I have moved.

Yes, I know. I'm annoying.

Find me now at: http://phillylush.wordpress.com/.

I've wanted to move onto wordpress for a while now, for various reasons. The only reason I wasn't was because I didn't want people to have to go through the hassle of updating their links for me and such. But, in the end, the allure of wordpress was too strong. Maybe it was its ability to tell me how people found my posts, or its manly manner of taking charge, and sending my entries to google. Or its coy grin as it gives me a line graph of what got read when. Ah, wordpress, you have swayed my heart.

Goodbye blogger. I am sorry that I was weak and could not be more faithful. I hope we could still be friends? I am leaving this blog here, so that people know where to find me. I hope you don't mind. Don't worry, my liebling, there are other bloggers in the vast series of tubes.

Anyway, friends of mine, please update your blogrolls with the new address. Readers, please update your bookmarks. New people, please click that link and see what blogger gave up by not being attentive to my needs.

This is your blog on pot...

I was corrected by the lovely Heather D. about my last entry's statement that Philadelphia only has two head shops. So here is your handy-dandy guide to Philly's head shops, guest-written by the lovely and talented Heather:

"Due to the early push of Philadelphia Bill No: 060345* (since known as Philadelphia Blunt Ban) most head shops where chased out of Philadelphia., The bills stated it was unlawful sell any item “"where the seller knows, or under the circumstances reasonably should know" that it would be used to "convert, produce, process, prepare, test, analyze, pack, repack, store, contain, conceal, inject, ingest, inhale or otherwise introduce into the human body a controlled substance in violation of [the Pennsylvania Controlled Substance, Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act]". (holla wikipedia) I believe this happened sometime my late years in high school, so around 2001-2003. There use to be shops all over the place. Little dingy shops, that moms would pull their children closer to them if they walked by it. Regardless, this bill has since been rightfully overturned. (now they are just going after 7-11’s and Wawa’s for selling blunts) There are a few remaining and some new head shops in Philadelphia.

Like the true toker I am, names and addresses are small details that are lost in the smoke. I will do my best to give you the best of my knowledge on the area.

~ Wonderland. I believe at 22nd and Chestnut? It’s a nice place. Tad overprice. Pretty stuff.
~ Pipe Dreams at 15th and South. that has alot of original work.
~ Artifax: half a block up from Cottman and the Blvd in Northeast Philadelphia. That has a pretty wide selections of pipes and bowls. They are also a tad pricey, but always have what you want.
~ There is another shop by the Ben Franklin Parkway. I can not remember a street or name of it to save my life. For that, I am sorry. It’s a small little place with some cute art work.
~ Also, there is this little reggae shop on South Street with a small selection, but a unique one none the less. I bought a wooden piece there before. It was pretty awesome. (Thing about wood pieces: not good to share. People slobber all over it.. Wood expands when it gets wet... Gew)
~ Lastly there is another shop by the Tocony Bridge. I go there more for their collection of fun tobacco then their pipe collection. But it’s always there in a clutch.

*Go head. Ask me how I know or remember the bill number! It was my high school id number!!! Another reason why I’m so Awesome!"

Drugs, casinos, and business drama. Just another weekend in Atlantic City.

I haven't blogged in a while due to various weekend getaways and
Atlantic City mid-week trips. For that I apologise to everyone except
Nate, who didn't come see me when I was ten minutes away from his
house. Though this entry is dedicated to him, since he yelled at me to update, so I guess it evens out.

This Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I was in Atlantic City, enjoying the slot machines and extremely expensive ATM charges and...well...extremely expensive everything. As an interesting side note, the only thing you can buy in Atlantic City that is cheaper there than in Philadelphia is a bowl. My friend who will remain nameless was extremely upset that the exact one s/he bought two weeks ago at Wonderland was three dollars cheaper on the boardwalk (this is another entry entirely, but every experienced stoner in the city knows that Wonderland is a rip-off. The unfortunate thing is that Philly smokers only have two real options to buy their paraphernalia, and the other one is up on the Roosevelt Boulevard, which is a bit of a hike for those of us in the city-proper).

But I digress.

We stayed at Harrah's casino on the Marina, which, if you've never been to Atlantic City, is near the Borgata, the newly built Water Club, The Trump Marina, and nothing else. It is separated from the rest of the casinos, the boardwalk, and everything you would want to do in Atlantic City besides gambling by miles of a neighborhood you don't want to walk through. So, you're only option is to take some kind of shuttle thing.

The Jitney has existed in A.C. since 1915 (and its cars seem to be about that old). It's a little shuttle service that runs along most of the casinos, the train station, and a few other choice locations.

Apparently they're in a big of a tiff right now because Harrah's, at the request of its patrons (which the Jitney's website even admits), started its own shuttle service. This service is free and available only to platinum and diamond members, and gold members who are staying at the hotel (you're eligible for a gold card by signing up. Gold is not a big deal).

The Jitney is pissed. So much that they've made a website about it: www.savethejitney.com, and have adorned most of their shuttles with a picture of King Kong (Harrah's) destroying the Jitney.

Personally, I think the competition will be healthy for them. It's not even real competition. If I wasn't staying at the hotel, I couldn't have used Harrah's shuttle. I couldn't use it this weekend anyway because one of the girls we were vacationing with never bothered to sign up for a card.

Secondly, the Harrah's shuttle took forever to come, and five jitneys showed up at Harrah's in ten minutes. With that pace, eventually people from the Harrah's line are going to get bored and shell out the $2.25.

Thirdly, there's no reason Harrah's shouldn't be allowed to provide this service to its patrons. Savethejitney is trying to make it sound like Harrah's will only take you to its sister casinos, and that those are so spread apart that no one can leave and we'll be trapped forever in a world of no clocks and blinking lights. This is false. You can take the shuttle to Ceasars, walk through it, and be on the boardwalk. None of us wanted to get a room at Harrah's because of how far away it was. Not having a free service to transport its guests to a fun area was obviously hurting them, or else why would they spend money to take people away from their slot machines?

So...in a very uncharacteristic move, I guess I'm siding with "the man" on this one. Sorry idealistic internal child.

Though, to be fair, let's not forget that before Harrah's made this shuttle the Jitney held a monopoly. They aren't exactly the innocent mom-and-pop store getting eaten by Walmart here.

The Jitney my friends and I got on, by the way, broke down on the highway. We didn't have to wait longer than ten minutes for someone to come save us, but considering that it was plastered in signs about how evil Harrah's shuttle was I was quite amused.

More teenage parents than myspace!

I just watched the season finale of Baby Borrowers. The only reason I know this show exists is because they sent a promo to the newspaper I used to work for with their first two episodes (which the network said we weren't allowed to review. Just watch and mock, which we did). So when I saw the preview for the finale that promised to tell which couples remained together, I made a point to watch it.

The premise of the show is that young couples, kids 18 and 19, live in this neighborhood together. The first two nights the couple stays alone and "goes to bed with nothing happening" (two teenagers are alone in a house, there's no way they didn't bone). Then the couple gets to watch a baby for a few days, then a toddler, then a pre-teen, then an old person.

Spoiler alert: none of the couples stay together. What I find extremely presumptuous is that the show tries to imply that its the reason for all the break-ups. Because high school couples don't break up before or during college? Because that's not perfectly normal, and would have happened whether these kids went on a reality TV show or not? Yes, NBC, its totally you're fault these couples broke up, and not the hot guy/girl living down the hall in their dorm.

Granted, the wedding I have coming up at the end of August is between two people who have been together since she was a sophomore in high school, but I'm gonna say they're the exception that proves the rule.

Nate Adams rejoice, I am finally updating about something important to drinkers in Philly

According to my drunken source who was at both locations when the liquor control board showed up (first to one, then to the other), both Bob and Barbara's and Tritone were raided tonight and shut down.

Tritone was raided for an expired food license, and Bob and Barbara's was for blocking the fire exit.

Pass it on.

"Running for political office is like debating with a forum troll..."

Godwin's Law has been evoked, Obama has been compared to Hitler. And by Ben Stein no less, a name I haven't heard in a long time.

I don't like the idea of Senator Obama giving his acceptance speech in front of 75,000 wildly cheering people. That is not the way we do things in political parties in the United States of America. We have a contained number of people in an arena. Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor sports palace, well, that's something the Fuehrer would have done.

Right, something the Fuehrer would do, and something any politician who could get 75,000 screaming people would do. What is the fear here? That people like this guy? This isn't the way we do things in America because usually no one likes the candidates enough.

If you're going to compare someone to Hitler, do it because they have similar politics (like, say, a hatred of homosexuals), or have similar practices (like, say, detaining people in camps without a fair trial) [I'm sure you see where I'm going with that, so I'll stop rather than evoke the law myself...], not because they're the political equivalent of the Beatles.

Actually, new rule. Unless the person has murdered millions of people, don't compare them to Hitler. That's a hyperbole. It's just silly, and makes you look desperate. The next person who compares either Bush, Obama, Brittany Spears, or anyone except people like Stalin to Hitler gets a pie in the face. Sound fair?

And for the record, I agree with this t-shirt. People really need to stop acting like Obama is the second coming.

The first time is the most special.

Today is the first time in the history of my life that my parents are leaving me alone while they spend the night somewhere else. People are shocked when I tell them this, but, yes, my parents have never taken a vacation without me (not my doing, I assure you). As I have no experience being alone in my parent's house (being alone in my house at school doesn't count. My housemates being home didn't exactly stop anything wild from happening, them being home actually made the fun more awesome), here is the short list of things I assume should and will happen (based on TV/movies/stories I've heard):

~ I must break a lamp, vase, or have made some kind of mess that I will only have an hour to clean up.
~ If I had younger siblings they would need to get lost. Instead, my cat will magically get outside. I will find her at a jazz club around 2 a.m.
~ The babysitter will DIE!
~ My parents will call me from Atlantic City to let me know they'll be home an hour early!
~ I will use the house as a bordello to pay off my gambling debts.
~ I will fall in love with a hooker, who will betray me. Oh, I will learn so much about growing up!
~ I will invite two or three of my best friends over, who, even though they're my most trusted friends, will be jerks and invite the entire school! Including my crush and the head cheerleader he's in love with!
~ Excessive drug and alcohol use.
~ Someone will have sex in my parents' bed.
~ My sibling/cat will get drunk/stoned for the first time. Chewbacca and I will then have a long, touching talk in order to make the movie experience less hedonistic.
~ Robbers will attempt to break in, and I will use a series of wacky booby traps to stop them.
~ Witches will try to kill my virginal friend, and with the help of a talking animal we'll trick them into crossing holy ground.
~ Terrorists will try to take over the world, but somehow only me and my group of misfit friends know this! We'll have to do illegal things and steal some cars to save the world, but in the end I'll get a metal of honor from the President.
~ I will: eat a ridiculous amount of candy and/or ice cream; dance in my underwear; blast music; read my sibling/cat's diary (Dear Diary: today the girl made me wait five minutes before she fed me. One day I will steal her soul as she sleeps).
~ Me, my sibling/cat, and wacky friend will accidentally stumble into the time machine my scientist father is building in the garage. We'll hang out with talking, humanoid dinosaurs, learn some life lessons, and save the dinosaur world from destruction. (P.S. this is the greatest movie ever, and if you don't know what I'm referencing I feel bad for you. Actually, if you do know what I'm referencing please comment with the name of the film, because I can't remember it.)