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Category: hold my vodak and watch this

Interestingly, “Homemade Polish Acetylene” Is The Name Of My Metallica Tribute Band. But I Digress

Interestingly, “Homemade Polish Acetylene” Is The Name Of My Metallica Tribute Band. But I Digress

Ah, Borderline Sociopathic Chemistry class. I remember it well.

It was held in the back row of regular Chemistry class. While all the goodie-two-shoes brownnosers sat up front and raised their hands and nattered on about covalency and miscibility, all us ne’er-do-wells sat in back and concerned ourselves with Real Science. We weren’t all talk. We experimented.

First, turn on the Bunsen burner. Then, of course, turn UP the Bunsen burner. Now grab a tongs and shove everything you can lay your hands on into the flame. “Will It Blend” has nothing on our impromptu off-cable show, “Will This Explode? No? How About This?”

So let the robodweebs talk about mixing calcium carbide and water, then adding a source of ignition. We’re doing something about it. 

(Thanks to Gerard at American Digest for shooting that one over)

So That Explains It. Everyone In Russia Is A Plumber

So That Explains It. Everyone In Russia Is A Plumber


Me? I love plumbers. Anyone that can get a bowl full of finless brown trout to go away is aces in my book.

But of course many people have a love/hate relationship with plumbers. It may have something to do with their bills, which appear to consist of nothing but the biggest number a plumber can think of at any given time, regardless of the chore involved. Granted, they can’t think up a number as big as an ambulance-chasing lawyer or a vinyl siding salesman with a gold tooth, but they do pretty fair for guys with tenth-grade educations.

But bills aside, it’s the plumbers’ belief that “wood is strong” that usually gets everyone’s goats. “Don’t worry, wood is strong” is uttered by all plumbers just before they whip out a sawzall and cut out half your floor framing in order to get in a drain trap for you second floor bath remodel. They hack halfway through the carrying beam for the house to get in a tiny copper line for your icemaker. And whenever a homeowner questions them about removing enough wood for a high school pep rally bonfire just to plumb a sink, they all answer in unison, “Don’t worry, wood is strong.”

Or in this case, Не волнуйтесь, дерево является сильным!

[Thanks to Charles Schneider for sending that one along]

OK, Hanging Off A Building By Your Fingertips Is Hunky Dory, But I Draw The Line At One-Handed

OK, Hanging Off A Building By Your Fingertips Is Hunky Dory, But I Draw The Line At One-Handed

Ah, so much nope. There’s no nope like Russian nope, of course. Kirill Oreshkin is billed as “Russia’s Spiderman,” but from what I’ve seen on these here Intertunnels, he’s “a” Russian Spiderman, not “the” Russian Spiderman.

Kirill Oreshkin likes taking photographs. Selfies, landscapes, the usual stuff—except his shots are captured atop some of the world’s tallest buildings.

Once Oreshkin gets as high as the stairs or elevator will take him, he often scales up scaffolding or other parts of the structure. The tallest building he has climbed to date is the Mercury City Tower in Moscow. At 338 meters (about 1,109 feet), it’s the tallest in Europe. Oreshkin is one of Russia’s extreme urban climbers, known to hang off the edge of buildings by only his fingers. He does all this unsupervised and without any safety gear.

“Using safety measures changes something—no one is going to recognize that you really risked your life,” Oreshkin says, adding that he knows what he’s doing is dangerous.

Oreshkin’s hobby started in 2008, when he began climbing to the roofs of homes and buildings in his neighborhood. He still doesn’t do any particular physical training, since he says it’s all about having the right mentality. He claims he was nervous about heights at first, and had trouble standing on the edge, which he now does with ease.

“It’s no longer about overcoming myself,” he says. “I just really like doing it. I like to look and study the city from different viewpoints.”

Climbing has become second nature to him. “What’s going through my head when I’m up there? Nothing special,” he says. “I just try to think about hanging tight and staying alive.”

[Thanks to the American Spiderman, Gerard at American Digest, for sending that one along. Well, he’s on the web, anyway]

Romania. Romania. You Border On The Adriatic. Your Land Is Mostly Mountainous, And Your Main Export Is Chrome

Romania. Romania. You Border On The Adriatic. Your Land Is Mostly Mountainous, And Your Main Export Is Chrome


Oh, dear. Sorry about that. That’s the Albania song, not the Romania song. My bad. I don’t know the Romania song. I can’t even begin to fake the Romania song. I don’t know what their main export is. But they don’t seem to be suffering from a shortage of OH MY GOD GET DOWN FROM THERE YOU PSYCHOPATH YouTube videos. Even if this is the only one, that’s plenty.

They must live near Russia, is all I can figure. Russia’s main export is, of course, dashcam videos. The Romanians, no doubt afraid of being unable to break into this lucrative world of shaky videos of fourteen cars smashing into five trucks and a stroller that the Russians are so adept at, have decided to try their hand at a melange of circus tricks performed on rusting infrastructure at great heights. It’s a niche market, it’s true, but they’re sure to own it.

[Thanks to BSBFB buddy Gerard at American Digest for sending that one along]