Entry Nine: Brass Bell for Getting the Attention of Elephants

Today's random selection from the stuff on my shelf is a bell. It's about a half pound, made from cast brass, and hand carved with vines and geometric shapes. The top half looks like a normal bell, but the bottom is made up of 18 hooks that are bent into a sort of cage shape. They're not all made the exact same shape, so when you ring it you get about a half dozen different sounding rings at the same time, about half of which seem to be in a minor key. This means that it has a slightly disturbing sound and I try not to ring it very much.

I don't remember when I got this, but I remember getting it just across the river from Parkersburg WV. It was apparantly made in India (I have no idea when) and was used by elephant handlers to get the elephants' attention for giving commands and such. I have no idea of knowing if that's correct or just made up by the person I purchased it from, but I looked into things a bit and it really is from India, so that's something at least.

It makes me wish that an elephant would show up near my appartment so that I could try to use it. Just my luck it would probably make the thing try to kill me, but at least I'd get an interesting story out of it.

Entry Eight: Uranium and Protective Measures

Long time no see. And now, out of boredom and due to pressure from quite possibly the only person who will read this, another entry!

Alright, this time it's my canister of Uranium metal. The outer box is made of half inch thick lead, and inside are 11 grams of Uranium inside a plastic package full of Xenon gas, for that extra little bit of protection. I've had this stuff for the better part of a year now and I can't quite remember when I bought it. One of my friends has a geiger counter and I tested it to make sure it was the real thing, and it's relatively radioactive, although probably not dangerously so. Either way, probably not something you'd want to carry around in your pants pocket.

The funniest think about this to me is that I ordered it over the internet, and it was delivered by the US postal service. Think about that for a second. You can mail Uranium. To anyone. It makes me chuckle for some reason.

Alright, enough of that for now. Maybe I'll do another one of these in less than 8 months this time.

Entry Seven: My Keys

Today's random crap from my room is a large pile of keys. They currently total 120 separate keys, and here's a list of what the ones I know about go to:

My car, my old car, my parents old car, my house, my old house, two friends' houses, six padlocks that I own, handcuff keys, my church, the pawn shop in Braxton, my old church, the chemical storage room at WVWC, the front door of an abandoned coal mine, a pair of roller skates, a broken jewelery box, a grandfather clock, my appartment, my mailbox, the fuse box for room 1905 in the Pharm School, a motorcycle, and a boat.

All the rest, I have no idea what they go to.

Interestingly enough, I have enough keys now that if I have my extended keyring with me, there's a decent chance that I can open most common locks. I know I used to be able to open an old girlfriend's house with one of them that was definately not for her house, and I've gotten into several padlocks and closed doors with other ones.

Who needs lockpicks when you have five pounds of keys?

Entry Six: Three Bottles of Acid

This time we'll be looking at a trio of items that I don't think deserve entries on their own. These are three old bottles of acid. Left to right they are; Dilute Nitric Acid, Citrate of Magnesium, and Sulfuric Acid.

Ok, I shouldn't lie. The bottles are old, but they're full of water. And Citrate of Magnesium was never an acid to begin with. Although it could cause horriffic diarrhea if used improperly, which probably makes it worse than acid.

So, why do I have these things? Well, the Nitric acid bottle I won as second prize in the WVWC Chemistry Group Bowling Tournament. Yes, you read that right. We were dorks. Anyway, I thought it looked neat so I kept it. Unfortunately, people saw that I had it, and they assumed that I wanted more. Now, occasionally people just buy me these things for birthdays and such. I've had to stand between my mother and a shelf of these things to keep her from buying me another one.

So, what have we learned? Right. Don't buy me any more of these.

Unless they are actually full of acid. Then I might take one more.

Entry Five: A Large Meat Cleaver

Today's item of interest is in my kitchen, or more precisely in my Injectible Drugs Memorization Flash Cards. It's a large butcher's cleaver, maybe 40 years old, imbedded three inches into a stack of cards that angered me. I've had it for several months now and I've only used it twice. The first time was to cut a steak (Which was actually very difficult. There is no good way to just slice the steak with it, and hauling back and hacking with it is a good way to break your cuttingboard and leave a gash in the kitchen counter) and the second time left it where it is today.

No really funny stories associated with this one yet, unless you count unreasonable violence towards a learning medium as funny.

Oh, when the repair guy came in to fix my dish washer the first time, this was the only thing he touched, and that was to carefully move the whole thing across the room. I think it made him nervous because it was sitting right above where he had to crouch to look under the sink.

Entry Four: Dictionnaire Botanique et Pharmaceutique

Today I thought I'd make my entry about a book. I have quite a few of them sitting around that are worthy of writing about, so I should space them out. This is a copy of 'Dictionnaire Botanique et Pharmaceutique' bound in calfskin and published in Paris in 1768. I've had this book since sometime in early 2008 thanks to eBay and my own inability to keep Christmas money for more than a month.

The book is entirely in French and is basically an alphabetical listing of any animal, vegetable, or mineral compound believed to have medicinal uses at the time. My favorite part of the book is that it was written before the current classification system for animals and even before the periodic table of elements was organized, so there's a little alchemical chart at the beginning to explain things. Here's a picture of part of it, though it didn't turn out very well. (EDIT: replaced my picture with a better one I found from an online scan.)

There are some very interesting things listed in the book, including cats (ground cats teeth are good for curing herpes), Mandrake (mixed with ammonia and tobacco eases the pains of childbirth), and Powdered Mummy (something about curing phlegmatic blood disorders that hasn't made sense in any language for two hundred years). It makes me very happy that now we have nice little pills and syrups and such for curing our ills.

I hope I never have to fill a prescription for Powdered Mummy. . .

Entry Three: Ten Pound Granite Thing

As the description states, this is a ten pound thing, made of granite. It was one of my Christmas gifts this year, and the only one that I managed to injure myself with. Anyone who is reading this should take note: Always verify that the giftwrapped box under the tree is safe before you pick it up in a sleep-addled haze. Toes are precious things and you only get 10.

With a little investigation, I've figured out that this is a carving of either a Shiisa or less likely a Fu Lion. Either way it is a statue that's supposed to help ward off evil spirits. I'm thinking about either putting it on a stand next to the door or leaving it sitting on top of my textbooks when I'm not using them.

Or maybe putting it in the fridge to ward off food spoilage.