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.

Good job, self

I've been a pretty decent absentee blogger lately. When I logged in today I even found a half-finished draft titled "Straight-to-the-Internet Post." HILARIOUS IRONY. Hilarirony.

I
am
done
with
classes
and I will be spending exponentially more time on the internet starting tonight after my dance show. That will be a video I can hopefully post!

Meanwhile, my foster dogs, who are totally lesbionic for each other, have stopped wrestling and are now currently on top of each other/the couch and silently biting at each others' open mouths. I didn't even think animals without lips could make out. I'm third-wheeling the hell out of this living room right now.

See you all tonight with the first actual shisha review in, what, months?
I have to go sort screws or something equivalently mundane at my drama dept. job, where I'm normally put to use playing with saws and telling other people how they are building it wrong. *gasp* A DOWNSIDE to the end of the academic year! Oh, Pessimism, I knew I could count on you.

Also, I applied to be a contributor to the website of the previously-extolled nerd, bloggist, and purveyor of sexytimes Chris Hardwick. Nerdist.com was once just a blog and will now soon be a blogging empire, the likes of which I would happily build pyramids for until the end of my malnourished, overworked days.
Wish me luck! Or, quite possibly, HI CHRIS.

Things That Mike Has Googled

Here's to them showing up next time, honey.
A LIST OF THINGS MY BOYFRIEND HAS PUT ON MY SEARCH HISTORY:

• Battletits Galactibutt
• Legend of the Buttdick
• Poostallion
• Wangstallion
• TiggleDickles
• Becky hates fun, wah wah wah
• UPDATE: "chunky butter crab nipple angular rotary tesseract sword buttstick"
• UPDATE: "kronk-donkulous"
  

Have a good day. I've been having several, here on spring break. As a matter of awesome, my 21-ness allowed me to take advantage of a liter of Bailey's on sale for $9.99. The price was cut by more than I spent on it. *silent fist pump of victory*

As a matter of not much awesome, no real hookah news. Win some lose some.

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.

Firsties and Lasties!

Like, the first and last day of the month.

Is there any way to assure having "lasties" in a comments section? I would say invariably no. I guess it might happen by chance... but in terms of guaranteeing it? I'd say naw way.

Layalina - Cappuccino

In the box: This shisha actually does come in a box; a clever little matchbox with a bag of WOW. WET. THIS STUFF IS WET. This tobacco is packaged in copious amounts of crimson molasses. I am slightly dismayed that once open, there's no self-sustaining way to be air tight, but this smells exactly like its namesake and with the ridiculous amount of molasses I'm not too worried about it shriveling up anyway. The cut is, I'd say, somewhere between Hookah-Hookah and Nahkla, and it was admittedly kind of hard to spread around. I felt as though I was kind of lumping it into the bowl instead of the all-important "sprinkle" technique, and as I'll touch on later this showed in the uneven burning.
In the bowl: You know what the best idea I've ever had is? Drinking hot chocolate while smoking this shisha. This tobacco is incredibly true to taste and the flavor is strong! Like everything I've ever wanted out of a H-H blend! And so, holing up in my new common-area-turned-hookah-lounge sipping powdered hot cocoa was the best compliment this shisha could get. And though it was delicious, the lumpy cut and the super thick molasses made for a kind of half-and half burning in the bowl. Like, it tasted fine the first time the coal(s) went around, and on my H-H bowls I'm used to making a second pass, maybe with a little turning of the, if you will, soil. However, with this one, it got around once and there was this nearly instantaneous harsh ashiness. I took the foil of to turn it over and it was completely fried on the top and completely pristine on the bottom.
It's economical, in a way, to turn over the shisha in your bowl and effectively have another bowl to smoke without taking more from the box. I still don't like that very much though. I'm not a big fan of the consistency of this Layalina even though the flavor and smell are so top notch I can't even describe. It's just a thing that bothers me. Like, my H-H bowls go for a long time, and the tobacco isn't too wet and it's super fine and it dries out evenly and if I'm really scrounging or if I burned it a bit along the way, I can turn it over with the poker on my tongs. It is still "fluffy" at this stage. It's not cemented together and absolutely singed all around. Layalina came up in sticky globs with a black top and that bright red underside and I smoked what I could and added a pinch to be safe. It wasn't the best texture, but it was a total crowd pleaser. And Becky pleaser. Whoop whoop!

star star star star star
Layalina Cappuccino: 4.25/5 stars

My birthday is coming up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Does that mean I will have more time to smoke? Oh god no. But we'll see how the other variables treat me.
Tra la la...
Toodle-oo.

POIT

In case you haven't noticed, I'm at home again and nobody wants to smoke with me. Poooooop.

I'm going to Oberlin tomorrow! I like it there a lot instead of hating it there! It's where my boyfriend lives! Whee!

This is basically just a shoutout to my lady McLane, who reads this blog very diligently but can never comment cause she's real real bad at the Internet. Pah ha! She's the best at other things though, so, I guess we don't have to make fun of her for too many days.

Also, I just don't care about the Bearcats and how they're failing. Everyone on my current Facebook feed does. Call me a bad Cincinnatian if you want to, I guess... But MY team is in the playoffs right now. WHO DEY. (That's another shoutout to McLane, whose "team" lost more games this season than they did in the previous two. And that's the real advantage to her not being able to comment here.)

Poit. You know. It's what Pinky says besides "Narf."