Archive for month: December, 2010

In the Gift Buying Thoughts I stated that I normally quote a three week lead time on the Steins of Science, though things tend to go quicker than that.  However, what is on hand right now is all that has any hope of shipping out in time for Christmas.  For the instant gratification crowd, I do have a few already built that have passed vacuum test and are sitting on the bench Right Now.   As of January 16th at 1:06pm PST, they are:

• One (2) right-handed 350ml FMJ
• One (1) right-handed 350ml “Shiny Brass”
• One (1) right-handed 1000ml “Shiny” prototype
• One (1) cat damaged right-handed 1000ml FMJ
• One (1) right-handed 1900ml FMJ

Obviously, they can be reconfigured to opposite handedness with a bit of effort on my part.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go hide under my desk with a cocktail to escape the holiday madness.

As I stated on Thursday, I was issued a challenge as someone asked what fool would actually drink 4.3L of beer in one go to make full use of a 4.3L Stein of Science. To paraphrase Gomez Addams: “They say that a scientist who experiments on himself has a fool for a subject. And with God as my witness, I am that fool!”

STEP 1: Build the 4.3L stein.  Done, and took it for a test drive last night at the bowling alley.  Behold the birthday boy and his girlfriend cradling the bundle of joy.

STEP 2: Procure 4.3L of beer.  Done.  In honor of the holiday and to maintain local pride, I have chosen to go with Anchor Steam’s 2010 Christmas Ale.  The fact that it’s tasty doesn’t hurt.  Here is the pre-experiment set up:

As a matter of fact, yes, those are magnums on either side of the 4.3L FMJ Stein of Sceince, which aren’t quite as tall as the stein.  All of that will be going in the stein once the beer chills down.

STEP 3: CONSUME. Beer was successfully loaded at 6:50pm PST.  Medically necessary all meat marvel pizza was also procured.

By 9:45pm, I had the horrible realization that I had only consumed a quarter of this stein worth of beer.  Not so silent cursing was made as I resolved, in the future, to do foolish self-experimentation earlier in the day.

Around 10:40m I had stopped worrying and come to love the stein.  And beer.  And most everything…except gravity.  I had a real positive feeling about all this.  I was no longer concerned by the fact that midnight was approaching and I still had over 2L of ice cold beer left to go.

Sometime around 1am, the pith helmet came out as ADVENTURE SCIENCE was in progress.  Also, there was a viewing of Professor Elemental’s “Fighting Trousers” which probably entered into the calculation too.

By 2am, with compatriots dropping off due to the cocktails I’d prepared during all this, I stared into the heart of the stein and had to confront the despondent reality that fatigue might claim me before I finished this beer.  A quick temp check told me that despite my drinking and no use of lid, there’d only been a .9 degree Celsius temperature gain from when I started 7 hours earlier.  My arm however was burning from the effort of drinking all this.  I am not in good enough shape to do eight hours worth of 30lb arm curls and I was drunk/stupid enough to do most of that with one arm.

Around 2:45am, I declared victory and then succumbed to the warm embrace of my bed on a rainy night.  I’d gone a bit numb in the face and was not coherent enough to take a picture.

SIDE CHALLENGE: On my sharing the details of the challenge and the pictures of the experimental setup, one rogue declared, “You’re gonna be pissing for a week with that much beer.”  Cheeky monkey he is, but in terms of liquid volume consumed this is a totally reasonable declaration.  When I shared this statement, Test Subject Not-A-Whale-Biologist declared this to be secondary challenge which he intended to win.  He proudly holds the record of urinating eleven times while drunkenly rambling through the ruins of Fort Ord and had to maintain his honor.  I am proud to report that he did not disappoint, making twelve trips to the bathroom to my paltry five.

CONCLUSION: I wasn’t kidding when I said that this stein should be held by the handle with the “backstrapping” method, not like a coffee mug.  Today my knuckles where the handle rested, my wrist, shoulder and upper back hurt a bit.  It felt like I’d been foolish enough to participate in a stein holding contest at Oktoberfest again.  That said, over the course of eight hours of drinking, my beer was deliciously cold to the last drop and I drank it slowly enough (courtesy of it staying cold) that I didn’t deeply regret the volume I consumed.

Back in March someone declared that they were going to “buy a sofa’s worth” of 4.3L Steins of Science for the Superbowl.  At the time, I was kind of confused as to what that meant.  Now, I realize that the 4.3L stein gives you all the beer you need for the pre-, during, and post-game hilarity kept cold for the duration.