Crazy Lawsuit Game

Yesterday was of course 4-20 aka Hitler's birthday aka April 20th. I hope you enjoyed it. It was great weather down here.

Earth Day is tomorrow! Hooray! Thankfully, it will be nice and sunny so I can ride my bike in and then swing by the Earth Day booths on campus. I would like to volunteer but that doesn't make the priority list right now.

J is really helping me with my writing. I was going down a bit of the wrong path, or wasn't on the right path long enough, but she has really stepped up and given me guidance and feedback and it's paying off.

I burnt our lab's water pump to a crisp over the weekend. I left it at 50C for 3 days, it ran dry, caught on fire, tripped circuit breakers and made me ever so distraught yesterday.

I'm not a huge PETA fan, because if the animals are treated humanely and fed a natural diet of grass and hay, they're delicious! But I absolutely understand it takes way more resources to get meat on my plate than veggies, so J and I are trying to live a little more "3rd World" style and limit our protein to mostly veggies and beans and not too much meat, and even when we do have meat, make sure we don't eat tons and it was responsibly harvested.

So we made vegan-ish blueberry pancakes (we have vegan butter from my week long vegan experiment but it's flavorless, so these were cooked in butter) which have no eggs and soy milk. We used basically this recipe but added a splash of vanilla. Delicious! Really light and fluffy and the frozen blueberries we used didn't break and turn the batter all purple.

Later that day we made a shepherd's pie with ground goat purchased from Split Creek Goat Farm, and that goat was tasty!

So for Earth Day, carpool, walk, bike, take public transit, eat some vegetables, plant some vegetables, get outside and enjoy Earth!

Labels: 420, Earth Day, Eat Locally, medicinal marijuana, recipe, vegetarian

My ride yesterday was nice and dirty. I did a bit of trail riding, then realized I didn't want to ride back up that hill and then rode around the banks of Lake Hartwell to get back to the road. Lake Hartwell is wicked low (since we're in an extreme drought) and I was actually riding on what was formerly the bottom of the lake.

Writing has reached a fever pitch as I try and finish this bloody thing.

I've been in a "bloody" phase again recently.

J had to admonish me that I was being too sarcastic and jerky to her and her mom this weekend. It's been a while since I've spoken with loved ones in real life. I didn't mean to be so snarky but it was built up. The cats didn't seem to mind.

The Mexican Drug cartel violence has finally spilled over into the States in a very noticeable way. We might need to think of changing tactics since the past 30 years of stopping the supply hasn't worked, mmmmm, AT ALL! And now the Mexican Drug cartels have loads of money, man power and guns, all financed by Americans looking to escape their daily lives who should be thrown in jail according to the US Drug War policy. What about reducing demand? What about admitting that people loves drugs (in addition to nicotine, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals) and controlling the flow of drugs OURSELVES?

Bah, back to writing about synthesis of alkali lanthanide fluorides.

Labels: bicycle, Big Pharma, J, medicinal marijuana, Mexico, writing

The Clemson Tigers men's basketball team last night put a 27 point shellacking on the Duke Blue Devils men's basketball team. Duke was #3 in the nation and we were #10. We improve to 19 wins and 2 losses (Wake Forest and North Carolina) and take over second in the ACC.

The rest of the season should be exciting and hopefully we can do well in the ACC tournament and then in the NCAA tournament in March.

Since we don't have TV anymore, we heard about the score via Facebook and then from my co-workers.

Writing is still coming along. We're entering hardcore time. I'll keep you posted.

J is tasked with finding me a job and also increasing my professional online status. I just googled myself (eeewwww) and cleaned up a link or two. My technorati profile had my full real name along side my screen name. It's like that a few other places but you would have to click on them to figure it out instead of being right there in the search results like the technorati link was. I also need to professional up this place. I'll leave the NORML links because I believe in that cause and honestly think it would help with the current state of our economy, it would also cut down on the war just across the border in Mexico. Check out the NYTimes article if you haven't heard about the bodies piling up on account of our ineffective drug policy.

Labels: Clemson, medicinal marijuana, writing

Once I'm done here, J will apply to grad school for wildlife conservation (because she loves animals and wants to help them but doesn't want to be a vet) and I will follow her to wherever she winds up and find a job there. This plan might change but since J has been sacrificing by staying in South Carolina while I get my degree, it will be my turn to sacrifice and follow her to her school of choice.

This season of Weeds is moving along quite well. I can't believe Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker's character) went through the tunnel. Where did she think it went? To a goldmine? Buried treasure? Canada? A tunnel in the back of your store near the Mexican border goes to MEXICO and the guy who employs Guillermo (the always amazing Guillermo Diaz) and more importantly you to be the face of the store that is clearly a front bringing fresh packed bricks of mota into this country. (Yes, the government could tax it and cut the bad drug dealers out of the picture, but they don't want to do that) But you had to go and venture into the tunnel and got in big trouble.

I can't wait for Andy (Justin Kirk) and Doug (Kevin Nealon) to become coyotes. Of course, neither one of them speaks Spanish well, if at all, so this should be a hilarious storyline.

Yes it comes on Monday nights but we didn't watch it until yesterday. If you don't get Showtime, I would highly recommend finding a friend who does, renting or buying the DVD sets. It's a great show that doesn't glorify the drug business at all. It's a fairly realistic take on it, I guess, not being a SoCal dealer myself.

Back to work!

Labels: medicinal marijuana

I wonder if bakers use the term "wake and bake" also. As I cut through our neighboring apartment complex and trudged through the grass glistening with the morning dew, I rounded the corner and stopped in my tracks. Sniff, sniff. What is that pungent, intoxicating aroma? Of course! Our old dear enchantress, Mary Jane. I peer back over my shoulder to the basement balcony, nope no one there, then move my eyes to the first floor balcony where I spy half a body hidden behind a grill. I can only assume they were high because it was a terrible hiding job. I smile and make a remark about that smelling very good and continue on my way whilst they hide and probably freak out behind the grill. The warmth of my vegetarian breakfast sandwich feels good in my hands and the double fiber honey wheat english muffin still feels soft after coming out of the microwave just a few minutes prior. Walking towards the CATbus I replayed what just happened and what it all means. First, that person (wasn't able to ID a gender so maybe it wasn't the worst hiding job) is truly fighting some stereotypical stoner behavior by being up so early in the morning. 8 am is early for most and non-existent for others. 2nd, the DEA (who just celebrated their 35th birthday) clearly is not doing its job and has let this hoodlum slip through the cracks, I guess they need more money and time to win this "war on drugs". Please note extreme sarcasm. Thirdly, even though the federal government keeps telling us that marijuana is horrible and kills babies, that college students still think for themselves and experiment with that mostly harmless, definitely less harmful than alcohol, plant.

So the Drug Enforcement Agency turned 35. Nixon passed the bill and 35 years later, here we are. Let's check some stats shall we?

“At its outset, the DEA had 1,470 Special Agents, a budget of less than $75 million, and a presence in 31 countries. Today, the DEA has 5,235 Special Agents, a budget of more than $2.4 billion and 87 foreign offices in 63 countries.”

Truly a testament to government's ability to take an idea, good or bad, run with it and never look back. Why should they? They're the government for crying out loud! They're never wrong! The article quoted above is by Russ Belville who has a XM radio show and a local AM radio show in Portland. He also happens to run the NORML podcasts and is chair of Portland's NORML branch. You can read the whole article here, courtesy of Lew Rockwell.

So maybe it's time to reevaluate the war on drugs. Don't worry government, you won't have to admit you were wrong. "Times have changed, drugs have changed, drug users have changed so our tactic in the war on drugs must change also. And we're going to legalize marijuana, tax it and sell it in ABC stores all over the country to see how much money we can make and to see if the use of herb sky-rockets." That's just a suggestion, I'm sure your speech writers can really jazz it up with some statistics and figures and, ooooh, insert one of those "Faces of Meth" presentations, if that doesn't keep you off crank, nothing will.

We'll see what happens, but I did notice that the DEA's 35th anniversary wasn't really covered by The Media. I guess no news is better than bad news.

By the way, I'm not a hardcore vegetarian. For the benefit of mistreated animals, J and I are attempting to have as many meat free meals as possible. Humanely treated, free range, grass fed livestock meat is fine with us and delicious!

Labels: 420, Big Media, CATbus, injustice, medicinal marijuana, vegetarian

J is a big fan of taking classes. We haven't actually taken any classes but she always wants to take a cooking class or a photography class. She's a visual learner and feels she needs to see what's going on before she can grasp the idea and then do it for herself. Since I'm a fan of always learning, I'm on board with these ideas.

We both need to read more. The 7 habits of highly successful people is dry and it feels like an assignment and I haven't read more than 80 pages or so. I still feel successful just not highly successful. It isn't pleasure reading and we both need more of that. Maybe I'll go see what Cynical Chris is reading or has read and try a couple out.

Neither J nor I have littered in years. Actually on our hike last week, we picked up other people's trash. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone did that? There would only be grass and trees and birds outside instead of McDonald's cups, wrappers and cigarette butts. This is obviously excluding landfills but we try and recycle as much as we can to try and keep some of our trash out of those too. We do it for Mother Nature and for you. When you're hiking or biking or driving or walking along wouldn't you rather enjoy nature and its majesty instead of being distracted by that Bud Light can? Or maybe it's just me. Maybe other people can ignore the trash and keep going, but I really can't. I see it and it reminds me that certain people are disgusting and they should be made to live in the filth they toss outdoors.

J's mom was up here a couple weeks ago and we both jumped on her when she threw a cigarette butt on the ground in the parking lot of the airport. I told her my theory that ultimately it will be the trash that smokers leave that gets smoking banned most everywhere, especially outdoors. Can you imagine not smoking in a national park? Well it's coming. Mark my word. They already have smoke-free beaches in Cali and I'm sure only part of the argument was the second-hand smoke blowing into people's faces. Those poor children making their sand castles and digging up cigarette butts. Someone finally thought of the children!

I really need to let Camel know about my theory. I still occasionally smoke because it's fun and cool. Sure I get winded walking up stairs the next day, but that goes away once my lungs heal. I got an email from them asking for me to stand up against a proposed increase in cigarette taxes in South Carolina. I laughed and deleted it. We have some of the lowest cigarette prices in the country and smokers should probably pay a bit more for their habit. Maybe it'll even get a few people to quit?

Camel has been my brand since undergrad. Caveman smoked Camel Lights and they weren't bad and then I had a Camel Special Light and was blown away. Then they kept coming up with different flavors and cool tins and cool designs on their packs. All those coupled with my fond images of Joe Cool, the coolest smoking camel around, and I almost exclusively smoke Camels. I have a friend who works for the OTHER big brand of cigarette, you know, they sponsor a certain red F1 team. Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro? Ring any bells? I'm actually impressed with them the most because they are a title sponsor of the team but can only have "Marlboro" on the race car for 3 out of 16 races. That's panache.

Which brings me to my original topic: getting high. Most people associate that term with mary jane but it fits for anything that gets your heart rate up and you enjoy and want to do again. There are ways to get high drug-free. Homer showed a couple when Moe wouldn't serve him. You can give blood or go up to an elevation where the air is thinner. I hear sky-diving, base jumping and most other extreme, sorry x-treme, sports are a great adrenaline rush. Don't like those ideas? Okay, then we'll move on to putting something into your body. Starbucks thinks caffeine is a great drug, in fact, why aren't you drinking a Pumpkin Spice Latte right now?!?!?! Others enjoy highly processed sugary foods and drinks. Some try over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. There are quite a few. I'll let you search Erowid for those. Still too tame. Now we're getting into the good stuff. Stuff that you either need a doctor's prescription or have to be of legal age to get your hands on. Cigarettes (nicotine!) and alcohol (beer!), hooray! Doctor's can get you lots of other drugs but you usually have to be pretty banged up to get those, so we'll stick with the two that the federal government thinks are safe enough to be distributed pretty much everywhere. Cigarettes make you stink and your lungs forgive you only if you stop for a long time. Alcohol also makes you stink and your liver will forgive you only if you drink in moderation (1-2 a day, whatever pansy liver, I wanna get drunk!)

That's it. Everything else is "bad" and cigarettes and alcohol are "good". Thanks government for thinking of our safety and health and only allowing these two drugs to be bought and sold openly.

Labels: beer, Big Pharma, F1, hiking, litter, medicinal marijuana

I subscribe to Playboy. I read the articles AND look at the nekkid ladies.

If you read the two preview links in my last post, you're ahead of me. I haven't had any time to read through them.

I like Cuba. I've always liked Cuba. The US Government wants us to think they're all evil communists that would give food and free health care to all our poor people and do so by stealing from the rich. They would also teach them to read because Cuba enjoys a 99.8% literacy rate where as ours is 99%. They also teach English to their citizens using the public broadcasting service. The last time I learned Spanish from TV was Sesame Street and once when the cats pressed the Spanish sub-title button while we were watching Snatch. The first article covers Cuba and Environmentalism. I look forward to reading the article from Outside magazine.

The second link is a document from the American College of Physicians calling for the US Government and DEA to reschedule marijuana so that scientists can research whether or not it has any medical uses. Currently there are a few papers claiming therapeutic uses for cannabinoids (compounds found in herb) but they are mostly done in other countries because the DEA has a fierce lock-down on the federal supply and because they feel that it has no medicinal use. The American College of Physicians is the 2nd largest group of physicians in this country (behind the "Pharmaceuticals are great and you need more!" American Medical Association)

The American College of Physicians (ACP) is a national organization of internists — physicians who specialize in the prevention, detection and treatment of illnesses in adults. ACP is the largest medical-specialty organization and second-largest physician group in the United States. Its membership of 124,000 includes internists, internal medicine subspecialists, and medical students, residents, and fellows.

Hopefully this new group will spur some change and a new hard look at our stance of focusing the majority of our "War on Drugs" money at stopping the supply of drugs instead of stopping the demand for drugs in this country. So with this statement the ACP joins the American Nurses Association, the American Public Health Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians and many other medical associations calling for the rescheduling of marijuana. Full article from NORML.

Just in case you're wondering what drugs the DEA thinks is as bad and useless as marijuana, check out their drug schedules.

And of course, please visit Erowid if you have any drug questions, "legal" or otherwise.

Labels: Big Pharma, Cuba, medicinal marijuana

- whatever character Sean Connery played in the film, Medicine Man. Pretty cool movie. They do some chemistry (gas chromatography) in the rain forest trying to find the cure for cancer. The British lady who was the mom in 3 Men and a Baby is in it too. Wow, I just completely mixed up Lorraine Bracco and Nancy Travis. Sorry ladies. Nancy was the mom from 3 Men but she was not in Medicine Man, that was Lorraine who of course was also in Goodfellas, Hackers and some other recent HBO show about the mafia with the weird ending.

I need to get back to the rainforest. I toured it once in Costa Rica on a trip with my dad and brother to Tortuguero National Park where we hiked through the rainforests, saw toucans, brightly colored frogs and had an incredible time. That was also the trip where I led newly hatched sea turtles to the ocean at night with my flashlight. First I need to get out of school, then pay off some debt, then travel and get back to the tropics.

Sorry about the new Google ad box to your left. I had only made about 28 cents since I put it up last year sometime, so I thought it might be time to put one a bit higher on the page.

Hopefully J and I will be going camping this weekend. Yes it will be cold but we'll be in the woods and as long as no skin is exposed, it'll be fine. There will also be a campfire.

Congrats to Waukesha County in Wisconsin for using common sense! They have decriminalized your first possession of marijuana arrest. For first time offenders who only have a small amount of medicine on them when caught, they can be issued a citation and made to pay a fine instead of clogging up the legal system. They don't really say what a "small" amount is but I assume it's less than an ounce but sounds like it's up to the individual officer. Of course, dealers and people caught with pounds will still be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. These are the baby steps that society is taking towards ending the outrageous and useless war against drugs. Okay, the war against drugs isn't completely useless, but the tactics of the past 30 years haven't worked so maybe we should try a new approach?

The FCC went crazy again. Now they think they can shut down websites. Popularity Dialer.com is a website that will call you at predetermined times if you need to get out of a date or lame dinner party or if you just need to hear your phone ring. It was started by Jenny Chowdhury and Cory Forsyth when they were college students and the site has no ads and is free of charge. But some jerk made their site call a FCC lawyer who didn't appreciate it and shut the website down. It doesn't seem like they should be able to do that, does it? Read David Pogue's post explaining the whole thing. Once again, fuck the FCC. Here is Penn and Teller explaining why the FCC should be disbanded.

Labels: camping, Costa Rica, injustice, medicinal marijuana, movie

Hooray! Another season down and I still don't care. Maybe if I owned a team I would care a bit more. Maybe.

Edit: Almost forgot. Foxy is getting spayed today so I hope everything goes alright during surgery.



I'm about to get to work but wanted to share this real quick. So you know how Britain is our buddy? Well, they went against our wishes and downgraded cannabis (marijuana) to a Class C drug. This was a few years ago so obviously the country has devolved into head shops on every corner and every school student smoking a doobie during recess and nap time right? Nope. In fact, less young people are using cannabis now in the UK.

I know. It's hard for us to believe. Drugs are the devil and should be down away with completely. This stance hasn't worked since, oh around, never. But the countries that actually admit that people like their drugs and will continue to use them no matter what have lower usage stats than our great country. So what does this mean? I think it means we need to reevaluate how we classify our drugs. You cannot sit there and tell me that heroin and cannabis are in the same class of drugs. But that is what we teach in this country. This is what our government and tax dollars are teaching America's youth. Smoking a joint and injecting heroin is the exact same thing in their eyes. A similar situation (in my amateur opinion) would be a kid popping a ziploc bag of air, and that same kid getting a chunk of cesium or rubidium and dropping it in a tub of water. Not the same thing. Not even the same league. Barely even the same sport.

Whatever. Just know that my kids will be informed about all drugs around them and their effects on the body. You better believe we'll be starting with caffeine, alcohol and nicotine. All the legal "healthy" drugs. Riiiiiight.

Labels: 420, injustice, medicinal marijuana

Seattle Hempfest is this weekend. Come out and support the cause! The cause is ending a pointless war on a mostly harmless plant.



Click the poster for details.

Apparently Clemson has an intruder!

Steven Weldon, a 50 yr old homeless guy, has been caught trespassing on campus repeatedly and asked to stay away. He hasn't and we just got an email saying to call the cops if we see him on campus. What's the difference between a visitor and a trespasser? Not real sure but it does say that he has been arrested a few times for public disorderly conduct which brings up another question, what's the difference between this guy and a drunken frat boy? That's right. Tuition.

Enjoy your Thursday and if you haven't already, please stop in at Varla's place and leave some condolences for her shar-pei who passed on.

We miss you Kyu-Jin!

Labels: Clemson, intruder, medicinal marijuana

It really is, and it usually isn't pretty. However it can sometimes provide some healthy motivation.

I haven't posted about Anna Nicole's passing because I figured Hef had it under control. And there are such bigger stories in the world, despite what Fox News and other mass media reports on. Some guy killed 5 people and injured 4 in a mall shooting in Utah yesterday. Awful. You always need to keep your eyes and ears open. Trust no one.

So J was reading my blog last night and claimed that I didn't tell her about it. Then this morning I was thinking about that. I know I talked to someone on the phone right after I got done eating and I'll bet dollars to donuts that it was her. But my stupid water logged cell phone can't help me out.

Good news: All I had to do to reactivate my old cell phone was plug in my SIM card. There wasn't even a "SIM card insertion fee" or anything!

More medicinal marijuana news, it now helps with well, I'll let the experts sum it up.

Conclusion: Smoked cannabis was well tolerated and effectively relieved chronic neuropathic pain from HIV-associated sensory neuropathy. The findings are comparable to oral drugs used for chronic neuropathic pain.

The link to the abstract is here, but apparently Clemson doesn't have a subscription to Neurology so I can't read the full article, not that I would or would even feign comprehension. So Nixon's and the DEA's stance that marijuana has no medicinal purpose (hence the Schedule I status) is rapidly being filled with holes. Here's a link to what is neuropathic pain?

We went to the Greenville zoo on Saturday also. It's a very nice little zoo and it is adjacent to a city park which makes it seem larger. There weren't tons of animals and some were inside since the high was in the high 40s or low 50s. The lions are in storage somewhere while they get their new habitat built, scheduled to open this summer. The orangutans weren't out because the sign said they would only be out if the temp was at least in the 60s with light to no wind, so we didn't get a chance to see the new baby orang.

There were 2 African elephants, some Lemurs, ring-tailed of course, a Colobus monkey who was keeping his naughty bits warm by rubbing them, very funny and bright pink, alligators, snapping turtles, some Gibbons who were being very vocal and 4 very cute tortoises. A sleeping ocelot was in there somewhere too. A gorgeous owl, pot-bellied pig, ducks, swans, chickens (yeah chickens, I guess cuz they're cheap?), goats (the pig, and goats are petable but the signs encourage you to wash your hands afterwards), snakes, lizards...


There we go. The leopards were very pretty although they looked sleepy and bored.

It is set up so it is a big loop. You can get to other places by taking short-cuts but if you're not paying attention, it is very easy to see everything without actively thinking about where you're headed. Cuts down on map costs too.

J wants to get into zoological care and maybe go to vet school so she is planning on volunteering at the zoo, which I think is a great idea. She loves animals and knows lots about all kinds of different ones. She doesn't really want to just be a local vet and only do cats and dogs, so zoo is the way to go. I told her that I can't wait to travel around to different wildlife preserves with her.

Labels: cell phone, medicinal marijuana, Zoo