"Water glass has electrolytes!" --Stephen

[thanate]

Once upon a time in the ancient mediterranean world, they used to make glass with natron as flux. (Natron is the salt mixture that is left behind when a lake or river drys up.) Which is all very well, but for about 500 years, they didn't actually put in any stablizer, which created glass that, over time, melted in water. Merkel (who studies these things) estimates that the use life for a vessel might be 10 years. This means, of course, that there is almost no extant glass from the period; a couple pieces survived in Egypt, where they don't have water, but that's about it. I have convinced him that the next time he's playing with glass, he ought to make me some nice blue cubes that I can melt in my drinks at parties.

Meanwhile, it is hot and icky out, and URS doesn't believe in Columbus Day. I feel that I should do something different for my next career choice... possibly be a toy maker.

And then the doll company who made my doll has finally announced that they're releasing a girl in their largest size. No pictures or anything yet, but I've been keeping an eye out for this for a while now. (apparently not talking about it too much, though, since grauwulf had no idea what I was talking about...) But the info only came out last night (monday morning in Korea) and I'm terribly excited in that way where you're thrilled by the potential of something you're horribly afraid someone else is going to mess up.

And I also got super sculpey with my 50% off craft store coupon (columbus day is good for something, besides no traffic) and a cheap set of modeling tools including little cutty things (I have/can improvise the smoothy, pokey, and stabby tools, but the little cutty things I haven't got a good substitute for) which I will probably not have the chance to play with for two or three weeks. How sad.