A good friend of ours, and an occasional client, is Isothermal Community College. They have the world's coolest radio station (WNCW), for which we have never done promotional work. And they also have an awesome metrology lab, for which we have done a good bit of work. Metrology is the science of measuring things.

When we first started positioning the lab, we got a quick lesson in testing. One of the "destructive" test we learned about was a destructive breakage (or strength) test. The way it works is you take a material, you stretch it out, and then you start piling weights on it until it breaks. Then you record how much weight it took to break the thing.

Last week, Vivian and her son did a science project, in which they did strength tests on tall kitchen trash bags. They got the two leading brands, and a brand called "Roughy," which is the Wal-Mart, cheap-as-dirt brand. With each bag, they put weights into the bag and lift it. Then they recorded the amount of weight required to break each bag.

You might be interested in knowing that the Roughy bags out-performed the others by a loooooooooooog way. In fact, they didn't have enough weights to break out the bottom of the Roughy bags. They only broke where their fingers punctured the bag as they lifted it. So, there's Vivian's science project-proof that Wal-Mart does something right.

Also, here's a little shout-out to Uncle Ducky. Thanks for the birthday greeting!