Of Lab Equipment, Cars, and Colloids

This is an awesome little gadget, great for anyone who has little space or money (like myself). Okay, well Crucible.org has it listed at $39.99, which comparitively isn’t that bad compared to full lab distillation kits which can go anywhere from $150 and up. I have my eye on it for next time I have any extra spending money (which means not anytime soon)…and extra space. I have absolutely no surface space left that isn’t already filled with books, more books, miscellaneous junk, and accomodations for a very cranky female rat. And while I’m on the topic of cheap lab equipment, I’m still jotting down notes for my Redneck Alchemist’s Handbook, in which I plan on writing down tips and tricks for cheap but efficient spagyric work for other poor white trash alchemists such as myself.

Speaking of not enough money, I have a new car, a 1995 silver Pontiac Firebird. Well, to be more specific, it was a car that belonged to my father (and my younger brother before he switched it out for the Buick). Our family has way too many cars, and since my dad already has the ‘67 Thunderbird he’s working on, and I’m the only one in the family really lacking a nice car (the cars I owned beforehand where old beatup Volvos and a Saturn inherited from my deceased grandfather), he gave me the Firebird, and took both the Volvo and the Saturn off my hands. Here’s a picture of what it looks like:

Now this isn’t the exact car in the photo, but its identical to the one I own now. I guess I’ll take pictures eventually. Its sleek form and silver coloration reminds me of quicksilver, and given its swiftness on the road, I gave it a very apt name…Hermes. Lord of the road. In May I plan on working some techno-mojo on it to formally connect it with its name and whatnot. I guess I’ll write out what I did when its all said and done.

In other news…working with colloidal metals, and I am a bit miffed with the current sample I recieved. Honestly, this was a poor specimen and given that it was allegedly produced by other alchemists, I expected better. First off, they bottled it in a glass bottle, which causes the particles to clump and bind to the glass. They also listed it at 10+ ppm, when given the color and tinge of the water (a pale blue/purple) the particles are suspended in, it seems to me more like 200nm clusters, not particles, since the larger the clusters the more they scatter red and yellow light (creating blue or purple), where smaller particles scatter green and yellow light (creating a ruby red color depending on concentration) more efficiently (yey Tindall Effect). You know, once I do more reading and am more educated on this–and also when I’m not so poor, I should invest in some electrodes and try this out for myself. Heh, but I don’t see this happening anytime soon. And yes–I do intend on telling these people just exactly how hardcore their product sucked. But thankfully I found another place that offers a finer quality for a better price that I can actually do some work with until I have the time, space, resources and funding to make my own for myself.

Anyway, I suppose I’m finished my bitching for the moment. Its about time for me to go fix some food and get some stuff done before work. With any luck, I can have some writing finished this weekend