Finally, a reason for Diet Coke to exist!

Back in high school, my mad scientist of a chemistry teacher taught us that sodium explodes when it comes into contact with water. To demonstrate this point, he showed us a film of someone throwing a brick-sized lump of sodium into a lake.

While this was only one of many memorable films we saw in that class, the sodium one has long held a special place in my heart. I doubted if anything could ever match the eerie beauty of a dozen sodium fragments bouncing across the water as explosion begat explosion.

I was wrong.

Speaking of strange events and toxic substances, the Horseradish Festival was this weekend in lovely Collinsville, IL, aka the Horseradish Capital of the World. Darn, missed it again this year!