Further Proof That Pants Are Hazardous To Your Health
Power-dressing man leaves trail of destruction SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man built up a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity in his clothes as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic and forcing firefighters to evacuate a building. Frank Clewer, who was wearing a woolen shirt and a synthetic nylon jacket, was oblivious to the growing electrical current that was building up as his clothes rubbed together. When he walked into a building in the country town of Warrnambool in the southern state of Victoria Thursday, the electrical charge ignited the carpet. "It sounded almost like a firecracker," Clewer told Australian radio Friday. "Within about five minutes, the carpet started to erupt." Employees, unsure of the cause of the mysterious burning smell, telephoned firefighters who evacuated the building. "There were several scorch marks in the carpet, and we could hear a cracking noise -- a bit like a whip -- both inside and outside the building," said fire official Henry Barton. Firefighters cut electricity to the building thinking the burns might have been caused by a power surge. Clewer, who after leaving the building discovered he had scorched a piece of plastic on the floor of his car, returned to seek help from the firefighters. "We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited," Barton said. "I've been firefighting for over 35 years and I've never come across anything like this," he said. Firefighters took possession of Clewer's jacket and stored it in the courtyard of the fire station, where it continued to give off a strong electrical current.
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David Gosden, a senior lecturer in electrical engineering at Sydney University, told Reuters that for a static electricity charge to ignite a carpet, conditions had to be perfect "Static electricity is a similar mechanism to lightning, where you have clouds rubbing together and then a spark generated by very dry air above them," said Gosden.The link's here:
news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050916/od_nm/australia_electricity_dc;_ylt=AlhBD1O5jHL2l2mx5rZtTO6s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ
In other news, I've been rereading Clamp's
XXXholic and have realized that the black Mokona would fit in well with a fraternity, given all the beer he keeps drinking.
Oh, and for some reason, the second-floor landing in our far stairwell has gone rancid. Usually it smells like some kind of soup (my bets are on generic vegetable or beef), but as of late it has that funkified odour of someone who hasn't changed the diaper pail in about 2 weeks.
And most peculiarly of all, a lot of random strangers have been Emailing me and telling me that it takes too long for me to attain an erection. I find this amusing and disturbing, since it implies that Internet spyware has evolved to the point where it has an artificial intelligence...of a hormonal teenager. And it's somehow found a way to peep into the bedroom. Does this mean the next natural step will be for an Internet AI to create its own triple-X websites, then pay for an account with its father's credit card and digitally wank off to said sites?
Today's Lesson: cats cannot simply leap off the back of the couch and fly. (Contrary to what Chance would otherwise believe.)
posted by Phillip at 6:27 PM
