At somepoint in Highschool you gotta do two things, drugs in the bathroom and read The Anarchist Cookbook. Now many put the book on the shelves with other great counter-culture tomes while others (like me) see it as an actual step by step guide book. Now the book was dated as hell by the time I read it and many of it's techniques were best left as curious bits of history. However for me and my fellow students it sure made science class a whole lot more fun. Until something exploded anyhow....but hey that's what High School is for, one part terrorrist camp one part prison primer.
As time marched on and the net gave us all sorts of wonderfully dangeours ideas one quickly learned that you didn't need guns, knives, or any of that silly shit to kill off your fellow human beings or creatures. So off I went to a local junkyard home too the aging carcassess of everything mankind wanted and needed at some point for a few lessons in how to build bombs.
It's all pretty simple if you're a chemistry freak (well it WAS pretty simple in the pre-9/11 years) and the only thing you really have to worry about is personal safety. Given I was with a bunch of 20-somethings at the time and all of us were either high or drunk I'm amazed all of us still have body parts attached where the good god made em.
It's such a fun and great feeling to see something explode. The power and sound of it really has a punch to it that you gotta see firsthand to appreciate. It's not like the sadistic kid stuff of trying to hurt something or the warlike nature of armies trying to pound each other into submission...it's the well and good notion that so much force and power can come from simple chemical reactions...and look damn cool doing it.
All this lasted for a few weeks until the local Law said we had to stop but I'll never quite forget the sight and sounds of buckets of chemicals making mini mushroom clouds or the isane ideas of how best to exploit a porpane tank. It made chemistry fun to say the least and while I was way out of my league I did have a healthy new appreciation for the chemicals under my sink...who knew that I could put it in a bucket let it mix for a few hours and BAM...instant car destroying fun?
So...anyone else have fun with what is normally called "deviant behaviour"? I think stuff like the above has a special place and time in ones life where it's not quite mean but it's not all that mature...
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