#414 – Charged
Posted on January 4, 2008 at 12:00 am by Chris
Chapter: Comics
I loved doing things with static electricity when I was a kid. Sticking balloons on the ceiling, bending water, shocking my brother. I think my favorite was making sparks in my blanket. One winter my bedroom had the perfect mix of fabrics and low humidity. I would get under my blanket in the dark and rub my hair back and forth over the sheets. I would then set up and slowly reach a hand out and get rewarded by a giant spark that would light up my little blanket cave.
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I had about a month or two that I could’nt touch metal, since it would spark at me and hurt. I really hate electricity/static shocks… But it is worth it when touching someone for the look on thier face =)
(: yeah looks on ppl’s faces make a lot worth it.
I always loved the bending water trick… Although now that I’m older, I mostly hate the static because it messes up my hair really badly. It can turn into an afro if I’m not careful!
“making sparks in my blanket”
You do realize how many jokes that’s gonna create right?
Thats creepy, i used to do the same thing, almost. I had this fuzzy big blanket for my bed, and i would stick my head under it, and push it all behind me, and stick my hand out and use the other to slide the blanked over my head, it looked like lightning flying from my fingertips.
Ima tell you a little story.
Virgin megastores in liverpool: CHARGED. Every. Damn. Time i touch something in that shop, it shocks me.
Static electricity… There’s this bookstore, where every time I touch anything metal – bookcase, support beam, railing – I get zapped. I learned to avoid it and I don’t think this happened to me in a long time, but it’s no fun when you’re trying to get a good book out and get hit on your fingers.
I can’t leave my office in the winter, without that I should take a mild shock.
Quite annoying.
I have a personal electronic defense system during the winter. Touch me and you’ll get shocked… Made things a little… painful with my ex-boyfriend. Ah, the joys of static electricity *lol*
Heh… reminds me of that scene in Office Space… I did the ballons on the wall and the ripping open band-aids in the dark… but i’ve never heard of this bending water… i’ll have to google or wiki it…
The foam packaging crap from Christmas
is still static-clinging everywhere in my hair.
bending water? i never tried that trick.
is anyone willing to teach it to me? it would be a pretty cool thing to be able to do
To MOD: Grab a balloon or a plastic comb or anything else you can charge with static electricity, and then hold it near a small stream of flowing tap water.
As to crazy blanket static, I have one that I can just trace my fingers across and leave a trail of little blue sparks.
Cats also crackle with electricity if you pet them enough.
I thought I was creating some crazy cool static using blankets, and even had my wife doing it. Then I realized it was just light from those little holes in the blinds that was only showing up when our hands moved through it.
That sounds really stupid when typed out.
This is a great comic! Even though you can’t see his face, you still know there’s that look of “well, crap, that didn’t work out.” 🙂
My kitty shut down my computer (severe error) with a jolt of static from her nose when she sniffed the keyboard.
I used to have pajama pants that would make blue sparks when they were rubbed against the sheets I had…I didn’t even wear them, I just kept making sparks. It was fun….
You can recycle styrofoam packing peanuts up there in Kanadia? Is it even worth the recycling truck’s gas to cart it around?
Ahhh… the joys of static electricity. I used to love shocking people, until I realized something so much more fun to do with my pent up static.
When you have a lot of static electricity built up, find someone wearing glasses and touch the metal rims of their glasses. Apparently it hurts more when it’s surging through the tips of your glasses to your head.
I shocked the back of my head today as I was loading stuff in the golf cart at work.
I got a new winter coat before school started again. When I take it off, I can hear, and, I almost think, feel the static. The other day when I was in my typeing class and I got up, walked over to my friend after taking off my coat, put my finger right next to her ear, and we both heard this amusing CREAK. She jumped and we both just started laughing. I think it was because her coat was one of those static coats too, ’cause I couldn’t get the same out of another girl I sit next too. I tried most of the hour. Great comic.
Anybody with silk pyjamas knows the joys of having dancing blue lights under their blankets =P And when you take them off you can almost wring the static out of them.
Apparently leather has electricity since when I rub my arm against it and put it near my mini table with metal legs, I get shocked, Once I actually saw a mini lightning bolt.
Static electricity is great. Except it did short out my MP3 player…
The Duck Has Spoken.
I once shorted out both my PS2 controllers with static electricity. I was going to play a game, grabbed my PS2 controller and gave it a bad shock. Suddenly I saw the red light on it go off and it stopped working, so I went to grab the second one and the same thing happened (you think I would have learned). My brother also fried his sub woofer with static once. Ah static, my mortal enemy. Nowadays I’m more careful about touching things when I feel that static energy.
Well, at least he’ll be safe for that trip to Jamaica.
hahaha, in my car we have those synthetic uh… fabric feltish stuff- anyway if i took a cotton sweater and rubbed my arms agaisnt the seat i could shock someone so badly… then karma paid me back-i brushed my leg right across the metal bar to adjust the seat and was shocked in my achilles heal…. ow….
I fold clothes at a clothing store. Lately, my walkie-talkie headset has been shocking me right in the ear canal. I now take the earpiece out whenever I’m folding windbreaker pants.
Either everyone else is super-static, or I’m not conductive at all! Such good stories of static adventures, whilst I have none D=
I don’t get shocked very often and none of my covers are very shock worthy!
i go to a basketball club, and one time i was really static, so i went around prodding people, and they kept getting annoyed from it.
it was really fun until i got told off.
I was in Vegas once at the Circus Circus. apparently it was REALLY dry that weekend, because every single time I opened a door, touched a table, or came into contact with any other metal, I’d get a whopper of a shock. At one point I touched the handle of the door adjoining our two rooms, and I saw a spark jump from the latch to the doorjam. it was painful
Aaaaah Static electricity, everyone’s most/least favorite natural weapon 😀
Plenty of stories involving it, although I’m thankful to say I’ve never damaged a game system/computer with it…. Probably the best was the time I was apparently full of static and reached down to pet the dog, poor thing, she jumped and did a complete cartwheel in the air then proceeded to flee yelping into the kitchen. My mom’s yelling, “What’s wrong Meggie, what’s wrong?” and the dog’s just whining and running in circles. I wish I’d taped it, it’d be right up there with another incident (no static involved) that I would’ve loved to have sent to AMV or something like that.
Also, when I was really young and dumb, I bite the prongs on plugs all the time, and never got anything.
I used to have some pretty shocks in my bedroom, but it wasn’t static, it was the equipment lying around (hc11 microcomputer, power source to name a few). Now I installed a hi-tech ground connection (cable to the gas supply tube. leak+spark=not good, but not probable to happen) and can feel at ease moving equipment around between the mess =)
It helped with static also.
I have a LOT of hair, and I got this big poofy coat. whenever i take off or put on that coat, it builds up a lot of static. i can sneak up on someone and zap them. I love to sneak up on my friend tara and shock her on the back of her neck. its hilarious.
I once spent a night in a water bed with earth leakage problems, a set of satin sheets, satin boxers and my gf.
There were sparks.
The dorm I stayed in my freshman year of college was like a nexus for static electricty. It was a combination of the fact the air there was really dry, we had those cheap thin carpets it was almost impossible NOT to drag your foot across, and, of course, stainless steel doorknobs, or that’s what the ones for all the downstairs lounges looked like.
I was used to sometimes grabbing the doorknob and ending up with a nice blue-white inch-long spark (and enough of a jolt to swear), but at some point in the early winter, the static must have built up and built up in me and the surrounding area.
My friends and I saw it was time for our two hour block of afternoon TV (Animaniacs-Power Rangers-Jeopardy, and then it was time to get dinner). I ended up being the person who got to the door of the TV lounge first. I reached out my hand, grabbed the doorknob–and fell to my knees unable to breathe.
There was no spark (my friends would have seen it), but my heart literally skipped a beat (which it had never done before, and scared the crap out of me), and I felt like someone had knocked the wind out of me. It felt like it took 10 seconds before I could get a breath, and of course my heart started to pound. My friends and I freaked. I think you could have brought a flatlined coronary patient back to life with that shock.
A few years ago, when I went back to school, my instructor had told all of us NOT to use his pens without asking first, as people kept walking off with them and leaving him with one or none. I had to fill something out in a hurry, and I was right near his desk, so I reached over to the lovely, metallic pen set with a nice holder, grabbed a pen, went to click the top to give me the point…and shrieked as a really strong shock hit me. Yes, it was rigged to do that. My teacher cracked up, and once I stopped cold-sweating, I did too.
I then spent the rest of class trying to get as many people to try and click the pen. It somehow made me feel better when other people did it and started cussing. Misery loves company and all…
At a party in college, a few of us were playing keep-it-up with a balloon. We weren’t really trying to charge it up, but the conditions were pretty good, so it built up a good charge (especially from people hitting it off their heads, I think). Eventually it hit the ceiling and just stayed there, so we decided that we had won the game, and gravity had lost.
i hate ESD it can be painful at times
Snuggy owners know all about static electricity xD
oh ! static ! that makes more sense, I was googling “sparks come out of my fingertips when i touch my doona” to see if I was a witch hahahahh
@Kokits
“Ahhh… the joys of static electricity. I used to love shocking people, until I realized something so much more fun to do with my pent up static.When you have a lot of static electricity built up, find someone wearing glasses and touch the metal rims of their glasses. Apparently it hurts more when it’s surging through the tips of your glasses to your head.”
I think we all know someone with glasses. (pointing at Chris)
I remember having this Pooh Bear blanket that was all nice and fuzzy on one side and all weird on the other. Whenever I hid under it to read a book or play a game, I was always greeted by… Maybe ten or more little blue lightning bolts. One day I actually tried to touch them. After that my blanket was stored in a closet to only see light when we need the vacuum or some wrapping paper.
there is something wrong with my sister my father and me. we collect static like no there and all of us hate thos automatic doors cause they don’t see us. i always have to pause and wave at the thing while other ppl can just walk in and out. all electricity hates us. one time we went to a hotel with an electric key card and we couldn’t get into our room cause it was just us three. finally dad’s girlfriend found us and opened the door.