Darmox's Journal: Twice now fire extinguisers have failed when needed

Or, as I like to think of it, I've never had a fire extinguiser work when it was needed.

Sitting around this evening watching The Simpsons, and hear a slight cracking noise, see some steam-ish looking stuff in the kitchen, and for all intents and purposes, it sounds as if a pot of water is boiling over on the stove.

But no, its much worse. I and my roommate bolt up and run to the kitchen to find the stove covered in flames. It seems to be more or less coming from a can of PAM on the stove. I grab the fire extinguiser, look for the thing to pull. Can't find it. Pull the trigger. nothing.

After a moment or two, the flames died down a little (from having been licking the wall and cabinets above the stove,) and I'm able to grab the can with a towel and throw it outside. There was also a bottle of peanut oil partly on fire, although that seemed to be just the plastic of the bottle, and was easy to get outside. There was also a container of salt(cardboard, good old Morton's or something like that, and can't tell because the lable burned off completely,) but that wasn't so bad.

We managed to get the fires out pretty well, with nothing else to worry about, etc., so that's something at least. And we've learned something. When the can says don't store on top of a stove, it means it.

On a semi-related note, it is interesting that the can has several (about 8) sets of slits (3 each) around the top of it, that are ordinarily contained within it, however, if the pressure gets to high, the top portion pops up, and allows the pressure to vent off there. Cool stuff, I suppose.

So that's my excitement for the day.

On blogs

I hated blogs. I've been waiting for the fad to die down, but maybe this is where I start doing these. I think I'll have to put it on my own site though, if I do, and work up a cool Mason setup... although movable type is cool to. I don't want to turn into a blogger. Really I don't.