Tomorrow after school we’re going to go play at the arcade and then see the “How To Train Your Dragon” movie in 3D (two adults, two kids) and even though it’s a children’s movie I think it will be fun and I remain a sucker for 3D, but today after school we made a brief visit to the park so Nefarious could return her woolly bear caterpillar to the wild to give it a better chance of survival on its quest to become a equally big fat beautiful moth. Still, it was a parting not without some fond sadness.
We’d taken a footbridge to get to the forest path where we found the new home, but to get back to the car, Nefarious wanted to take a more “natural” bridge, so the three of us crawled across this fallen tree, both too large and too safely accessible for the park staff to put it on the removal list.
Today during the day I had an appointment at my bank and stopped by Scooter Girl, the toy store that’s next door. One of the things I got while I was there, an impulse purchase that I grabbed with the change in my pocket after having completed my main birthday transaction, were these “stiffy stuff” pouches. The cost was only $0.49 so I grabbed three of them. The idea is that the gelling powder inside instantly turns a liquid into a solid (Caitlin tells me it’s probably the same stuff that’s inside pads and diapers), and wow, it really does — instantly. Here’s a video of us trying it on Jones blue bubblegum soda. We tried it on urine as well, but don’t ask for a video because we didn’t make one, but please take my word for it that it works even better (I assume because it’s not cold and carbonated).
This may not do well in responses to the nagging emails I send from time to time about child support, which most recently were replied to with chiding that I’m always buying “garbage”… I also buy a lot of those little ball firecrackers that you throw at stuff and they explode on impact… I just can’t resist all that fun stuff and who knows, perhaps it will perform the death-of-a-thousand-duck-bites to my savings.
More justifiably, also at the toy store I got a new game called “Pixel”, which I think is from the “Blokus” people (and if it’s not, it feels like it is). The goal is to get three in a line, and every turn you place a single one of your color on the board. The location you can put it is the intersection of the two black arrows, and you can change one of them every turn (ie. so you can place your piece by changing either the x or the y coordinate, but not both, of the move before you)… Very simple rules, but surprisingly complex and enjoyable gameplay. We’ve tried it as both two and three player mode, each being quite different, and we’ve already started tweaking the rules, as is our way!
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Sorry to be juvenile, but “stiffy stuff”? Really? That’s a brand name that should have been changed before the product hit stores.
its so great reading all this fun stuff you get to do with your daughter, i hope when i become a dad i can be as great as you
so the name thing wasnt just me then. thats good to know.
I love the level of detail you include in your posts about Nefarious growing up, and all the things you and she both did together. I’m sure she’ll love being be able to look back on it years from now and treasure all the memories.
I remember very little of my early childhood, and even the handful of black-and-white photos which have survived don’t trigger anything more than a few odd isolated instances. It’s not until around the time I started secondary school that I start remembering things in any real clarity or detail.
So I guess you cant eat it after the powder is added?
And I like that you included an animated intro. Is that level of animation relatively fast for you now?
And since I didn’t comment on you’re Corso/Bomb video: It was really excellent, and full of interesting references. You can always tell when art is created by someone fully conscious of their mortality.
Saw the movie last weekend in 3D with an 8-and an 11-year old. We were all amazed with the 3D (which btw works much better for fully animated flicks- as we were not impressed by those effects in “Alice”). I’m sure you’ll love it!
Although how to train your dragon looks like a kids movie my boyfriend and I loved it! Cute story, and a bunch of really great one-liners. Hope you enjoy it! :)
My dad was always bringing home that kind of “garbage”, and it made for a great childhood filled with learning experiences. Far better than typical toys that require almost no interaction..
When I was teaching Kindergarten in Taiwan, I made some stuff with corn starch and water. It was awesome. When you kept moving it in your hands, it would be a solid and then when you stopped, it would become a liquid again. The kids had a blast with it.
Siobhan, I saw a video of some guys that filled a small pool with that stuff, and you can actually run across it because the impact of your feet makes it solid, but if you slow down, you sink into the liquid. It’s quite amazing.
how to train your dragon is AMAZING. my boyfriend and i saw the 2d version and fell in love with it.
There really isn’t anything wrong with “garbage” for a child who needs to learn and play. If they gain enjoyment out of it, I see it not as trash but as an experience instead.
totally off topic, but your rotoscoping inspired me to start working on a music video with some friends. 2 seconds of animation using pencil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06bFQ72U_WM
some folks (myself included) are still trying to get that “stiffy stuff” for use in the tattoo shop.
what a great way of dealing with dangerous fluids!
pS: i cant stand all these new 3-D movies and the push of 3-D TVs….
but that only because i wear glasses! LOL
Yeah it is sort of a pain to wear glasses over glasses!
The corn starch/water mixture is often called Oobleck, which is what I thought of when I read about the “stiffy stuff”. Look it up on youtube, there are so many awesome videos of it. It’s fun to watch it when it’s near vibrations, like near a subwoofer. I wonder if the stiffy stuff does the same thing?
Jared – Very cool, turned out nicely for a first try! Let me know when you’ve made some progress on the music video because I’d love to check it out.
The oobleck stuff is totally different from the stiffy stuff — the stiffy stuff is a gelling agent, which permanently turns a liquid into a rubbery solid, whereas the oobleck has a special name that I can’t remember right now that refers to its dual quality as a liquid in its normal state, but into a solid when rapid force is applied.
On the oobleck by the way, there’s a body armor that uses that idea where they’re suspending metal fibers in a heavy oil, so if you are moving at a normal speed, it’s totally flexible, but if you hit it fast (as in with a bullet) it suddenly turns hard.
My wife and I loved How to Train Your Dragon. I was impressed that the dragons were not all cute and cuddly. I too have trouble with 3-D. With my vision I can not experience the 3-D effect at all and not because I wear glasses, this, I am told, is common in older people. One more reminder of my age! Keep buying “garbage” it keeps our minds working on new things.
Shannon, the rheological property to which you are referring is called viscoelasticity. A viscoelastic product will exhibit viscous properties under low shear stress, and elastic properties under high shear stress.
Silly putty is another great example. When stretched slowly, it flows. When stretched rapidly, it reaches catastrophic failure and fractures between molecules. There are some great videos on youtube of people dropping large balls of silly putty from the tops of buildings, causing the mass to explode upon impact.
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