Aggroman

I've enjoyed participating in this forum.  I've learned a lot and hopefully have helped some others with some advice. However, Mr Bubble's recently-posted regulations have left a very bitter taste in my mouth.  After reading the following paragraph I have decided that I no longer want to be part of a forum with policies like this: -------------------------- 1. No discussions of illegal drug activities.  The culture of hookah smoking in our generation is meant for tobaccos. In Egypt, whose culture played an important part in the development and nurturing of the machine and rituals have stricter drug laws than we do. A typical fine/penalty for having weed on your person can be an automatic 2 years in jail and 10,000 Pound fine. You will probably make new friends while serving time. Friends you don't want Mom and Dad to know about.  This further reinforces the notion that massell is smoked in the machine. The last thing we need are casual surfers to visit us and leave with the impression we are a bunch of pot heads. If you want to slime yourselves, that is fine. Go somewhere else to do it. Just don't slime our past times. -------------------------- I personally have no huge desire to discuss drug use with with hookahs.  I've made a few replies on the subject and found it interesting to hear what others had to say about it. That said, I have no time for any website that is interested in focing discussion to conform with the personal preferences of those who happen to control it.  I think smoking hookahs with quicklights is awful and shouldn't be "encouraged" by discussion of it... but that's MY preference.  Many traditional hookah smokers are equally shocked by the idea of adding anything but water to the vase, but that's THEIR preference. Truly a shame that a website that's supposed to promote open-minded discussion refuses to allow the same discussion I could freely engage in at any bus-stop here in the corrupt little dictatorship I presently live in. I wish you all the best, in the meantime, and I will occasionally check back to see whether these present Stalinist regulations have been retracted. Ma al Salama

I was expecting good things from this one, but I've been kind of let-down by most of AF's golden run.  Strawberry was terrible, the green apple wasn't that good... ... grape wasn't bad, but I didn't think it is nearly as good as the regular AF grape.  It has a nice taste, but not as strong as the regular variety.  Much more subtle. Kind of curious on what others think as well.  I'm thinking about giving it another try myself.

THe layalina vanilla was kind of interesting.  I'm desparate to find some caramel around here (doesn't exist in this area) so their vanilla works pretty good mixing with apple.  If you're buying layalina make sure that it's new.  They recently started using a new kind of tobacco and their new product is miles better than the old stuff.  Texture like Fakher gold and very, very few stems. The vanilla I tried was from the old stock so I'm looking forward to trying the new stuff.

Paper towel (or the jawbreaker apporach - I used to do that too!) are brilliant ideas.  Thanks!

Rose replicated the taste of soap for me. 

That's "manageable sizes" not "natural" sizes... lol

Help me... I am making a mess! Anyone have some good techniques for breaking down lump charcoal into natural sizes?  Right now I'm hacking away at it with a cleaver and getting dust all over the place, not to mention random pieces flying all over the room. How do you guys do your chopping?

yuck.. rose!  lol  I actually threw mine away! Just shows that you can't trust anyone's opinion on maassel in here.  We all have a very diverse range of tastes in here. I just discovered a new brand here that's quite impressive.  Don't know if it's sold in North America under the same or a different name.  It's made by a company called EMTCO under the label Loyalina. It's very similar to Fakher with a bit lighter smoke and just slightly less flavour... but half the price.  The quality of the tobacco is very high and it gives off a very nice smoke.  I find that mixing it with Fakher makes the absolute perfect smoke. Can't wait to try Fakher cola because I wasn't impressed at all with Havana's either.  Like another poster said, I found that it starts off strong, but the flavour just doesn't last and it doesn't produce very good smoke from my experience.

Not my favorite, nothing even close to AF in my opinion, but not bad for the price. Mango was horrible in my opinion, but so was the Al Waha Mango I tried.  Does anyone else find this and Pinnapple to be extremely harsh tasting?

MR Bubble.  The two layers of foil seem to have a different effect on heat than one really thick one.   I know exactly what you mean about the heavy duty stuff being terrible, but if you stack two sheets of thin stuff it works great.  Also prevents those rips and tears that allow ash in your head.

Two words: Nakhla cherry.... Tastes like soap and sugar.

Just a quick question that sort of gets to the heart of my point.  I would never directly compare the Americans or any other regime in history to one so horrible as the Nazis, but think it's useful to consider a parallel in this case. What would your opinion of a german soldier, tragically mislead into voluntarily taking up arms in the invasion of continental Europe in the sincere belief that he is doing the right thing?  Should we cast no blame upon this individual for his choice, however naive and misguided he is? My opinion is that we do hold him at least partially accountable, but it's a difficult question.  And if I hold the Nazi soldier to account for his crimes, do I then hold someone who was drafted in the Vietnam war accountable as well? I'm really not sure where I draw my own line on this one... it's a very tricky moral quesiton. Being a veteran yourself of the latter war, I'm curious as to your thoughts.

I agree.  I'm sure there are a lot of decent people in the American army who sincerely believe that they are "defending their freedom" or some other such nonsense.  As I said before, I certainly do not wish any harm to befall them or anyone else.  The loss of any human life in this pointless conflict is extremely tragic. I think we agree on more than we disagree.  We need more Americans like you who are intelligent enough to scrutinze what so many sadly accept on blind "patriotic" faith.

There is no doubt in my mind that there are many American soldiers who have a conscience and have difficulty with the fact that they are being used as pawns to murder innocent people. I also have no doubt in my mind that there are many insurgents who feel the same way.  Both sides have their share of extremists who place no value on human life and both sides are willing to sacrifice civillian lives for their strategic goals. I happen to know from first-hand conversations with marines stationed in Kuwait that there are many marines who have no regret whatsoever over the misery they inflict on civillians.  I was speaking with one fine fellow who served in Somalia who told me  all the people there were a bunch of mother#(*@s who deserved what they had coming to them.  He went further to laugh about how they would put rations up against the fence at a concentration camp and blow away any N____s stupid enough to try and get them. Yes, those are those elevated morals, indeed. Or perhaps you are referring to the "elevated morals" of the U.S. Army when they dumped white phosphorus on the population of Fallujah prior to the seige. As one American soldier put it: "I do know that white phosphorus was used... White phosphorus kills indiscriminately." Here are some of the pictures of the aftermath of that attack (though, being a Vietnam vet, I'm sure you know what "Willy Pete" does to human beings...) Maybe you're referring to the elevated morals of dropping cluster bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan with full knowledge that women and children will be maimed along with the "target".  "Collateral damage" I think is the official term for this "acceptable" result of such actions. You see, I don't make racist assumptions as to the moral superiority of one nation over another.  People are people and terrorism is terrorism, whether it's comitted by an occupying army against.  No question that an Islamic terrorist who commits an attack with the knowledge that civillians will be killed is an animal... just as is his American counterpart. Should we blindly support the troops on the basis that they were "following orders"?  I agree that it's a tragedy that many ignorant young lads have been fooled into going to war for no reason, but I don't think that completely absolves them of responsiblility for atrocities like the ones above.

Repeating again from my thread on the topic: The key to getting really nice white coals is to set them down to heat-up on top of a nice pile of ash and/or coal dust.  Since I've been doing this I've had zero troubles.

I'd really love to get my hands on some of this Golden quicklight stuff if it's as close to naturals as everyone says it is.  Best part about the quicklights is that there's not just a damned mess to clean up.   I tried switching back to 3 Kings after going the natural route and there's simply no comparison for me.  The 3 Kings tastes like #($* in comparison. Now that I'm doing things right I'll have to re-evaluate which are the best coals.  So far, the generic stuff from the local bakala burns nicely for about 30 min (1 inch chunks), but I have some bags of African stuff and some other unlabeled bags from the Shisha shop that I'm curious to try.  We'll see... all I know is that after 2 fairly frustrating months I'm smoking like a champ again

OK... after some moderate success in trying different techniques in getting my lump charcoal to stay hot I've finally discovered the ultimate secret. I was asking the owner of a local shisha den if I could buy some of his charcoal and he told me that whatever I was using was probably just fine; it was all about how I was preparing it. Here is how it's done right: - Fire the coals up on the stove in a pot with about 5 evenly spaced 1/2 cm diameter holes in the bottom (a good shisha place will carry these pre-made).  Only cook them for 5 minutes at the most as you dont' want to burn them out prematurely. - Next he directed me to a local store where I bought a small charocal holder, just a very simple tin 6x9 inch box on legs with no top.  No holes, nothing.  Just plain tin so that it gets very hot very quickly.  After your coals are lit, you put them in here and leave it outside or at the window. - Now here is the key.  Your first go won't be that successful because you first need to build up some ashes in the tray.  This is what will insulate your coals and get them white hot.  Once you have a good pile of nice ash, you just dump your lit coals on top of this and 99% of them will be nice and white after about 10 minutes. This has been the end to what has been a major nightmare for me.  I hope it helps some of you.  Cheers.

I've used milk a lot and had some of the same problems.  UHT milk works quite well while condensed milk bubbles like crazy. After a lot of experimenting myself, I've found that the best alternative is to use coffee whitener, or better yet, if you're willing to spend the money, coconut milk! Tried some Bailey's flavoured liquid coffee whitener with a mix of caramel and coffee ma'assel and it was like heaven!

I have one of those little hookahs and I was very surprised with how well it worked.  I keep it around in case I have extra company, but sometimes I just use it instead of my big one for the sake of convenience. As long as you're not paying a stupid price for it (they go for about 10 dollars US here in the Middle East), I'd say go for it.  You'll be hard-pressed to notice a difference between it and a big one.

Actions like this should be expected from a piece of #(*$ company like Royal Caribbean... What really gets me upset are incidents in which someone's freedom of speech is held hostage by his or her employer. Take the John Rocker incident.  Here's a guy who, on his own time, gave an interview and made some ignorant comments about Asians, blacks, homosexuals, etc. The guy was forced to apologize, threatened with being fired, made to undergo psychological treatment... I mean this is a joke.  Rocker may be a racist idiot, but I believe he has the right to express his views publicly.  This is when political correctness crosses the line. If Royal Caribbean doesn't want to play CHristmas carols, on the other hand, it's no skin off my asss....

Had a similar experience while working on a cruise ship. During the Christmas season there are a lot of jews onboard, many of whom complain bitterly about Christmas carols and even the word "Christmas". To keep them happy, "Merry Christmas" became "Happy Holidays" and they stopped playing carols.  I think it's stupid, no question.  But I don't really think it's an infringement on my freedom.

If I was a Muslim myself I'd probably know the answer to this! I've tried asking some arabic friends, but since my Arabic is limited to a few broken words and phrases, it's hard to get across what I mean. Funny thing is here, it's probably easy to hook up with a married woman here than an unmarried one.  The unmarried ones are carefully guarded and chauferred aroudn by their mothers or fathers while many women are very unhappily married here and looking for someone to treat them right....  especially when they're wife number 2 or 3. Still, you don't &$*# where you sleep (or work), so I'll tread carefully around my place of employment...

Here's an even better modern parallel to think about. Should we celebrate the death of one of Osama Bin Laden's "soldiers"? If so, than what makes it morally superior for us to cheer the death of an Islamic terrorist as opposed to an American terrorist?

The thing I find interesting here is this: How is a statement like this: "My opinion is that if the creator met an untimely demise.... it would not break my heart in the least." .... any different than the opinions experessed by the guy on the site.  With full respect, don't you think your views are actually remarkably similar?

Leaving aside for a moment that this guy's site is disgraceful in its celebration of something as awful as the loss of life in war, do you really think that blame should fall only on leaders? No question that leaders bear the brunt of the responsibility.  But the soldiers do not have to follow their orders.  They have all volunteered to join the army, many of them with full knowledge their government was at (or soon going to be at) war in an illegal combat. The nazi parallel is an easier one to discuss because we're (I hope...) all in agreement as to the horrible nature of their war.  Imagining for a moment that these soldiers had the same choices as Americans do today with regard to joining the military, would you consider them blameless? The Nurenburg "just following orders" defense was not enough to keep a lot of Nazis from being hanged.  Where do we draw the line as to where blame is to fall?