Spaghett' and the Law of Threes

Today I have a few spaghetti-like items to post. I'd rather be eating it, but that comes later. First, isn't this disgusting?

Some genius decided kids would eat meat IF it looked more like spaghetti so he chopped and pureed and extruded MEAT into strings and here are the results. Probably he added a good dollop of high frutose corn syrup in the process too, why not, it's in everything else! I can't imagine it would taste any better than bologna at best. No one EVER fooled me with spaghetti squash either!

But this is better, and a tad art related too:

You take all your old crappy busted up crayons, maybe just your favorites, maybe everything all together, just unwrap them first. Then put them on a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet and heat them in the oven until they start to puddle up- quickly remove the cookie sheet and swirl with a popcycle stick as much as you want. Return to the oven if it gets too hard.

Remove from the oven and use a cookie cutter to cut simple shapes, actually the smaller cutters are better for this but you could use the big ones too. Then set them aside to cool completely. You could also use a plastic straw to push a hole into the tops and hang by a ribbon wherever you need that new-box-of-crayola smell for inspiration! One of these 'crayons' would make a great package decoration for a kid's present too. (This was inspired by the back deck of my dad's 1955 Oldsmobile the year we drove cross-country in August.) He never forgave me.

And swirly color brings me to RUBBERBAND BALLS. The other day I got an email from Jeanne Williamson about something or other, and while checking out the link, I came across her disintegrating rubber band ball. Ordinarily it would not particularly interest me, except at that very same moment MY rubberband ball was bouncing erratically all over the kitchen as TY was trying to interest our ball-adverse dog. (She is simply above such stoopidity as chasing balls, a waste of energy.) Oh oh, looks like maybe a happy rubberband coincidence happening here, doesn't it? My ball has been growing for maybe 12 years or so, but it isn't disintegrating like Jeanne's is. I think it's because I keep adding to it which holds the dried out and cracking bands in place by the younger and more flexible ones. So I contacted Jeanne to tell her about my ball, and then let it go. Jeanne also has a YouTube video of her ball as it disposes of itself.

Well the forces won't let it go because a few hours later I got a birthday present of (drumroll) Rubberbands! No longer is it coincidence, it is into full blown synchronicity now, and, as usual, has hit me on the forehead like a flatiron from grandma. Two whacks are coincidence, three are definitely synchronicity and I must pay attention. It's the Law. (OK, so it's just A law, the The law.)

These are made to cook with, to wrap around a bunch of green beans to blanch them, or to use to hold all that filet mignon in a nice tight roll, or to bind a chicken's feet with a little red S&M. These are teflon so they withstand high temperatures, but they are also plentiful so can be tossed after use or washed if you want- I will of course wash them and add them to The Ball!


Here's one constructed by John Bain in Wilmington, Del. The ball weighs in at 3,120 pounds, is five feet tall, and is covered in 850,000 rubber bands:
Clearly I have a ways to go.

That's nothing, here's the (former)world record holder at 3500#:


And a story about the current record holder who's ball weighs 4594# but there isn't a picture available. Read the story though, because the maker of the ball has perhaps been inhaling too many rubber fumes.

You can buy them ready-made for $3.79 at Staples IF you get more than 6 at a time:


Here's a guy who was actively soliciting donations for his rubberband ball back in 1995- I bet it's really something by now! He includes his discovery of the major issue of how to add rubberbands when it gets to big.

Even a wiki on how to get started!

And a few various websites devoted to the ball~
One and
Another

And, to finish all this necessary information off, here are some necklaces I made from rubber bands a few years ago. They, frankly, stink so much of rubber that I won't wear them, and no they are too dried out to even use on the ball, but I had fun with them for a few nights- they certainly started conversations more easily than pushing a 3000# ball around...

Memo to self: file this under get-a-life!