And if you "feel lucky" when you Google "titanium"...?

You know that look James' gets? that, bewildered, puzzled, eyebrow-wanting-to-cock look as he stares at you while you're saying something and you just *know* he thinks you're weird? oh, come on, of course you do. He looks at me like that all_the_time. I saw that look just today over a chicken korma and a coke-wth-no-ice, as I was telling him that Titanium was discovered by the Rev. William Gregor in 1791; named by Klaproth in 1795 and the pure metal (99.9%) was made in 1910 when M. A. Hunter (General Electric) heated TiCl4 with sodium in a sealed vessel. Titanium oxide is used in lipsticks and has replaced white lead in paint because of it's covering properties and its non-toxicity (is that a word?). Titanium is a strong, light, bright white metal that is as strong as steel but only 45% of the weight. It has excellent resistance to corrosion and is used in propellors shafts, rigging and other stuff-on-boats. When you burn off the surface, (high-temperature plasma arc) it instantly oxidises to a new and very hard finish, and it's this surface that muscles and bone graft to when titanium implants are used in the human body. Titanium is a "star" metal..from the Cosmos, man. how cool is that? Okay, *technically* we're all made of stars but, this metal is *actually* prominent in the spectra of M-type stars. I bet that's why the human body doesn't regect it.

You know, long weekends are a great idea. Well, they are in *theory*. It might just be me, but every time a long weekend happens by, I don't say "Oh good. I now have 3 days to fit 2 days worth of relaxing into." Oh no. Not me. I say "OK let's try to fit 4 days of exciting, go-out-and-do-stuff days into 3." Weird. Instead of having a relaxing time, the days are hectic...filled with rushing from one venue to the next, afraid that I might miss something and have to wait until the *next* long weekend to do it. I don't know. Perhaps it *is* just me. Oh. Btw, I'm back, fyi.