Great Exploding Toilets!

Or, "How To Debride, With Sodium Hydroxide"

We will stretch the definition of "debride" here, as normally it's a medical term used for the cleaning and removal of debris from wounds or injuries happening about one's person.  In this case we are referring to one <ahem> "method" of removing debris from a toilet; surely you already knew that common household bleach is in fact  a solution of sodium hypochlorite, which is as good as next door to sodium hydroxide?  Art!

Art!  What on Earth is this?

     I don't have time to chastise you, go eat a bowl of peat instead.

     Anyway, as I was saying, you normally use sodium in various iterations to do domestic cleaning chores.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEC64Bqeajs

Enter The King Of Random and his pal (or partner in crime) Cody, who have themselves a whole load of sodium metal, and a Youtube channel (link above), and most importantly of all, a fully-functional toilet that Cody had purchased in order to flush liquid mercury through*.  Art!

     You can see the small lump of sodium metal in his hand there, wisely protected by gloves, since sodium reacts VERY VERY VIOLENTLY with water.  The block of wood?  They'll throw that into the bowl after the sodium to ensure the reaction is confimed.  Next!

     That, gentle reader, is from a single piece the size of a marble.  That block of wood was hurled a good thirty yards distant.  So, logically, if a small amount of sodium makes a small explosion ...

... what will a whole heaping handful do?

... this!

     That's the explosion in slow-motion.  Note the conspicuous absence of Random, who made himself scarce after bunging the sodium in.  Wise!  Also notice the ten-foot plastic pole used to flush the toilet from a safe distance.  One hopes Cody got compensation for his toilet being destroyed, although I don't think he'd have been able to sell it on second-hand afterwards - would you buy a used toilet contaminated by mercury and sodium?

     Now, I hope you paid attention to how Random and Cody both took sensible precautions against chemical burns and explosive ceramic impact.  Our next sorry tale features a person to whom the phrase "Health And Safety" was merely unintelligible gobbledy-gook.

     Motley!  Here's a glove, here's a slab of sodium, go skip it across the lake!

What that looks like in real life

Bogus Basin Boarder's Bloody Blunder

Yes this is SFW - in this context "Bloody" means "Covered in gore", so there.  Okay, so this is another in our occasional mentions of Darwin Award Winners And Aspirants (those who don't quite croak it, like the lady who got par-boiled in a geyser at Yellowstone Park).

     To set the scene, there is a road in Idaho, South Canada, that leads to Bogus Basin, which is a favourite of snowboarders and skiers in the winter season.  Art?

People jump from the rock peak to starboard

     It is possible to clear the road if conditions are right, HOWEVER the park's rangers strongly discourage doing any such thing, although they can't really enforce this since this part of the forest is well outside the administered area. The star of our story decided to do the jump without a helmet, which is an accident waiting to happen.  Although a friend claimed he'd done this jump "hundreds" of times before, none seems to have been done without a helmet.

     Well, law of averages caught up with him.  He didn't have enough momentum, didn't clear the road, and was then immediately hit by a Hummer, a nice big hefty car with an awful lot of inertia.  DOA in hospital.

CAUTION! This man has a death-wish.  You do not.

     Dunno if this is a genuine photo or not, but it shows the kind of clearance you need to avoid pancaking on the road.

From Snow To Sand

Yes, you bet, Peter Perret.  For we come to yet another instalment of The Chieftain's look into tanks of the early desert war in the Second Unpleasantness.  I say "tank" when we are really talking about an armoured car, the Autoblinda 41.  Art?

Plainly not in the desert.  Art!

That's better - a lot sandier!

     This was a pretty decent armoured car for the period, with a 20 m.m. cannon that would enable it to see off other armoured cars it encountered, reasonable armour and high speed - 45 m.p.h.** on the flat, with the ability to switch to sand tyres if needed.  It also had a rear driver's seat, which a generation of humourists laughed at "because of those cowardly Italians being so eager to run away!"  Well, yes, because it's role was to sneak and peek, find out what was going on where and then get away with the info; so if needed in an emergency it could drive backwards at 45 m.p.h. whilst still firing at any enemy encountered.  Art?

This angle shows the engine deck and the rear driver's view; note how the engine deck is not rammed with clutter as normal on desert vehicles, as that would block his vision.  Note also in both photographs that the canny crews have lowered their radio aerials as far as possible; this is because they would otherwise give the AB41s away if they were in cover and aerials erect***.

Finally -

I don't think I've covered Number 8 on that 'Rolling Stone' list of the "50 Greatest Television Sci-Fi Shows Of All Time", which is "Westworld".  Art?

Season One, when it was good

     O my, but the first season was incredibly well-regarded, approved by critics and audiences alike, not that Conrad has seen more than a few glimpses when I got in late from work (back in the days of the 11:00 - 19:00 shifts).  It kind of jumped the shark after that, with Season Two being utterly "Meh" and Season Three being merely robots knocking the tar out of each other.  Given The Critical Drinker's horribly scathing review of S3, and how it ended, it doesn't look as if there will be a Season 4.  Still, you never know, they're going to try and keep "Batwoman" going without any Batwoman because who wants to see the title character anyway?

It all goes horribly wrong thanks to a computer virus (I think)

      I can see it all now - set in Siberia (hence "Eastworld") and featuring strong female robots characters without any character (that's robots for you), shovelling snow and tunnelling tundra for eight hours.  Or something.

     And with that dangerously political satire, we are done!  Done done done!

*  A whole other story

**  I will NOT use metric if I don't absolutely have to

***  NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK!