Tea Reviews

It snowed last night. A lot. I have spent almost an hour scooping my driveway, and there is still quite a lot left to do! Tonight it is supposed to be 1F, with a windchill of -20F. Have I mentioned how much I hate winter?

On the plus side, I think this is the typical Nebraska "last storm", which ALWAYS sucks badly. Next week it should be in the 40s and above, so we just have to wait it out. Have I mentioned how much I hate waiting? :)

Not much else is going on here right now. I'm still having fun with my wacom tablet. I have completely removed my mouse, and do everything with my pen now! My drawings are getting better, I'll put one up soon...

On to tea. I've had quite a few different teas since my last post, so I'm going to give "quick" reviews of them. I use the X-Play rating system: 1 is horrible, 2 is good but still has issues, 3 is average, 4 is really good with a few issues, and 5 is perfect or nearly perfect. And yes, I DO have all of these written out in a spreadsheet, because I'm a nerd.

Valentines: This one is a flavored tea, combining black tea with chocolate covered strawberries. I don't know how they did it, but it really works. Delicious! 3/5, but it lost a point because it's seasonal only.

Darjeeling #22: Black tea. Very tasty. It had a little bit of bitterness, but it was definitely good. This will probably become my default "black" tea. 5/5

Mango Melange: Herbal tea. This tastes a lot like Blood Orange, but it isn't quite as good, and I can't place my finger on why. 3/5, mainly because knock-offs suck.

White Monkey: Green tea. This is the best of the green teas I've had so far (only tried half of them). Very smooth, maybe just a little too subtle. 4/5

Ceylon Sonata: Black tea. Pretty weak flavored. This would probably be useful to mix with other, stronger teas, but by itself it isn't that good. 2/5

Assam Melody: Black tea. All I said in my notes was "pretty good", so who knows what I thought of it at the time? 3/5, because I can't even remember it.

Li Zi Nutcracker: Green tea. Eeew. It was... bitter isn't the right word, it just tasted... off. Almost meaty? 2/5 out of sympathy.

That's it for now! I'll have more reviews sooner or later.

More Tea and Fun With Wacom

Well, I got a new shipment of tea in today. I got quite the haul this time, lots and lots of samplers!!! I'll let you know how they all are over the next few weeks, but for now here is what I got:

Herbal Sampler:
Rooibos Jasmin
Lemon Grass
Mango Melange
Berry Blues
Peppermint
Sour Apple

Black Tea Sampler:
Golden Monkey
Keemun Concerto
Pu Erh Dante
Ceylon Sonata
Assam Melody
Darjeeling #22

Green Tea Sampler:
Gunpowder
White Monkey
Li Zi Nutcracker
Sencha Overture
Spiced Green
Kukicha

All those were "prebuilt" samples, no thinking involved! I also bought an 8 oz tin of blood orange (the little sample I had before got me hooked!), and they were nice enough to throw in a sample tin of the Valentines tea for free. According to their site, it is a combination of Ceylon black and chocolate-covered strawberries... Well, we'll just wait and see about that.

So, my first tea review of the new batch: gunpowder. First off, I should admit my prejudice. I love green tea. It could be the nastiest tasting tea in the world, and I'd still like it. I don't know why, don't ask. Maybe it's because I remember drinking it at fake-Chinese restaurants when I was a kid... So with that in mind, I should tell you about gunpowder green tea. It's not bad. Definitely not the best green tea I've ever tasted, and the price reflects it: it's the cheapest of all green teas on Adagio. However, it really is not unpleasant, maybe a bit astringent, and it's much better than nothing!

It does a cool little trick in the teapot too! When you first see it, it kinda looks like a bunch of pebbles, but after sitting in water for 7 minutes it gets all fluffy! I love it when my food/beverages do tricks like this!

Ok, enough tea chat for tonight. I'm brewing a cup of Darjeeling right now, but you'll have to wait for my review. See? I can build suspense too!!!

I finally broke down this weekend and bought my geeky wet dream: a Wacom tablet. If you've never seen one, they are kinda hard to explain/describe. It is a drawing surface that translates your pen strokes into computer code. That's not the best explanation, but just go with it... It makes my digital image editing (bet you didn't know I did THAT, didja?) a lot easier than trying to use a mouse. On the other hand, it's fun to use as a REPLACEMENT to my mouse as well, since moving the pen moves my pointer onscreen. So cool!

Well, I have to go draw horns on the foreheads of some super models... Have a good night!

Dr S

More about tea

Hey, finally tried the rooibos tea, so I thought I'd complete my review. It smelled and tasted vaguely like chewing tobacco. I didn't like it at all, it is definitely my least favorite "tea" out of the sample set I received. I won't be purchasing this one again, but I will be buying both chamomile and blood orange in bulk. Still on the fence with spearmint.

I was looking around the site a bit more today, and found out that I can send gift certificates to new members, so if you decide you want to try some tea from them let me know & I will hook you up with $5 off! I'll be completely upfront here: I get points for everything I buy from there, and also get 10 points for every gift certificate redeemed because of me. After 100 points, I get a $10 gift certificate, so buy purchasing with my help, you're not only saving money yourself, you're helping me save money too. Not trying to push you into buying, but if you were planning on it anyway this is a great win-win situation. :)

Well, I'm back to enjoying my chamomile.

Dr S

On getting stoned.... and tea.

What a crazy freaking day it was. I had to go to the dentist today. It sucked, it always sucks, but at least I made a new friend: nitrous oxide. Mmmm... I was there for almost two hours, and I barely even noticed it! I had my headphones on, and was listening to Weird Al on shuffle, which (combined with the drugs) was very interesting. The few times I bothered to focus my eyes, I was watching billiards, then poker, then I'm not entirely sure, but there was a lot of fast movement, so I tried not to focus anymore.

I'm not sure if I liked it or not. time was... strange, to say the least. It felt like riding wave after wave of blacking out; I never went entirely out, but I was never really clear either. It just was degrees of how out and clear I was, and it really was like a wave. For a while (a few minutes, maybe a month, I dunno), I could have sworn I was going to die, but I didn't seem to mind too much. Hell, you could have told me that a five year old was going to be drilling in my mount and I doubt I would have cared!

With about ten minutes left, they started weening me off the "good stuff", and switched me to straight oxygen. That sucked, it burned, and I wasn't ready to come down yet. I think I might have begged for them to do more work, but to be honest it's not entirely clear anymore.

I started really cleaning up on my way back to work, and by the time I got there I was feeling pretty clear. I may have been talking to myself in the car, I'm not really sure...

the only thing I really remember is that at one point I really had to pee, but had completely forgotten what peeing was, and just knew I had an uncomfortable pressure somewhere past my feeling range. Since I wasn't sure how to explain this to the dentist without sounding like an idiot, I decided not to say anything. That's probably for the best, as I'm afraid of what I might have said!

Of course, that's not even the exciting thing that happened today, just a fun little aside. The best part of my day was getting home, and having this waiting for me:




What could be in the box???



Let's find out together, shall we???



That's right, it's tea! Tea, and a very cool tea pot!



In case you can't tell, that's the tea on the left, and the teapot on the right. More on the pot in a minute...

What kind of tea did I get? Blood Orange, Rooibos, Spearmint, and Chamomile. Ok, technically not tea, since it does not have real tea in it. Herbal tincture would be a better description, but then I'd just sound like an idiot!



Here's a close-up of the Blood Orange tincture. Delicious smelling!!! Kinda looks like potpourri, doesn't it?



Brewing brewing brewing. The teapot is super cool, you put your water in, microwave it, then throw the loose tea or herbs in, and let it brew a few minutes. In the case of these brews, 7 minutes at 180 degrees is the magic number.

How do you get the tea out without the leaves coming out?



Kinda hard to see here, but it goes so damned fast I didn't have time to line up a good shot. What happens is this: you set the pot on TOP of your glass, and the pressure opens up a valve that lets the liquid drain out the bottom (into your cup!) while straining the leaves up top. Then you just throw the leaves out, and enjoy.

So, my verdict? The pot is super cool, and I can't wait to try some real teas, and some other herbal concoctions in it. As for the four sample flavors I got?

Blood Orange - Kinda weak, needs 2 teaspoons full per pot of water. Pretty tasty, kinda like licking the rind of an orange. Not bad, but I probably won't buy it in larger quantities.

Spearmint - Amazing. The smell is mind blowing even before brewing, and the flavor is pretty intense. It's a great pick-me-up tea, I'm just sorry now that I drank it so late in the evening...

Chamomile - Delicious. My favorite so far, I'll probably be buying this in bulk. I like chamomile anyway, and the difference between this and that crap you buy in a bag is amazing. This will probably be something I'll be drinking every night, that's how much I love it. If I ever have a daughter, I'll name her Chamomile. Or not, if the misses says no. Damn women!

Rooibos - I dunno, I haven't tried it. I've never been a big fan of this (it's also called Red Tea, so look out for it), but maybe it's really good when it's fresh. I'll have to get back to you on this.

I generally avoid plugging other people's stuff on here, because you're here to see me DAMMIT, and I'm not sharing my limelight with just any old internet bum wandering around cyberspace. I'm making an exception: go to www.adagio.com now. NOW! Go, I'll wait....

Hmmm... Lalalalala.... I wonder how many holes I' have in my chair... Let's see, one... two... three ~CRUNCH~ three. :)

Back? Ok, cool. If you like tea, you should buy it from there, I can say that it is very fresh, and 1000 times better than anything you've ever bought in a store.... Unless you go to a tea store... and if you do have a tea store nearby, let me know how it is, I've always wanted to go to one.

Well, I've got a ton of internet out there to surf around on, so I'll be seeing you. Have a good tea-filled night, I'll see you again next time.

Dr S

PS: A quick follow up: I gave up on the dream thing. I just couldn't keep up with reminding myself to do reality checks all day long; it became impossible to get anything done. Maybe someone else out there can try it and let me know how cool it is.

Be The Bigger Nerd

I want, so badly, to point at my roommate and call him a nerd. He's spent the whole night waiting until the midnight release of the expansion pack for his MMORPG World of Warcraft. They are actually having a "release party" at the store, and he's been there since around 6:00. That's 6 hours of waiting for a game. Not even a full game, just an expansion to a game he already plays.

I really really want to call him a nerd. Then I started thinking about how I spent my evening, and am I really any better?

I spent the night breaking my operating system. I did it in the guise of upgrading, but if I'm being honest I knew that there would be things I'd have to manually fix, and I looked forward to it. Some of them I expected (I have to rebuild my keyboard shortcut bindings, mouse bindings, things like that), some I didn't (took forever to get my USB hard drive running properly again), but I knew going into it that I would have to fix some things. And I did it, not in spite of the problems, but because I knew that there would be.

You see, if my system is stable too long, I get thinking about ways to make it better, and invariably they cause a lot of work for a little reward. I do it because, deep down, I enjoy spending hours at my command line writing dirty hacks to get a cheap effect to work. Sometimes I get something useful (I can now run both Flash and Java on my 64-bit laptop, even though they haven't been released for anything past 32-bits), other times I get something silly (I have a media player that manually runs 7 other media players). It's always fun to try to figure out how to get it to work.

So I started thinking, how is my nerd habit any different from his? He plays RPGs online against other people, I hack Linux. Here are some comparisons...


He talks to other players online within the game, and they all share a common interest (the game). I talk to other Linux users on web forums.

He uses massive amounts of bandwidth to run his game. Tonight alone I used more bandwidth than the average user will go through in a month.

He has clearly defined goals that, with team work, he pursues. The reward is usually minimal, but the main reward is pleasure in a job well done. I have goals that are usually clearly defined, and work with others on the web to make them happen. If I happen to meet a goal, I don't really get a reward, aside from getting something cool to run, but the high is amazing.

He kills things in his quests, usually orcs and trolls I think. I hate trolls (bastards), but I don't kill them. Instead, I kill software bugs.

He has to find creative ways to meet his end. In my world, they're called quick and dirty hacks.

He disappears for long periods of time when new expansions come out. I don't expect to see him again now for at least a week. I have, in my younger days, locked myself at my computer for days on end trying to get something to work, stopping only for food, cigarettes, and the occasional pee break.

I don't really know who the bigger nerd is in our house. I guess maybe it's all in how you look at it. Deep down, I hope that everyone out there has one hobby, one thing they like to do, that is as all-consuming as his game, and my computer. If you don't, isn't it time you become a nerd too? Find one thing that you love to do, and just do it to your best. You'll be glad you did!

Dr S

Podcasting, The Linux/Windows/Apple Connection, Could I Be Dreaming?

Wow, it's been a long freaking time since I've posted, huh? Sorry guys, I wasn't ignoring you, I've been super busy lately! I'd promise to try to do better, but if you're smart you won't believe that any more than I do!

So I've gotten into podcasting lately. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's really awesome, you've got to check it out! A podcast is similar to a radio show, only you download it and store it on your computer (or iPod if you're like me) and can listen to it whenever. The shows I've been listening to are all tech-oriented (Diggnation, Sourcetrunk and Lug Radio), but there are a ton of other types out there, covering everything from news to sports to music to fashion... I could go on and on, but why not just search them out for yourself? :)

I spilled Mountain Dew on my laptop and now some of my keys are sticking, so I'm sorry for any typos I may have... In my defense, it wasn't my fault, my Dew literally exploded when I opened it, and hit a few the keys on my laptop even though I was at least 5 feet away. Grr!

I was at the bar tonight with my roommate (we were hungry and too tired to cook), and he said something that made me stop and think. He does phone support for internet service, and gets to answer all sorts of strange problems... Anyway, he said "How can anyone use a Mac? You can't really DO anything on them!". Well, it got me thinking, I feel the same way about Windows. How can anyone use Windows? The uses are so locked down, the whole system is so limited, you can't really DO anything useful on them. I have a feeling that people who use BSD (an incredibly powerful OS) feel the same way about Linux users (of which I am one). Dunno what that means, but I thought it was interesting enough to share...

Finally, I'm trying something new in my life. It's called lucid dreaming. Basically, it is the ability to control what is happening in your dreams. I wish I could say I'm trying it for a noble reason, like self exploration or contemplating the void, but really I just want to be able to slap stupid people around while I'm asleep and have everyone worship me as supreme world leader. Hey, it may not be pretty, but at least I'm honest!

It's really strange trying to get started with it, as most of the work you do is while you are awake. You have to get in the habit of doing "reality checks" all the time to see if you are really awake or asleep. They are things that are simple to do when awake, like turning on a light, or reading a sentence twice to see if it changed, but in your dream you will know when they fail, thus you will know when you're asleep.

It has lead my girlfriend to think I may be crazy though, as I now have a sign above my computer that says "Could I be dreaming?" I swear, I do have a good grip on reality, I'm just trying to enforce the reality checks in my waking mind...

The rest of the work is simple; when you get ready to go to sleep, find something to focus on that you can use to remind yourself you are asleep. The common example is to look at your hands just before turning off the light and saying "When I'm asleep, I will look at my hands, and it will remind me that I'm dreaming". Then, when you are dreaming, if your dream leads you to look at your hands (pretty common really), you will remember that you are dreaming, and (hopefully) take control.

Anyway, I hope to get it working soon (it takes a lot of practice), I'll let you know how I do.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season, and wish you all a wonderful new year.

Dr S

Fuck it

Hey, do you remember when I was able to keep up with posting a new poem or four, and a new entry every week? Me neither! I know at one point I had PLANNED on doing that, where the fuck did I go wrong?

So I spent like an hour trying to write something tonight, and pretty much everything was utter shit. I ended up getting really pissed off at myself, and scribbled out the two meager ones I just posted on the poetry blog. Sorry it's not more, but at this point I'm honestly thinking about just walking away altogether. Yeah, I know, how "tortured artist". Shit.

I guess for now, do whatever it is you love doing, because tomorrow you might find yourself completely incapable of stringing a few fucking words together. Seriously.

Dr S