Attack of the Aluminum

That could also read "Attack of the Aluminium" if you live in the UK or Australia.

Friday the 3rd was the last day of classes here at UBC, and what remains of our semester is called "Exam Period". Of course, exams only being ~2 hours long, this leads to much time on one's hands, and after a full semester of working, doing essays, toiling over labs, and trying oh so hard to get up for 8 a.m. classes, some fun must be had. Bryce, immediately following classes on Friday, had left to go home for the weekend (to get some laundry done up), while his roommate, Ryan stayed here. Seeing a prime opportunity for mischief, Casey, who is lucky enough to have a single room, decided to pull a little prank on Bryce. As it turned out, this prank would not be so little after all. Starting at 6 in the evening on Sunday, aluminum foil was obtained in large quantities, both through the form of purchase, and through the form of legitimate donations by the managers of local food services companies (the Totem Cafeteria and Pie R Squared, the pizza store in Student Union Building, being the primary ones). An underestimate (a gross oversight in this case) of required amounts led to more supplies being acquired later in the evening, from the graveyard kitchen staff of the aforementioned Totem Cafeteria. When all was said and done, the amount of aluminum foil used would appropriately be measured in miles instead of the normal feet, and the author wishes he had invested money in Alcan and Reynolds. But for what could this amount of aluminum be used for?

In Greek mythology King Midas of Phrygia is granted his wish that everything he touched would turn to gold. For one long night our resident Greek and Middle Eastern Archeology student, Casey, wished that he could have an "Aluminum Touch", enabling everything on Bryce's side of the double room to turn to aluminum, and so it did. It took until around 2 in the morning, and required the help of many people (who mostly came and went as they wished), but everything in Bryce's room ended up wrapped like some demented Christmas present, all shiny and silver in colour. All we were missing was Burl Ives singing "Silver and Gold". If you are feeling brave enough, you can download a zip file of pictures that I have prepared, that weighs almost as much as the aluminum ball that could be found in the hallway the next day. Prepare your hard drives for a full 75MB, and download this file.

The next morning, when Bryce arrived with clean underwear in hand, all he could say was "Wow." With all the effort that had been put in, with all the love and care it took to wrap all his possessions, Bryce couldn't feel angry, but instead amazed. It only took about half and hour to unwrap the room and contents, which made for an aluminum ball about two feet across. Believe me, an aluminum ball two feet across is next to impossible to "hackey sack", but it sure was fun to wrap up an early Christmas for an unsuspecting receiver.