Three compressed gas tanks (argon)
A new regulator (already have one, but it has suffered quite a lot of misery and pain during its service to me. I've put it through rather a lot, to say the least) for the tanks, keeping the old one still, but using it for when one or the other is going to be on the receiving end of brutality, the kind of treatment that makes the metal scream inside. Which isn't exactly infrequent (its hooked up providing pressure to a chlorine generator right now for instance using Ar to dilute the Cl2 and push it through a column packed with iodine, after which, the result, iodine monochloride with some traces of iodine trichloride, is aggressive and corrosive enough to make chlorine look like a little fluffy bunny rabbit in comparison. Not friendly stuff, the rest of the equipment, such as the ground glass joints have had to be wrapped in teflon because using dow-corning high-vacuum grease didn't go too well. Stuff turns to something resembling cement on exposure to the vapor from the ICl and ICl3. ICl being the main offender since its a volatile liquid, whereas the trichloride is a solid, although volatile all the same, the argon tanks own internal pressure is the only thing preventing that unwholesome witch's brew from backing up the gas line and probably resulting in the regulator on the argon bottle crumbling away to dust. That, and a clamp on the line (I pressurize it very slightly, before starting the flow of chlorine gas, when the Cl2 begins to flow properly then the pressure of argon is increased, a clamp put over the tubing to prevent chlorine, and worse things besides, backing up into the regulator and argon tank, using flexible tubing that will withstand some flow of argon whilst in the midst of turning the clamp and inflate like a balloon, then quickly turning off the valve)
Bought three tins of travel sweets (more for the tins, than for the candy as it happens. I wanted the tins because they will fit perfectly in my molten metal bath for heating things and leave just enough space for things like a pair of long-nosed pliers to move the tin, attach electrodes to the sweet can (with the candies poured out first of course), whilst heating it in a bath of molten lead. Needed replacement sweet tins after corroding the crap out of the ones I had.
Several bags of fried, sweetened dried banana chips.
A few bags of 'chewits', a quarter bottle of dark rum and a kilo of potassium hydroxide (caustic potash, KOH, its the potassium 'version' of lye. A damn sight more corrosive though. Whilst the nickel-based guitar fretwire I often use as disposable electrodes will withstand quite a lot of abuse being used to electrolyse molten, fused caustic soda, even for as long as 12 hours give or take, all night long basically, dipped in a bath of molten caustic soda at a few hundred degrees 'C, a mixture of caustic soda and caustic potash, after just an hour or so, maybe two at the most, when I pulled the electrode out of the melt, which was only at around two hundred degrees 'C, the caustic potash-based melt had ripped it to shreds, eroding the end into a needle-sharp pointy spike.....NOT something I fancy the prospect of ever getting on my skin, I do plan to test it against a piece of cheap meat just to see what kind of damage it can do to flesh, something revolting, like pork, I've a pretty confident feeling that molten potassium hydroxide would chew straight through the likes of a pork chop and out the other side, especially after seeing what it did to that nickel alloy, which is normally very resistant to even some pretty harsh treatment)
[and where electrodes are concerned, 'harsh treatment' constitutes the kind of thing mother electrodes tell their children will happen to them if they misbehave to scare the living shit out of them around these parts, and leave them unable to sleep at night, or wake up screaming in the middle of the night thinking they just heard a switch clicking 'on'. Its the conductive materials equivalent to Auschwitz, only not quite so friendly, warm and fuzzy. Warm, yes, but one out of three is as good as it gets
]
QV-have her try getting a colander with a handle, or a sieve, and just put the pan in the sink or next to it, then fill it with the boiling water. That way she could suspend the pasta in the boiling water, lift out just the pasta, flick away the last bits of water then munch away when its done. About 10 minutes usually does it, at least with the bulkier kinds of pasta. I hate those tiny little bow-tie shaped things so I wouldn't know how long those take to cook; probably pretty quickly though.
And when she's done serving up her chow, then it only takes one hand to ditch the boiling water, or whatever is left of it, straight into the sink without having to carry it anywhere. Use of a plastic chopping board underneath, or wooden one at least would be helpful, plastic being better due to plastics generally having poorer heat conduction capacities, thus trapping in the heat for longer and better cooking the pasta without having to fr. ex. boil extra water in the kettle.
