Uh.. ya, don't do that....

[Cutenoob]

Y'all are entwined to give the puns some love here. It is getting a bit fuzzy for me

[Elfmama]

Ignore them.  They're just yarning.

[LadyClaire]

There is a series of books intended for writers on just such things, Vorbau.  If I need to murder someone in a book, I look for one of those.  (Mushrooms.  Nasty things, not immediately deadly in the right dose, but destroys the liver and/or kidneys.  Not treatable in my medievaloid setting.)  Your book, if you should write one, would have a significant audience!

I believe the series is the 'How Done It' series.  We used them when we were writing interactive murder mysteries in the 1980s and they were very useful.  'Deadly Doses' is the name of the book on poisons.

I have that one. DH got it for me for christmas last year. My family finally threatened to take the book away from me after I spent several minutes reading it and announcing "Huh...you know, that plant grows in Mom's back yard. Just saying..." and "Oh hey, I know where to get that."

[LadyClaire]

If you're tying to make a pasta salad from a box (for whatever reason... don't judge me!), please don't add the seasoning package into the water with the pasta.  While it *will* turn the water a lovely shade of brown, you'll need to use the seasoning packet from another box to actually make the salad taste like anything other than pasta drowned in mayo.

It's nice to know that I'm not the only dingaling to to that.  In a pinch, if you've got some available:  Italian dressing. 

And Vorbau - I'd also love to read any book you write on dumb criminals.  I also don't think that having the information laid out in book form would really make that much difference in the crimes you investigate. 

I can see it now: 

Officer:  Why did the (something not mentioned in the book)? 

Miscreant:  Hey!  Not fair!  The book didn't say that!

Or, a copy of Vorbau's book at a murder scene casts considerable doubt on someone's innocence.

Having a receipt for that book in their house (paper copy or an electronic version) would have to be a bit of circumstantial evidence to look very closely into anything involving a dead body in that vicinity.

My husband is convinced that if any of our friends, relatives, or neighbors turn up dead, I'm totally screwed because of my massive collection of books on forensics, serial killers, crime scene clean-up, poisons, and weapons. He said the police would take one look at my books and say "Ok, we have our suspect".

[hermanne]

Don't rub your eye when your hand is in a cast, something my 3-year-old DS found out the hard way.

(He jammed his thumb while roughhousing with his cousin.)

[Sirius]

This only applies to people on this board who salute:

If you break your right arm, don't forget and try to salute, or you'll smack yourself in the head.  A co-worker of mine smacked himself so hard in the head when he had a cast on his thumb and wrist that he saw stars.  (At least the officer he saluted asked him if he was all right.)

[White Dragon]

Don't try to be a smart-aleck lazybones.

If the coffee pot only gives you half a cup and you have to make a new pot...

...don't get all "clever" and lazy and stick the half-filled mug under the drip spout.
(Especially when your coworker advises you that this is a Bad Idea.)

Because the black coffee is dripping out of a stealth-ninja coffee maker in "silent attack" mode.
It is dripping dark liquid into your shadowed, dark mug.
And you have no depth perception anyway and can't tell how full the mug is.

However, when the coffee starts running over the top of the mug, you will know that it is full. 

And now you have a big mess to clean up.
And you realize that it would have been faster to simply wait until the pot brewed.

[Snooks]

It took us 25 years to prove him for the cheap rug liar he is. The wife was a tiny little thing with very little upper body strength, right-hand dominant. The weapon was an enormous .45 Dirty Harry type thing, with an extremely heavy double-action trigger (I couldn't fire the thing using both hands, and I am considered an extremely strong shooter for my size and gender). The fatal wound was in her left upper chest (if you picture her left breast as a clock, with you looking straight at it, the wound was about at 3 o'clock). The weapon was lying on the floor next to the right side of the bed, and her right arm was trailing over the edge of the bed, so that it was supposed to look like she'd fired and then her hand and arm were pulled down by gravity.

When we re-opened the case, we noted: there were NO prints on the gun. There was no GSR on her hands. The bullet had been fired at least 12" away from her chest. Perform the above exercise again: Make your right hand into a gun. Point it straight at the 3 o'clock point on your left breast, not deviating up, down, left or right - it was a straight through-and-through. Now move your hand back so that the muzzle is at least 12" away from that point. Don't dislocate your elbow in the process.

Please miss I have a question about the position of the wound.  I might be picturing it wrong, was the wound in the middle of the chest or near her left hand side?

[Luci45]

If you throw a dried cactus corpse in the trash in the garage and are not in charge of disposing of that particular basket, do not go back 3 weeks later and try to squash down the paper towels built up to make more room in the basket.

On the other hand, DO be grateful that it was a barrel cactus with a few large needles instead of one with many, many tiny spines, and that you have a really good tweezers around.

[Dazi]

I was knitting a bit last night, when my phone rang.  I stopped and talked to a friend for awhile, then went to resume my knitting.  Only I couldn't find one of my knitting needles.  Poof, gone.  I'm looking and looking, look under the sofa, ask the cat if she hid it (granted she looked at me like I was an idiot and wondered off).

Finally I give up and make a trip to the bathroom.  As I walk past the mirror I notice something sticking out of my bun.  Yep, missing needle.     Boy, I felt stupid.

Don't worry, it's knit like we're going to needle you about that or anything..

Now, now. Don't hassle the purl little thing. She's obviously got a lot on her bun mind.

Don't worry, we don't think you're a knit wit!

I dunno, I think if we unravel her story she told it just to garter some sympathy.

Wool, it certainly was a fine yarn.

You all have me in stitches!

I love this thread. 

Y'all are really spinning this out, aren't you?

You guys just love to needle me 

[Diane AKA Traska]

I was knitting a bit last night, when my phone rang.  I stopped and talked to a friend for awhile, then went to resume my knitting.  Only I couldn't find one of my knitting needles.  Poof, gone.  I'm looking and looking, look under the sofa, ask the cat if she hid it (granted she looked at me like I was an idiot and wondered off).

Finally I give up and make a trip to the bathroom.  As I walk past the mirror I notice something sticking out of my bun.  Yep, missing needle.     Boy, I felt stupid.

Don't worry, it's knit like we're going to needle you about that or anything..

Now, now. Don't hassle the purl little thing. She's obviously got a lot on her bun mind.

Don't worry, we don't think you're a knit wit!

I dunno, I think if we unravel her story she told it just to garter some sympathy.

Wool, it certainly was a fine yarn.

You all have me in stitches!

I love this thread. 

Y'all are really spinning this out, aren't you?

You guys just love to needle me 

It's not really as thimble as all that.

[snowfire]

Please miss I have a question about the position of the wound.  I might be picturing it wrong, was the wound in the middle of the chest or near her left hand side?

I think, from the description Vorbau gave us, that the wound would be on the outer left side of her breast, near the armpit.

[Martienne]

Don't try to be a smart-aleck lazybones.

If the coffee pot only gives you half a cup and you have to make a new pot...

...don't get all "clever" and lazy and stick the half-filled mug under the drip spout.
(Especially when your coworker advises you that this is a Bad Idea.)

Because the black coffee is dripping out of a stealth-ninja coffee maker in "silent attack" mode.
It is dripping dark liquid into your shadowed, dark mug.
And you have no depth perception anyway and can't tell how full the mug is.

However, when the coffee starts running over the top of the mug, you will know that it is full. 

And now you have a big mess to clean up.
And you realize that it would have been faster to simply wait until the pot brewed.

And if you had succeeded in filling the cup properly, you would have learned the other reason this is a bad idea. The first few ounces that come out of the drip spout are much stronger than the flavor the pot would have if it was allowed to brew all at once and mix together (conversely, filling one's cup with the last several ounces that come out will result in a weak-flavored cup).

[greencat]

Going along with the coffee theme:  when brewing coffee with a paper filter, make sure that you don't accidentally pull two filters off the stack at once.  The coffee does not percolate through a double layer of paper very well at all, and you will simply end up filling the water reservoir with eight cups worth of boiling hot coffee-ground laced coffee.

Also, just do yourself a favor and prep the coffee pot the night before, while you're still awake.  Many many coffee mishaps can be avoided in this way. (Programmable coffee pots are made by divine beings!)

[Snooks]

Please miss I have a question about the position of the wound.  I might be picturing it wrong, was the wound in the middle of the chest or near her left hand side?

I think, from the description Vorbau gave us, that the wound would be on the outer left side of her breast, near the armpit.

That's what I thought but DH said it'd make more sense to shoot yourself in the middle of the chest, even if you were staging it.