Home Projects #4: Wrist Mounted Flame Thrower

This article is particularly exciting for me because I have to include a disclaimer here. If done incorrectly, and without checking your work, Home Project #4 might just blow your freakin jangles off (your arm too). 

IMPORTANT:  This article is intended for the use of the individual
and may contain information that is confidential, privileged or unsuitable for overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humor or irrational religious beliefs. Any dissemination, distribution or copying of this article is not
authorized. Unless the word absquatulation has been used in its correct context somewhere other than in this warning, it does not have any legal or grammatical use and may be ignored. No animals were harmed in the writing of this article, although the Yorkshire terrier next door is living on borrowed time, let me tell you. Those of you with an overwhelming fear of the unknown will be gratified to learn that there is no hidden message revealed by reading this warning backwards, so just ignore that Alert Notice from Microsoft: However, by pouring a complete circle of salt around yourself and your computer you can ensure that no harm befalls you and your pets. If you have received this in error, please understand that it is your own damn fault.

So! As long as we can all agree to those completely relevant and legally binding terms, lets continue. I would like to start off with a quote from the late George Carlin, as I feel he will always be useful to me.

"The very existence of flamethrowers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, "You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done."

Yes sir. Now of course the flamethrower George is referring to is the one that makes grown men cry and run with two broken legs whilst defecating in their own trousers in the 40's, made popular by the Germans who called it a Flammenwerfer 35, haha, those goofy Germans, they have a funny word for everything! BUT. What if we could scale it down a bit? Make it right for use in the home? Say for lighting really big candles, or melting snowmen? Well, fret not my legion of McGuyvers, I have found a solution. Behold, the wrist mounted flame thrower! 

 

For those big candles.

 This is actually fairly simple, its just EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that you CHECK YOUR WORK. All in all this project should cost about 40 bucks altogether to make. Here's what you need:

• Spiderman Webslinger Wrist Mount (Toys R Us)
• Devcon All purpose adhesive
• Canned Air or Keyboard Duster
• 1/4" Clear Vinyl Hose (about 2 Feet worth)
• Zip Ties
• 1/4" Drill/bit
• Two hands

Now we're ready to get started! I expect everyone reading this article to have undergone some form of common sense training and perhaps a shop class or two. I can't write you a step by step Oh The Places You'll go manifesto with directions to each minute detail (Read Disclaimer).


Here is your basic plan of action when using those evil hands of yours to create this particularly harmful device. Let's make Michael Bay proud people. 

The Spiderman web slinger allows you to shoot water....silly string...flammable liquids etc. all by pulling down on a lever placed on the wrist mount. 

Don't wear the included meltable gloves. 

However, the container isn't pressurized, and would only work for several seconds at a time without some source of pressure. The canned air or duster should work just fine. Take the red plastic cap off the duster, and sand it so that it is rough, don't sand the hole there the air comes out, just make the surrounding plastic rough. You are, using the adhesive, going to attach the vinyl hose by shoving the cap into it, leaving the bottom exposed (so you can reattach it to the can). 

Once you've done that, you'll notice there is a twist cap located on the top of your web slinger. Unscrew it, cut the string, the cap is useless for the evil purpose of your flame thrower. Using the adhesive once again, attach the hose to your water tank, making sure it is air tight. Now, just be applying pressure to the hose near the air canister, you have a way to pressurize you water tank. 

Should look like this

Time to find the right fluid to fill up your tank with. The best I have found is WD-40, which may only allow you to use this device outside, but has a low flash point and burns in a stream. The other way to fill it is to empty a can or two of Axe Body spray into your tank, then use the air to pressurize it.  Attach the web slinger to your wrist, use a lighter, placed in front of your hand, and pull the lever!

 Fun Factor: 12 1/2

I will more than likely come to edit this a bit to make it more word-friendly, but if you have any questions, come see me on Facebook, or drop a line in the comments section. Enjoy!

Elliott

Home Projects #3: Laser Pointer (That Lights Stuff on Fire)

It's important for the sake of your healthy curiosity, your desire to learn, and perhaps your unquenchable thirst for destruction, to understand that very dangerous things come in small and misleading packages. 

 Exhibit A

That's the Noisy Cricket for those who weren't enlightened enough to go watch Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith fight aliens for what some might describe as best hour and a half of their entire lives. Men in Black taught me most everything school didn't, while still inserting a heartwarming message of tolerance and unity. I'm not going to be teaching you anything like that today. No, today, we learn to build a laser pointer that can cut plastic in half.

I don't care what Al says.

Just open up the DVD/RW drive from an old computer tower, or the disc drive on your broken Xbox 360, and you have mostly all the parts you need. You only need to separate the laser diode from the sled it sits on. The laser diode is the actual laser that reads those games, cds, and dvs. It looks like this.

And it is beautiful. 

Those three prongs represent the positive, negative, and grounds for your new home made light saber. You are going to need to place the diode in a case of some kind, and then find a power source, and here's the best part. 

Here's your guy. 

MAKE SURE YOUR POWER SOURCE HAS A SWITCH. For the love of God have a switch installed, or watching your full powered laser pointer roll off the table with battery attached could blind 5 people before it hits the ground. This laser pointer will blind you if you shine it in your eyes, along with burn plastic, light matches, and be all around the coolest thing you own. Enjoy, and find me on Facebook if you have any questions. 

 

Home Projects #2: Disposable Camera Made Into a Taser

In case you haven't noticed, I have a very deep respect for electricity. Not just because it has the potential to send us into an epileptic episode or fry our hair or kill us just because we failed to harness it correctly, but because of the thin line it draws between innocently conventional and downright dangerous. 

Let me know how your cat likes the tropical climate

of your microwave.

The household items we use everyday to watch TV, dry our hair, listen to music, light our homes, and even open cans of tuna for Fluffy up there, are only two or three steps away from leaving us in a coma on our kitchen floor.

A homemade disposable camera/taser isn't particularly deadly to anyone not wearing a pacemaker, but it will shock you with an equivalent of about 300 volts. Guess what else? It only cost about $9.00 to make, and doesn't require anything more in depth than can be found in an 8th grade shop class. 

You're friends won't see you running at them with what looks like a porcupine of electrical wires and duct tape either....it looks innocently like the disposable camera you bought at Shoemakers for $8.00.

 Not for taking pictures

While your camera is charging  its flash lamp, its actually collecting about 300 volts via a small capacitor so that when you push the button, it forces all that energy into the lamp causing it to become very bright, if only for a second. Open up the camera, attach a few small wires to the ends of the capacitor, then close the camera back up, and instead of the lamp getting all that attention, a charged up flash actually gets fed to whatever lucky creature comes in contact with those wires. 

 

Kinda like this. 

I can't obviously explain the specifics of tampering with Walgreen's property here, but I can show you this completely unrelated Youtube video about protecting the environment. Enjoy!

 

Home Projects #1: Speakers That Can Kill You

If you're anything at all like me, then building something at home just isn't worth it unless there is a chance you might be killed in the process. There is otherwise no motivation for building it right, and there's no glory in surviving the construction of a birdhouse. 

Blowing it up, however.

I will now irresponsibly show you some speakers you can make it home, have amazing clarity, and also require that an electrical current to be exposed to the air, and flop around all willy nilly. The risk of electrical shock here is pretty high if you aren't careful, and to make it better, it requires a tank of ionizable gas to work, creating an odorless by product called ozone that's dangerous if you breathe too much of it in. To illustrate the danger here, I'm gonna give you this bag of steak and a pair of brass knuckles..

Now punch this bear in the face.

With a little bit of electrical know-how. You can make speakers that use the electrical arc to vibrate the air, making the sound waves you would hear made by speakers, only with more clarity and AWESOMENESS.

Lincoln Man Hired Police To Kill Roommates

Nothing screams "I'm a little upset" like hiring someone to murder your roommates. I believe, though I may be mistaken, that Andrew Yager probably only wanted to send a message of peace when he went looking for a hitman.

 

"You'll listen. I'll give you this fruit basket. Then I'll be on my way"

Now this story is from September, but for those of you who weren't reading the news, a 22 year old Andrew Yager was booted from his apartment by his roommate for "his behavior".

Whatever that means.

So In September he began telling his friend that he wanted his roommate "taken care of". Now before you says "Elliott, its obvious he was guilt ridden from being an asshole and wanted someone to do something nice for them."

Then congratulations, you made the same mistake I did. No, unfortunately Mr. Yager also mentioned some other things he would like to see done, including:

•  Her car get damaged
• Her Apartment get lit on fire and her be taken out
• Her back be broken, so she couldn't have sex, or go to the bathroom by herself
• He also mentioned having her dog killed

His friend, having the sneaking suspicion that all these statements might be early warning signs of Andrew planning to kill someone, tipped off the local authorities.

And they didn't like that at all.

So the undercover police then posed as a man willing to accept currency in exchange for directly causing the death of the roommate (that's the illegal portion of all this). After convincing the roommate to pose for a picture that would imply she was dead, they showed it to Mr. Yager, who laughed it off, $140 well spent!

This story has one.

Yager was arrested, and this week, pleaded no contest to a slew of charges that served him damn right for not punching a pillow instead.

The Newest Drug Everyones Doing And Not Telling You About

Nothing like a warm, soothing, aromatic bath to make you wanna talk to your couch about the intricacies of the universe, and how your genius will only be understood after the capitalist regimes have toppled and true enlightenment is experienced by this world of brainwashed consumers.

Already sold at head shops and gas stations, BLISS Bath Salts are not actually bath salts at all, but the latest drug taking the nation by storm and making the DEA curse the sneaky little jerk-offs at BLISS for sliding it right under all our noses....

 So to speak.

With the promise to "Energize the Mind and Body" with its Cocaine like effects is roughly equivalent to saying that getting tazed by the police may cause the hair on your arm to stand up. Ingestion results in an amphetamine like high that causes the user to experience euphoria, hallucinations, and psychotic episodes.

With reviews like this, it makes bath salt the new poor mans cocaine that can still be purchased with a credit card. 

 And this guy.

Stories have already surfaced of regular citizens going above and beyond the call of duty after experiencing the effects of this new wonder drug. In Panama City, Florida, a woman allegedly attempted to behead her 71 year-old mother, and another man used his teeth to chew up the back seats of a Florida patrol car.

 Damn dog found my Bath Salts.

So welcome to the world of online drugs, Cocaine's release from prison and his new Alias. The drug everyone is doing and nobody is telling you about:

Bubble Bath O'Malley

I would probably shy away from this one. And I think that's all I'm morally bound to say.

See ya tomorrow everyone!

Woman Attacks Boyfriend with Frozen Steak

Lessons learned from Louisiana:

1. Buy Floaties, just do it. 

 Suck it, Poseidon. 

                2. This is America, and this:

Is just fine.

 

                    3. Leave room in the freezer for the Tequila.

Or Edna here might kill you.

That's Edna Verdin, a 47 year old Louisiana woman who hates steak and loves tequila. On Sunday night she discovered that her bottle of Tequila Rose wasn't going to fit in the freezer. She then found an appropriate solution to the problem, removing a large frozen steak and launching it at her 51 year old boyfriend Jerry Voison. 

Her sobriety here is obviously uncontested here, and I don't just mean the apparent irritability or the insane mood swings, but her accuracy. The frozen meat hits Jerry directly in the face, opening a gash large enough for him to summon the authorities (which in this case I assume brought Dog The Bounty Hunter) to take her away.

"Edna, You need Jesus bra."

Edna was arrested for aggravated battery, but is currently out on bail. The condition of Jerry is unknown, though reports maintain that the steak was unharmed. Her judge must be a vegetarian, because where I come from, abusing steak is only paralleled by beating your children or voting Democrat.

Red Bull and the Apocalypse

Let's talk about Dakota Sailor. Dakota is an 18 year old boy from Carl Junction, MO who had a seizure and was hospitalized for 5 days after drinking just two (2) large energy drinks. Dakota and his doctor agree that the energy drinks may have been to blame. 

 I also did some LSD and watched a bunch of Pokemon. 

But I'm pretty sure it was the Red Bull.

Now The Poison Control Center has reported over 300 energy drink overdoses this year alone, reporting side effects that include seizures, rapid heart rate, irritability, and chest pain. No deaths though. Zero (0) deaths. So it could be said that Energy Drinks are no more dangerous than being surprised, going to a light show, a rock n roll concert, or perhaps watching Grey's Anatomy.

Considering the danger involved,
 I could probably be arrested just for showing you this.

The FDA may actually move to ban energy drinks in several states after communities became outraged at energy drink manufacturers' obvious plight to give you chest pains. I guess in America if you put it in a can and tell us it will make us the life of the party, then our life savings and our livers are yours for the taking. "Forget my liver! I'm gonna be famous!"

It's a shame nobody outfits these things with warnings! Directions perhaps, even something as simple as telling me when enough is enough would suffice. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT a MINUTE.

It must be really difficult to feign ignorance for the sake of rage. I imagine it's just as taxing to read a bunch of useful information and then play an idiot and pretend you didn't. These cans have been outfitted with warning labels for years, and almost all reports of overdose have resulted from drinkings MORE than the warnings say you should. If drinking more than the warning doesn't make the warning a legitimate representative for precaution, then it includes that CAFFEINE SENSITIVE persons shouldn't drink very much at all until they know it affects them. 

Sorry, pansy.

Did I mention that about a quarter of reported energy drink OD's are children under 6? Seriously? What parent is allowing their 5 year old to drink a can of Red Bull the size of his forearm? What kind of child that old could be ready for the awesome rush of power and charisma that is found inside of a BFC of MONSTER?

There he is.

So, a beverage with labels that specifically outlines how much is probably too much, ingredients listed, and daily servings charted, is on the verge of being banned for simply coexisting with morons.

Alcohol, on the other hand, reportedly boasts about 900 overdoses, a WEEK, does not include the ingredients, with no daily servings listed on the bottle. Also, instead of outlining what might be considered too much for the average person, it trusts the same people who don't understand what "Don't drink more than two per day" means with a warning as vague as "Drink Responsibly". I don't see anybody in line to ban the giggle juice.

Why's he look so tired? Get him a Red Bull.

It's been made fairly obvious that "responsibly" is a word that we don't understand, or, at the very least, can't say without a small giggle to indicate how ridiculous you sound saying it, CAN OF STUFF I'M GOING TO DRINK. 

Facebook Ads, Debunked

Ahhh Facebook. Facebook and Myspace and Texting and Email and the constant surveillance of you to your friends and your friends to you and strangers to you and you to strangers and everyone incessantly and unrelentingly giving a shit what everyone else is doing all the time, with every tool and intention necessary to keep track of it all. Now with billboards! You can of course, in the interest of you and capitalism in general, customize your sales experience here.

First....I click the X at the upper right hand corner of the ad I find disturbingly placed on my Facebook Page, which prompts the marketing engineers at FBHQ to interrogate me until I tell them whether it is because I found the ad either...


1) Misleading
2) Uninteresting
3) Repetitive
4) Too Sexually Stimulating to be free
5) A picture of a dog's severed head
or
6) Other

To my absolutely intoxicating enjoyment...when you click "other" you get to tell them why... Essay style.

Here are my responses to Ads that I felt were offensive for none of the reasons non-creative facebook marketing interns provided me:

CHRISTIAN SINGLES -----CHRISTIANMINGLE.COM

 The Face of Innocence (2011)

"Let's be honest here, the girl in the photo...the chosen snapshot, meant to offer a glimpse into what is to represent a much larger population of christian singles and otherwise conservatively trained daters...is undoubtedly giving somebody the fuck me eyes. I would only respond to this ad if I wanted to have sex with a woman who has no morals at all. Nothing screams  "non-biblically-sanctioned sexual acts are afoot" like the look of sheer desire in that woman's eyes. I've not the slightest idea why you would offer up this particular ad to such an obvious non-member of that interest anyways unless of course you had comedy on the ol' noggin...in which case, BRAV-fucking-O that is funny! To include with such an inappropriately positioned advertisement the almost satirically placed look of beast like intentions I haven't seen since Nine Inch Nails introduced me to true sadomasochism.... you guys are geniuses! haha!"



First in the series.

I Broke Down and Watched Twilight

While I did enjoy the film, I felt compelled to comment on one scene. Nothin major. Just faulty logic, which Hollywood is lucky only gets outed in free blogs like this. I'll save the trouble of writing nasty letters, death threats and kidnapped Schnauser's to the inevitably outraged readers of this blog.

Anywho. In the second film, there is a scene in which Bella our constantly in distress damsel, Edward the mind reading vampire, and Alice the clairvoyant (also a vamp), confront what I can only refer to as the Association of Vampirical Integrity and Well-being. The big boss, who will be known as Pasty Forehead Man, of course would like nothing more than his complete lack of shit giving towards humans get played out like a Saw movie in the form of Bella having her juicy lifeblood get sucked out of her like a Capri Sun.

 Guess which one I'm talking about.

Smart white girls are obviously on this guys shit list, leading me to believe that having a monstrously large powdered forehead awarded him no requests to the Sadie Hawkins dance and roughly a lot of No's from the ladies in his human years.

He subtly orders her to be emptied accordingly, which prompts the King of Preemptive Action Sir Edward Rosy Lips to intervene. This, my friends, is where it gets particularly ugly. Ed's attempt to save Bella are met with heavy resistance by Vamp number 4, or we can call him... Any pro wrestler with hands larger than John Goodman's face. Though agile, quick, and, ya know, mind reading, it is made abundantly clear to us at this point that Edward has no idea what a "chokeslam" is. He would have seen it coming, instead however, he gets the crash course of basic pro wrestling pain infliction about 9 times, destroying what I can only assume is stone furniture that for hundreds of years has furnished this particular throne room.

 Knowledge is power!

He is eventually subdued after destroying half the room with his head. Obviously, this minor act of aggression has a bit more of an impact considering the venue. Ya don't go to the principals office and throw a paperweight at his secretary, and ya don't go to the prime minister of Vampires and try to beat up his security by yourself.

 Though, admittedly, the office can be a crazy place.

So Pasty Forehead Man decides to squeeze in Edward for an immediate meeting with proper neck snapping and some dismemberment followed by fire.

 Great. I bet Alice is gettin pretty nervous at this point, I mean, if Edward and Bella both die, loose ends in the form of a clairvoyant vampire woman who's family was murdered gets kicked up a few notches on the honey do list.

Bella, distraught from watching Her boyfriend get manhandled by Andre the giant and be prepared for the damning of his immortal non soul to a special place for vampires prompts HER to speak up.

"Kill me! Not him" (not exact quote)

Okay.....

Yeah. Great Idea!

 I got my Masters here

That's kinda what we were tryin to do in the first place. Edward wasn't having a seizure he was trying to save you. So, kill you not him... Offers not really on the table anymore.

Let's take a step back Bella, because I suppose after I kill you, Edward here isn't gonna harbor any nasty feelings of resentment or anything.

 Not THIS guy.

He probably won't dedicate the next forever to devising some way to kill me and everyone I've ever talked to. Probably not. I'm willing to chance it.

Wait. Wait. No I'm not.

Also, regardless of Edwards more than likely though still only alleged desire to tear my head off right now and only more so after I pop your cherry so to speak, take a look around.

This architecture is hundreds of years old. That bench over there, the one that looks less like a bench than it does a pile of broken rock, I bought that in 1441, its fuckin priceless. The guy who made it died 500 years ago. So there's 6 ounces of gold I'm never gonna see again. The sign above the door says no rough housing, I specifically remained calm the entire time just so this wouldn't happen. Its not like I can insure this stuff, and even if I could, after about 200 years of having the same policy I think someone would get suspicious, that's not even mentioning the claim. What the hell do I say? Vampire brawl, no big deal mind your own business assholes? I didn't think so.

 No big deal or anything.

Edward your dad may be a doctor but I bet he's not in the market for a million dollar bench. I could have it fixed, sure, but then its not even the same bench. When Babe Ruths signature wears off a baseball ya don't fuckin trace it. Now times that by 6 and your talking about buying a new baseball and forging his signature and all ya got is a fake ass novelty item.

The steps leading to my throne are completely fucking smashed. Ill get a contractor to come and remake them with cement mix from home depot tomorrow. Or maybe, just maybe Edward, I can NEVER FUCKING USE THIS ROOM AGAIN BECAUSE EVERYTHING AWESOME ABOUT IT IS BROKEN.

 Well, get a broom then.

 Thank you for reading guys!

Elliott