Christmasy
sanguinity and grrlpup came over last night, for sweet-potato pie and tasty beverages. And they gave me these:
Yes, they're Marshmallow Blowguns! When I opened the box, the safety glasses were tucked in the black ammo bags, and the blowguns weren't fully assembled. It took me a minute, but I managed to guess what they were and put them together. (Note: Since then, I've experimented with the configurations, since the pieces aren't glued together. The top gun is in standard format, and the lower one is the modified "bullpup" design. The offset mouthpiece allows the dominant eye to sight directly down the barrel (which is handy for precision targeting), plus it looks cool. Unfortunately, there is significant loss of muzzle velocity due to the relative proportions of barrel to mouthpiece. But it looks cool.)
One loads a marshmallow in the breech (Safety Tip: Breath in deeply BEFORE putting your mouth on the mouthpiece, or you'll suddenly find yourself inhaling the ammunition), and, well, it's a blowgun, you can figure it out. It turns out that Marshmallows are not a particularly accurate projectile, which probably explains why the military doesn't have a marshmallow round for their standard field weapons. But they're pretty good for shooting across a room, as
drarwenchicken helped test out today (Remember kids, wear that Eye Protection! You don't want to go to school with an eyepatch and have to explain that it was a marshmallow injury, do you?). Pretty neat, huh? And if you're sad because you didn't get Marshmallow Blowguns, I'm sorry. Have a Merry Christmas anyway!
