Episode: 3355
Title: HPR3355: Tiki Hell
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3355/hpr3355.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 21:33:31

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3355 for Friday, the 11th of June 2021.
Today's show is entitled, Tiki Hale. It is hosted by Operator and is about 13 minutes long
and carries a clean flag. The summary is, I talk about my thoughts on outdoor torches.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by an honest host.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15. That's HPR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at An HonestHose.com.
Hello everyone and welcome to another tip. Today I'm going to talk briefly about Tiki torches
and outdoor torches or whatever. Over the course of my several years of buying torches at the store
and whatever outdoor torches for the anti mosquito stuff, Cinderella. I haven't had a problem with
the fuels. I haven't had a problem. That's pretty much the only thing I haven't had a problem with.
I've had a problem with every single type of Tiki Torch brand Tiki Torch I've ever had.
These canned ones rust out if you leave them outside obviously. Even if they're covered,
they still get gross. The chain is shitty so you always lose the chain if you somebody knocks it over
whatever the little topper with the chain. I don't know. I've purchased probably 10 Tiki torches
and all of them. There's nothing left of them. I have three or four. I bought three Tiki torches
with like a which appear to be fancier ones. They're not. They're just they just look interesting.
It has like a little Tiki guy on it and it's plastic. Of course, like everything else,
the plastic is thin and brittle and whatever. So it knocks over and it ruins everything.
The stands, the bamboo stands are all effing garbage. They dry rot. They rot. They over time. They
get hit or knocked over and of course you're left with the same issue. The bamboo stands for
the Tiki torches are also garbage because they're made out of bamboo. I would rather them just not
make those and just not make them because they're pointless. It's a waste of bamboo. It's a waste
of energy and time. The actual Tiki torches themselves. Again, every single brand and combination
of whatever I've seen of Tiki torches, they're all garbage. They all break or plastic or
but metal rust. Now, what are our options? Start looking around and there's probably better options.
Please let me know. Maybe do an episode. I might not catch in the comments, but
what I'm looking at now, well, what I used to have is I had these Tiki torches with a screw on
thing. They're threaded and I bought a really long screw, basically just a rod that was threaded
for the exact thread of the Tiki torches. I thought I was, you know, it on a stick. These big
rods are probably three, four feet tall and I three of them. I thought I was it on a stick. I got
these metal rods and I screw them. Of course, you screw them in and then it lasts a year and then
when you screw it in, it busts out from the bottom. You just keep screwing it in and the threads
for the plastic that's inside the actual bolt for the thread that keeps the Tiki torches on there,
whatever threads out. So you can't just screw it, keep screwing it because if you keep screwing,
it will bust the plastic on the bottom and then, you know, well, not big a deal, but you'll just be
able to keep turning it around and screwing it on until it's, you know, popping up out of the top
of the Tiki torches. So I had these threaded poles, which are also garbage. Now, what I'm looking
at online is these kits where it's a fiberglass wick and then like looks like metal brass fittings.
I've got them in my wish, my checkout box, but I might end up finding just the wick in like a
fiberglass wick in bulk and then finding, you know, whatever it is, a half inch thread or whatever
and then some garments, some garment, garment, plastic or a rubber, a garment or whatever is to put
around them and then you put them in a wine bottle. Now, on the surface, that seems like a great idea,
it's glass, right? It's going to last forever. All your fittings, your rubber fittings are
going to be protected by the kind of the glass bottle and the brass connector thingy.
You know, and then the wick goes through the brass polo brass thing. You know, there's some
concerns there, right? If there's some kind of pressure build up, possibly, you know, you're basically
got a multi cocktail. If you throw the thing and it busts, it's going to explode and make,
it's put good potentially explode and make a big deal of things. On an open flame, this stuff,
it goes up, it's like an oil, it's not like a gasoline. Let me actually spew some on the fire here,
I'm actually outside. And it's not a, it wouldn't be a pleasant thing. I don't think it wouldn't
necessarily explode, but it would turn into a mouth off cocktail and just anything that the oil
splattered on would be on fire, probably. So the glass bottle sounds like a great idea. The other
thought I had, the other thought I had is that the glass bottle is going to be very tall and the
wick is going to have to do a lot of work to get that oil up to the top. Now, the way wicking works
in my experience, I used to use wicking in a dry, dry hotel rooms and you take the garbage can
or whatever, fill it up with water and then you set a, a, a, a towel into the, you wick the towel
into the thing and then drape that over the air conditioning vent or the heater vent. So it basically
turns up being a humidifier, which poor man's humidifier and it works and really, you know,
really cold areas or dry areas of a building. Oh, my alarm's going off, sorry. Dry areas of buildings,
you'll, you'll actually reap some of the benefits of having a, you know, DIY humidifier.
So all that, all that nonsense. The wicking, the way wicking works from what I understand,
I don't know what the blimits are on it, but I think, you know, if the wick as long as the wick
is touching the liquid on the bottom, it should wick up enough for the oil to burn in a wine glass.
You would just have to keep the wick long enough for the wine glass and then once, you know, right,
once the wick burns enough to where the wine bottle is too tall for the liquid, you'd have to
fill the liquid all the way up to the top and you don't want to do that either. So I mean, really,
to be honest, you're not really going to change the wicks at often. I mean, the wick is going to
be the last part to fail on this whole setup I assume. But I'm looking for ideas. I'm looking for,
you know, either citronella oil, any kind of ideas to help prevent mosquitoes, what I found,
and I've done a thing on this with my bug. It's called bugs or DIY bugs or something.
I did, there, it's like a hunting one and it's this little, it comes a little propane fuel thing
and you, a liquid propane, whatever fuel thing and you screw that into the bottom and you turn it
on here and you hear that click, click, click, you push the button and it's kind of like a little
lighter, basically, a mini little lighter. One of those, Chris, I'm, you know, blow torch
lighters or whatever and it heats up this little plate and the plate you load with these cartridges
and these cartridges just smoke whatever magical stuff is in there. They actually work pretty good
and another one I've used is the 3M. The 3M has a bug off or whatever it's called
off on or whatever and it's a tiny little green goo. It doesn't appear to do much of anything.
I think more or less they haven't really done. I think it's called on off on and you
might go wear a little clip and it comes with a battery and whatever and I just don't know if that
helps at all. The mosquitoes have just started up so that's why I'm doing this post.
So I've tried those methods, you know, really I've tried spraying, I've tried spraying my neighbors
and mine. I've pretty much had most, you know, almost half of my neighbors covered and spraying
in their yards and we would still get eaten alive out here in the backyard. So I don't know
what other options there are other than, you know, spraying ourselves out every time we go.
The only foolproof way is the stuff with the deep, deep woods or anything with however much
percentage the deep woods has of deep, nothing else works. These fancy, fancy ones with like
lower percentages of deep or non-deep or whatever, they don't work in our yard. We got those
tiger mosquitoes here that were not original. If you remember growing up in southeast, we didn't
have those, right? You'd go outside and you'd see what you don't see anymore. You don't see
at least around here or anywhere I've ever lived in the past 10 years. You don't see glow bugs
or the glow in the dark, whatever they're called, lightning bugs. You don't see those anymore and
but you didn't also see mosquitoes. And the only mosquitoes you saw were like in the back of the woods
or like it would have to be like really dark and damp and hot for you to get bit by a mosquito.
And if you did, it wasn't really all that often. Here these mosquitoes are, you know, at least
10-fold account if not hundreds-fold compared to growing up. You know, as a kid, you don't remember
stuff like getting bit by stuff or whatever. But as a kid, I didn't get bit like this. I didn't,
oh, you know, we have neighbors that have ivy and horrible gutter maintenance and stuff like that
and there's not a whole lot you can do, but I can, you know, can do as well as the best I can.
But the only foolproof way is to kind of spray yourself down with the deep woods.
But you don't want to do that because then you're basically done for the rest of the day. You
stink. You smell yourself all day and it's just not pleasant. So, you know, unless you're going to be
outside for a long period of time, it's not any fun to spray that stuff on you.
So, my thought is to look around for some more options. Maybe take them up on this, this,
this, these little, you can get like a four pack or eight pack. Well, the DIY wine bottle
Tiki torches, but I will never again buy Tiki Torch brand anything. I won't even buy their Tiki
Torch fuel. I'll make my own or figure it out how to make it or whatever. Now, I've had some luck
with like the candles, like the desk candles, like the Tiki Torch candles. I'd like those.
They're metal. You know, you can, you can set them on their table and light them and they work
okay, but like any candle, they, they don't burn right. Yeah, if you don't set them up right,
if you don't have like a dither on there or whatever, then you guys sit there and mucking around
with it and then make your own a wig and it's just a mess. So, you know, candles aren't really
the best either. I would still like a torch method because it's consistent. The variant is consistent.
So, I'll be looking around for stuff. You guys look around for stuff if you struggle with
outdoor pests, but I'm definitely not buying any more of these Tiki torches. I'm looking at
one that's already rusted and I just have the top part. I have one good wig with the top part
and then I have one good wig and can that hasn't been rusted out. Now, to my fault, you know,
it is my fault. I left them out, left them out over the season, whatever. But, you know, you're
supposed to, I obviously, I guess you're supposed to bring them in because they don't, they don't
last outside. You know, once the season's over, you empty them out, you dry them out, you know,
you only have to dry them out. You just set them upside down, dry them out, whatever, but I,
this is just pointless. It's just a pointless waste of resources to make these things when they
only last a year, if not, you know, less than that. So, anyways, I hope that helps somebody out.
I'll check it out, let you guys know. See if I can build something or make something and we'll kind
of go from there. Later. Bye.
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