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Honey, I think the magic has gone out of my magic rocks

magic rocks

Lookee what I found cleaning out the sideboard!

I was going to blame Uncle B for this — he’s knows how much I love this stupid Junior Scientist shit — but the date on the package is 1988. I was 28, and going through my “oh my god I’m a grownup now and I can buy all the toys I want!” phase.

I’m still going through it. Like when I stared out sadly at people frolicking about in the lake a few years ago, scuffing my foot and thinking, “I wish I could have a stupid inflatable boat.” Followed by, “OMIGOSH, I can have a stupid inflatable boat!”

I find it hard to absorb this lesson. I don’t know why.

Anyhow, I’ve been throwing out junk for months, so I had to eat, like, four of those huge kosher dills to get an appropriate jar.

Turns out, there are instructions. The instructions are: blah blah blah blah. Whatever. I don’t really do instructions.

The Magic Solution — which I assume was once a liquid of some kind — had fossilized into a chewy brick. Not that I actually chewed it or anything. I gather that would be bad. That much of the instructions I absorbed, mostly because it was in all caps and repeated several times.

I tried to revive the magic with some boiling water and a stick. It didn’t dissolve completely, but I figured there had to be a little magic left. I couldn’t tell; the dye in the rocks seeped out and made the whole thing a milky pink opacity.

When I got up this morning and poured off the liquid, I discovered…
(SEE FIRST COMMENT).

Comments


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: May 22, 2008, 8:35 am

magicalfail.jpg


Comment from Gibby Haynes
Time: May 22, 2008, 8:48 am

Oh dear. I guess the magic must’ve escaped.
Say, those weren’t those pickles that had the alien in the jar that you ate were they?

‘Magic rocks’ sounds somewhat euphemistical. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was what the cool kids were calling crack cocaine these days. Not surprised at all.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: May 22, 2008, 8:51 am

Nope. Different jar. I lumme some pickles.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: May 22, 2008, 9:05 am

Weaz – I had a pickle in a Bloody Mary the other day (instead of celery or olives). It was good, even though the pickle was not an Ogorki(sp?). It was a Vlasic.

It was not an alien pickle, though. Thank goodness.

Maybe you should have used pickle juice in the magic solution?


Comment from Scott Jacobs
Time: May 22, 2008, 9:14 am

Yeah… Kinda teh phail…

Got directed here off of Stash’ place. Love the art.

Makes me with I didn’t epic fail at photoshop…


Comment from Allen
Time: May 22, 2008, 11:04 am

“I can buy all the toys I want.” That’s spooky, but I know the feeling. Every so often I just have to have a Chia pet.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: May 22, 2008, 11:08 am

Oooo! Oooo! When I was in my twenties, I tried to get an arts grant to make Chia nudes! Classical terra cotta sculptures with Chia pubes!

It didn’t work out. The application required me to show twenty examples of the thing I wanted the grant for. Pff! If I had the stuff to make twenty samples, I wouldn’t need the damn grant.

First and last time I tried to stick my snout in the public trough.


Comment from bad cat robot
Time: May 22, 2008, 11:46 am

us science-types figured out a clever dodge for that problem. See, you do the research (or in your case, art project) *first*, then you write up the grant proposal for it and use *that* money for your *next* project. Worked like a charm, too, until one review board said to a scientist “It won’t work!” and he slammed the data down in front of them and said “I already did it, gimmee the money!”. Yeah, we don’t do people skills so much …


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: May 22, 2008, 11:58 am

Boiling it probably wasn’t the best choice, the heat might have messed up crystal formation.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: May 22, 2008, 12:17 pm

It wasn’t fully boiling, just hot enough to steam. They recommended 70 degrees, but of course that was for liquid Magic Solution.

The instructions said the first rocks in shouldn’t touch, and I read that as should touch. So, once again, I flunk instructions.


Comment from Allen
Time: May 22, 2008, 1:47 pm

Chia pubes, perfect. You could also do a Chia back, Chia ears, and so on. Now that I think of it, Christmas just hasn’t been the same since the demise of Ronco.


Comment from Lokki
Time: May 22, 2008, 1:59 pm

This thread sounds like an Enquirer Story

Pickle Jar Magic Fails to Materialize.
Dateline: Rhode Island, somewhere.
Ms. Badger (nee Weasel) announced to a disappointed public today that her Magic Rocks, kept hidden since 1988, had failed to materialize as expected. Ms. Badger has a long history of undertaking difficult projects which include obtaining a government grant for her terra-cotta statutes with Chia-Pet pubic hair, and selling her house while living in a sleeping bag in its basement. When our reporter talked to Ms. Badger she was quoted as commenting,
“…a few years ago…I stared out sadly at people frolicking about in the lake, . . . scuffing my foot and thinking, “I wish I could have a stupid inflatable boat.” Followed by, “OMIGOSH, I can have a stupid inflatable boat!”
In response to a different question, she denied that the figurine in the pickle jar was an alien, insisting that ” I lumme some pickles”.
Ms. Badger says that she will be moving to the United Kingdom in the near future.


Comment from porknbean
Time: May 22, 2008, 2:43 pm

*scuffs foot, grins sheepishly*

I lumme some toys.


Comment from Steve Skubinna
Time: May 22, 2008, 3:38 pm

I still get hit with these toy enthusiasms. I just discovered Nerf guns. Not through some socially acceptable venue, such as by playing Hitman or Assassin or Humans Vs. Zombies with college students, but via researches into Steampunk. Some people trick out Nerf guns with brass and gunmetal paint and some fiddly, gear-y bits and carry them around at Steampunk conventions or sell them on eBay

So a quick trip to Toys Backwards “R” Us later, and I got a bag of Nerf Maverick six shot revolvers and another bag from Ace Hardware with cans of metallic spray paint and clear coat. I already have a pocket watch, pith helmet, and spiffy wire frame safety glasses with leather side shields and nose piece, so once I trick out the toy guns all I’ll need is a brocade vest and I can be Captain Nemo or his understudy. Maybe I need a non-derivative identity, like, oh, Commander Noman.

Anyway. Nerf guns. Way cool. Get some.


Comment from iamfelix
Time: May 22, 2008, 4:39 pm

Stoaty & Lokki made me laugh so hard I cried.

Thanks, I needed that.


Comment from Stashiu3
Time: May 22, 2008, 5:25 pm

Is it just me, or does that picture in #1 look like a “surprise magic-rocks buttsex” sculpture?


Comment from Jessica
Time: May 22, 2008, 7:13 pm

Magic Rocks! I had those! Right after the Sea Monkeys FAIL of 1974 I honest to god thought they would have on little crowns, and was heartbroken when they didn’t). Geeez, I’m old….


Comment from Gregory the First
Time: May 22, 2008, 9:01 pm

Heya, Lokki:

If she’s a ‘nee’, then the right honorific is ‘Mrs’. On accouta da fact that she’s changed her name to her husband’s, dontcha know?


Comment from IickyIicky
Time: May 23, 2008, 2:44 am

Koosh Balls. Best. Toy. Evah. I used to have a black and green one. Kid confiscated, lost in storm. He has a new one hanging from the rearview.
Ugh, remember that crappy phase of hanging crystals from the rearview so they’d be all rainbow-y inside the car?


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: May 23, 2008, 7:12 am

I remember damn-near having accidents because I was staring at the shiny rainbow-y thing in cars ahead of me.


Comment from Jill
Time: May 23, 2008, 1:45 pm

http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/magicrocks.htm


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: May 23, 2008, 1:50 pm

Wow. Cool.


Comment from Jill
Time: May 23, 2008, 3:56 pm

It’d be neat if you could give it another shot.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: May 24, 2008, 8:35 am

I found a place that sells them and has them in stock, Jill, but I faced the usual online dilemma: it’s $5 for the rocks and $5 for shipping and handling, so it only makes sense to buy more stuff…so I spent an hour browsing around the site…and I can’t find more crap I want.

Yeah. The internet. Another fine mess it’s gotten me into.


Comment from Old Iron
Time: May 24, 2008, 10:08 am

I got an urge a week ago to buy a new toy. I was surfing ebay for a pogo stick…

…And ended up with a 1974 Triumph TR-6. Strange how ebay searches evolve.


Pingback from magic rocks
Time: June 2, 2008, 3:38 pm

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