Electric Hinkypunks

Asher and Mattias recently decided it would be interesting to see how well electricity moved through water. They discovered that water isn't very good, but water with salt in it is a great conductor. They also found that the walls of batteries are made out of cardboard. They found this out by mistakenly soaking the battery in water and then watching the top fall off later.

The boys were a bit disappointed to discover that this didn't automatically lead to battery acid eating a hole through the school table all the way to Mongolia. We worry about the fate of their high school chemistry professors.


Sylvia wasn't terribly excited about pure electricity, but she was pretty amazed with the electric pencil sharpener. It performs horribly, but it makes quite the noise when a pencil goes into it!

Pet Acronyms, Hinkypunk-Style

Asher and Mattias have guinea pigs, named Alexander and Bucephalus. Recently Mattias was holding his guinea pig saying "Nice guinea pig Alexander". Then, with a hinkypunk-ish look he began chanting, "A G.P.A., a G.P.B., all we need now is a G.P.C!"

Down at the Quarry

A few days ago we had a fine fall day here. On that day the hinkypunk quarry was in full swing, with four workers and one visitor.

The guard at the entrance to the hinkypunk quarry.

The quarry workers were carving intricate designs into a few of the rocks in the yard. The high precision tools (hammers and screwdrivers) did a fine job.

Sylvia did an excellent job as assistant quarry worker!

New Hat & New Living Room

Sylvia's new hat...


...and the living room, for anyone who was curious what it looks like without toys strewn from one end to the other. This is such a rare sight, we who live in the house may look at this picture to remind ourselves what it can look like.

Sylvia Style Skin Care

The Hinkypunk Ball World Cup 2007

By wild coincidence, the Hinkypunk Ball World Cup tournament (HBWC) occurred at the same time as the Rugby World Cup. Though not nearly as famous, the HBWC still boasts a great lineup of talent. The opening rounds saw everyone eliminated except the best in the world. Three of them, due to an unfortunate bracketing error.

The first game pitted the grizzled veteran Asher against the young but springy Mattias. It was a cracker! It was a cracker because they kept cracking their HB sticks! Asher won by the smallest margin after blocking this penalty shot by Mattias.


But there was no rest for Asher. He was immediately flung into a contest with none other than Deb the Mighty. Using all the tricks in the book, Deb took an early lead with shots like this. Where's the defence?


In the end, there was only one winner: the squirrels, who kept burying nuts on the pitch during the proceedings. I took a picture of one of them engaged in this activity but they ripped the film out of the camera. Honest.