Sodium Party in Playboy Magazine

Department of unlikely sightings

This is a pseudo-blog post based on a web page I created in early 2003.

In the February, 2003 issue of Playboy magazine (released in January), page 34, bottom right corner, rather small print, there is a reference to my Sodium Party page. I've read they are trying to reform the magazine with more articles and less T&A, but this is going a bit far! I mean, seriously, there was not a single naked person at the whole party. Honestly. 

Unfortunately, they printed the URL in all lower-case letters, and put a period at the end of it, which was meant to be the end of the sentence but which some people interpreted as part of the URL. This caused a rash of server errors and a few emails from people disappointed that the site wasn't working. On the other hand, if it hadn't been for the misprint, I might never have heard about this unusual reference to my humble website. 

And since my website's URL includes my name in it, I can now say my name has been in Playboy magazine! 

By the way, "chemistry geek" is a compliment, right? 

I got this email from Luke Roe of Phoenix, who saw the reference and visited the sodium party page:

It's been years since I have goofed around with science and you just sparked my interest again (no pun intended). I will not be trying your experiment to the same extent but with a much smaller quantity. I also forwarded to my brother in a Kansas City suburb, and this is his 12-year-old son's new favorite site. Thanks to you and Playboy for a relapse of me and my brother into science geekdom!! His son does truly enjoy. Thanks Theo!

OK, so don't let anyone tell you Playboy has no redeeming social value. 

By the way, in case you didn't know, "Playboy" can be spelled using only element abbreviations? Click here to find out how.