brakes and 24

Boring stuff out of the way first: those itty bitty screws on your bike brakes are used to adjust the spring tension. By playing them off each other (one on each side), you keep your brakes from dragging. Just so you know.

Ok, on to the confusing stuff: I finally got around to watching Monday's episode of 24, where they blow up a natural gas distribution facility, thereby burning up all the nerve gas the Chechen terrorists with totally bogus accents had released into the natural gas. Our hero didn't shoot anybody this week, but the explosions really made up for it.

It was all good fun, but we have a little problem at my house. I've been sitting around with the resident chemist trying to figure out the delay tactic the writers used to give our hero enough time to get to the bad guys. Apparently, in undergraduate chemistry (according to the new annoying character), you learn that putting a dangerous gas in a safer, pressurized gas makes it inert, so the bad guys spent a bunch of time reducing the natural gas pressure.

We don't get it. The best we got was that under pressure, the two gases would combine, but then when they came out of your stove, uh, you'd burn it anyway, so I guess what I learned here is that I should just shut up and enjoy the explosions.