This was a bored way to spend an afternoon. http://theforum.virtualave.net/ubb/smilies/smile.gif It's just a bunch of stupid stuff to do with matches (a way to spend an afternoon, I guess), as you can see I originally thought it would be a breeze to get it up to 50, but I had to add a bunch of fillers. I know this sounds like a k3wl text, but hey, it was fun.
Here's the file: http://www20.brinkster.com/codemason/matches.pdf
Here's the list...
1. Burn the match all the way to the end. This is simply accomplished by wetting your thumb and your forefinger and holding the burnt head, and holding it upright.
2. Create a simple firecracker. These aren't very loud but do the job. All one does is cut the red striker off one side of a box of matches, then place it firmly in front of the heads. The cover is slipped over and then bound very tightly and heavily with tape (masking seems to work best). When thrown sharply against the ground, the matches hit against the striker, which all ignite at once bursting the box. There is somewhat of art to perfecting this but I'll let you figure it out.
3. Strip the matchheads off. With book paper matches, this can be done easily with scissors, but with the wooden box matches, a pair of small pliers can be used. When confined, this is a surprisingly powerful low explosive.
4. Make an impact firecracker from the matchheads. The matchheads from three boxes should just about fill up one empty box. The strikers from two are carefully placed at each end, and the uncut box's cover is slipped over, then it is bound in tape. Be careful, as these things are unpredictable. Usually a very hard throw is required to set one off, but there was an incindent when a friend was carrying one outside and he dropped it on the floor. Usually this wouldn't do anything. No explosion. He bent over to pick it up, and I jokingly yelled "BOOM". And then it actually went off. He was temporarily blinded and burning matchheads were scattered around on his floor.
5. Flick 'em. Hold the match between your thumb and forefinger, with the head held down onto the striker, and make a flicking motion. Whee!
6. Make a tennis ball grenade. Note: Doing this with strike-anywhere matches is suicide. One takes an ordinary tennis ball and cuts a small incision with a stanley knife. Around 250 (assuming 50 each box, around 5 boxes worth) matchheads are funneled in, along with the strikers of said boxes, cut up into small squares. The hole is tightly glued shut with superglue or similar. When thrown, they explode with extreme violence, although the shrapnel is just rubber and will merely cause bruises. Be careful, these are even more unpredictable than the above, and their explosive force is considerable.
7. Generate ball lightning in your microwave. Make an array of about eight matches, with the heads all facing upright, in your microwave, and place a glass of water next to them to absorb any excess microwaves. They can be stuck bown with blu-tack onto the glass plate. When you want to generate a plasma ball, place a burning match on top of the bundle and quickly slam the door and press start on high. It will buzz and then a ball of light will be generated. These plasma orbs are very beautiful (and pretty harmless) and a great crowd pleaser at parties.
8. Make a fuse. Matchheads are added to a small glass jar and then just enough warm water is poured in to cover them. The chlorate in the matchheads is water soluable, so you don't want to leave it in there for too long. Stir every few minutes until you are convinced all the explosive material has dissociated from the wooden part. Scoop out the wooden bits with a tea bag strainer or whatever. Now about a half meter length of soft, cotton string is soaked in the goop and when you are convinced it is saturated, hang it up to dry. Repeat until all the goop has been used up. Once dry (a hairdryer is good for this purpose), these fuses work well but they are delicate, so don't handle them any more than you really need to.
9. Make a pipe bomb. An ordinary PVC pipe makes an adequate container for a matchhead charge. Simply walk into a hardware or plumming store and pick up the length of pipe you want. This is filled with match heads, and then end caps are placed over both sides. End caps are expensive and since everyone knows what a pipe bomb is, going in and buying end caps or a small threaded pipe is risky. One could make end fillers, by first sealing off one end with: plaster, car body filler, or Epoxy glue, then filling up the pipe, placing a wad of inert stuff so the runny filler doesn't mess up the matchheads on top and capping the other end that way too. Then a small hole, big enough for the fuse, is drilled in one of the end caps or in the centre, and the fuse is threaded through. These are powerful explosive devices and the hard plastic shrapnel can easily kill.
10. Burn down your school. You heard me. Nothin' better than matches for starting fires.
11. Make kitchen rockets. Simply wrap up the head of a match well in Al/tin foil, set it down somewhere and hold a heat source (ie, another lit match) underneath the head. With luck, it should fly a few meters with a satisfying whizz.
12. Make a fuel-air explosion. Cut a hole in the lid of a 2 litre milk jug, just the size of a pipe bomb. Make sure the fuse is coming out the top. Make sure about 3/4th of the pipe bomb is underneath. Secure it firmly in place. Fill the jug with any highly flammable liquid (gasoline, kerosene, denatured alcohol, car starter fluid) and transport to your location. When ready simply screw the lid on and ignite the fuse, then run like f*cking hell, the fireball is absolutely ENORMOUS, especially if you used car starter fluid. The problem is most highly flammable liquids are very volatile and will eat into your pipe bomb in seconds flat. This is OK because it should only be in contact with the fuel for the time it takes the fuse to burn down.
13. Be hard core and pretend you're smoking. If you're actually stupid enough to damage your lungs with sulfur dioxide and other nasty poisonous gasses without even getting high off them, this is for you. Simply light the match and inhale as soon as it flares up. Then blow out.
14. Got no cap gun caps lying around? Secure a match head in a nook or cranney just its size, then hit it as hard as you possibly can with a hammer. Bang!
15. Create your own trip-wire device. You know those party popper things where you pull the string, it goes BANG, and all these streamers fly out? Well, by removing the cardboard top and all the streamers, you are left with the pull string. Fill up the party popper container with matchheads, and then cover the whole thing in car body filler about a centermeter thick (except the pull string bit). This is to confine it. Now when you pull on the string, you will lose your hand! Fun!
16. Set people's hair on fire. This works best if they're wearing hairspray, gel, or other flammable cosmetic errata. Burning off their pubes also makes for a great... er... whatever.
17. Dominoes for pyros. Set up a row of matches one after the other. Light the match at the far end, and watch them light eachother up in a domino fashion.
18. This is if you're ever in prison. Matches are cheaper than smokes, so make a house out of matchsticks. A perculiarly flammable and fragile house, but a pretty ornament nonetheless, and way to pass time until your next gang raping.
19. Wooden string. Line the matches up in a row and use glue to stick them together. There's a million and one uses for this.
20. Braid matches into your hair and say it's the latest fashion statement. And when you get tired of the haircut, just light the matches and watch it disappear!
21. Use them as "bad boy" toothpicks. Yes, I am running out of ideas.
22. Genie in a box. Take a box of matches and have the head side slightly ajar. Drop a lit match in there and watch it flare up, whee!
23. Throw them into an already lit fire and watch them light up.
24. Use them to light your marijuana.
25. Use burnt matches to draw purdy pictures with. Hey, it's cheaper than buying charcoal sticks from an art supply store. *gets back to scribbling Sailor Moon hentai*
26. On that note, break off the burnt head and grind up the charcoaled stick. This is a high-grade of charcoal suitable for making black powder from.
27. Perform sick Satanic pyrophiliac rituals with them, ie, burning yourself in naughty places.
28. Yet another throw-down bomb! This is known as the bolt bomb. Matchheads are compressed between two bolts in a nut. When thrown hard against the ground, it will go bang and throw off one of the bolts.
29. Form a plastic explosive. Do the same as in the fuse trick, except instead of soaking string in the goo, simply let the water evaporate until dry. Then to every 9 parts of this powder, add around 1 part castor oil (or molten candle wax, if that's the way you swing), and kneed in very well. This plastique can be set off with a #8 commercial blasting cap or equivalent, and will detonate like 40% dynamite. Useful as a low explosive/incendiary too.
30. Cut off the striker from a box, and fold it, length-wise in half. Then, holding the striker side down, place a match in about the middle, hold it hard, and pull it out fast. POP! Whoosh! Convenient, and an interesting party trick, especially for those without strike-anywhere matches. The harder you hold down, the louder it pops when you pull it out.
31. If you're the psycho killer type, dump a huge load of matchheads into a car's gas tank. I can only imagine how violently this would destroy the engine, with the poor motherf*cker still inside the car!
32. Make a sticky bomb, like on Saving Private Ryan. This is more of an incendiary than a bomb, but fill one of your smaller stinky socks with matchheads, place a fuse in the top and tie it up tightly, then smear the outside with motor grease. Then, light the fuse and throw! It hopefully will stick to any target, meaning long range destruction.
33. Makeshift blowdarts. Sharpen the other end and use an elastic band to fire at targets. For even more mayhem, glue a striker onto the elastic band, so when you let go, it hopefully will ignite the match, sending a burning arrow of death towards some poor fool.
34. Ignite your farts. Nothing like a methane fireball to liven up any party.
35. Pour gasoline into your toilet, and toss a lit match into it. This isn't smart, but a very drunk version of you might find it very amusing, until the toilet explodes showering you with the contents of someone's bowels, that is.
36. Hold a lit match up to a deoderant can's nozzle, and spray. An instant flame-thrower/ant-toaster until the nozzle overheats and melts, letting air rush in, leaving you with bits of deoderant can stuck in your skull.
37. Flaming football of death. Get the cardboard tube from a toilet roll, and stuff it with toilet paper. Then soak the toilet paper in gasoline. Make sure no excess liquid is left. Light the thing and then kick it around. Fun for a few minute's pyrotechnic enjoyment.
38. Naphthalene fireball. Take the toilet roll tube and make a wad of TP and jam it in as the base. Stab a hole near the bottom (just above the base). Fill it halfway up with matchheads. Thread a fuse through. Fill up the other half with any finely powdered highly flammable solid. This can be naphthalene, common in mothball or flake form, for keeping the bugs away. Very fine sawdust and Cremora non-dairy creamer work good as well. When lit, it creates a massive fireball, like they use for plane crashes on the movies.
39. Eat the fire. Here's a nice party trick. Take a lit match and stick it in your mouth. Of course you quickly blow hard just as it goes in, to blow out the flame. Then take it out and show it to people, saying how psycho you are for putting out matches on your tounge. If you do it right you won't end up with a burnt up mouth.
40. Give them to kids on Halloween instead of candy. If they complain that matches suck, hand them a printout of this file.
41. Use them to burn all spare printouts of this file so you can look nice and innocent when angry parents/pigs show up. "Matches? What matches?"
42. Terminate ants and other annoying insects with them. I'll leave you to decide what kind of fun you can have with a matchhead pipe bomb and a large wasp nest. *grin*
43. Explosive candle! Fill up a condom with match heads, and stick a longish fuse out the top of the condom before tying up the end with string. Place it in some kind of mould, and then get a candle and melt it gently over the stove. Pour the molten wax over the condom, so that it forms a decent candle shape, and make the fuse look like it's the wick. Place it inconspicuously around a place where there are a lot of drunken people that like candles.
44. Drop a match just as it's lighting in a smallish container that you can close, ie. empty matchbox. Smoke in a jar!
45. Use one to set fire to Osama bin Laden's greasy beard. Smite your other miscellaneous enemies with them.
46. Breathe fire, by taking a small amount of kerosene in your mouth, being sure not to SWALLOW it, and spitting it out as hard as you can onto a lit match. The drawbacks are, your face is not one of the best places in the world to be spraying fireballs right near, and kerosene will give you mouth cancer.
47. Make a cooking fire by placing a bunch of matches, upright, in a small can. Then light them all with whatever you want to flash fry, ie, a microwave burritto, hanging just above them. Mmm, tastes like soot and sulfur. *grin*
48. Jam the end of a match into a lock as hard as you can, then snap it off. Bingo! Instant ruined lock. Let's see them try to stick their keys in that. Buahahahaha!
49. Use them to amuse yourself whilst you're racking your brain thinking of 50 things to do with matches.
50. Er... Make that "49 Cool Things to Do With Household Safety Matches"! Hehe.
Got any more nifty things to add?
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