A list of some of the more amusing chemicals

[Black Aeronaut]

I think the last time I giggled like this I was reading Girl Days.  And for much the same reason; that dry, this-ludicrous-statement-is-perfectly-reasonable tone.

Aside: Started reading on your rec.  JUST NOW had my first Oh-My-F******-God-Are-You-Serious!? when I got to Prince Midol.
EDIT: More on topic...

FOOF is only stable at low temperatures; you'll never get close to RT
with the stuff without it tearing itself to pieces. I've seen one
reference to storing it as a solid at 90 Kelvin for later use, but that paper,
a 1962 effort from A. G. Streng of Temple University, is deeply
alarming in several ways. Not only did Streng prepare multiple batches
of dioxygen difluoride and keep it around, he was apparently charged
with finding out what it did to things. All sorts of things. One damn
thing after another, actually:

"Being a high energy oxidizer, dioxygen
difluoride reacted vigorously with organic compounds, even at
temperatures close to its melting point. It reacted instantaneously with
solid ethyl alcohol, producing a blue flame and an explosion. When a
drop of liquid 02F2 was added to liquid methane, cooled at 90°K., a
white flame was produced instantaneously, which turned green upon
further burning. When 0.2 (mL) of liquid 02F2 was added to 0.5 (mL) of
liquid CH4 at 90°K., a violent explosion occurred."

And he's just getting warmed up, if that's the right phrase to use
for something that detonates things at -180C (that's -300 Fahrenheit, if
you only have a kitchen thermometer). The great majority of Streng's
reactions have surely never been run again. The paper goes on to react
FOOF with everything else you wouldn't react it with: ammonia
("vigorous", this at 100K), water ice (explosion, natch), chlorine
("violent explosion", so he added it more slowly the second time), red phosphorus (not good), bromine fluoride, chlorine trifluoride (say what?),
perchloryl fluoride (!), tetrafluorohydrazine (how on Earth. . .), and
on, and on. If the paper weren't laid out in complete grammatical
sentences and published in JACS, you'd swear it was the work of a
violent lunatic. I ran out of vulgar expletives after the second page.
A. G. Streng, folks, absolutely takes the corrosive exploding cake, and I
have to tip my asbestos-lined titanium hat to him.

OMFG, I love this Streng guy!  He's gotta be a Spark or Mad of somekind!  Is he still around?  I'd love to meet him!