November 13, 2003

Cubed

It’s always fun to watch people struggle at a Rubik’s cube who aren’t good at struggling at a Rubik’s cube and would be better off struggling at an Altoids tin. They spin and twist and stick their tongue out of the corner of their mouth just like so and are overcome with great elation when they get an entire side to be one color. In a large field of heather they hold the cube up to the sun in both fists, tilt their head back and cry with jubilance over their accomplishment. And they turn to you and hold it right under your nose so you can smell the day’s work and they say, “HA! Check it, yo!”

And as they stand there, vibrating, hopping back and forth from one foot to the other, you ask something. You ask now how are you going to get all the other sides. And they suddenly realize the fatal flaw in their quest, that they weren’t looking far enough ahead, and even for all their efforts in reaching their current benchmark of accomplishment, it will inevitably need to be deconstructed to reach the ultimate goal. For at this point, any movement on the Rubik’s cube that attempts to unify the other colors will break the single solid side.

Having declared that I burn and inhale no questionable substances, that I have in my possession no poo-flinging monkeys, that I do not depend on pillaging and plundering for the bulk of my income, the rental company has approved my occupation of Lava House. In case it has not been stated, and even if it has it needs to be reiterated, Lava House is a block from Wall Street (god I love that), which is the main drag in Bend. We can see the spire of the downtown Tower Theatre from our front deck, where cigars are oft consulted. Night-stalkers use our back deck and patter up and down the steps. Our washer and dryer are green. We have a fireplace for burning evidence and a gas stove for interrogating innocents. Down the street is a menacing stone church that was built by the wrath of God himself. I am a mile from the shuttle stop that will take me to and from the Mountain at will.

So. In this I can now move to Bend whenever I want. I have a new address that will please the DMV and the Insurance and the Accounts Payable. I have a job as a ski and snowboard instructor at a mountain that caters to hot and single men. I have a cell phone on the charger and a mug of Vanilla Coke and Bacardi. I have a 60’s copy of Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness which is absolutely delicious. I have the best car in the world that is completely tuned up aside from a blown front speaker and two rear speakers that are filled with water. I have new snowboard boots that are build out of spun aircraft-grade wire and snowboard bindings that are built out of magnesium that doesn’t explode in water. I have a strong grasp of the English language and a fitfully loose understanding of physics and chemistry.

I have solved one side of the Rubik’s cube.

Pure Sodium (Atomic number 11) ignites (expolsively) in contact with water.
Magnesium (atomic number 12) is not quite so reactive, and won’t ignite in H20* unless you combine it with something like silver nitrate.
Sodium snowboard bindings just wouldn’t make any sense.
* Water.

Excellent. However, you are wrong on one thing. Sodium bindings are going to be the new X-Treme revolution in snowboarding.

I once had a car (1980 Merc Lynx) that rusted thru so quickly that I’d swear it was formed out of sodium.

I want a stunt car made out of sodium. Then in the final scene of the movie drive it into a conviently placed body of water. The resulting explosion will send a boat anchor sailing through the sky, killing the movies villian, and leaving me with the blond bombshell.
Damn I need to write that script.

Um, that first comment was me. I forgot to write my name.
See, Sodium bindings wouldn’t work primarily because it’s a soft, malleable (sp) metal. Bindings made from an alloy of it just wouldn’t last past the first toe-side carve to fakie via ollie. But I admit the prospect of an explosive end to that first and only yard sail would be fun to watch.
What Magnesium will give you, in addition to a hard light-wight alloy, is a brilliant white light when it burns. As in with a match in the prescence of oxygen.
What I suggest is you carve off a few shavings or filings from the bindings, and then when you want to impress your lava house comrades, you light them.
Or, as a fun practical joke, insert them into their cigerettes or cigars.
Just remember to save enough for the slopes.

Ryan – Just make sure you dive out of the car in pure gymnast fashion right before it plows off the end of the pier. Doing things like that earn you mad style points and go a long ways in gettin’ the hottie.
I like the idea of a boat anchor, but I think a huge cruise ship propellor would be a lot more dramatic. The cars goes FHOOM the anchor goes FHWEE the propellor goes FZING and the villian goes FSCHLOP right in half.
Tyler – My skull is a soft, malleable metal and yet it managed to last past falling off the picnic tables, falling off the rails, falling down a cliff, taking the brunt of my fall off a kicker, and running into a penguin in the forest that I swear was sticking his foot out in order to trip me.

No, no, no. Calcium (atomic number 20) is a hard, tough metal, that as CaCO[sub]3[/sub] is brittle, not malleable.
And yes, definetly a propeller. Rotating/ tumbleing as it flies toward the viewer, like the cow in Twister.
It’d be a good effect in 3D, too. Could you write your movie in 3D?

Actually I was trying to think of a creative way to involve flying cows. Maybe have the end seen placed near a cattle market and have the car blow a barge full of bovines through the air.