We can buy lithium batteries. They exist alright, although never cheap, not that they can be expected to be.
Toluene and xylene....errrr, sort of. Paint thinners exists, Tsath thinks so at least, his old man once had some around in his old workshop from when he used to make guitars, so it HAD to have come from somewhere, it isn't like toluene grows on trees. (figuratively speaking. Toluene does, in fact, grow on trees in the literal sense of speaking. Those in the genus Myroxylon to be precise, it was isolated first by destructive distillation of tolu balsam, the resin of these trees, M.toluifera in particular although afaik its found in other taxa within the genus.)
But Tsath' finds it almost impossible to actually locate any round here. The bottles and cans his old man used to have cannot have come from online, because when Tsath saw them, he was only young, but to put things into perspective, his old man DID have an internet connection, a dialup modem connection, slower than a mixture of liquid nitrogen and dog shit, his computer however, ran windows 3.1, and he could still find the odd mercury switch and Hg-filled kids toys of a kind that featured a handheld sealed, rounded plastic square, filled with maze-like walls, the objective being to
manipulate the toy in such a fashion as to permit the bead of mercury metal to navigate from the start to the end of the maze without becoming trapped within the little side passages, niches, nooks and crannies. Of course, one could never hope to find the likes of that any more
![Sad :(](https://thevespiary.org/talk/Smileys/default/sad.gif)
A good thing really, at least, it is for the kids, Tsath is pretty much the exception to the general principle that
Hg, Cd and the like should be kept away from small children. But he is not, unlike metallic Hg, so incredibly dense, as to think it a good idea for 99.95% of children should be given mercury to 'play' with (those mercury maze toys never, ever lasted long, surviving long enough to lead the beads of Hg round the track was exceptionally uncommon, as Tsath would been busy taking a screwdriver
or chisel to the casing to get hold of the useful part) , and allowed to work with lead, cadmium salts (and in the case of Cd, salts and pnictides), electrolyze fused NaOH, KOH, make thermite (admittedly his letting off charges of Fe, Co and Pb thermites on the path down to the garden in the house previous to the one he lives at now wasn't the thing he did that won him any prizes for most popular activity ever engaged in) and
distill red P (at that age, and pre-advanced internet, and not at that age having his own blowtorch, it had to come of course from carefully scraped off matchboxes), until a couple of grams were available, and distilling it under inert atmosphere, condensing the fumes on cold glass to yield the white allotrope.
So that toluene and xylene must have had a point of origin, perhaps even over the counter then, as toady WAS only little then, (<10-11YO), but now? no.
Acetone is around in 50ml bottles from pharmacies, if one is very lucky a pharmacist won't care, usually they are reluctant even to sell two 50ml botttles of the pure tone, and are completely impervious to the logic that if tone with dye in it, and some H2O and scents, as nail varnish remover is available in 200-300ml bottles is fine to sell, of course containing far more acetone in total
than the two small bottles of clean stuff would, then why, then, must Tsath be rudely refused, right in front of every other customer there, making him look like both a possible criminal and a certain
complete fucking pillock, standing there being treated thus, and spoken to in such a disrespectful manner that those so speaking where damn lucky that those so speaking, had the protection afforded by CCTV and witnesses. Refused what they would have sold in the form of a larger bottle of poor quality utter shite.
Seriously, coming out with rubbish like the 'best before' date being a legally forceful statute, without being able to either name the statute, OR the alleged penalty attached were theoretically
they to have 'violated' it, in the direct view of the (pigs? trading standards?) responsible for its being upheld. And then to go on and claim its because of danger to children, in a house where no children live, and to which none ever have a reason of any kind to be invited. Only young kid thats been in Tsath's place, EVER, was IIRC a single time, for the span of a few minutes, to show a local girl living round here, that he's friendly enough, while he doesn't have enough in common with a child to socialize of course, is friendly enough towards and vice versa to greet in passing on the street, or talk with if we are both headed in the same direction. She wanted to see, and as such, was invited back to see his spiders, showed her his widows. The falsies (Steatoda spp.) and Latro's (L.mactans, L.geometricus). Even then, said kid was with Tsath in any case, not just running free, pouring herself a pint of washing up liquid, or gargling with bleach
Never went in the lab either. Not that it matters much w/respect to any potential danger posable by fucking 'TONE for christ's cunting sake! its the least of anybody's worries, considering that probably 80% plus of the contents must be either toxic, corrosive, fuming, carcinogenic, mutagenic, pyrophoric, or a mixture of two or more of those. About the only two things in there that could be consumed without harm to the one so doing, are sodium and potassium carbonate/bicarbonate, activated charcoal, diethyl ether, diisopropyl ether and magnesium sulfate.
Wasn't even just the way he was treated and the piss take of it all, that they still wouldn't sell him what he needed, knowing he is in constant, severe pain enough to actually get him an indefinitely re-issued script for both morphine and oxy, lower dose oxy but over 600mg of morph a day. The pharmacists know this for they have on occasion, been the ones to dispense his painkillers for him, and knew that refusing sale of the 'tone would in no way on this earth actually prevent him from obtaining it, either in larger, proper quantities online, or, as he needed it right then and there with a haloform rxn cooking up on the kitchen counter right then and there, he would have to go to the next pharmacy nearest, then the 6-7-8 or so other nearest pharmacies to buy his 'allowance' from each. But the unforgivable rudeness and showing him up in front of everybody else, without even the decency to speak at a discrete volume.
Ended up chewing their ears off for that, and quite honestly, ranting at them in frustration, and the lack of common human decency to keep making life more difficult than it had to be, to absolutely
no effect when actually obtaining the needed amount of acetone (or some of it at least) other than to force Tsath to continue walking, causing him a lot of pain in doing so. Whats the point of that?
making someone suffer? and the arseholes still wouldn't listen to the perfectly reasonable explanations that not only is he in mid-haloform, but the yield of the reaction, based on acetone as the limiting reactant, is not fantastic by any stretch of the word.
He would have understood if he'd been asking them for two packages of pseudoephedrine/APAP 30/500s or loads of bottles of codeine syrup, morphine, capsicum and peppermint, or opium tincture (not that he'd AGREE with it, but he would have understood and been forgiving of the staff for not complying considering doing so might bring shit down upon their heads). But LYING to him, and being rude doing it? good luck to them getting any more business from toady, and if he gets the chance he tries his best to persuade others to boycott the arrogant, judgemental prostate-gargling
in-bred motherfucking whoresons-of-paedophiles.
There is a diisopropyl/diethyl ether mix available, (not in pharmacies) and, as well as that, theres car starting fluid based on EtOEt/high boiling aliphatics/traces of more or less nonvolatile oil, but only traces but mostl y EtOEt and iPrOiPr, as well as a mixture of MEK and MiBK. The diethyl ether that can be found in starter fluid needs distillation before use.
Can't remember what percentage that 'proof' measurement w/ethanol corresponds to, never did get the hang of it. Dumb fucking measurement in Tsath's opinion, when a percentage might be UNDERSTOOD by more than a tiny fraction of the population. But ignoring methylated spirit, the best we can do for ethanol is vodka, at 35-36%,VERY occasional kind can be found with 40%.
All the chlorinated hydrocarbons, some sacks of shit somewhere, demanded them off the sheves. Not sure if its environmental or not. Used to be able to get dichlor out of paint stripper, which was quite a large part CH2Cl2 along with some polymeric garbage, diluents etc, but its not to be found in any of them that Tsath can find anywhere. Its either garbage or NMP now, which is some consolation, considering its usually more difficult to find polar aprotics than it is too buy dichlor by means other than hardware stores and similar businesses.
Lipbalm, the nazis don't even get an honorable mention. Not even in the running when it comes to fascism, repressive laws? whilst 'our' govt. may not yet have rounded up 6 million clandestine biochemists and citizen scientists of all other streaks and flavours, pulled any gold teeth from any heads bearing them (or in the government HERE, ignoring the gold fillings, other than maybe trying to
tax the precious metal content, here, they'd be ripping out not Au dentition from jew skulls, but the amalgam fillings from the jaws of citizen scientists, although chances are the gas chambers would be banned on environmental grounds from the use of zyklon-B, and be legally obliged to use nitrogen asphyxiation instead)
Now that recently, the nasty black or purple-dyed 93 and 98% H2SO4 has gone from the shelves (Although Tsath' cannot truthfully claim to be certain of the extent of this, if its specific to
homebase and B&Q, as both of these chains of DIY stores are owned by the same company IIRC, so it is not out of the realms of possibility that 'not allowed to sell it anymore' equates
not to an edict coming from the govt, the EU or the like, but one issued specifically by, and if so, applying only to, these two store chains. The replacement bog unblocker is now 32% HCl.
Toady doesn't see it being much cop at all, at least, not when its intended to be used for the purpose indicated on the bottle. He imagines a repeat of the debacle when in pharmacies, a lot of pseudo products suffered the replacement of their active ingredient with phenylephrine, which by all accounts is utter garbage, according to anyone, and indeed, everyone he has ever spoken to who has taken phenylephrine. Tsath has met plenty of medical personnel too who express the same opinion, that the replacement for pseudo is worthless, inactive shite that simply doesn't work as a nasal decongestant. Tsath hasn't taken it much, once or twice, once not realizing it was present until after. But thats because he responds very badly to the noradrenergic releaser type sympathomimetics like pseudo, ephedrine, cathine and the like, they cause Tsath' horrible akathisia, and he has to deal with enough overstimulation as it is)
H2SO4 worked well for a couple of reasons toady can think of. Its dense, heavy, viscous oily stuff and sinks down to the bottom of the bog bowl. Its not only far more corrosive than hydrochloric is, it has some oxidizing character too when concentrated, but this is of course absent in HCl. Another reason, is that H2SO4 is very exothermic when it meets water, the additional heat, and far greater ability to destroy organics leaves sulfuric in far better standing than HCl of any strength whatsoever, when it comes to having to dissolve a blocked plug of grease, arse hair and/or an unflushable turd(/s)
The difference in aggression is dramatic enough to make Tsath confident that HCl simply won't perform, or if it does at all then it will do so poorly, and at a pace that would make a quadriplegic sea urchin look like usain fucking bolt. He's spilled concentrated HCl on himself before, and once he'd washed it off in decent time it didn't even sting or redden the skin (moderately thick area of skin, upper forearm). He walked from the lab to the bathroom (not far, a few long strides to either bedroom or bog) and washed it off calmly, but without running perdition-for-cured, tanned bovine dermis and diving for the sink and shower)
Not a mark on him after it was removed. H2SO4? never spilled any on himself, thankfully, but after seeing what fuming concentrated H2SO4 does to sucrose, glycerine (not the nicest of things to try, Tsath may well add:P) or a piece of steak that had spoiled and become unfit for consumption, tested some fuming sulfuric on it. Chances are the result of application to a piece of rotten beef, in the simple case of an efficient proton donor will have an effect generalizing quite well to a piece of nice fresh, completely mold-free and decaying stench-less (although staying not advisable for consumption, with the exception only in the case of attractive autie/rett's/aspie ladies
![Grin ;D](https://thevespiary.org/talk/Smileys/default/grin.gif)
) Tsathoggua.
And dropped some H2SO4 on the floor, and once spilled some on a wooden bog seat, disposing of post-rxn garbage (nothing unfit for discharge to the environment). The wood corroded within SECONDS, darkened instantly, leaving a permanent mark both on the seat and the floor it was spilled on. Had that been Toady's flesh, he hasn't got the slightest doubt that it would
have made a dreadful mess of his arm. At least if the old accident with conc. HClO4 from his less cautious, or at least, far, far less experienced, beginning chem days is much to go by, chewed his hand up pretty badly, not sure of the concentration, as it hadn't been titrated, at the time he was too pleased with himself for managing to prepare the perchloric, but strong enough to result in a partial degloving of the hand exposed, and enough to A-fume like an 'old holborn' rollup skinned by the devil himself, and inserted into the anus of a passing
hell-fiend for a light. B-do a nice job of turning organic substrates into something best kept a long way from sources of ignition, friction and shock, whilst C-doing a better one still of turning skin, fat and muscle into something that looked/looks like it would make a good stunt double for a movie part featuring geriatric Freddy Kreuger's botched back-street cowboy surgeon's attempt at a facelift.