Hookah Magic

Well it was the night before memorial day and brent, alaine, manthan, and i headed to mariano's. Of course mariano's was closed and so was reed's. So we threw our own shin dig at the house. Kind of hard to entertain three other people on the fly but i busted out drinks and music first, can't really go wrong with that unless you play horrible music.

i then brought out the hookah, since manthan and brent were there i divided out the tasks. manthan packed the bowl while brent got water and i pretty much assembled everything. For some crazy entertainment i whipped up some bubble solution. i read some where that Dawn is the best soap to use but i can't be Ultra. But everything seems to be Ultra on the shelves these days. So i went ahead and used Palmolive. Another crazy thing to add to bubble solutions to make them stronger is glycerin. i spent like a day looking for glycerin and its impossible to find. All i could find at the pharmacy and food stores were glycerin suppositories...yeah, not really going to help me. i heard the next best thing is light corn syrup, but there is none of that in this house either so i just used a little bit of dark corn syrup.

For a bubble ring thingie i got a card board toilet roll. It worked pretty well. Something about bubbles and smoke, really entertaining. Just look at manthan's face. It's like he's seeing the coolest thing in the world.

i was pretty much the bubble machine that night.

i even caught a couple. You feel pretty cool when you have a bubble in your hand, especially when there is smoke in it. Its like i had my very own Rasengan...okay, maybe i geeked out a little too much there. C'mon, it kind of looks like a ball of concentrated chakra right?

That's My Boy Blue

My favorite hookah has to be Blue. He's your typical rotating hookah and makes it so much easier to pass the hose around the circle...no crazy awkward maneuvering and what not.

It soon became a pain to set up old blue because the hose started to deteriorate because i decided it was a good idea to clean it with water and soap. i guess that time i got a mouth full of balsamic vinegar and blew it through the hose did not help either...took me forever to get that taste out of my mouth...

While in saudi i bought a replacement hose. The Anaconda...it of course came in blue. i tried finding a blue bowl but all i could find was brown and black...so black will have to do for now until i get some nontoxic paint. The hose is pretty good, its a little bit shorter than my last one but it has a huge handle on it so it takes less energy to smoke it. My kind of hose...the mouth piece is plastic so it will last for a long time.

The New Hubbly

While in Saudi, my mom was determined to buy me a new hookah because she thought my pumpkin one wasn't good enough and it was too much of a hassle to transport my nice one.

We stopped at this pretty old school store down town in Al Khobar. The guy didn't know any english but that didn't mean he didn't have a good selection. i had no say in which hookah we were going to buy, my mom saw the one she wanted for me two seconds in the store and wanted 3 of them. Of course the guy only had one so we got it. It was made in China.

The case has a lock and everything, its pretty ridiculous. Like i'm carrying money for some drug deal or something...
When you open this bad boy up its like you're assembling a sniper rifle or something. So crazy...the problem you run into when you buy a hookah that comes in a case is that it is usually machine made and you'll find that some parts don't fit well and you'll have leaks...but again, my mom wanted this one so it didn't matter what i said.

When picking out a hose, for some reason i picked the green one because i like green...not thinking that it would clash with the vase that was brown...i guess it won't bother me that much, hopefully. Maybe i could paint it?

i have only used this guy twice which was in Saudi, i have yet to use it in PA...

i did however buy some wood coals at that store, they're pretty sweet. You can really tell a difference, its a lot smoother and you can smell the flavored tobacco much better.

The Blue Strawberry

i was woken up to the site of Saigon and Sushi chillin by the window. If this doesn't remind of that scene from Lady and the Tramp then i don't know what will. These cats are so ridiculous.
Sushi again plotting his next escape to the outside just to go around the house into the backyard and beg for someone to let him back into the house.
Okay, i gave in...

Mom wanted to do some more shopping, big surprise. Below is a picture of the old Shula (sp?) Mall. It was pretty ghetto looking but you could get a lot of shopping done in this place before it burned down. It always smelled like incense and dirty water, oh how i miss the smell. All that remains of this glorious mall now is some broken cement pillars with rebar.
On the shopping list was a new hookah for lazy son. The only problem was that my mom had forgotten where the store was. We walked in circles for a bit before finding a little store that had what my mom was looking for. Some fancy hubbly bubbly from Romania.
For dinner, Cheri recommended the fancy Blue Strawberry. Where the prices are high and the servings are small. One of the great things about this place is the food plating. Some fancy food plating goes down in this place. Below is a picture of some prawns, massive shrimp...Cheri's favorite. i actually didn't care for them. Maybe if they were a little warmer i would have been better.
Since i was told that the servings were small, i got two appetizers for myself. The second one was ceasar salad with teriyaki kebabs.For the main course i had the tenderloin. i can't believe they cut the meat for me...just ruins it. But it was still good, could have been better if they didn't slice it up already letting all the juices out.
For dessert i had the lime cheese cake. The plating on this took the cake (pun not intended, okay...maybe it was). It looked like all i was missing on this dish was a sheet for a sail. The whole thing looked like a mast on a ship. It was pretty good, just wish the slice of cheese cake was bigger.Matt was along for my Blue Strawberry experience, and after we were all done eating we headed back to Cheri's in DH and thought we'd break out the new hookah. For the flavor of tobacco, i tried a new one. Not single, not double....but triple apple! Flavored with red, green, and yellow apples! Had my name all over it. We even broke out some natural coals because they're 'better' for you. The downside is that they take 20 minutes to lite on an electric stove. Overall though its a good hubbly bubbly.