Microwaved CD

We begin with a normal CD-R, preferably a coaster or disc you'd like to rid yourself of. CD-R's loaded full of mp3's seem to work very well. (Note: I am not under the influence of the RIAA... hehe.)

This is a picture of some typical CD-R media:

The next step is to place the disc into a microwave, set the time, and watch the sparks fly. Yes, that's right, CD-R's have a metallic layer which will cause lots of angry little blue sparks to dance around the disc in a frenzy. I seem to recall many people telling me that you can ruin your microwave doing this so I'd only recommend trying it with a microwave oven that you just don't care about or one that doesn't belong to you. If you do this with someone else's microwave and somehow damage it, you had better be ready to buy them a new one. Just something to remember. Oh yeah, and use short amounts of time... nothing in excess of 30 seconds!

Well, since the sparks will burn the plastic disc, you might create some toxic smoke. Toxic smoke = bad. Have a fan handy, open some windows, and wear that ever useful gas mask to avoid breathing any toxic smoke which could give you lung cancer. The disc will probably be very hot so be very careful about touching it after it's done cooking. Another note, the metallic layer will no longer grip the surface of your CD as it once did. It might flake off if you're not careful about how you handle it. This means you might want to frame your nuked disc to keep it in pristine condition. The burn patterns left behind will look quite wonderful when held in the light. This would be the time to take pictures, start scanning, etc...

This is your CD-R after being mircowaved:

Exciting, eh? This is especially fun if you're really really bored. Um... yeah.