A Yankee In King Arthur’s Court: Narration Part 1

Ok, I’m going to make this quick, cause I have other stuff to do.

 

Hank is a superintendent for a firearms and machinery manufacturing company, who one day gets a man they call Hercules angry, and Hercules promptly knocks him out with a crowbar. When he comes to, he is captured by a knight (Sir Kay) in shining armor, and thrown in a dungeon, where he sees a boy who came with Kay, who he calls Clarence for no reason at all.

He is sentenced to death simply because he looks weird in his 20th Century clothes, and realizes 2 things:

1: There just happens to be an eclipse on the day he is supposed to be executed.

2: He can use that to his advantage.

He says to Arthur, if he is not released, he will make the skies darken and take away the sun. The next day, which he believes to be the 20th, the day before the eclipse, he is brought out, to be executed. He freaks out, because he thought he was supposed to be executed on the day of the eclipse! It turns out, he was wrong about the date, and the eclipse happens. he is let go, and dressed in royal clothes.

He realizes he is the smartest person in the world, and makes Merlin, who is a fraud, very jealous. He blows up Merlin’s tower, with the power of pyrotechnics.

He has Merlin thrown in prison, and he starts getting known as “The Boss”. Basically, he’s on a path for world domination…

 

 

Sir Gawain and the Book of Epic Failure That Should’ve Been Kept As a Poem: Narration

Well…… With that title out of the way…..

This book takes place in the court of King Arthur, and is about Sir Gawain and his enemy who turns out to be a dark lord who turns out to be not-so-dark.

 

So, let’s just get this over with, shall we?

 

NEW YEARS EVE, SOME YEAR A LONG TIME AGO

So, enter Arthur’s court, with all the feasting that you would expect from a king’s court. You know, cake, pizza, Coke, ice cream. Wait, take the menu back a few thousand years. You know, chicken, beef, wine, roast duck, quail, and pizza. Suddenly, the door blows open, and an evil-looking knight dressed in green appears out of nowhere somewhere. He challenges someone to cut off his head, and as a prize they would get a free axe. But wait, there’s more! In a year, the knight would return to cut off whoever cut off his head’s head. Sir Gawain decides “I want an axe! (even though Arthur could probably give me a thousand just like the one he has)” and cuts off the Green Knights head. The Green Knight’s body promptly picks up his head and says “See you in a year!”

 

350 days later…..

Gawain sets out to get his head cut off, and stumbles upon a man (Bertilak de Hautdesert) and his wife (Lady Bertilak), who let him stay with them for the remaining days until Gawain goes to meet the Green Knight. Lady Bertilak wants Gawain to love her, and offers many things to him, all of which he refuses until she offers him a green belt which will protect him. He accepts, and sets off to fight get beheaded by the Green Knight.

 

10 minutes later….

Gawain finds the Green Chapel, and sees the Green Knight. The Knight brings down his axe, but stops, because he said Gawain flinched. He brings down his axe again, but stops, just testing. He does it once more, and his axe bounces off Gawains neck. The Knight reveals himself to be Bertilak de Hautdesert, and he tells Gawain that Lady Bertilak is actually Morgan Le Fay, who sends Arthur’s Knights on POINTLESS, YEAR LONG, TIME CONSUMING QUESTS!!!!

Then, the Green Knight leaves, and Sir Gawain returns to Arthur’s court. What did he get out of this? A RANDOM AXE!!! What price did he pay? A WHOLE YEAR OF HIS TIME, WAITING TO BE BEHEADED!!!!

 

Pointless story, in my opinion. They should have never converted it from a poem to a story….

Once and Future King: Chapter 3.14: nylreM

This is going to be very short, so read it.

So, last I left off, Arthur is wandering through the forest.

Arthur is wandering through the forest, when he sees a house. An old man comes out to meet him, can you guess who it is? Nope, not Gandalf, not Dumbledore, not Yoda, but Merlyn (it’s really spelled that way)! Merlyn says he is Arthur’s tutor, and he should come inside.

Merlyn explains to Arthur that he experiences time backwards, which is very weird to think about…. But anyways, moving on, or back, in Merlyns case (get it?). The chapter ends with Dumbledore and Harry, wait, excuse me, Merlyn and Arthur walking back to the castle (which is not Hogwarts).

My Essay for my Chemistry class

I’ve been doing a chemistry class on coursera.com, taught by a Duke University professor, and one of the challenges for those who wish to earn the Statement of Accomplishment with distinction is to write an essay on anything related to Chemistry. You get to review other people’s, they review yours.

The Chemistry involved in this is basically what the title says: awesome booms that can be created using chemistry, elements and your hands.

The first explosion I’ll share with everyone (who is doing this) is a DIY smoke bomb. They seem pretty easy to make, and while I’ve experimented with store bought smoke bombs, I’m pretty sure it would be awesome to make them myself. The recipe is as follows, with the formulas for the compounds listed for no other reason except to be there. 😛

I’ll include the recipe for the white smoke bomb only, to save room for other things because this would be really boring if the only thing I talked about was how to make 5 different color smoke bombs (I might find it interesting, but I don’t know about the rest of you). So, enough procrastination and waiting, without further ado except for a few more words, here’s the ingredients, along with the source:

Potassium nitrate (KNO3) – 4 parts
Charcoal (C7H4O) – 5 parts [1]
Sulfur (S8) – 10 parts
Wood dust – 3 parts
[2] The parts don’t have to be a specific measurement (ex. grams, pounds, etc.), so you can have, let’s say 4 g KNO3, 5 g C7H4O, 10 g S8, and 3 g Wood Dust, mix them together, light them on fire, and then you have yourself a smoke bomb! I think this would be popular with kids, if their parents knew what they were doing, and a potential product for selling, if you sold the mixture in a disposable ball with an opening or something.

So that’s 300 words, so about halfway done, probably one more cool explosion, but first I have to do what the questions ask. There is no economical impact really with smoke bombs, some questions for potential research papers in the future about this relating with Chemistry would be something along these lines:

What other chemicals could substitute for the listed ingredients?
What would be a good selling price of smoke bombs if you were to make them yourself, then sell your product?
Why am I doing a research paper on smoke bombs in the first place?

Ok, now I’m going to explain another type of bomb, but this type of bomb is one that actually is useful to your relaxation time in the bathtub. These bombs are called bath bombs, and they seem pretty cool (I will hopefully soon make some myself). They turn your water a color, while also emitting fizz. The cool thing about these is that you can customize their color by simply using food coloring.

Here are the ingredients, the steps and the reference [3]:

Food coloring (Your favorite color)
Sweet almond oil or other light vegetable oil
Essential oil (make sure it is suitable to put in bath bombs and that it’s not for oil burners or candles)
10 tablespoons bicarbonate of soda
3 tablespoons of citric acid
Large mixing bowls – glass works best
Muffin tray or other mould
Small glass jar
Mixing spoon
Whisk
And, the steps:

Use the almond oil to lightly grease the muffin tray or mould.
Mix the citric acid and bicarbonate of soda together in a glass bowl. Make sure you get any lumps out.
Mix together 12 drops of your essential oil, 10 teaspoons of sweet almond oil and 15-20 drops of food colouring. Don’t use any more food colouring, otherwise it will turn your bath a funny colour!
Gradually pour the oil mixture into the dry mixture, stirring well. If the mixture starts to foam, you’re adding the oil too quickly. The mixture is ready when it has the consistency of damp sand.
Spoon the mixture into the muffin tray and press down firmly. It should make 2-4 bath bombs, depending on the size of your muffin tray.
Leave the bath bombs to set for a few days.
When you want to use one, carefully take it out of the mould and drop it into your bath.

The chemical reaction is caused between the Citric Acid and bicarbonate of soda, which creates Carbon Dioxide in the water, which causes the fizzing. This is a cool project, which can triple as a science experiment, a gift for someone, and bathtime fun.

References:

1: Chemical Formula for Charcoal which helped me out
2: I lost the second link, but I know it was on chemistry.about.com
3: The Fizzy Bath Bombs!