Category: Glass

Breaking news! Literally, breaking news. In a series of attacks, it seems the Glass Smashing Bandit has returned to Melbourne, breaking glass balustrades everywhere. This is Chuck Fiddlesticks from Channel 17, bringing you the latest news across Melbourne.

After months of Melbourne being free from this menace, it seems the infamous bandit is at it again. While he had previously enjoyed an appearance on Australia’s Next Top Office, which gave him immunity for his many crimes, it is clear that old habits die hard for this bad boy. When will he learn his lesson?

I’m live on the scene, exactly where the first of the glass balustrades around Melbourne was smashed. Store owner Terry Peanutbutter (yes, that is his actual name – I even saw his birth certificate) has given comment regarding what happened last night. “Well, I was sitting on my couch at the top of my shop, watching reruns of Fun and the City, when I heard this loud smashing of glass. I went to the window, and I swear I saw him running away. It was the Glass Smashing Bandit!”

When asked what he was planning on doing next, Terry said: “I dunno. I suppose I should get some commercial glazing, so that I can get the balustrade fixed.”

A wise course of action, if you ask this reporter. Everyone in Melbourne should be on the lookout for the Glass Smashing Bandit. If you need to know what he looks like, just rewatch Australia’s Next Top Office season two.

Apparently, detectives Schlock Homes and Jon Whatson are on the case, having captured the Glass Smashing Bandit once before. Will they bring this menace to society to justice? We can only hope so.

“We’re the best in the business,” Schlock Homes said to Channel 17. “Using our professional detective skills, we have been able to work out which suburb Bandit lives in. Now it’s just a matter of going door to door until we find him. Easy.”

I’ve always wondered what the process is for making glass. I assume it’s nothing like in the video game Craft a Mine, where you take a bucket of sand to the tallest volcano in the land, sacrifice thirty-two goats and fight a dragon-bull. Once the dragon-bull is defeated, you may present your bucket of sand to the Volcano Goddess, who rubs it with her magical hands, drinks the sand and turns the bucket into glass in thanks. I know, it’s really weird.

I think the process in the video game Terra Area makes a lot more sense. If you want to obtain commercial glazing for your town, you have to venture out to the dungeon and slay the giant skeleton boss who has four arms and shoots lasers from his eyes. Once he’s dealt with, you have to travel deep underground and obtain an item known as the strange keystone, which holds the spirit of an ancient spectre. You bring that back to town and trade it for a glazier summoner. Once you use that, the local glazier will move into your town and you can buy glass from them.

I said that it made more sense, not that it was logical.

All these video games with glass have made me wonder what the process is like in the real world. If I wanted to make some glass balustrades for the Melbourne area, what would I do? Is it as simple as talking to a tradesman and having them install one? That seems a bit too easy. And where do they get the glass from? Do they get trucks to pick it up at the beach, then drive to a factory with all these furnaces where they turn it into glass? How do they purify it so the glass isn’t all grainy like the sand? And then how do they shape it? There isn’t much about it that makes sense to me, but then again, it’s not like I’ve done any research. Maybe one day I’ll go to a glass factory and find out what they do.

– Janet