Shaving Cream How much shaving cream is in a can of shaving cream? Hard to tell. Until now. On Wednesday night, Mark, Leif and I emptied a can onto the kitchen table. We used an 11 oz. can of Colgate shaving cream, my home in Sacramento is about 20 feet above sea level. The pile of shaving cream was pretty big, but not as big as we thought it would be. We weren't sure what we should do with it... (c) 1999 Cockeyed.com | Last Updated November, 1998...but really, how could I update this? Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Toothpaste How much toothpaste is there in a tube? It seems like we use one up every week! On Wednesday night, we AIMed to find out. I dispensed a six ounce (170 g) tube of Ultra Brite toothpaste in a thin line along the kitchen floor in an effort to accurately quantify the amount of paste in the tube. One hundred and thirteen inches, or 2.87 meters of paste per tube. There is a bit more than an inch of brushy area on toothbrushes, so a tube should provide 113 liberal brushes. With the study completed, and the room smelling minty fresh, we all elected to brush our teeth. Wow! That Ultra Brite really puts some shine on! Always remember to floss. Also, don't get toothpaste near your eyes. It stings. Probably the mint oil. Maybe it is the flouride... Always use eye protection when brushing your teeth. Click on the above photo to see the amazing large negativeland photo. (c) 1999 Cockeyed.com | Last Updated December, 1998 Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com EZ Cheese How much Whiz is there in a can of Cheese Whiz? I say Whiz, because that orange stuff sure as hell isn't cheese! On Thursday morning, we found out. I set up a saltine to cheesify for the big party we are having in a month or two. I like to get some things ready in advance. I used Nabisco EZ Cheese because it tastes better than Cheese Whiz. Unfortunately, the propellant in the can doesn't really aerate the cheese, it just kind of expels it... as I did. There was only a tiny pile of cheese food when we were done. The eight ounce can of EZ Cheese yielded about a cup of goo, which by the way, is eight fluid ounces. One can contains enough decorative orange swirl for about 9 crackers. It was almost lunch time, so I enjoyed a light hors d'oerve before transferring these photos to the computer. I couldn't help but sneak one before the party! Warning: Always where safety goggles when operating aerosol food. Never dispense near fire or flame. (c) 1999 Cockeyed.com | Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Whipped Cream How much Whipped Cream is there in a can of Reddi Wip? How many spelling liberties? Even though this is almost the same visual effect as shaving cream, we had to find out. Whipped cream has been dispensed under pressure for decades, usually onto ice cream, so I emptied out a large can of whipped cream into a pint of Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough Ice cream. It took nearly 60 seconds to empty the can, and my ice cream was awash in cool topping! I estimate the volume to be a quart of whipping. The can had a bit of propellant left inside when I was done, so I decided to try filling my lungs with the mysterious gas. I guess the hot lights from the photo-shoot had made me lightheaded, as I soon started laughing and suddenly passed out cold! Neither Mark nor I remember this photo being taken, but when we got the pictures back, we found Mark had tried shaving with the whipped cream! I encourage everyone working around hot lights to use extreme caution! (c) 1999 Cockeyed.com | Last Updated March, 1999 Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Aluminum Foil How much aluminum foil is in a roll? Well, 200 square feet, it says so right on the box. But what if you are trying to wrap a large amount of food? How many rolls should you buy? We were not sure, so on Saturday, we cracked open a new roll, and tried to cover my entire car. We couldn't exploit foil's unique wrap-around adhesion properties, so we were forced to use tape to get started on the hood. Everyone helped, Marc, Kara, Chuck, Mike, James and Ambur.Actually, Kara didn't help at all, she just stood around, and Leif asserts that he WOULD have helped, but that he had to go to work. We carefully covered the top and sides of the car, followed by the bumpers and wheels. Mark paid special attention to the antenna and wiper-blades. It took a long time, with everyone pulling aluminum off of the same roll. This episode of "How Much is Inside" took place outside in the open, exposing my delicate research to public scrutiny. I took the opportunity to promote cockeyed.com. I may need to develop some promotional materials if this exposure continues. Suddenly it became obvious why the Delorean sports car was such a sensation: The car looked awesome! I busied myself with stretching the end of the aluminum while my co-horts devised plans to get the car up to 88 miles per hour at the precise moment we applied the 300 Gigawatts of power to the flux capacitor. We had just enough aluminum to cover the body of the car, and 3 of the tires. About 5 square feet short of covering the last wheel, we were out of foil. We didn't have any foil left to build the rear mounted "anti-spoiler". We should have tried a smaller car. A nice '74 bug perhaps would have been nicely covered in foil, safe from bird droppings and freezer burn. Anyway, we came pretty close, and you now know how much is inside. I am going to leave the car wrapped for one year, filled with rare foodstuffs and survival equipment for the millenium crisis. I will use this car to travel the barren irradiated plains in search of the precious juice, fighting roving bands of brigands with my crossbow. I'll be OK...as long as my camera works. Epilogue Ah, Crap! (c) 1999 Cockeyed.com | Last Updated March, 1999 Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Expanding Foam How much expanding foam is there in a can? It is hard to tell. On Feb 13, 1999, Mike and I found out. The foam is created as the two liquids in the can combine. The chemical reaction between the liquids releases gas into the emerging, hardening mass. Expanding foam is a remarkable product, more of a toy, in my opinion, than any other chemical in Home Depot. I have had some experience with an older product, the 2-part expanding foam kit, sold in small cans like rubber cement. The two-part foam is less convenient, but much cheaper per cubic inch of foam. The foam we used was Touch 'n Foam, in the 20 oz. can. I made a rough outline of a body on a sheet of cardboard and began filling in the body with expanding foam. The foam emerges in a long snake, about as wide as a garden house. It quickly expands to the size of fire hose, and continues to slowly expand and harden for the next 30 minutes. The cans are not inexpensive, and if you use the can even a little bit, the hardened foam will block any further use of the can, so don't use any until you are ready to use it all. Also, the uncured foam sticks with amazing tenacity to any surface, so always wear gloves. Furthermore, never glob it onto your head or face to give yourself horns or a funny nose. When Mark gets back from the hospital, we are going to do public service messages about that. My little figure filled out nicely. I made the torso too long, but it was definitely human-shaped. I was hopeful that the foam would expand enough to give my figure a realistic depth, but the foam was not up to the task. In 30 minutes I had Flat-man. He measured 5'6", and had about a 22" waist. He weighed less than the white pages. Perhaps filling an aquarium would have been a better display of the actual volume of foam produced, but I was afraid the foam would actually BREAK the glass in its relentless expansion. Don't believe me? Ask Wagner. Flat man hung around my apartment for a few days before he started BOTHERING me. I grew tired of his blank stare and jealous of his perfect posture. Even painting him a festive red didn't help! Before the end of the week, I was burying him in a shallow grave at the elementary school. Flat man will definitely never bother anyone again. (c) 1999 Cockeyed.com | Last Updated May, 1999 Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Blood How much blood is in a human being? Hard to tell. Until now. I looked it up on the internet. I know this is not as accurate or informative as a proper bloodletting, but it was the best I could do within the borders of the United States. I also consulted my father, a retired criminalist and pumped him for details. As it turns out, he performed a similar experiment decades ago in Butte County, California. He assured me there is a simple rule of thumb for the amount of blood in a human. He didn't have that formula readily available, so I just took his word for it, that 6 quarts is about right for an adult male. On Mother's day, 1999, I went to my parents' house well prepared: one gallon of "Imitation Maple-flavored Pancake Syrup and a half-gallon of Hyacinth Punch Mix. Both are corn-syrup based. Hyacinth is a plant fabled in classic myth to have sprung from the spilled blood of Hyacinthus. After breakfast with Mom, we set out to find a deserted area to make a big mess. I was thinking in terms of a business park, but mom had a suggestion: "Maybe you should do that at the dead-end of a street." Jane and Sue jumped into the car and we started cruising for a secluded "accident scene". We settled on a nearby warehouse complex. Jane grabbed a smoke while Sue and I put the gloves on. We poured the punch mix and pancake syrup together into a bucket. It was so tasty and delicious, I was having a hard time keeping my mitts off of the sweet, sweet sauce! I proceeded to pour it into a little lake on the asphalt. BLOOD! BLOOD! AAAAAHHHHHHHH! It was a tiny little puddle of blood. Kind of disappointing. Imagine if one of us had given our lives for this pitiful little display? We were suddenly glad we hadn't! Especially Jane, who had lost the coin-toss. The blood was thick on the ground, as thick as a mousepad, slowly spreading out across the lot. At this time it measured 87" at one wide spot. I estimate the surface area to have been 21 square feet. The blood was creeping and we were sleeping. After almost 10 minutes, we realized this could take all day, so we started spreading it around by hand. When we were done, Sue showed me how to remove my gloves like a real lab rat. We simulated the eventual expanse of a person's blood across a stretch of non-absorbant land. 111 inches at the widest spot. I estimate the bloody surface area to have been 36 square feet. This is about the size of a Honda's shadow. There is a lot of blood in a human, but not a huge, gruesome lake of blood. Just a small red pool. It was great to have Sue and Jane help, they let me boss them around and they had constructive ideas. I realized Sunday that I have probably the least-squeamish family in the world. Last updated May 13, 1999. Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Silly String How much silly string is in a can? Lots. The proud label exclaims: over 400 feet of string! Instant party! I vividly recall being disappointed on past occasions by the sparse amount of string in one of these $5.60 cans of instant party. Today, these bold claims would be put to the test. Brooke was up visiting Mark on April 23rd, so she was our designated sprayer. To best measure the string, I had her run along a long concrete wall, spraying as she ran. I was hoping to get a straight line of string on the wall, which would be easier to measure than the usual silly-string cluster-blob of goo. Brooke did a great job. She made it all the way down the wall and halfway back before the can ran out of whatever stringredients are inside those slim cans. The string stuck nicely to the wall, but it wasn't in a neat little line. It came out really fast, which is good for partying, but not good for measuring. It was a crinkley green web that backtracked onto itself over and over again. It was especially glodgey where Brooke had made the turn back up the wall. There was nothing we could do but measure the line. The line was 269 feet long, and there was 3 feet, 4 inches left hanging from the can's nozzle. I sampled 2 nine-inch sections along the wall, and found that each contained about 5 feet of over-lapping string (58 inches and 51 inches). I divided the 269 feet into 358 9" sections, averaged the actual string sample at 54.5" per section, multiplied to get 1629 feet on the wall, and added the hanging string to get a total: 1,632 feet of string. That is about a third of a mile! The label was way off. Although technically, it does state "over 400 feet", it is obvious that real measurements were never taken. As for the "instant party", I don't think any length of silly string can take that title from the original party favor: Alcohol. Last updated May, 1999 Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Lipstick How much is inside a lipstick? I really, really wanted to know. From MAC counter girls to drama majors and Avon salespeople, no one knew the answer to this question...until now. The popular guess is about 120 applications, depending on lip size and makeup enthusiasm. At the MAC counter, Brooke picked out a color she could wear consistently (Twig $13.50). We took it home and weighed it. The full container was 18.5 grams (including cap). Three weeks later, she had used the lipstick 30 times, and it was barely dented. The scale showed it was just two-tenths of a gram lighter than when we had started! An empty MAC tube (used to the nub) weighs 15.5 grams, which it precisely what it should when you subtract the 3 grams of lipstick indicated on the label. If Brooke continued using the lipstick, it would yield another 420 applications! Three grams of lipstick will provide almost 450 applications, enough for 8 days. Next, we had to calculate the surface area of Brooke's lips. Careful measurements and calculations revealed she has 5.32 cm2 of lip area. Use this number when comparing your lips to Brooke's. As Brooke was slowly making her way through the first lipstick, our friend Carli, Chanel Beaute Analyste, made a valuable contribution to science: Two full Lancôme lipsticks. This allowed me to attack this question from another angle. Ambur volunteered her legs for the 2nd phase of the lipstick experiment. Starting at her feet, I worked my way up with Lancôme's "Rouge Sensation Sepia". Ambur thought it was pretty funny when the stick snapped off because I had it dialed out too far...but I recovered before the operation was ruined. As her legs were covered in red, Ambur had a thought, "I could apply this lipstick to a hundred women, just by kicking them in the face". I was just below her knees when the lipstick bottomed out. The stump weighed 10.5 grams, only 4 grams less than when I started! This was surprising because Lancôme sticks are labeled at 4.5 grams. Obviously the people at Lancôme were counting the lipstick inside the base! Rip off! I composed and posted an angry letter to Lancôme headquarters. Really, really complex math revealed that the covered surface area on Ambur's legs was about 2,720 square centimeters. I told Ambur not to worry about any perverts seeing these pictures; the Internet is too complicated for them to figure out! This is comparable to the calculated 2,350 square centimeters from Brooke's MAC (Make-up Art Cosmetics). So, there you have it, a lipstick contains between 300 and 500 applications, depending on the size of your lips and everything. Remember kids, always use eye-protection when applying lipstick. Last updated April 14, 2000 Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Newspaper How much Paper is there in a Sunday Newspaper? Usually they are rolled up in a log, and that makes them difficult to visualize spread out flat. On Monday, we headed out to Marshall Park to find out. I had saved the whole paper the day before; a nice thick minor-holiday Sacramento Bee for Memorial Day. The cover price was $1.39, and it had a 16 inch girth. Colleen, Brooke, Chris and Natalie helped me tape it together. I thought it would be a little bigger than a basketball court, and Colleen thought it would be 20 x 20 feet. We were all pretty excited to find out the truth. The light breeze was wreaking havok on our project, so we started taping it to the grass. Ten or 15 people saw what we were up to, but only a couple came over to ask...we didn't have a good explanation. There were about 10 sections, from 4 to 8 pages each. We disassembled the TV times, Parade, Family magazine and all the glossy stuff that is in the center of a Sunday paper. That stuff is included. We didn't last long in the hot sun before Chris and Brooke made a drink run to Am/Pm. We took a break when they got back, reading what was left of the project. A Newspaper seems like about 50% ads, although we didn't do any calculations. After the break, we finally got it all taped together. It looked like Colleen was going to have the closest guess, so she started measuring with Natalie. It was a large, rough rectangle measuring 12' x 21', or 252 square feet. It was about the size of a classroom, a little bigger than a 200 ft. roll of aluminum foil. Each page is 27" x 22", so that works out to about 61 pages. If you multiply that times the Bee Sunday Circulation (357,408) you could cover 90 million square feet, or 10 million square yards, 2,067 Acres, or 836 Hectares, or 3.23 square miles, which is precisely the size of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. We lounged around the paper for a while. Sunday papers emit a chemical that promotes lounging around. Colleen and Brooke rolled themselves up in the newpaper, and hilarity ensued, but unfortunately my camera was set on extra-blurry mode, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Last updated June 2, 2000. Terms and Conditions Copyright 2000 Cockeyed.com Cheerios How much cereal is inside one of those boxes of Cheerios? Inspired by Leif's Fruit Loop Necklace, which I bought a regular size (15oz.) box of Cheerios, and set about counting them. Before I opened the box, I took a quick poll of the people present. How many Cheerios would be in here? I guessed 890, Mike guessed 734, Ken guessed 662 and Antonia guessed 1200. How about you? Although the physical count interested me, I was excited to find out how long the cheerios string would be. Would I have enough necklaces for a whole camp of underprivleged youths? I dumped the box into a bowl and started counting. I quickly realized this was going to take forever, and devised a faster way to string them. I fashioned a 4-inch "needle" out of a wire hanger, and dragged it repeatedly through the cereal. This was remarkably effective. I used wooden clothes pins to keep track of 50s and 100s of Cheerios. It took about 7 hours to string up the o's. I spent the time in front of the TV, watching American Movie Channel. The final count was finally in: Four thousand, eight hundred and two Cheerios were in the box. I was surprised to find that most of the cheerios were complete circles, with less than 40 little broken bits (oddios). This was WAY more Cheerios than I expected, although by the time I had counted 1000, I had a pretty good idea that my estimates were way off. Only one hundred Cheerios took up 18 5/8 inches of string. The next day after work, Jane, Brianna and Mike helped me hoist the entire Cheerios string outside to measure it. The string was half a block long. It was so long that I had to move the tape 3 times to measure the whole string. It ended up being 73 feet, 2 5/8" long. At last, a Cheerios necklace suitable for Mr. T! The recommended serving size is about one cup of Cheerios. That is about 5 feet worth, so if you eat your height in Cheerios, you are getting 50% of your RDA of Folic Acid. Steve Pham hated Cheerios because they never give out toy prizes. Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Last updated November 6, 2000. Terms and Conditions Copyright 2000 Cockeyed.com Doritos How much is inside a bag of Doritos? Everyone knows that there are just the right amount of chips in a bag to make you feel queasy, but only a few people know exactly how many chips that is. A friend of Leif's sister, Doug Snyder of Austin, Texas wrote in and suggested this, and several other great ideas. Why can't everyone be more like Doug? So, here it is, the first "how much is inside" that was suggested by someone I don't know! On Wednesday night I drove out to Davis where Brooke's new apartment is. She and Pam were hanging out, ready to embark on a bold scientific odyssey. The goal was to lay the chips out next to each other to discover the square footage of one 13.5 oz. bag of Doritos NACHO CHEESIER. The bag was US$2.96 We quickly surveyed the available floorspace, and decided that there wasn't enough to lay the chips out...I mean, she has a good four or five square yards of tile in the kitchen, but we really didn't want to be cramped in there. Anyway, Pam has access to the MU down at the University of California at Davis, so we walked over in the drizzly rain. We picked out a nice spot on the tile floor near the DANGEROUS ramp. Of course, when you open a bag of chips, there is only about a third of the bag that is actually full of chips, the rest is full of deadly nitrogen!. We dumped the chips out on the floor and spread the intact triangles out first. After those 6 were aligned, we started tessellating the rest of the chips. We sat silently, arranging chips. Brooke noticed that this activity was not unlike that of teenage speed-freaks, methodically arranging chips on the floor. The chips on the floor started taking a rough shape and we realized we had better whip them into a shape we could measure with ease: a diamond. The rest of the corn-dust was quickly arranged to finish off the shape. We were looking at the VERY TOP of the food pyramid. We measured the sides and calculated the area: It was 576 square inches, exactly 4 square feet! It was a good thing that the measurements were done because as soon as we were finished, the women with the brooms came by and eyed our work. Then the A/V guys came by with an overhead projecter. It was the middle of the night, and this place was still like grand central station. Brooke and Pam survey our work. goldfinger! The bag says the serving size is 17 chips...it seemed like a lot to me too, but BOY are they good! We cleaned up our chips and put them back into the bag. We weren't really hungry, so we left them by the stairs. I am sure someone enjoyed them! Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Last updated January 26, 2001. Terms and Conditions Copyright 2001 Cockeyed.com Batteries How much is inside a couple of "D" cell batteries? Like lipstick, no one seems to know how long batteries last in your flashlight. As part of the planning for the flashlight party, I got together with Colleen and Julia to find out. Julia, Colleen and I had two flashlights and two sets of batteries, a cheap set and a high-tech looking pair of Duracell D cells with M3 technology. The label described them as Ultra The Most Powerful Duracell Battery. We made wagers regarding which flashlight would last the longest. Guesses for the Duracells: Rob 45 minutes, Julia 6 hours, Colleen 9 hours, Vincent guessed about 2 weeks, but give him a break, he is only 5 years old. How long do you think a couple of "D" cell Duracells will last? 30 minutes 2 hours 4 hours 8 hours 16 hours 36 hours 72 hrs (3days) 116 hrs (5days) 2 weeks ? At exactly 8 pm, we started the cheapo batteries in the chrome chinese flashlight, but efforts to get the cheap orange Home Depot flashlight were fruitless. We would have to do this one set at a time. First the "super heavy duty" eX-cell batteries, then the Duracells in the same flashlight. With one flashlight blazing, we decided to take care of all the tasks around Colleen's apartment that could use a little flash-light. We checked the circuit breakers! We found out what was making that snapping sound out back! We checked the pilot light on the water heater! We scoured the bathroom for Colleen's earrings! We fixed the leak in the kitchen! Within two hours, I knew my guess had been wrong. The flashlight showed no signs of dying. midnight, one a.m., two a.m., I was falling asleep. I didn't was to miss the flashlight's finale, so I made note of the time and went to sleep. Imagine Colleen & Julia's surprise when I showed up the next morning at Noah's bagels with my flashlight still going! The flashlight lasted all day! I had expected much less out of those two little batteries. I think it was because they are so small, it is hard to imagine anything taking so long to empty out of them. That night I turned off the flashlight again, it had dimmed a little, after 20 hours of use. and again I didn't want it to die in my sleep. So there I was. The weekend was over and I had a dentist appointment. I brought along the flashlight. I had begun to notice that people are unnerved by a flashlight that is on for no apparent reason. The dental hygienist wanted to turn it off & so did Ken. So did the guy at Carl's Jr. The batteries were lasting and lasting..and these were still the cheap-o batteries. after about 33 hours, the flashlight had lost most of its power, and was now just a brown circle of light. It was enough to read by, but I wouldn't want to have to find a lost contact lens with it. After 40 hours the flashlight was down to a little glowing wire. It was pretty much useless, and the wire glowed for about 7 hours before it went completely dead. Now it was the Duracell's turn. At a retail price of $3.69 for the pair, they were going to have to be very good indeed to match the value of the 48 cent eX-cells. They were going to have to be 7 times as good. On Wednesday morning, I loaded up the Duracells & they began their quest for knowledge. I thought that they would probably beat the cheap batteries, but that they would have a hard time doubling their burn-time. All day and night Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday they lasted. The Duracells lasted, and were retaining almost their full power throughout the test. Impressive. Finally on Sunday night they died. 116 hours in total! I had no idea batteries lasted this long! My experience with flashlights is that they work for 5 minutes, and then get very, very dim, so how is it that these batteries lasted so damn long? In any case, I was now certain that the batteries would be adequate for party-use...unless the party went for 4 or 5 days. Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Last updated March 5, 2001. Terms and Conditions Copyright 2001 Cockeyed.com Magic Shell How much is inside a bottle of magic shell? Simply put, magic shell is awesome. It is ACTION FOOD! It forms a hard shell when put on top of ice cream, which protects it from burrowing insects and mites. It is the perfect way to make ice cream more fun & your classmates jealous. Developed in the 1960s through a collaborative effort between the U.S. Army and Industrial Light and Magic, magic shell was designed to be a bulletproof camouflage coating for armored vehicles. After botched field trials in Cambodia and Syria, the delicious butterscotch coating was tried on a Swedish LVKV9 deep in the frozen Siberian tundra. One of the servicemen got some magic shell fragments on his tongue, and the rest is history! I was certain we would need a large surface to pour out all of the magic shell, but Jennifer thought we wouldn't need too large an area. Checking the label, the magic shell container held only a measly 7.25 fluid ounces of product, less than a measuring cup! Jennifer was going to be right about this one. I wanted to measure the surface area on a simple flat surface, so I sliced apart 4 cartons of ice cream. Mint Chocolate Chip, French Vanilla, Neapolitan and Cappuccino chip. We had created a two square-foot plane of ice cream goodness! With the creamy proving grounds ready, I shook the magic shell very well. I turned the bottle upside down and shook it, as the label told me to. To be more precise, it told me to SHAKE MAGIC SHELL VERY WELL! TURN THE BOTTLE UPSIDE DOWN AND SHAKE WELL FOR AT LEAST 20 SECONDS! These directions used all capitals and boldface font, and those exclamation marks. These instructions didn't leave much room for error, revealing their military roots. The magic shell was thick at first, covering the ice cream completely, but I eased up Six of the ice cream patches had been affected It looked a little too thick, so I spread it around a little with a spatula. The bottle doesn't recommend this, they say you should use a cool iron. Jennifer carefully measured with the food ruler, there was a rough square 9 inches by 9 inches (23cm by 23 cm). After four hours of complex calculations, we found the total area to be 81 square inches (520 square cm). It was about an eighth of an inch thick. When planning a party, buy two bottles of magic shell for each child under 7, and three bottles per adult serving. If you are covering a three-ball snowman, buy 31 bottles. With the experiment complete, I helped myself to a quart of the cappuccino chip. Jennifer didn't want any. I guess she doesn't like cappuccino chip... or Mint Chocolate Chip..or French Vanilla or Neapolitan. Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Last updated July 24, 2001. Terms and Conditions Copyright 2001 Cockeyed.com 40 Foot Shipping Container How much is inside one of those 40' shipping containers? No one knows, because they are always sealed shut. Luckily, they show up from time to time in parking lots and jobsites, so you can get your hands near them. I first became fascinated with shipping containers when I spotted them mentioned in Civilization 2 as a technological achievement. This confused me at first, but I now understand that before these things became the norm, people spent weeks loading and unloading ships with carefully packed clay urns and cargo nets full of pumpkins. It was a mess. Malcolm McLean is credited as the inventor of the simple but revolutionary idea of a standard-sized shipping container that could be loaded onto ships, railcars and trucks. Invented in 1956, they changed cargo shipping from a labor-intensive enterprise to a equipment-intensive enterprise. Oh, crap, these stories are supposed to be funny. Al Teich has more information and links if you are interested. Some of these photos are from that website. Containerized cargo includes every commodity imaginable -- retail such as clothing and electronics, foodstuffs, agricultural products and industrial goods. Special features: Hangar beams which allow the transport of garments on hangars without further packing An extra high payload and extra door-width versions Bull rings and lashing bars to give your cargo added security Ventilated containers for crops, such as coffee and cocoa Imagine her surprise when a gift this large arrives! Gift wrap is available for a small fee. This 40' container was 39'4" long, 7'6" tall, and 7'8" wide inside. The container holds 2261 cubic feet of area (despite the figures displayed on the outside). That is about 84 cubic yards. In the business, ships are divided into 20' container units known as TEU (twenty foot equivalent units). Want to rent one? $85 delivery to site/ $85 withdrawal from site 40' container for 4 months, $145/month with premium locks. Rich Jenkins @ Valley Portable Storage in California (800)489-RENT Thinking of buying? ~USD$2450 for a used 40 footer, aluminum or steel The Maersk Sealand website gives shipping prices online, Oakland to London in 25 days, with ships leaving every 10 days or so. Shipping opium may be illegal, check with laws and customs in your area. On the left, you can see a screen shot of the software crane operators use to load the ships. Sometimes they are dealing with 5000 containers on a single ship. The containers used for perishable items are called Reefer containers. They are great for shipping ganja, marijuana and hemp too. Special features Super Payload version holding up to 29.5 tons Super Cool version maintaining a cargo temperature of -27°C/ -15°F Dehumidification system ensuring the optimal humidity inside the container Controlled atmosphere providing the optimal conditions, improving quality and shelf life Environmentally-friendly CFC free R-134A refrigerant Super Freezers capable of maintaining temperatures as low as -60°C/ -76°F Jennifer measured the floor. She rolled her eyes when I asked the realtor if they were genuine hardwood. A ship named Sovereign Maersk holds 3,300 of these long containers. The price to deliver? Well, sending a 40' container of clothes from Long Beach California to Costa Rica costs about USD$2,427 To ship from Oakland to Belfast, Great Britain, it is USD$5,781 The 40-foot containers are usually stowed on deck. Refrigerated containers are stacked in special areas with electrical outlets. Light or empty containers usually travel on deck at the top of container stacks, so those containers you saw tumbling off the ship in A Perfect Storm were probably empty or filled with stuffed animals. So, want to send some shoes to your friend in the Philippines? One 40' container can hold 12,384 shoeboxes. That is enough shoes for a fresh pair every day for 34 years. Thinking of importing some exotic Marlboro cigarettes? One 40' container can hold 55,511 cartons of filtered cigarettes!. That is eleven million cigarettes, enough to give a post-coital smoke to every adult in the Netherlands! Thinking of inviting Mark Hamilton to your party? A 40' shipping container can hold 649 kegs! Want to ship some pumpkins? You could fit a hundred and four of these pumpkin boxes inside a 40' container. Just label it "cornucopia" and send it to Salem, Massachusetts! Hooray for shipping containers! Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Last updated Sept. 29th, 2001. Terms and Conditions Copyright 2001 Cockeyed.com Plen T Pak of chewing gum How much is inside a pack of gum? More precisely, how much gum is in a Plen-T-Pak of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit Chewing Gum? Nobody knows for sure, but on Wednesday, Holly and I decided to find out. Gum is the only commodity that I know of that comes in 17-packs. The unopened packs are the perfect-sized gum package. A pack costs about 89 cents US. With the waterproof yellow package opened, a magazine of chewing gum can be found underneath. Each stick of gum is wrapped in aluminum foil at the Wrigley gum factory. They use hundreds of tiny rolls of aluminum foil. Packs of gum come in many flavors to suit individual tastes. My personal preference is for the unfiltered menthols. Each piece of foil is marked with a serial number just like handguns and motorcycles. Laid out like Doritos, a pack of gum covers about 36 square inches, or a quarter foot. Placed end to end, they stretch to 48 7/8ths inches. ..about four feet of gum. A roll of bubble tape is a third longer, at six feet, one inch in length, but costs more than twice as much (US$2). Personally, I refill my bubbletape container the economical way, by taping 25 sticks of gum together! The unchewed block of gum has a volume of 2.6 cubic inches. Most of this mass is made up of sugar. By chewing the gum until it has lost it's sweetness, I will be swallowing the sugar. Only the gum base will be left. Gum should be eaten much like a stack of pancakes. I like mine with butter, blueberries and maple syrup. What a great way to start the morning! Here is an array of photos showing me chewing the gum. I left out the ones of me throwing up. TaaDaa! 30 minutes later, the gum had magically transformed The flavorless block of chewed gum is only 0.68 cubic inches in volume, meaning that while chewing, I ate 1.95 cubic inches of sugar! These measurements led me to come up with a simple formula for gum volume: (PlenT = 3.78abc) The wad of gum is about the size of a wine bottle cork. When you chew gum, be sure to keep the 17 little pieces of foil to re-wrap the wad of gum, otherwise it may result in shoe damage or loss. Home | How much is inside other stuff? write Rob@Cockeyed.com Last updated Oct. 15th 2001. Terms and Conditions Copyright 2001 Cockeyed.com Ketchup Packets How much is inside a ketchup packet? No one knows for sure, but there is a general consensus that it is only about one-fifth of the amount of ketchup one needs to enjoy french fries. Brooke and I decided to find out how many packets of ketchup it takes to fill a bottle. The first step was to buy a new bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup. Ketchup is cheap. This 14oz. plastic bottle was only $1.25. We squeezed it out into a measuring cup to double-check the contents. Yep. 14 ounces. That is one and three-quarters of a cup. Next we headed to Jack in the Box and Carl's Jr. to collect ketchup packets. The USA has traditionally been the land of plenty when it comes to a bounty of free condiment packets, but some places are getting really stingy with them lately. Here is a photo of Brooke jamming her pockets full. We also bought a small order of fries so we wouldn't feel bad about it. We had a hundred packs, which is about one-eighth of the number I used in the ketchup packet bear a couple of years ago. Here is what a hundred packets of ketchup look like. To me, it was like counting money. Stacks and stacks of money! One by one we cut open the packets and emptied them out into a measuring cup. We tried to get all the ketchup out of each one but inevitably, there is ketchup left in the corners. I sometimes picture myself stuck on a desert island with only five ketchup packets for food, squeezing and re-squeezing the packets for hours on end. Soon we had 14 ounces of unpacked packet ketchup, (also known unpacketchup). We carefully re-filled the ketchup bottle with our FREE ketchup! Woo Hoo! At last this whole website thing was starting to pay off! I'm never paying for mustard, relish, soy or el scorcho sauce again! The bottle was refilled to the top using exactly 50 packets of ketchup! That means that each packet holds 8 grams of ketchup, or about a quarter-ounce, and has a value of about 2.5 cents US! We still had the fries and the more than enough ketchup left over, so I had a chance to indulge my immense desire for fresh ketchup. Remember, the FDA recommends eight servings of fruits and vegetables every day, and ketchup-saturated french fries are the easiest way to satisfy that recommendation! Did you ever notice how food photography makes everything look so damn tasty? Brooke thought that if we blended in some fresh tomatoes, we could make our own ye olde-fashioned style freshe ketchupe. Unfortunately I got excited and turned the blender on while she was fishing the foil packets out! Luckily she only lost one of her ring fingers, she can still flip people off. If you like ketchup, remember to pick up plenty of napkins in the drive-thru or you risk being stopped by the police for cannibalism. Home | How much is inside other stuff? drive thru photos write Rob@Cockeyed.com Last updated Oct. 24th 2001. Terms and Conditions Copyright 2001 Cockeyed.com