Laaayla.... er, Laaaya.... Layna? Lanya?

Oh. Well, I forgot that I reviewed my Layalina flavor already and so the title of this post was going to refer to it. But now I see that I've done Cappuccino already, but I like the title so darn much that I'm keeping it!
HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES, INTERBLAG?

Okay, plan B, *shuffle rifle shuffle* AHA! Here we go! A nice disappointing flavor to share with you all as a warning.

HookaH-HookaH - Orange

In the box: Really stuck my snoot in and got some mellow citrus. Orange citrus? I suppose sooo...
In the bowl: OH COME ON. This flavor was WEAK. I shouldn't use caps there because yelling is not what this flavor has anything to do with. I think the only distinct orange I was getting was the bit of orange juice I put in the vase (too many variables for a first try, I know, but whatevs). On the whole, it seems as though the tobacco content could be noticeably greater, but the flavor is so unforgivably less, and it burns to harshness pretty fast. Of course, that last qualm could have been because the smoke was so poor that I lit a whole other coal before the first one had burned down any.
I don't know what this flavor's problem is. Hookah-Hookah is clearly one of the most flavorful brands on the market, even sacrificing tobacco leaf cuts with any tobacco in them for cuts that are so neutral in flavor they can completely transform them into any magical concoction they can, well, concoct. Even in my limited yet rapidly growing experience I understand and have been led to believe that the fruits of H-H are the most rambunctious, true, and lip-smacking flavors on the market. So here we are faced with one of the most classic and traditional fruit flavors there is, and Hookah-Hookah's submission is a nonexistant, non-smoking, non-pleasing fluke of an embarrassment bowl? What gives, says I. What. Gives.
I guess I've been keeping in mind how mortified I was to sample 7-Spice right out of the bowl, and how enlivened I was to revisit it later and find that by some alchemy it had transformed into the shisha I thought I was buying. I've been keeping it in mind, but what I'm also keeping in mind is that fact that I opened up my Orange and mixed it with things quite a while ago. It's been exposed to air or whatever other transformative variable would have been working on 7-Spice and it's this drivel! And that's not to say "exposed to air" as in like "I lost the lid and it's been drying out for months," I just mean I broke the seal. I'm confused. Confused and sad. Blastula. (That's a developmental bio term, but it's also me making a curse word longer than it currently exists in common usage.)

Hookah-Hookah Orange: star star star star star
3/4 of a star for, I guess, the only buzz that one hit of H-H shisha has ever given me?
Chocolate + Orange = Slammer!
1/2 Orange + 1/4 Acai Berry + 1/4 Margarita = The Everything Fruit!

Actually Lazy Sunday

I feel, dear readers, that I have not been making good on the part of my tagline what says "whatever else I have to say." Verily, posts have been few and far between, and compared to ow I normally talk they've been downright curt when they do come around.

If your one of those 4 people that reads this blog and just doesn't comment, I apologize to you. It has been this way because all of the interesting and colorful stuff I've had to say lately has been, well, a total downer. I've been having a shitty semester. Really shitty. For a number of reasons. Are my problems complex and therefore kind of interesting? I guess. Are the ways in which I'd go about relating them colorful? Most yes. But is this a freaking Livejournal where half the people that come across would think that I'm positively flooding my keyboard with wristblood while I write these rants and cut myself? Probably. And I don't want to present/propagate that image, and I don't want to bore or get you down, so online I try to keep it upbeat. And if upbeatedness is not to be had that day then I won't write much of anything.

WHICH brings me around to saying that this weekend has been pretty damn good, and very relaxing, and super freakin' snowy so I'm in the mood to charm the pants off you with a couple blend reviews.

Becky's Shisha Kitchen!
Recipies of Delicious Smoking

Had this one in the book for a while, actually. I'm starting my good-faith effort to use up flavors that I bought because they sounded like not-licorice and they turned out to be straight up licorice. Starting with the 7-Spice which may I make you aware, has changed drastically in smell from the first time I opened it, and it shows in these blends.

(a la Aladdin introducer [voiced by Robin Williams I bet you didn't know])
Arabian Iiiiice....

I mixed 1/4 Nakhla mint, 1/4 Hookah-Hookah Spearmint, and 1/2 extremely non-anise smelling H-H 7-Spice to synthesize what I hope will be the most exotic Popsicle ever.
THE RESULT: This mix is simultaneously cold and smoky. Dare I say it is perfect? I may darest. There's something so balanced and non-creepy crawly I get about the 7-Spice this time... do you know what I mean when I say creepy crawly? How licorice in any considerable amount just oozes over your tongue like asphalt on a hot day? Yeah, well, it's not there. Mint is, I suppose, the perfect foil for anise, though I may use a little less in the future. It's a powerful ally, you know?

1/4 Mint + 1/4 Spearmint + 1/2 7-Spice = Arabian Iiiice! (Like Arabian daaays...
more often than not, are hotter than hot, in a lot of good waaaaaaaays...) *sigh*

The Everything Fruit

You know how fruitcake is called fruitcake, and it kind of tastes like there's some fruit present, but if you're munching on a store bought one (god knows why) you realize that the only fruity thing about it are these Gummy Bear looking bits that don't even taste like fruit themselves but are closer to Spice Drops? Yeah, I guess this mix is like that. I wanted something fruity when I mixed 1/2 H-H orange, 1/4 Acai Berry, and 1/4 Margarita, and I can't say I didn't get it.
THE RESULT: It is well balanced if nondescript. I thought that the sour Margarita would actually be too much and it's not at all. It's a different kind of nondescript than the Slammer I wrote about a ways back, but this wishy-washiness is far superior. The likeness does bring me about to an observation, though, as I am a scientist, and that conclusion is: ORANGE IS A NOTHING FLAVOR. I haven't tried it alone, but I guess I should, because in a company so well versed in fruit flavors, I went on trust that H-H's Orange would knock me out of the park, but it's fairly nonexistant in both of these mixes. Nothing says, let alone screams, "orange" and it was half of the bowl, you know? The sour gets even a bit lost for my taste, but I'm kind of okay with that because I added Margarita in the hopes that it would be an assimilated accent. I'm getting mostly Acai Berry but that's fine, because I love that flavor.
I do really like this mix though. I mean, A LOT. But I couldn't say why I like it since typically I criticize blandiness. But I guess when you compare blandy fruit and blandy sour you get inexplicable good. *shrug*

1/2 Orange + 1/4 Acai Berry + 1/4 Margarita = The Everything Fruit!

Now get outta my kitchen.

Before the Fattening

Takin' it easy at home, waiting for the day I will eat my weight in pies and such, playing Harvest Moon and watching The Soup! Such funny business. (Until a Lifetime Original Movie comes on, then it's all drama all the time.)

I also just got myself an interview at Toys 'R' Us. Yes, I could be working at Toys 'R' Us for the holiday season, sure to either fill me with enough magic to restart believing in Santa, or kill my soul so utterly I will become an unrecognizable coal-black shell of a carbon life form and not much more. And that's IF I get the job. So we shall see.

A word on boring-ass Wii games such as Harvest Moon:
_ I love them. Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing, all you do is go about you life in a small town where you know everyone and, furthermore, can get something out of them. The problem with Animal Crossing: City Folks is that it is in real time. PAINSTAKING real time. So when I abandon it to go to school and come ome 4 months later, all the little big-nosed animals are all just screeching "WOAH! I haven't seen you in 4 MONTHS! Blah blah blah horrible horrible horrible..." for a couple days actually, and my house is full of cockroaches to boot.
_ So that (in a way) brings me back to Harvest Moon. Tree of Tranquility is the Wii version, and gameplay is something like 5 minutes:second, game:real. The goal? Run farm, build rainbows. THAT'S IT. You can go fishing, make nicey-nice with the locals, settle down and pop out a kid if you wish, but all of that comes with the freedom to completely subvert the designed plot and take time to, I dunno, learn every single recipe or something. I, however, am quite goal-oriented, and even in my relentless quest for rainbows, I am still left with copious amounts of free time.
Rainbows are "built" by completing "recipes" by bringing ingredients to a delightful little fairy. So if they need, say, some flax yarn (which I haven't found to buy), you can buy the seeds any time, but you have to wait until Spring to sow them. And if you don't already have a yarn maker or some shit you best be stashing that flax until you do. Overall the game is an exercise in both delightfulness and patience. Though by the same token, even with my horse (or ostrich. Yes.) to shuttle me around town, the time can really be a constraint. In my Gamecube version, It's a Wonderful Life, each second was only one minute and in my eyes, it was perfect. In Wonderful Life, really the only goal is to build your farm and raise your kid. In T.o.T you have more to do and less time to do it, leaving anyone with even a slight anxiety condition to get all tight in the chest as you watch the sun setting over Mt. Gelato. (Must be in bed with the hubby with time to re-energize for tomorrow!)
Anyway, what I mean to say is, I've got 3/5 rainbows and I'm about half there on the 4th's recipe and all my animals love me and I'm about to adopt a stray dog. I just need more winter crops.

I have digressed in such a way because my review is of a blend, one I mixed myself, and A.) I just talked about how reviews of blends can lean towards "GOOD" or "BAD" - i.e. SHORT and B.) This blend I had real high hopes for just kinda left me cold.

Becky's Shisha Kitchen!
Recipies of Delicious Smoking

Slammer

You know, those chocolate oranges that you bash on the table to break into slices. They're creamy but citrusy, thick but fruity, delicious any time of year, right?
I mixed equal parts Chocolate and Orange for this blend, and the smoke was nice but just so bland. I kind of forgot I was smoking it, or what I was smoking. My friend approved, and so did I I guess, but despite the elements of the listed flavors being there, neither popped. Neither made it exciting. It was the worst kind of balanced ever. Not that it wasn't unpleasant overall, just not what I expected.

Chocolate + Orange = Slammer!

Now get outta my kitchen.