Don't get me wrong, America's great and all. But I wanted to take a moment and pay homage to the best li'l box of coals in the whole big hookah world... Chronic Hookah Instant-Light Coconut Charcoals! I found these beauties on thehookah.com . I ordered them with my first round of H-H tobacco and they have gotten me this far!! I know, I've had myriad hiatus...es... hiati? *shudder*... I know, I've had several periods of dormancy and so maybe to you cynical blogosphere types think that over 8 months of loyal hookah-heating doesn't sound that impressive? But it friggin' is!
Chronic provides the low eco-impact of using gathered coconut husks of all things to make up their squares. They are a low-ash, slow-heat, and flavor-neutral coal. Furthermore they come in a handy dandy quick light option which is DA BOMB. I've never had a bad experience with them in terms of longevity and heat. They're pretty caustic as they're lighting, but you need chemicals to make a quick light light, so, *shrug* I love you Chronic Hookah! You're the best and I'm never going back.
In the coming days (or weeks, ugh) when my big Box'o'108 actually runs out, I'm going to order some shisha with it, using whatever meager funds I can scratch together at this financially desolate time of year, and I am deliberately avoiding Hookah-Hookah shisha. Not because I don't love it, no, but because I realize it's basically all I've ever talked about.
And if you didn't come to a hookah blog to read about hookah talk, I want to go on the record and say that the next time I see a wedding dress with a see-through bodice I'm gonna flip my shit. I am a liberal feminist sex-liking artsy type and I STILL get sick to my stomach when I hear a bride talk about how "sexy" she wants to look on her wedding day and how naked she will try to be in a ump-teen thousand dollar dress.
TTFN!
Friday, July 2, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Do you watch Hell's Kitchen?
It's one of the shows that my family sits down and watches together. It's normally pretty entertaining and it's not as over-dramatized as some reality gameshows out there and... I dunno, watching people get yelled at is enjoyable sometimes.
This year it's really awful though. The red team (formerly the girl's team until they got a guy that was going to be eliminated from the blue team) just HATES each other and they're all real real incompetent. So, they don't win, which makes them mad at each other, so they yell at each other, and they lose challenges... on and on and on. I don't want that negativity in my life. Even the winning team is complainers. And yet I watch.
At first I had a very poignant series of rhetorical questions to finish that up with but I'll be damned if I can't formulate it anymore. Whatevs. Peace.
This year it's really awful though. The red team (formerly the girl's team until they got a guy that was going to be eliminated from the blue team) just HATES each other and they're all real real incompetent. So, they don't win, which makes them mad at each other, so they yell at each other, and they lose challenges... on and on and on. I don't want that negativity in my life. Even the winning team is complainers. And yet I watch.
At first I had a very poignant series of rhetorical questions to finish that up with but I'll be damned if I can't formulate it anymore. Whatevs. Peace.
Monday, June 21, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, May 31, 2010
**You Are Reading This 2 Weeks Ago**
Gone to the Galapagos, see you in two weeks!
Hm? Oh, the asteriks didn't actually transport you back in time? That's odd.
So hey! I went to Ecuador for 2 weeks and spent half of that time in the Galapagos! I didn't tell you then because I was too busy frantically packing and you're just the internet. I can't tell you now because I've been up for 48 hours. Even with my massive influx of equatorial vitamin D I just don't have the energy to give you proper freakout. I've told my stories many times today.
Pictures will all go onto Photobucket and then Facebook and they will be mind-boggling. I also want to give on official poo-poo to Flickr for making me sign up for another Yahoo account after I'd just dropped my old one and THEN only letting me upload 100MB and 2 videos worth. I have almost 1,000 high-quality (i.e. 1 MB or more each) pics and videos to get off this lappy before it dies, man! Plus one of my friends backed up her stuff so she could delete and re-fill a memory card. Bo. Gus.
Goodnight, Internet, I love you!!!
Hm? Oh, the asteriks didn't actually transport you back in time? That's odd.
So hey! I went to Ecuador for 2 weeks and spent half of that time in the Galapagos! I didn't tell you then because I was too busy frantically packing and you're just the internet. I can't tell you now because I've been up for 48 hours. Even with my massive influx of equatorial vitamin D I just don't have the energy to give you proper freakout. I've told my stories many times today.
Pictures will all go onto Photobucket and then Facebook and they will be mind-boggling. I also want to give on official poo-poo to Flickr for making me sign up for another Yahoo account after I'd just dropped my old one and THEN only letting me upload 100MB and 2 videos worth. I have almost 1,000 high-quality (i.e. 1 MB or more each) pics and videos to get off this lappy before it dies, man! Plus one of my friends backed up her stuff so she could delete and re-fill a memory card. Bo. Gus.
Goodnight, Internet, I love you!!!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Tedano, Ryukyu, Ohio, Oh My!
I can add to my list of marketable skills: being sole run crew for a show with 5 hours practice time and a non-English speaking stage manager.
This weekend I made upwards of $90 pulling curtains for the Tedano Kai dance troupe from Okinawa. "Living Legend" dancers were part of this group man, and they were coming to where, Buttsquat, Ohio? I guess the Ohio-Okinawa Association was having their 15th anniversary or something and they got THESE GUYS. What an honor... for, you know, the people it meant something to.
The dances were, like techno music, all the exact same tempo and key. Unlike techno, however, the dances were [sometimes painfully] slow and often had many scenes.
What WAS cool were the elaborate costumes and makeup. It was incredibly theatrical and I was glad to be backstage for it. The quick-change from a princess to a demon? Bad. Ass. There was also a really neat dragon puppet who had basically a box for a head and ribbons for a body. I don't know much else of what was going on.
So, they brought their own stage manager and he's used to a.) having total control and b.) keying in a time and having the curtains fly in/out with the push of a button. I am not a button! And what with him changing his mind a lot there was, I think, no smooth runs of the show. In my original notes the instructions were to slowly close the curtain until the last dancer was off, or slowly raise the curtain to set the pace of the music. Well, that's all well and good until you're getting the small circles to speed it up EVERY time and eventually there was no point in doing it anything but full speed every time. *shrug*
The translator was a really nice guy, but he admitted to not speaking the Okinawan dialect and in terms of stagecraft he got in the way sometimes. I got pretty used to Mr. Stage Manager pointing at me and saying something equivalent to "go." Jim (translator) gave a lot of "wait" fingers that looked like "raise the curtains now" and thumbs-ups that meant, alternately, "you're fine" and "okay, go now." He also stood in my sight line more than once which is irksome. He gave me a hug when I left though so it's cool.
At the end of these meticulous, traditional, artistic dances, they did a free dance to "Hang On Sloopy" and all the people on headset died a little inside. Personally, it's like reason #4 that I didn't go to OSU. Why are you doing this to me, Grand Masters Chie Tamagusuku and Shizue Matayoshi? Why? Why are you allowing this to go on in your presence?
It was also one of those uncomfortably long jokes too. By which I mean the whole song. Songs are a joke for maybe the first chorus. Then people start to think you're insulting their intelligence. At least I did.
All in all they were very polite people. They bought us lunch, and gave me $10 to mostly sit around after paying their own way to get here. Hope they had a good time stateside!
Also, this is a curtain experience in which my hand were not ripped to bloody shreds. All in all I don't think it could have gotten much better.
Reviiiiiiieeeeeeew.
This weekend I made upwards of $90 pulling curtains for the Tedano Kai dance troupe from Okinawa. "Living Legend" dancers were part of this group man, and they were coming to where, Buttsquat, Ohio? I guess the Ohio-Okinawa Association was having their 15th anniversary or something and they got THESE GUYS. What an honor... for, you know, the people it meant something to.
The dances were, like techno music, all the exact same tempo and key. Unlike techno, however, the dances were [sometimes painfully] slow and often had many scenes.
What WAS cool were the elaborate costumes and makeup. It was incredibly theatrical and I was glad to be backstage for it. The quick-change from a princess to a demon? Bad. Ass. There was also a really neat dragon puppet who had basically a box for a head and ribbons for a body. I don't know much else of what was going on.
So, they brought their own stage manager and he's used to a.) having total control and b.) keying in a time and having the curtains fly in/out with the push of a button. I am not a button! And what with him changing his mind a lot there was, I think, no smooth runs of the show. In my original notes the instructions were to slowly close the curtain until the last dancer was off, or slowly raise the curtain to set the pace of the music. Well, that's all well and good until you're getting the small circles to speed it up EVERY time and eventually there was no point in doing it anything but full speed every time. *shrug*
The translator was a really nice guy, but he admitted to not speaking the Okinawan dialect and in terms of stagecraft he got in the way sometimes. I got pretty used to Mr. Stage Manager pointing at me and saying something equivalent to "go." Jim (translator) gave a lot of "wait" fingers that looked like "raise the curtains now" and thumbs-ups that meant, alternately, "you're fine" and "okay, go now." He also stood in my sight line more than once which is irksome. He gave me a hug when I left though so it's cool.
At the end of these meticulous, traditional, artistic dances, they did a free dance to "Hang On Sloopy" and all the people on headset died a little inside. Personally, it's like reason #4 that I didn't go to OSU. Why are you doing this to me, Grand Masters Chie Tamagusuku and Shizue Matayoshi? Why? Why are you allowing this to go on in your presence?
It was also one of those uncomfortably long jokes too. By which I mean the whole song. Songs are a joke for maybe the first chorus. Then people start to think you're insulting their intelligence. At least I did.
All in all they were very polite people. They bought us lunch, and gave me $10 to mostly sit around after paying their own way to get here. Hope they had a good time stateside!
Also, this is a curtain experience in which my hand were not ripped to bloody shreds. All in all I don't think it could have gotten much better.
Reviiiiiiieeeeeeew.
Becky's Shisha Kitchen!
Recipies of Delicious Smoking
Recipies of Delicious Smoking
Much like the last time we met in this kitchen, I made a good-faith effort to use up all the flavors that I'd originally slapped on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper and said "No! Bad shisha! You are not licorice! Bad!" and shoved to the back of the drawer where all the rest of my broken dreams are held. Last time was a great repossession/success! This time was too. And it proved once and for all that
I am a better flavor tester than anyone currently working
for the Hookah-Hookah corporation.
Pomegranate, Really
for the Hookah-Hookah corporation.
Pomegranate, Really
Things I was keeping in mind: 7-Spice lost incredible degrees of anise with just time and air, I need a way to combat anise besides coolness (mint), FIE UPON YOU, ANISE.
The Mix: 1/2 Pomegranate, 1/2 Margarita
The Result: Oh man. Oh man oh man. This stuff is seriously delicious, y'all. It's flavorful, fruity, and somewhat sour. It's full bodied and a little sweet, but not candy sweet. You'd know this is a tobacco product, but it's so clearly a nice pomegranate taste too. Not overbearing, I mean to say. It's a rich flavor that speaks its flavor and its plant biology very eloquently. I held this smoke in for quite some time and wound up with a nice nicotine/O2-deprivation buzz. Whee!
Margarita, you and me are like this now, buddy. You're fruit's best friend. Here's to taking on Orange next.
The Mix: 1/2 Pomegranate, 1/2 Margarita
The Result: Oh man. Oh man oh man. This stuff is seriously delicious, y'all. It's flavorful, fruity, and somewhat sour. It's full bodied and a little sweet, but not candy sweet. You'd know this is a tobacco product, but it's so clearly a nice pomegranate taste too. Not overbearing, I mean to say. It's a rich flavor that speaks its flavor and its plant biology very eloquently. I held this smoke in for quite some time and wound up with a nice nicotine/O2-deprivation buzz. Whee!
Margarita, you and me are like this now, buddy. You're fruit's best friend. Here's to taking on Orange next.
Now get outta my kitchen.
TTFN, world!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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