Tonic

As last Friday represented an important day to those of us in the UC system, we decided to throw a party. A party celebrating the end of finals and the fall quarter. Technically we were referring to this party per say as a gathering. Something a bit more low key. After an unfortunate visit from the police during our last party we wanted to make sure they wouldn't come again.
I shall digress and explain why the police came last time. It seems that someone down the street from us had a band playing. This band had been playing on and off since about two in the afternoon. Needless to say I guess the neighbors were a little sick of it. The call went out to the cops at about 11:50 to pay them a visit. Only thing was the cops, who by the way thought they had a police scanner, didn't pay them a visit. They came to our place instead. They were very, very rude, sadly they made the cops I have dealt with in Chico at parties seem friendly. I spoke to both of my neighbors the next day, neither of them were even aware we had a party the night before. They told us they heard nothing.
A couple of days later my roommate showed me a copy of the police report, and it showed our street, the note about the band playing and the exact time the cops showed up at our place. Being the upstanding citizen I am and feeling that we had been mistreated by the rude police who were angry because they thought we had a band and police scanner (I am getting to the scanner part) I called in and complained. This ended up being a multi-day process, in which I spoke to no less then five different people, one who told me they thought the house with the band had a police scanner. The call to the police ended up being a good thing so far as I can tell. No cops have showed up at my door angry that we called in and final officer I spoke to was pleasantly happy that I called in. She mentioned it was good to get feedback. Just goes to show that when you are polite even when the cops aren't things can still work out. I'm just glad we didn't get a fine, although I don't think I crappy computer speakers we use for music out in the garage get loud enough to cause a noise infraction.
Onward to the real subject matter of this blog post. Tonic water, and its awesome UV florescent properties. For this party we set up two beer pong tables. If you don't know what beer pong is let me refer you to the source of answers to all the questions in the world, wikipedia, take a look at this article on beer pong.
While driving to Vacaville to visit Costco and Winco where we would be procuring much need supplies for the party I came up with the most ingenious idea I have had in a long time, if I say so myself. Instead of water in the beer pong rinse cups why not use tonic water and a clear pint glass. I thought this would look most awesome and from the pictures below you can see that the idea turned out rather well.

The only downside to the tonic water was that people with small cuts on their hands complained tonic water burned in their cuts. Among other reasons this is just one of the many reasons why beer pong is such a dirty game. I did some research and found that quinine in tonic water is quinine sulfate and in order for the quinine sulfate to be florescent it must be in a mildly acidic solution. Something like sulfuric acid if you are in a chem lab doing a UV-VIS spectrum analysis or in the case of tonic water the acidity would seem to be provided by citric acid which is one of the ingredients of the drink. It would be citric acid that burned the cuts on the hands of those people who complained. Also the tonic water leaves a slightly slimy feeling on your hands, i suspect it is the sugar which causes that, next time I will use diet tonic water. All and all I would still use the tonic water again in the rinse cups. It looks great.