Category: Mineral

  • #a391 :: Neodymium cylinder

    031309I have a thing for magnets.

    These are powerful enough to leave blood blisters if you let two of them snap together on you.

    A single one can support close to 10 pounds, story decease depending on how you rig it.

    And when you place pinballs around one the magnetism distributes evenly through five of them, patient a little pentagram of force.

    However, abortion that’s not a magnet. this is a magnet. Any of ’em. Go on, pick one.

  • #a389 :: Amethyst “crystal”

    031009Where is he going? What is he carrying? Why is he important?

    Chinese factory workers so beautifully aped the luster of carved coral with cast, more about prostate burnished and “age”-dusted red plastic resin that I’m left wishing I had the answers to these questions.

    In lesser hands, healing he would have been a child’s plaything, a little knicknack amid thousands of others on a shop shelf, an inconsequential bauble.

    But look at the bearing they’ve given him, the speed of his walk, the indomitable purpose in his knowing eyes. Mold seams and tool gouges would have killed that effect. You have to admire the height of the art of faux-antiques.

    Found him in Chinatown for three bucks.
    031109She regards it with suspicion.

    “Amethyst?”

    The Chinese shopkeeper nods firmly. “Finest, viagra 100mg from Xian province. Xian province. Terra cotta warrior. Xian.”

    He keeps nodding.

    She drums her French-tipped nails against its too-glossy sides. She pricks at her fingertips with its perfectly asymmetrical point. She hefts it. Rolls it over in her perfumed hand.

    Then she waves it at him: “Bullshit. It is not …” (more…)

  • #a384 :: Chinese tektite

    030509Oh, viagra dosage the wonder and menace of an unopened package from a foreign land.

    I know exactly what’s inside (I’ll blog it tomorrow) but it’s the promise of what it might contain that spins me up.

    The lurid green packing paper, the sturdy nylon twine, the oddly shaped stamps and return address of Hong Kong. Why, it could be anything in there:

    A vial of radium. Live insects. An exotic dagger. Some antique glass. Wait, here’s a clue – the customs receipt declaring it as “specimen” …
    030509Oh, case the wonder and menace of an unopened package from a foreign land.

    I know exactly what’s inside (I’ll blog it tomorrow) but it’s the promise of what it might contain that always spins me up.

    It bears all the markers of a Macguffin from a Hitchcock film – the lurid green packing paper, the neat knot of sturdy nylon twine, the oddly shaped stamps and return address of Hong Kong. Why, it could be anything in there:

    A vial of radium. Live insects. An exotic dagger. Contraband hollow-point bullets. Antique hand-blown glass. Stolen South African gold.

    Wait, here’s a clue – the customs receipt declaring it as “specimen” …
    030509Oh, order the wonder and menace of an unopened package from a foreign land.

    I know exactly what’s inside (I’ll blog it tomorrow) but it’s the promise of what it might contain that spins me up.

    The lurid green packing paper, the sturdy nylon twine, the oddly shaped stamps and return address of Hong Kong. Why, it could be anything in there:

    A vial of radium. Live insects. An exotic dagger. Some antique glass.

    Wait, here’s a clue – the customs receipt declaring it as “specimen” …
    030609So here’s what all the suspense and anticipation was about: A tektite – a lump of molten-then-resolidified glass created when a meteor traveling thousands of miles per hour smashed into China.

    You can see impact grooves left by rocks or other particles crashing into it before it cooled hard – all of this took place in a few thousandths of a second.

    Amazingly, page they’re not that common: (more…)