stupid poll question that's stupid.

@ThomasF what kind of knife though?

@carl669 Butterfly, for style points.

@ThomasF only if you don’t slice yourself opening it. no one wants bloody ice cubes.

@carl669 Not a problem. You can rinse them off in warm water before you use them and the blood will go away. You are welcome.

@Moose yeah, but that would result in partially melted ice.

@carl669 @Moose Turn the tray upside down and run warm water on the bottom of the tray for a few seconds. It will loosen the ice cube without noticeably melting it. Put your hand under the tray to catch the cube in case it falls out. If it doesn’t fall out, you should be able to easily pop it out.

@heartny I kind of prefer @shahnm’s method below.

@carl669 @shahnm But what if you’re out of batteries? <gasp>

@carl669 @heartny

@heartny YOU TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW!!

@communist Where’s the fourth one?

@communist @therealjrn see @dave’s answer above. The 2 for 99 cents ones are good about cracking for you.

@communist @dave @djslack I wish I had a forum spokesperson, too.

@shahnm I could learn so much about battery storage and its relationship to ice from you.

@carl669

@carl669 maybe @shahnm will tell us if batteries taste good with fudge sauce…

@carl669 @Kidsandliz This is a personal journey of discovery that each Mehtizen must conduct on his or her own.

@shahnm Ruh Roh. I’ve hit a snag. — the dog.

@mike808 @shahnm That looks like a cat butt.

@Kidsandliz @mike808 I think it might be the cat you threw out the window…

@mike808 @shahnm NO then it would look like this:
/image cockroach only rear end

many edits later I give up on /image cockroach butt.

It seems the website hosting that pic doesn’t like the meh traffic. So here’s another one. Blame me.

I told the cat “We’re gonna need a bigger battery”.
— the dog

@Kidsandliz @mike808 That’s the ugliest cat I’ve ever seen.

@hems79

@carl669 @hems79

@capguncowboy please send me your address and a plane ticket. economy is fine.

@gertiestn

@gertiestn what kind of awful person needs to bring up politics every where they go? You must be a blast at parties.

@f00l and here I thought you were going to say complete submission (and are you that old that you use an archaic spelling /kidding)

@Kidsandliz

Re archaic spelling:

Just a lame attempt to be cute.

Please tell me I succeeded in being cute.

If not, I’ll have to beat the universe into actual Completed Oblivion. Which is a much more serious scenario.

@f00l All while screaming at the top of my lungs, “YOU WILL NOT WIN! YIELD TO ME!!”

@jst1ofknd you sure? everyone needs a snack now and then.

@carl669 @jst1ofknd snacks are great.

@jst1ofknd @RiotDemon fucking autocorrect.

*smack

@carl669 You must have typed ducking, but autocorrect…

@curtise what can i say? sometimes ducking autocorrect gets it right.

except not that time.

@carl669

I’m sure that I don’t need a ducking snack. Maybe another day.

/giphy ducking snack

@jst1ofknd you’re gross

@unksol

Yuck. I couldn’t watch the whole clip.

/giphy I am gross

@mfladd please send me your address and a plane ticket. economy is fine.

@unksol I thought the bin was where the batteries go.

@carl669 @unksol No the bin is where stale ice cubes go that have freezer burn. This is to protect the batteries.

@Kidsandliz how can ice have freezer burn. FFS

@unksol Don’t know what else to call it. Old ice is kind of like snow that has partly melted and then frozen again.

@Kidsandliz @unksol

https://www.knowswhy.com/why-do-ice-cubes-shrink-in-the-freezer/

Ice cubes shrink when left in the freezer for a long time because of the process of sublimation. This is occurs when a solid mass changes directly into gas. This occurrence is not at all unusual for there are substances and conditions that make this happen.

[Lots of words cut from here]

However, when you leave your ice cubes undisturbed for quite some time, you will see that it has indeed shrunk. The worse thing that can happen is that it has taken in the flavors and odors of the other things in the freezer. So the next time you go on vacation check first your ice cubes before using it to cool your drink when you get back.

@eonfifty @unksol No doubt that is the reason for the “stale” I posted. When I lived in northern Canada (took people dogsledding in the winter), we’d hang our laundry outside to dry (no space inside to hang it not to mention that then drips on the floor would freeze and we’d be skating around inside) and it would sublimate. It would also break if we accidentally hit the frozen clothes against something too. Nothing quite like knocking off part of the leg of a pair of jeans.

Fortunately for me I don’t have any ice cube trays in my freezer and don’t have an ice maker either so this entire conversation is academic as far as I am concerned. No ice in the house (well outside of jars full of water to take up space in the freezer) .

@aetris I grew up with ice cube trays. And knew when to crack the three stacked trays into the bin when it was low and refill them. All at once.

But the house I bought came with an indoor ice dispenser in the fridge. Pretty sure these are original appliances so 20 years old. Never broken down once.

What I hate about it is when some guest changes it from cubes to crushed. Then even if you notice to change it back you get a mess of leftover crushed ice. What sort of monster uses crushed ice.

@unksol - Please recommend your appliance model! Our 2nd house came with a fridge ice-maker that started dripping water after about ten years. Had it ‘repaired’ twice, then disconnected the ice maker. The ones at work didn’t even last that long.

I grew up with those metal trays that had a sort of levered divider which kind of cracked the ice apart, but ultimately bent the tray apart! There must’ve been a time when we used up all the ice in the bin in a cycle, but for the last 30-odd years I get about halfway through a bin, then find the rest has congealed into freezer burn. It’s less work to just do a tray or two at a time.

@aetris just your standard white Kenmore. Pretty sure it’s builder grade. Even with an ice maker you have to break up the ice if you don’t use it enough.

@aetris @unksol The Whirlpool “modular” icemaker (that’s what it’s called in the trade) is pretty simple, and easy to repair if it needs it. I bought a new fridge last month, and the icemaker was identical to the one in our 22 year old fridge.

@geekahedron The same kind of monster who leaves the milk or orange juice in the fridge with just one swallow left because they don’t want to be the one to “finish it off” and have to throw out the container.

This kind of monster wants to be able to say, on a technicality, that they weren’t the one who “finished off X” or “ate the last of X” when someone asks who was the one who did it.

@geekahedron @Kidsandliz Is it the kind of monster who throws a cat out the window?

@geekahedron @Kidsandliz divorce/adoption/estrangement is always a good option.

@shahnm It was the cockroach you smart ass. Your batteries will be next. With the fridge.

When I lived in the Netherlands I was listening to a carillon concert and was standing near the Ann Frank house. I saw, across the canal a young guy get shoved out the door and down the stairs by his, I presume now, ex-girlfriend. Then she threw a bunch of bags of stuff after him plus some more bags out of the upstairs window. Very entertaining.

@Kidsandliz I don’t know how gullible you think I am, but there is no way a cockroach threw that cat out the window.

@f00l @carl669 Remember, batteries go in the refrigerator. Ice cubes come from the freezer. If you screw it up and do this backwards, you’ll have batterysicles and unfrozen water. I suppose you could use those batterysicles to further chill your water, but I’d have to blame @mike808 for that…

@Kawa

@mike808

@Kyser_Soze Hey my grandmother’s farm only had an outhouse through the late 1960’s or early 70’s.

@Kyser_Soze please send me your address and a plane ticket. we can discuss what time you should pick me up.

@blaineg

initially, i was like, “ice isn’t clear enough? definite first world problem.”

by the end, “i need some cylindrical ice. fuck this trapezoidal tray shit.”

@blaineg @carl669
/youtube cocktail chemistry clear ice

@carl669 How about spherical?

@blaineg @carl669 Balls

@blaineg Well, that’s one way to do it.

@blaineg OK so this is a really dump question but why does anyone even care of the ice cube is square, round, lumpy…?

@blaineg @Kidsandliz one is presentation, especially in cocktails.

Another is that a sphere has the least amount of surface area for a given volume, so an ice sphere should water down a drink the slowest of all possible ice shapes.

@djslack @Kidsandliz Physics! Or maybe Fezziks?