Toxophilic Trauma!

No!  In Fact - NO! - This Is Nothing To Do With Either Disease Or Poisons
Really, as if we'd comment on current affairs!  I know we do occasionally when there's the chance to score cheap traffic points, but now is not the time*.  
     Anyway, that title is from the Greek for "Archer", which comes from "Toxophily", in that "Toxon" means "Bow" and "Philos" means "Love of".  Is that clear?

About to rob somewhere!

     For yes, we are back with the Full Mag video of Richard Ryan and his explosive arrows, modelled after Mister. J. J. X. Rambo.  If you recall yesterday we covered the planning, creation and testing of these arrows, and now we move on to the actual shooting of same.
  Art?

Bang, and then some

      This is Rich's arrow hitting a melon in front of a breezeblock; the breezeblock is there so that the arrow hits something solid in order to detonate, as the melon is a bit too squishy for this.  As you can see, this is a fair old bang, which Richard was delighted with, as it was a practical demonstration that his theory and practice had been correct.  What you can't see is the arrow's shaft bouncing back on a return trajectory that nearly hit him; a consequence of ballistics and a robust shaft.  Art?

A fraction of a second later ...

     This is a slo-mo shot of what happened to the melon - disintegrated as you'd expect - and the breezeblock, which has also come apart, rather to my surprise.  
     So, the arrows work.  Next job is to do a test at distance, on a mannequin wearing a flak jacket with protective plate.  Art?

A palpable hit

     Once again, the metal insert in the flak jacket was there to ensure the arrow detonated, since the mannequin itself wasn't dense enough.  When Richard checked for damage, there wasn't much; that protective plate did it's job.  What he should have done was have some accelerometer patches on the mannequin, a la Mythbusters, because I bet that the kinetic energy transmitted by the arrow would cause serious injury or death in real life.  In the case of the Vile Vietnamese Villain in the original film that inspired these arrows, he wasn't wearing a flak jacket or any kind of protective garment, so the explosive arrow might not have detonated, in which case he'd have an enormous soft tissue wound that would have killed him through shock or blood loss alone.  Art?

     Or, if the arrow hit bone, that above would have happened, except on a smaller scale.
     BOOJUM! - being analytically gory so you don't have to!
     Motley, shall we experiment with this ballistics gel and a crossbow?     

Yesteryon's Haul
Colour Conrad surprised; some of the books I only ordered at the weekend arrived on Wednesday, which had me rubbing my hands with glee.  Art?

     From port: this is the fourth and final volume in Prit Buttar's quadrology about the Eastern Front in the First Unpleasantness, and I shall have to leave this one to read after I get the other three.  Number one is on it's way.  
     In the median position:  yes, another volume in my collection of the British Official Histories of the First Unpleasantness, this being the first in their series about Air Operations.  These don't come up for sale very often, so I jumped at the opportunity; thank you Turner Donovan Books!  It dates from 1922 and I shall be very careful about handling it, as fingers slathered with melted cheese or nacho cheese dip are Not Good For It.  From what I recall, the British Expeditionary Force went to France in 1914 with exactly 12 planes; by the Armistice in 1918 they had 1,200.
     And to starboard, we have yet another memoir of an officer in the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, one Miles Hildyard.

These chaps

Myles, absent headgear.  Bad Myles!  Naughty Myles!  No cigar for Myles!

     I am still plodding through "An Englishman At War" (about 20% done) so may have to delay beginning this one.

Back To That Rolling Stone List
We are now down - or up - to Number 42 of the 50 best television sci-fi shows of all time: "Misfits".  Art?

The definitive version

     You might call this an anti-superhero series, as the titular characters above were all teenagers who had gotten into trouble with the law, and whom were doing Community Service in order to recompense; so they were not coming from a position of moral authority, selfless service to others or even being especially nice.  They managed to accidentally kill a lot of people, most of whom thoroughly deserved it, and the stand-out character was Nathan, seen above pointing (see?  I told you they were rude), played by Robert Sheehan.  Conrad mostly lost interest when he left, but the following seasons are worth watching.  Spot the Game of Thrones actor ...

Not quite devoid of redeeming features.

     It must have something going for it, if a South Canadian magazine thinks highly of it.

r/AskReddit Revenge Tales
O my, these are nothing but Schadenfreude in spoken form.  I do have one where the narrator was married, and his wife was having an affair with her Anthropology professor, which he found out by accident.  He kind of sat back and pondered on this affair for a couple of weeks before coming up with such an evil revenge scheme that one wonders what he does for a living normally.  Art?

Poison ivy, which grew in the narrator's back yard.  This is important.

     Now, this is where I have to skirt around things to remain SFW.  Our Narrator - henceforth ON - mentioned that he created a "weed lube", which is a lubricating agent used in <ahem> carnal relations and which smells of the marijuana it is made with.  One of the indications of the affair was that this lube was getting used up, when it was definitely not by he and his wife.

Cannabis Sativa, or "Weed"

     Very early one morning ON got up and substituted the anthropology prof's contact number for his own on his wife's phone, meaning that any message to or from her phone would appear to be from or to him.  The other substitution he did was to add in an extract of poison ivy to the "weed lube".

Poison ivy rash

      Here an aside for non-South Canadian readers.  Poison ivy is a harmless-looking plant that can cause severe allergic reactions if a person touches it, bringing them out in rashes or blisters, which are at least itchy and frequently painful.
     Cheating wifey then goes for a shower and texts her lover, complaining about severe itching; this message, of course, goes straight to ON, who blithely messages back saying that he'd had herpes, which seems to have flared up again.  Could she not tell anyone else, as he didn't want to get his chances of intimate carnal relations with a Teaching Assistant he had his eye on being spoiled?
     This causes Cheating (And Itching) Wifey to storm out of the house.  ON pauses just long enough to log onto her laptop -

A laptop.

     - and delete all her degree thesis on anthropology, all the notes and all the backups and pretty much everything to do with her degree.  He then follows CAIW to university, where he sees her in the classroom with the bemused and clueless anthropology prof, having a shrieking meltdown in front of a whole class of students.
     The prof got fired for inappropriate behaviour, ending up teaching at high school, which is a bit of a comedown for an academic like him.  ON posted that now-divorced CAIW never passed her degree and was now resigned to life as a (his words) "Perpetually Pregnant Housewife".  Probably not how she saw her life being.
     I suspect ON's day job is arranging CIA assassinations abroad; he was far too creative in getting his own back.

Look!  There he is!

Finally -
This will all make sense on Facebook, honest.

*  <polishes halo>