Blogging since 2002
“The Latex Gauntlet is probably the single most important piece of armor in the gnomish armory. They, along with a generous annointing of holy water, known to alchemists as “bleach”, can render powerless even the most foul and vicious attcks from excrementals and vomitzombies.”
“Had I known that the upcoming experience (lurking just beyond my sight, like some Lovecraftian THING living at the back of my Psyche) was even then unfolding in the Women’s bathroom ”
My Titanium fetish is well documented in my journal. Well, here’s more titanium stuff:
There’s this guy on an island off the coast of Canada who makes the best espresso machine tampers. A tamper is a little plunger that is used to pack coffee ground into a portafilter. Tamping is one of the most critical stages in making espresso. It’s almost impossible to get good espresso without proper tamping. In fact, I’ve never seen a barrista in New York do a proper tamp. The one reason why Starbucks coffee became more drinkable is because they use automatic machines these days that tamp the grounds themselves.
I don’t own a Reg Barber tamper because I already had and Ergo Packer, which is also very finely made and instead of having a flat bottom like all other professional tampers or rounded bottom like all the crappy ones, it has a very slightly curved one. “Very scientific!” would cry characters from this novel.
Anyway. Reg finally made a small batch of titanium tampers. Gotta get one.
Moving on. In the book “Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed”, Ben Rich mentioned a special set of titanium shot glasses that his boss used for drinking with the generals. You see, the awesom SR-71 Blackbird was the first plane made entirely out of titanium. I wonder who has those glasses now.
But these guys have excruciatingly pretty titanium stuff. Sake cups, mugs, beer glasses – all made out of titanium. Jewelry is also very nice.
They can even make a street sign out of titanium for ya.
You know, I don’t want a 1958 Plymouth Fury anymore. I don’t even want a 1948 Tucker Torpedo. All I want is a 1956 GM Firebird II, the first titanium body car with a gas turbine engine. Is that too much to ask for?
There is a little store on 48th street that sells jewelry maker’s tools. I was walking by it on many an occasion, but never ventured inside. Today I went there because I needed a ring gauge for ordering that titanium ring I wrote about. I also ended up purchasing a very fine 20x loupe. They have really amazing metal working tools. Mmmm. I should pay them another visit when I have more time.
Assign yourself 5 deadprogrammerTM points if you recognize the reference in the subject line.
I was looking for more military silverware and found this:
Would you like to own a gas mask that belonged to “one of the lt. colonels taking part in hydrogen bomb tests in Nevada in 1951”
It’s a nice mask.
Hmm, this is interesting. Turns out that during WWII a lot of jewelry was made from palladium because platinum was unavailable. Check out a picture of Tiffany and Co ring in that article. Much better than most of the crap they are making now.
Some pretty palladium jewelry can be found on eBay too.
An article from JAMA:
Police Detainment of a Patient Following Treatment With Radioactive Iodine
“We recently treated a 34-year-old man for Graves disease with 20 mCi of iodine 131. Twenty-four hours after treatment, his radioactive iodine uptake was 63%. Three weeks after treatment, he returned to our clinic complaining that he had been strip-searched twice at Manhattan subway stations. Police had identified him as emitting radiation and had detained him for further questioning ….”
When I used to be a pre-med, I worked as a doorman/porter in a Manhattan building. I asked all the doctors who lived there to give me their old medical mags. Unfortunately most of them either threw them out or had them delivered to their office. But one very nice retired doctor supplied me with her old medical journals. I loved reading them. Too bad that JAMA is very expensive ($165 per year), and even now I can’t really justify getting it. I especially enjoyed the cartoons. :)
Also, one doctor who lived there died, and his relatives threw out all of his old medical books. I dragged all of them home, and now they reside on my bookshelves.