Hey dere! Whatcha been dooin l8ly? (Updated, now with links)

• _ Finding out that Blogger does that thing where if you hit "enter" in the subject line it publishes a blank post. I left many an e-mail account because of that inane business Blogger!
• _ Lifetime Original Movies. Bad ones. I'm so sorry, brain cells.
• _ Planning to get a Chinese Water Dragon! My rats are 2 years old and one has cancer. And I'm an over-organizer. You can't blame me for looking up prices & housing requirements, and sketching out the large enclosure I will build for a pet I don't have yet... especially when the critter's so darn pretty. Aaaand, I, uh, need the herpetology experience, yeah.
• _ Making and varying cream cheese frosting... I'm so sorry, waist. I'm still trying to decide if it's better for me for it to be eaten with a food item vessel or consumed straight via tablespoon.
  
• _ Trying my damndest to get out and about, fighting both restlessness and sloth. Walking is nice in the evenings, even during a Cincinnati summer.
  
• _ Looking at Ecuador pictures constantly and missing that country like craaazy. Oh, you want to look at them too? Okay. Here's my Facebook albums un, deux, trois. Public links even!
  
• _ Making a pretty complete list of commercials I can't stand and the inconruencies, annoyances, and frequency/timing issues that result in my distaste.
• _ Inquiring after internship laces where I can play with big kitties, and/or slothes. (That's the British pronunciation, you know. "And the people did feast upon the lambs, and slothes, and carp... and fruit bats..." like.)
  
• _ NOT WATCHING LEGEND OF THE SEEKER, THAT'S FOR DAMN SURE! *pout*
  
• _ Not working, nor attending LCCC for chemistry, either, much to my chagrin. But it is what it is. I'm working the "Don't Panic" angle and it's going pretty swell, despite the pressure from my parents.
• _ Not writing for the Nerdist empire, sadly. That makes my dream of befriending Chris Hardwick seem nigh impossible, but it does make me want to breathe new life into this anemic little blog of mine.
  
• _ Not smoking hookah. Go figure.

ComFest is on my horizon, as is dog-sitting and other family-based money earnings. Whoo hoo!
You can bet your boots I'll bee hooking (hookah-ing?) in C-bus this weekend. Have faith in me, intarwubbians. I'll write to you when I'm not bleeding money on artsy things and booze.

Legend of Becky's Aneurysm

Okay, listen. I have already written a mile-long post about how Legend of the Seeker is an awful awful show, but I can't stop watching because, I dunno, I like rage. BUT NOW THEY ARE JUST TOYING WITH ME. I feel sorry for the sold-out soulless writer that has to come into pitch meetings (er whatever) and have some 5-Hour-Energy-upped producer tell them who has been well established as many years dead and will be making an appearance this episode.

I have completed 2 writing workshops and I have a grasp of what a storyline means and someone over there at the WB does NOT. Someone somewhere is writing for LotS and crying themselves to sleep every night after it's aired. Someone somewhere is coughing while they say who they write for. Every minutely interesting character they introduce gets killed before the end credits, and every seemingly challenging plot twist gets unwound for them happenstancially and any remotely difficult choice they have make gets, again totally without their input, almost instantly made for them THANK GOODNESS. There is no character development among the main characters for these reasons. None. Even my favorite character, Cara, who is for all intents and purposes the voice of The Viewing Audience makes her points of contention several episodes after America has been wondering the same thing and goes along with whatever Richard, or Zed, or Kahlan who she doesn't even like says anyway.

Empty threat warning: if the next episode is as bad as this one, Seeker will have finally lost me and that means that even the ironic viewers will have abandoned them before the season finale. On my half-pipe of awfulness, it will have cruised past "So Bad It's Good" and gone straight for "I Honestly Can No Longer Bring Myself to Spend My Time This Way.

The whole world is drunkytown right now. Blackout Thursday and all. Last day of classes. *sigh* I have work tomorrow though. $10/hour to pull curtains. Not too shabby.
Speaking of work, I did NOT sort screws today, I instead added a marketable skill to my repertoire and that is staining wood like nobody's business. Score.

SHISHA. WE DO THAT HERE.

Al Fakher - Grape With Mint Flavor

In the box: Smells very sweet. Very sticky. Cut is virtually H-H caliber but the molasses is so abundant and so sticky that it's prone to clumping and could be an uneven burning hazard if you don't aerate it at any time.
In the bowl: Buh! Delicious! Deeeliiiiciooouus. Very sweet, kind of sour, smell stays intense through smoking. I did not think mint would go with grape at all, but it does and it has a cool flavor that really compliments the fruityness. It's not a mild or possibly fermented grape like White Grape is, it's very intense. Well, it's candy-ish frankly and that's bound to turn off some die-hard, in-it-for-the-tobacco people. Fair enough. But if your shisha drawer reminds you of Gumdrop Pass like mine does, Grape with Mint Flavor will feel right at home, and your hookah will be a happy one. I make another advisement to turn or aerate your bowl after your coals have made a pass around. There is viable shisha under there, y'all! I'm never in it for no 45-minute session. My hookah nights are 2 hours or more. Coals I'll go through a million of, but I'm pretty stingy with my tobacco. I take it as far as it will go, to say the least.

star star star star star
Al Fakher Grape with Mint Flavor: 4.75/5 stars.
If you want to be smoking a cigarette and all you have is a hookah, this is not what you pack. But I'll be damned if it's not one of the tastiest ones I've had.

As the Prophecy Fortold

ACK! I never reviewed that rawesome Hookah Freak flavor from the blendoff competition I said I would! SORRYHEREITIS:

Hookah Freak - Mad Hatter

In the box: Somewhat spicy. Somewhat stale. Spicy. Very strong. It smells very much like tea. Very familiar, but veeery hard to put my finger on. Nobody could, really. Put their finger on it that is.
In the bowl: Definitely tastes like it smells, if that helps, though I wouldn't say it does. Familiar, tea-like, sweet spice. Delicious! Happy I picked it. Here's the quote from the blender off of the H-H website - 1 1/2 Chai tea, Spiced Rum, 1 1/2 Orange, Cinnamon. Ever wonder what Tea was served to Alice in Wonderland? Well, now you know. Yeah I guess it's not much more than what I gave you, but hey, no one describes their creation like the creator, am I right?

star star star star star

Hookah Freak Mad Hatter: 5/5 stars
Wheeooo! What a winner. I'm rooting for it in the blend-off.

I am listening to chaotic Irish music (absolute love = where Pandora took my Flogging Molly obsession) and "studying geology." I want to blow off some steam by rattling off some borderline-psychotropic poetry/prose but I have less ammunition than I thought. Give it time, friends.

Actually, SPEAKING of prophecies, I have something I can rail on about: Legend of the Seeker. What a crock. I was all about being ironically devoted to a show whose cheesy action sequences, and overly hot chicks, and stubborn adherence to and simultaneous flirtatious likelihood to disobey abstinence between the two main characters, and the use of common nouns as Proper Nouns (i.e. Seeker, Keeper, Rift, Confessor) all combined in a glorious clusterfuck of the Surprisingly Enjoyable Yet Undoubtedly Bad. And I was actually pretty invested at the end of the first season. They accomplished their goal, the prophesized one, turned some foes into friends along the way (namely an extremely hot one), and it was pretty satisfying. Then the last lines were the most obnoxious incarnation of "AND WHO KNOWS WHAT ADVENTURES AWAIT US NEXT!" "YOU ARE RIGHT, COMPANION. OUR ADVENTURES ARE CERTAINLY NOT OVER. EVEN THOUGH EVERYTHING IS PERFECT AND ABSOLUTELY NO FORESHADOWING FOR WHAT COULD GO WRONG HAS BEEN PRESENTED!" "ADVENTURE!" reared its ugly - and I do mean ugly - head, and the writers that had just put their pens and pencils back in their fanny packs as they nodded their heads and started phoning their families were called back into the conference room and chained to uncomfortable machines that filled their already sub-competent brains with hackneyed and dare I say unbelievable "plot" twists.
So the second season starts with this prophecy mistress dropping in to deliver a surprisingly arbitrary "Oh, hey, the Seeker that I said was the real Seeker isn't the real Seeker anymore. You gonna... appoint a new one of those? Maybe this guy right here that I can totally manipulate maybe?" And ever since every choice and character that's been introduced has been exponentially more irritating than the last. I get so angry and yet, every Monday (or so) I'm back on Hulu watching it. The 45 minutes spend traipsing around the Midlands are just comprised of me yelling at the screen about how fucking unbearable and/or inconsistent the characters are; or how the events are clearly generated by a force as transparent as "the writers will it so" and not anything having to do with characterization, foreshadowing, or what is interesting or unexpected; or hitting and throwing things.
All that being said, the hot chicks in the show do make it kinda worth it, especially since they're both so damn good at killing fuckers. The first one, Kahlan, tries to be all virtuous about it, but the second one, Cara, is the only practical one on the show and she's ruthless. I love her. Her train of thought is always something like "Well, the only solution to our problem is if this person dies, right? We should kill them. No? Are you serious? If you won't kill him I will kill him. No, listen, we need to fucking kill him will you just grow a pair?" or "Ok, this person that we desperately need has run away twice since you won't let me torture and tie him up. PLEASE let me torture him and tie him up. GODDAMN IT, WHY DO I LISTEN TO YOU IDIOTS?!"
In summary, this show sucks, but I can't not watch.
Great.