Writer's Block: Brush with stardom

[Error: unknown template qotd]

I've never done one of these, so figured I would for once.

Back in 1981 I lived in Boulder City, NV. I was in 6th grade at the time. We often went down to Lake Mead to go boating or swimming. One of our common visiting spots was the Lake Mead Marina, where we'd go feed stale popcorn to the carp.

While tearing around the walkways with my visiting cousin right behind me, I turned a corner and ran into Hervé Villechaize. As in -- literally -- ran into. Just about knocked us both into the lake, in fact.

And I'll tell you what... that little dude could swear. Holy cats could he.

Accidental supercooling

I keep the soda machines in the shop finely tuned. The goal is to have them as utterly cold as possible without actually freezing the drinks. On a hot day there's nothing nicer than a cold cola that's so cold it almost hurts.

However, I can't do sugared sodas any more; I had to fill a few slots with various diet colas and sugarfree lemonades. I don't even drink those very often as I mostly stick to iced tea these days. Still, the occasional Coke Zero is a welcome thing.

I forgot that sugar-free soda and sugar-full soda have different freezing temps. What is a perfect thermostat balance for a standard coke is about 1.8 degrees too cold for Coke Zero. And with how still the machines sit (and how cleanly Coke packages them), it's quite possible to get the cans below freezing temperature without anything actually crystallizing. That's exactly where the machine is now.

Take out a Coke Zero. Crack it gently. Nothing happens -- it's liquid -- until you take a sip. Touching the surface is all that you need to seed the ice crystal formation. The feel of something suddenly turning into ice on your lips is WEIRD. And you'd better drink or pour fast. If you don't get about 1/3rd of the soda out of the can real quick prepare to run for the sink... *CANFOUNTAIN*

As long as they don't go ker-splodey in the machine, this is kind of neat. I had to crack and pour a 2nd can just to confirm what was going on and watch it foam-freeze in the glass. :)

EDIT: As per Spotweld's request, here's an attempt to film it with the iphone: