

Sharp things hurt

I didn't have the materials necessary for creating the weapon I had planned for this week, so I decided to just tell a story instead.

It's another story about one of my injuries. I hope it reminds anyone reading this blog that messing with sharp things can be potentially hazardous to one's health.

The story involves one of the older gadgets that I had created, an arm-blade of sorts, designed to propel a blade from a tube attached to my arm . The weapon was designed to give the user a concealable and lethal edge, capable of turning any fistfight into a very one sided shank fest.
The design for the weapon consisted of a metal skewer bound to a chopstick wrapped in scotch tape. The skewer was pushed into a tube and I used rubber bands as a means of propelling the blade. It was designed as a melee weapon, stopping once it reached a length. The design was faulty and unreliable, prone to breakdowns when the weapon was left cocked for a long period of time. It was one of these malfunctions that ultimately led to my injury.

First and foremost, the injury I received was a hundred percent my fault. I was stupid enough to have been tinkering with this object in a class. The main tube had broken and the stopping mechanism was faulty, I had attempted to fix it at the bus stop, but I hadn't managed to fix it before the bus came.
During one of my classes, after all the students had settled down and the teacher had started lecturing, I pulled the gadget out to finish repairing it. Five minutes or so after I had started fixing it, I had managed to get the thing working again. However, as I was putting it back into my back pack the trigger of the weapon was bumped. At the time, the weapon was cocked and loaded. The barrel also happened to be pointed at my hand.

The blade flew into my hand the moment the trigger released it. the searing pain made me jerk my hand back, effectively dislodging the metal skewer. My hand was throbbing, the blade had stuck a good inch. Unfortunately I was still in class. The teacher hadn't noticed anything and I had intended to keep it that way. My hand was bleeding so I wrapped some tissues around my wrist and used rubber bands to cut off the blood flow long enough for me to somewhat bandage my wound. Having received a puncture wound from a rusty metal skewer, I had two major concerns. The first one being tetanus, which would effectively kill if i didn't get to a hospital. The second one being sepsis, which would also effectively kill me if I didn't get to a hospital. With these threats in mind, I downed several amoxicillin  pills. I also opened a few of the capsules and rubbed the powder into my wound (no idea if that did anything). Having done everything that I could at the time, I waited for the class to end. When the bell rang, I sprinted to the bath room, washed the blood from my hand and massaged my wrist to restore blood flow. By then, the wound had sealed up (puncture wounds seal very quickly, which can be problematic as it can trap bacteria into the wound), and my hand was a very disturbing shade of purple. Once I had restored blood flow to my hand, I continued on with the rest of my classes.

As a result of the puncture wound, I suffered a localized infection in my hand. The infection effectively paralyzed two fingers and made moving any of the others very painful. I had gotten my tetanus booster and the infection didn't seem to spread, so I got away pretty lucky. I was also lucky in the sense that the blade had stabbed into the fleshy part between my two fingers. Had it hit a tendon, I would most likely not have use of my hand or at the very least, a few of my fingers.

Sharp things are dangerous, one should always exercise great caution around them.

Lets Learn Something Else

I really wanted to show you something that I have been having a lot of fun with.


It's a projectile that I like to call "the click beetle". Its designed to make a very loud noise when it strikes a hard surface. I find it entertaining to go outside, walk into the street, and fire it straight into the air so that when it lands on the concrete it makes a loud popping noise.

So without further delay, lets get to it!

                                                                 Step 0 (materials)

This little project actually requires a large variety of different materials. It's important to have all of them before starting.

• Duct tape
• Scotch tape
• Scissors
• Bamboo skewers
• Ring caps
• Paperclips
• Some free time
• Patience
• This guide

Ill explain why each material is important. The Duct tape is stronger and more durable then the scotch tape, so it'll be used more for structural support and keeping things together. The scotch tape only really serves to help secure the ring cap to the head of the bamboo skewer, which will make up the main body of the "click beetle". The ring caps are what make the loud noise. The paperclips are used  as hooks to be attached to the    bamboo skewer (the hook is what the rubber band will catch on). You will need free time (because who doesn't need free time) and patience because this project will most likely require a lot of trial and error.

                                                      Step 1 ("click beetle" hook)

Take one of the paperclips and bend it so that the original  outer "hook" remains, as shown in the photo below.

Straighten it out so that only the original outer hook remains with a straight tail behind it. 

Step 2 ("click beetle" body and hook)

Cut a strip of duct tape and secure the "hook" to the bamboo skewer. Make sure to leave an inch and a half or so of space from the top and the bottom to leave room for the fins and the head of the dart. This will allow the rubber band to pull the dart forward, flinging it at wherever the contraption is pointed.
Bend the straight end of the paperclip (the part that sticks out from the duct tape) over the top of the bamboo skewer and tape that down as well.

The end result should look something like this.

For the sake of this project the tip of the bamboo skewer (the sharp part) should be removed. Cut it off, but try to cut as little of the bamboo off as possible. The two ends should be identical.

Step 3 ("click beetle" caps)

Grab your package of ring caps. You need to cut one of the caps off from its pals (strip or ring, doesn't matter). trim the excess plastic off so that the cap is round.

Wrap a few layers of scotch tape around one of the ends of the cut bamboo skewer. (the whole point of this is so the ring cap will fit snugly on the end so adjust the number of layers accordingly)

 Then slide the cap onto the head. It's ok if you have force it, the cap should stay on even if you shake the skewer vigorously (that's a way to test whether the layers of scotch tape are sufficient or not.)

Now wrap a layer of the scotch tape around the cap to further secure it to the skewer.                                    The end result should looks something like the photo below.

Step 3 ("click beetle" fins)

Now we start on the fins. I apologize if my typesetting looks strange. The blog editor started having the words centered in the middle instead of aligning from left to right (ARGH) . 

Anywho

To start off, take a strip of duct tape, cut that in half and place one of the halves onto the bamboo skewer.

Place it so that the bamboo skewer bisects the duct tape strip, adjusting the size of the strip accordingly so that the fins are not ridiculously large or depressingly small.

 (and now for no apparent reason its back to left side orientation) :-| ) Take the other strip (they should be identical) and place it on top of the first strip so that the two sticky sides are pressed together.

(and now we're back to center orientation :-o )

Take the rectangle and cut it to triangular dimensions to form the fins.

 (you've got to be kidding me) That's it! To fire the click beetle take a rubber band and form a loop with your forefinger and your thumb.

 Now, gripping the fins with one hand (the one that doesn't have the loop) place the hook onto the rubber band, pull back as far as you can and let go of the projectile to send it flying.

 Hope you have fun with this!

Lets actually learn something

I think I've been spending too much of my time telling you about stories from my past and not enough time telling you how to actually make cool stuff, which is the purpose of this blog.

So I've decided that I will purposefully try to be unfunny. I shall be serious in hopes of actually accomplishing something useful.
For my first project I'm going to teach you how to make a blowgun out of paper.

Impossible you say?

BAM (still being completely serious)
A blowgun and 4 darts!!!
Buuuuuttttt!
Know whats better than a blowgun and four darts?

A blowgun, and four darts that you've shot into the math assignment you failed!!!
Yeaahhhhh, math homework didn't stand a chance!

Enough of this, it's time to actually show you how to make this thing.

Step 0 (materials)

You'll need two sheets of paper, clear plastic tape, and a pair of scissors (lol this isn't relevant, but if you type scissors as scizzors, the auto-correct suggests replacing it with Scorsese).

Step 1 (making the tube)

The first thing you need to do is make the tube.
Arrange the paper so that your rolling it up hotdog style (so the tube is long and thin).
Try and make it so that the holes on either ends are of equal size or else the dart may get jammed halfway down the tube.
Also keep in mind that the darts are custom made to fit the tube.
The thinner the tube, the thinner the dart. The thicker the tube, the thicker the dart. if you want it to be sharper and faster, make the tube thinner. Even so, I advise you not to make the tube any thinner than your pointer finger.

Once you've gotten the tube to dimensions you like, tape the outside along the fold (where the paper ends) and your paper blowgun is complete.

The inside should be smooth, if there are any creases or wrinkles on the inside, you'll need to roll another tube.

Step 2 (making the darts)

First thing to do is cut the second sheet you have into four sheets of equally sized paper.
I find that it helps to crease it both hamburger and hotdog style before cutting.

Then crease the lower right hand corner of one of the sheets. The crease should be between 150 to 170 degrees from the edge of the paper. (the closer the crease is to horizontal the thinner the dart)
Remember, the dart has to fit the tube, and what I mean by that is that the dart cannot be thinner than the tube, it can be wider and thicker, but not thinner. Don't bother trying to roll a dart that fits the tube perfectly it takes to much effort and its not worth it.

What you want to do is roll the paper sheet along the crease you made until you get a conical dart. It should be  thin and long (longer=more accuracy).

Now place the dart into the tube and push it in. Don't try and shove it in all the way, just enough for it to hold without any creasing on the dart.

Try and center the dart so that it hangs, without you holding it, with the tip floating parallel to the center of the tube.

After centering the dart you can grip the tube and cut the excess off the dart so that it fits the tube.

Step 3 (usage)

To fire the dart, place the dart into the back end of the tube (so that when firing its wide end should be close to your mouth) hold the paper lightly and blow down the tube with full force. If you find that the dart is jammed you may need to check to see if your dart is too wide, trim some excess off and try again. It also helps to tape the area where your mouth touches the tube so your saliva doesn't destroy the paper.

There you have it, you now know (assuming that you've actually read the steps) how to make a blowgun ,with darts, out of paper. The dart in the photo above is the one I made in the example photos. it was short and fat so it smashed the paper instead of penetrating it. It went about an inch or so through.

The ones I made before (first picture) were long and thin and they went a good two inches or so through the paper.

There are many interesting ways to change the blow dart, but I'll add that to a later post devoted to ammo modifications (presumably after several more tutorial blogs).

THE POWER OF BIC PENS

Early on in my career I discovered the power of Bic pens.

Around the age of 10 my mother had been doing a lot of her shopping at Big Lots. She would always come home with a thousand things loaded in the trunk of her car and I would have to spend 10 minutes or so loading those things back into the house. She never really bought things based on need. She focused instead on whether or not something was on sale. So one day, she came home with a box full of Bic round stick grip ball point pens (try saying that 5 times really fast).

If you've read the intro post to this blog then I think you have an idea as to where this is going.

I was in the 6th grade at the time. I was in a new school, significantly larger than my old one, and I had none of my elementary school friends with me (my mother had me transferred to a school closer to our house).

I was in a foreign environment, alone and afraid,and within the first two weeks of school I had come face to face with a serious problem.

HORNETS!!!

Yup, the bane of my middle school existence consisted of a piece of paper and a rubber band.

not very scary?

Here let me show you why I hated them so much, compare these two images



Now compare these two images

oh wait there is only one photo. Good, I only need one photo. Both the paper hornet and the insect hornet result in pain. It's just that middle school boys are far more malicious than insect hornets are and i spent a lot of my middle school life peeking at a mirror from over my shoulder to count the welts on my back.
So what could middle school me do about it? I was getting tired of being shot in the back and sitting in the back so that no one was behind you simply meant that people would turn around and shoot you in the face. After having received a hundred or so welts from the generous paper recyclers of my school, I decided to take action. I took one of my many Bic pens, took it apart, and constructed a weapon of superior destructive power to smash my foes into the dust from whence they came.
The design for which lies below.

Yeah, super bad!!!!
For a few days after I had created this I would shoot anyone who dared to attempt to welt me. The ink cartridges had a bad habit of exploding when they hit something. Needless to say, after several ruined shirts and some broken skin, people made sure that their hornets were aimed away from my general vicinity.

Intro to my Blog

IMMAAAA FIIRRIIIN MAH LAZZZZEEEEEEEEEEEERRRR

Just in case you don't happen to have any idea as to what I'm referring to in my title.
My name Daniel, hi nice to meet you, i am sure that we will be good friends. By now you have probably figured out that this is a blog, if not, well now you know.

I created this blog in order to share with you the pleasure of tinkering (when i say tinkering i mean crafting tiny weapons to destroy what few toys, walls, or houseplants that remain in my home)

Unfortunately i will not be firing a laser. If any of you feel like my title is false advertising i apologize (suck it up).

But before i share with you my arsenal of mini WMDs, I'd like to inform you of the risks associated with such a dangerous hobby.

I first became a tinkerer around the age of 4, this was also around the age I discovered the dangers of tinkering. While using the restroom (i had recently been potty trained and I was rather proud of my newly acquired skills) i discovered that by mixing toilet paper with water I could form a sticky clumpy mass which, depending on the ratio of water to paper, would either stick to walls in a clump or go splat. of course at age 4 i did not what a ratio was and all I understood was more water=big splat less water=sticky splat. I tested my hypotheses on the ceiling and several hours later, after my mother had used the restroom, i received a good fashioned beat down.

Fast forward 9 years, and by age 13 I had received many minor injuries from my hobby, However at that age I discovered something even more awesome than toilet paper.

MATCHES!!

I came up with the absolutely brilliant idea of making a rocket. Using a soda bottle lots of hairspray and several dismembered pens I came up with a design of pure epicness. The design of pure epicness lies below.

Now the problem with my design did not lie in the design itself so much as in the operator. On the day that i chose to test fire this weapon it was raining. My answer to that dilemma was to fire it indoors. I had also discovered that we had run out of hairspray and deodorant. So i replaced it with spray on sunscreen. The problem with the spray on sun screen is that it didn't remain aerosol for very long and instead pooled at the bottom of the bottle. The problem with firing it indoors should be obvious. having made all the necessary preparations, I struck a match and lit the tissue paper, pointing the barrel towards a cardboard box.

The result was not one that I had anticipated (but most likely should have). The tissue lit instantly and ignited the propellant, as it was supposed to, but the propellant, having pooled at the bottom of the container exploded out of the back end in the form of liquid fire. The unfortunate thing was that my right hand, which was mere inches away from the back end, got a good roasting. The really unfortunate thing was that my left hand which was holding the bottle (at that point aflame) got a good roasting and dropped the flaming bottle onto the wooden floor of our house. The really REALLY unfortunate thing was that my mother came back from her trip to the swimming pool at the exact moment I was dumping water onto the smoking bottle ( my mother is really good at catching me in the act).

what happened afterwards was too painful to write about.

Another 3 years after that and by age 16 I had stabbed my self multiple times (all accidental), burned myself several more times, and shot myself with an arrow.
Needless to say, you have been warned, making a weapon can have a painful effect on your life.