What’s up with that?
This was answered by Cecil. I’m too tired to look for it, however…
Yer pal,
Satan
That’s what you get for leaving the window open in your bathroom…
Now what tha hell are you talking about? 
You say “cheesy” like that’s a BAD thing.
I THINK he’s talking about those little white paradichlorobenzene* disks that sit in the bottom of urinals to disinfect them. They look sorta like hockey pucks made out of ice.
*) I say paradichlorobenzene here because we got to do some experiments with paradichlorobenzene in my high school chemistry class once, and they smelled exactly like urinal cakes. The real ones might not be based on paradichlorobenzene at all, but I’ll bet you dollars to donut-holes that they have some chlorine in them.
Cecil had a column that discussed ice being put into urinals. I’m not even going to give this board’s search engine a try anymore.
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I looked in the search engine and came up with two articles, neither of which pertained to ice in urinals.
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I’ve never actually SEEN ice in the urinals (that’s not the bathroom I normally use), but I have heard mention of it once or twice.
C’mon, guys, throw me a bone here.
Seriously, it’s in one of the books. They should all be required reading before posting.
I’m guessing the colder urine is, the less it will smell. There was ice in the urinals at my girlfriend’s senior prom and pissing on it and watching it melt was the most fun I had that night until we got back to my place.
Page 130-131 of The Straight Dope Tells All.
It was not a column, but a discussion on the SDMB on AOL, and includes quotes from messages posted by JILLGAT, CKDextHavn and CecilAdams.
Your Official Cat Goddess since 10/20/99.
In case you don’t have the book (for shame!) my grandma used to put ice in the men’s urinals at her restaurant to keep the smell down (drunks urine stinks) and it got rid of old ice (those machines need to be kept clean to prevent molds and stuff from growing- it happens).
Self professed master of useless information
Engineerboy
BOY?! I’m all man lady!
- Brodie, “Mallrats”
Thanks for the bone, guys.
In an attempt to redeem myself as a doper, I’d like to say that I did read at least 2 or 3 of the books back in highschool, but ever since I sold my soul to higher education (about 5 yrs ago) I have not read a single book for entertainment purposes. Magazines, maybe. Books, however, are simply out of the question.
Putting the ice in the urinals is a good way to get rid of unwanted ice. [ul]
[li]Putting it in the sink hampers the dishwasher (person)[/li][li]the floor drain is too shallow[/li][li]the toilet bowl would clog with any other waste going with the ice[/li][li]the regular trash would be too heavy with all the water ice in it. Plus it’d make a mess.[/li][/ul]
I’ve only seen it done near closing time, so that’s why I think it’s just a way of getting rid of the ice.
Urinal cakes are a much better way to control odor.
tracer: Yeah, I did the same experiment with paridichlorobenzene in my science class last year. (We were growing crystals.) Everyone said it smelled like urinal cakes, and yes, it did look like ice.
I guess if you see something in the urinal that looks like ice, it could be ice, or maybe it’s paridichlorobenzene.
I thought it was to keep the lite beer cold.
(You never buy it. You only rent it.)