Wood
“Got wood?”
“Who? That guy that critisizes my flying?”
“Nothing hits the spot like a bit of wood”
“Birch is what you yell out at females when you want a girl to stare at your wood”
Wood is a mysterious material from the past given to us by the Elk People of the planet Ikea, used to make things like clubs and wooden mallets so people could hit each other. Especially on traditional holidays like "Whack a Mole Day", "Go Hit Yourself Day", and "The Day of Furniture Making" (celebrated in East China and Pluto). Contrary to popular belief, it has been debated that wood is actually a natural material.
In ancient times, men were made of steel and ships were made of wood. In modern days, ships are made of steel and men are made of wood. Wood has many uses. A great underground rebellious force, similar in form to the Ewoks, has developed since it was determined that milk is better than wood. While most Englishmen recognise milk's vital use in tea, they raise the point that without wood it would be impossible to warm the tea in the first place and the fact that all biscuits are made of oak. Well, that's what they taste like, anyway. Wood also makes an excellent stew.
Chemical properties[edit | edit source]
Wood (chemical element number 17.3 and valency of 2) is an element that has some rather strange chemical properties. For instance, when we burn wood we get two solid products formed, these being blackened ash (i.e., wood oxide) and bent rusty nails. Wood is also an anti-polar molecule; this is evident by its reluctance to associate with water which is polar.
Wood, because it is on the far right of the periodic table, is not metallic. Wood has the unique ability in nature that, under certain tightly-controlled conditions, it can produce rocks. Take the humble apple, which was discovered in 1878 by Sir Isaac Newton after his exhaustive work on gravity. The apple grows in trees which are principally made from wood. Since an apple is a fruit, it is neither animal nor vegetable; therefore, logically, every fruit is a rock. Since fruits are rocks, ergo, wood can produce rocks. We know this to be true since rocks aren't metals either.
Wood MELTS!! at 10,000,000,000 kelvin (17,999,999,540 °F). It is hypothesized that this form of woody magma may hold the key to time travel; however, due to the extreme temperature, everything melts that we send through time.
Main use[edit | edit source]
Above all, wood's first and foremost benefit to mankind is the first thing I stated and that is the production of wood oxide. For the most part, it is an utterly useless chemical but has one other benefit: FIRE!!! Fire is not only great fun to watch but because wood oxide is so utterly useless, it is immensely fun to produce it as it wastes wood, and as we all know, wasting things is fun. The Brazilian government is so intent on producing this fun chemical that it is prepared to burn great swathes of rain-forest. An unintended byproduct of this fun activity is raising inedible sagebrush and diseased cattle in an apocalyptic wasteland, which isn't nearly as fun.
Additional uses include:[edit | edit source]
- Primary food source for termites and giant squid.
- Central to an unhealthy woodchuck obsession.
- Helping Gryffindor win the Quidditch Cup.
So as we can see, wood is one of nature's most wonderful elements, along with junk and grub. I got wood right now.
Fun with wood oxide[edit | edit source]
To purify wood oxide, dissolve it in water (make a saturated solution), filter it, or let it settle and drain off the clear liquid, and then add alcohol (methylated spirit will do). Hey presto! Purified wood ash precipitates out. It has no use at all, but it's kind of cool. Sorta. You can do a similar fun thing with tincture of iodine and supermarket ammonia, except the precipitate is black and makes noise.
Wood in popular culture[edit | edit source]
- In episode 6 of Firefly, "Our Mrs. Reynolds", Jayne is given a wooden rain stick by a villager. Nobody knows what the cultural significance is supposed to be.
- In the Buffyverse, Buffy often slays vampires using stakes made of wood.
- The wand used by Harry Potter is made of wood from a holly tree. Nobody knows what the cultural significance is supposed to be.
- The fence around the back yard of the house in The Simpsons is wooden.
- In the 2004 TV series Battlestar Galactica, there is an assumed use of tree bark.
- Xkcd comic #446 references the "In Popular Culture" section of the Wikipedia article for wood.
- Wikipedia refers to the article as "wooden"[citation needed].
- In Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, the Ewoks use wood in order to make weapons and houses.
- Your mom used my wood last night. Nobody knows what the cultural significance is supposed to be.
Synonyms[edit | edit source]
- stick
- club
- God's mustache
- Tree crap
- Ogre food
- nut whacker and/or cracker
- saw dust
- brown bit
- erection
- buildy burny breaky branch
Types of wood[edit | edit source]
See also[edit | edit source]
