kudomonster

[quote name='lowspeedchase' date='18 May 2010 - 10:12 AM' timestamp='1274206376' post='468544'] It's a major bummer they d/c'd Irish Cream... I was a massive fan. *Sheds a single tear* [/quote] It got discontinued because the ownership to the flavor belonged to some *EDIT* wrapping company. I was told this buy a dude who works at hookahcompany. It's a huge shame, that was hands down my favorite flavor ever.

At first I hated them. They just weren't what I was used to. I figured them out though. When I'm lighting them I only light one side. I usually wait until there's flames, and then I put the hot side down for a few min, then flip to the sides (which are cooler) when it starts going. I still don't like them as much as the previous ones, simply because now there's ash. Used to be none.

I just picked up a box of these new coconaras, and I'm disappointed. The last version was the unbeaten champion of coals, I never got better flavor, better smoke, better anything. It's sad to see a product degraded in order to maximize profit, there's obviously alot of filler in these.

It really depends. For nakhla I always pack it tight, normally having the foil compress the shisha. For starbuzz I normally always leave a small gap.

+1 for hookahjohn. Fast shipping and I got a free spare hose!

I personally love it, and everyone I hookah with always do too. Some flavors work, some don't. Blue mist is a strong one, sex on the beach is good too. The biggest problem I have with SB is bad batches every now and then, but I have that with many different shishas. Works fine for me ^^

It's pretty obvious your tactics of "suspend and tell everyone" aren't working at all. My suggestion? When someone breaks the rule just edit their post to a picture that says something like : I'M TOO GOD DAMN STUPID TO READ THE RULES. Hopefully after a while people will stop.

QUOTE (giant ninja robot @ Sep 7 2009, 05:06 PM) I would LOVE a good lemon flavor, but Nakhla Lemon is disgusting. If the Mizo is legit I hope it's good. Agreed. Got a box of it and damn it's disgusting.

Hookah John quick lights Ease of Lighting: Very easy! Pretty too, as the whole thing just lights on fire in a display of excellence. I used a torch lighter, put three coals next to each other in my tray, and just lit them all at once. There was a lot of smoke which smells horrible, so there's no way you should EVER light these inside. Smell: When lighting it smells terrible. After it's done though, there's no odor. I couldn't taste anything through the hookah either! Smoke: Same as coconaras! Huge nice clouds. Longevity: I would say around 45 min a coal. A little shorter than coconaras. Ashing: This is the one thing I hate with these coals. The ash is kind of a light powder and it sticks to the coal. Simply taking the coal and dropping it into the trey isn't enough, I got an old knife to help scrape away all the excess ash. I never had a problem with the ash getting in the bowl or ruining the flavor though. Form/Size: Perfect. Same as a coconara. Taste: None Overall: These are my go to coals now, replacing coconara. Fantastic coals and I suggest them for anyone who currently uses quicklights. There's not much of a difference for people who use a stove at home, but if you're tired of waiting before a session these are perfect.

A good rule for all of you is "if you need to ask, then you probably shouldn't do it" ...Just to be on the safe side

Those pictures are making me miss my tri-metal, which i sold (transfering to college soon and rather just have the QT) The tri-metal is by far the best hookah ever. I can't wait till I'm done with school, the first thing I'm going to buy is a new shiny KM

What kind of flavor do you guys get from tropicana? I get a musty pineapple apricot flavor...

Yeah theres no way that's a 2500 dollar hookah. Maybe it's worth that much to him, but I think he's the only one that would say so. For some reason, before I clicked I expected some crazy meduse-esque pipe with a flux capacitor.

KM tri-metal. Best hookah ever.

Once the coals nice and hot it's actually pretty easy to break using the poker that's on most tongs. you can break it into two, but I would suggest three or maybe four peices. Put the on the outside of the bowl. and slowly work your way in as you feel the smoke quality declining. My tip for packing bowls is to keep it nice and loose, and poke holes so that it's easy to breath through just the bowl. (I put the bowl up to my mouth, blow, suck, and if it's easy it's good to go!)

I have a philosophy regarding hookah: that if it's not perfect there's no point in doing it. Sure, sometimes you have friends over and you're looking for something to do.. I might deal with quicklights instead of natural coals, but I won't go past that. For me hookah isn't about just smoking, it's about smoking perfectly. If I just wanted a buzz I would go out and buy a pack of cigarettes.

I rotate when I feel like I could use a little more fresh smoke. There have been times that I had no need to to ever rotate. I say don't do some stupid time table thing, just move it when you feel like you're not getting as much smoke, or when you feel like it's about to get harsh. You'll just know when they need to be moved.

You could say it's the coal, the dye in the tobacco, or any number of things. I see this a lot on these forums: downplaying the dangers of hookahing. Smoking is bad for you, period. If you're feeling sick and these symptoms are coming when you smoke, take a hint before it's too late and quit now. We all enjoy that tasty smoke, but I think we all can agree that we like life more.

Music and chatting with friends If I'm alone I'll normally read while hookahing

QUOTE (Sonthert @ Aug 3 2009, 04:50 AM) Thats cute, but you need to adjust for inflation in your income statistics. You're mixing inflation adjusted and inflation non-adjusted numbers...which is nonsense. Additionally, median income may be a bad statistic to lean on. It will be higher than the average, since there are few people on the high end, but lots on the low end...the median being in between the two. If you throw your income from 1970 in the inflation calculator, you get a much higher number...so why are you quoting the difference between inflation unadjusted 1970 and 2006 (needing no inflation adjustment, for the most part). Comparing a 1970 $ and a 2006$ is comparing apples and oranges. Thats why they are adjusted for inflation. That increase is the increase because of inflation. Of course it matches, because CPI was what was used to make the calculator, because CPI is used to determine inflation...the amount that prices of goods and services change represents inflation. In other words, your statistics are highly compromised in the form they have been presented. Why not compare income in 1778 vs. income today? We must be far wealthier. We make a lot more money, but the question is, how much your income can buy. If a loaf of bread costs $50,000, making $50,000 in a year sucks. If loaves of bread are $.01/each its much better. We adjust the incomes for inflation to equalize a dollar today's buying power to what a dollar's buying power was in the past. Then we ask, how many loaves of bread, etc. (what is comprised in the CPI) will that money buy? Why don't you compare the inflation adjusted 1970 median income (median income is still a bad statistic to rely on) with the 2006 median income? $45,381 vs. $50,233. So...that means income hasn't moved much...which only proves my point. Well done! Thanks for verifying what I've been saying. Err... you're right, median household income is a bad indicator. But you used it in your graph which you seem to base all your arguments on, so I used it as well. There's an obvious reason as to why I used unadjusted dollars from the '70's to '06. CPI measures inflation, imperfectly, correct? So if we held all things equal, like number of households, blah blah blah, if you compare the wages from '70's to '06 you would a figure of inflation using the figures from the median household income. Why would you compare CPI, a measure of inflation to INFLATION ADJUSTED household income? It's more accurate to compare it to the unadjusted median household. The whole point I'm trying to make is even if we say the American household hasn't gotten a penny more or less more in median income (shit to assumption), and we just look at the rise in median household income as an indicator of inflation it's growing faster than CPI, by percentages. You can call my silly little arguments cute, but you've still failed to back up your original "We're getting poorer" assessment. American's real net worth is higher now than it was. Median household income increased more an CPI. Every single article I've read says we're better off now than we used to be.

QUOTE (Sonthert @ Aug 2 2009, 07:46 PM) Its the real income, inflation adjusted divided by the CPI, inflation adjusted, as a whole. Why do you disagree with it? If the average income adjusted for inflation is say 1000 times the CPI, wouldn't it be reasonable that we have more money to spend and are wealthier than if our average income is 200 times the CPI? How is that not reasonable? Here's the average income data from my sheet. It matches perfectly. The scale is different since the data goes back to 1913 and it makes the curve look more curvy, but the numbers match... [attachment=3942:Income_v...il_curve.doc] You are correct. In one sense. Average income, adjusted to 2006$, since 1949, average income has gone up 136% (from $20810 to $49248. Thats good. Unfortunately, the CPI, adjusted for inflation, has gone from 23.8 (1949) to 201.6 (2006). Thats an increase of 747%. So the cost of things is going up much faster than peoples incomes are. Thats why we're getting poorer. A lot faster. The Gross Wealth Function is that average income divided by the CPI. So the gross wealth function for 1949 is ~874 (20810/23.8). For 2006, its ~244 (49248/201.6). 874 is better than 244. The CPI is the statistic that measures the price of basic goods (necessities) in the economy. 1949 is not the optimal year, by the way, it just happens to be a round number....60 years, If I wanted to pick an optimal year to really prove my point, I would pick 1916 (1346), 1943 (1273), or even 1966 (1094). 1943 is a little silly since it was during WWII. The Gross Wealth Function shows we've been getting steadily poorer since 1968. Its a perfectly reasonable relationship. The average income divided by the standard index of how much things cost. How much does what you earn buy? Thats what the relationship demonstrates. This is a gross function. Most of the economists talking in the background of this data would criticize me for using average income. The income for most Americans has been going down when adjusted for inflation. The richest segment of the United States is making a lot more which makes the average go up. The standard person, either poor or middle class is making LESS than they were 20 years ago. I don't want to get into that end of the argument, the averages work fine to show the relationship without attaching opinions and theories to it. Our graphs more or less agree in terms of scale of income though, so thats fine. We'll reduce it to your simple case economics example. Lets say I make $50,000 one year. The CPI is 500, so my Gross wealth function is 100, that is my income is 100 times the indicator of prices in the economy. The next year, I make $100,000, but the CPI goes up to 2000. I doubled my income, but the cost of goods went up by a factor of four. My Gross Wealth Function is now 50. If you simply look at income (which will always go up due to inflation), you miss most of the picture...how much does it cost to buy things? If you look at the incomes in Argentina in the late 80s, Brazil in the mid-80s or in Germany is the early 30s, you'd be ecstatic to live there...incomes skyrocketed...but they were accompanied by enormous increases in the prices of goods...moreso than the increases in income. So, I don't know why you disagree with this, please elucidate me. My college degree in economics is quite meager, really, I'm not an economist with a PhD by any means. Does anybody else have any input on this? Is it easy enough to understand or is it a little abstract? Hey! I'm trying to major in economics, but unfortunately most of what I know so far is self taught. I'm finally transferring to a decent college though (Hint, it's near you!) and finally getting the chance to take classes which will help my understanding Anyways... I get what you're saying. I'm not arguing you because it's abstract and I'm sitting here with the "Hurr-durr" face, but because I don't agree. Looking at median household income using http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/h05.html, in 1970 our median household income, in 1970 dollars, was $8,734. In 2007 the median household income was $50,233. That means there was a 475% increase, unadjusted for inflation of course, from 1970-2007 in median household income. Now let's look at CPI (http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Consumer_Price_Index/HistoricalCPI.aspx?rsCPI_currentPage=0), in 1970 it was 38.8, 2006 it was 201. A 418% increase. Furthermore, when I throw the median household income in 1970 of $8,734 into the CPI calculator (http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm) and click to see how much it can buy in 2006, I get $45,381. A 419% increase, which matches the CPI data above. Since median household income in 2006 is $50,233, it suggests that with these numbers, we're actually doing better today than we were in the 70's.

The more and more I'm looking into this, the more and more I'm starting to realize it's making no sense. We're getting poorer as Americans? That graph doesn't make much sense at all, since from 1967 to 2006 the real median household income rose from $36,847 to $48,201. The CPI isn't the best way to look at this, since it takes a basket of goods. If one item spikes, CPI is unfairly raised because it doesn't take into account that people will buy an alternative item. There's more issues with it. I decided to instead look at commodity food and beverage prices, and they don't follow a trend of getting more expensive (like the graph you posted earlier would suggest) at all over the period of '86-'08. Sure, it's just one aspect, but still. We can both agree that things like technology are cheaper today than they were even a year ago. http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?com...&months=300 After reading the whole wiki article regarding median household income and household income I'm going to have to flat out disagree with your "we're getting poorer" assessment. Also, what the hell is the "Gross wealth function"? Are you talking about American wealth? Because that has no doubt been going up year by year.

Well I can't comment on the second question. but I'd prefer small real to fake huge anyday. Also, technically the second question should regard girth because looking at a vag anatomically girls have the majority of their nerve endings in the first 2/3rds of the vag, and let's say the average vagina is 7 inches deep. 5 inches then, while not able to do some nice positions, would work. However girth is extremely important

Does God exist, or doesn't he? The correct answer is unknown, because we do not know. To simply say God exists and to live a life of worshiping something you have never encountered yourself is stupid. I don't mean to be harsh, I know that religion is good for some people and there's even psychological evidence that the human interaction you get through religion is healthy for you. On the flip side, saying that God doesn't exist is stupid as well. We don't know everything out there, because there's no test for reality. That's one of my arguments. Hell, we could all be in a "Matrix" Another comes from years of psychological studies in which determinism and non-determinism constantly fought, and an existence for both can come from one experiment. I know I'm probably not going to explain this well, but here goes! We have equations (Chaos theory) to mathematically describe every psychical event. Keep this in mind. Now, we're going to go in a different direction for a while and talk about the human brain. The way our memory works, is we see something, it enters our short term memory, and then eventually goes to our long term memory (Not everything) When we're storing something in our long term memory we do so by synthesizing proteins in the neurons in our brain. That means that our brain should be deterministic, since we're acting on memories that have a physical entity (The proteins and junk I talked about earlier). We should be able to put a human, then, in an experiment, and time and time again get the same results or at least have a reason, based on physical proof, of any deviations. If we could do that, God cannot possibly exist within the reality we know. However, when we do these experiments we get both the same result each time, but also different results. My favorite experiment that helps with this mindfuck is one done by Gustav Fechner. In his experiment a man, sitting in a darkened room, would alert the experimenter when he noticed a source of light, in this case those were candles. Basically, Fechner would light the candles, one at a time, and when the man would see the candles (They were in a box, so more than one had to be lit for the man to see them) he would tell Fechner. When Fechner started form zero lit candles and hit X, the man would tell Fechner. The result was the same each time, when he hit X, the man said something. This results in a square curve, with zero deviation. Determination! However, when Fechner started with 20 candles and put them out one by one, the man didn't always get the same answer. In fact, the result was a bell shaped curve, which represents non-determination. The same experiment yield arguments for both determination and non-determination. So how does this relate to my beliefs on God? If everything is known, people do the same expected thing every time, there is no freewill (since we're all acting on proteins in our brains) and hence, no soul, and no God. However, not everything is known! There's still a possibility of freewill, a soul, and a God! I'm not saying that if there's freewill there's a God, just that it's possible. I don't believe in God, but I do believe it's possible for God to exist. Simply because we don't know everything.

QUOTE (Charley @ Jul 29 2009, 05:12 AM) We lost sight of what really matters. once this nation was great we could rely on our neighbors to be there to give us a hand up when we fell on hard times just as we were there to raise them up when they fell. now we lock our doors and put up fences to keep them out because we fear that they will steal our TVs, kill our wives, and molest our daughters. the media has played a big part in this. turning us into a nation of fear instead of a nation of neighbors and friends. "big brother" has thus used this fear to limit our freedoms and brainwash our people into believing that we need billions of dollars to fight wars against other countries that we really have very little to fear from. they have used this fear to take away things we have the natural right to do such as smoking in our favorite bar or on the sidewalk or even in our own homes(and yes in parts of this country smoking has been banned in all of these places) when we as individuals wake up and notice this making our voices herd we are called unpatriotic. But remember this every single one of our founding fathers were unpatriotic. in fact they were criminals and traitors. fortunately for us otherwise we would be saying god bless the queen instead of god bless America. and thanks to them we can voice our opinions and even work for change in this country now without having to become criminals and traitors ourselves. our government has become bloated and corrupt. this country was founded by the people for the people but now is ran by the politician for the politician. we need to get back to our roots. unfortunately they have rotted in the ground and the tree of liberty has fallen we are mearlly living on the branches that have yet to die. there is hope tho even the branch of a fallen tree may take root and grow to continue life. we need more good honest people to fight for there rights in the arena of the corrupt. if there is something you dont like about this country make your voice heard. contact your representatives voice your opinions in the streets take a stand and get it changed. as it stands right now it is not the majority that makes the laws simply the pawns of those who cry the loudest. I say do not ask where this country went wrong. I say ask what can I do to make this country right again. A little on the extreme side, but I really like what you're saying. I really want to know what the source of our individualism is, I know you peg the media but I'm not so sure. Of course fear sells, and I agree that the media has the power to make us all scared of each other. I also think a large part is our over all capitalistic mindset: "I have the chance to be rich!" ...It's a very isolating thought. I think it's sad that our society has turned out the way it has. One thing that always brings a tear to my eye is Halloween. I remember Halloween as a kid, every house had candy, some houses went seriously overboard and everyone had a good time. All the local kids were around and the sidewalk was full of adults enjoying the night and kids high on receiving candy. I've noticed that over the years, Halloween has died. We had one trick or treater this year. One. I live around many schools, so I know the kids are still here. The largest dip came after 9/11, and since then it's just died. There's a book called "Supercapitalism" and it describes the money/government thing in a way which won't cause you to punch the wall, but to understand exactly how shit's going down. We're not on a good path, but the book kinda explain how we got on that path and the implications. Good read. Damn straight on your "Stranding up for our ideas" comment. Damn straight.