But I've always maintained that I'm a much better driver after smoking a bit of reefer. Now I have a video to back me up.

Nell' Ambientes from Poland play ethno/fusion/trance music, using many instruments including didjeridoo, hurdy-gurdy, djembe, bass guitar, harmonica, flutes... They also play with a larger line-up as Gadajaca Tykwa (The Talking Gourd), however, The Talking Gourd is mostly influenced by African music, while Nell' Ambientes is much more trance-oriented. They also call Nell' Ambientes their "export version" and have actually performed outside Poland.

One of their "songs" is about ergot poisoning, which is also explained at the beginning of this video, recorded at St. Nicholas Day Folk Feast. But first I guess I'll have to provide some rather rough translation...

Do you know that story
That after eating rye
A strange dance was danced,
St. Vitus Dance

Strange things happened
'Cause after eating bread
Some went to hell
And others to heaven

St. Vitus Dance
inexplainable state...
Inexplainable, incomprehensible,
impenetrable, unforgettable

In complete unconsciousness
Strange things were seen
St. Vitus appeared
Or some other illusion

When grain was covered by fungus
You were seen, o God
Right after eating
In a common revelation

What's that you say? You haven't heard of the oo?

Well, what's the big hold-up?

I thought I should finally investigate whether or not I should be holding my tokes in for as long as I can. It turns out it was a good thing I did. At first I tried to just look for an ideal study through Google. Ha. After sifting through a few forum threads from years ago, I decided I needed to refine my search.

So after throwing a few more words in the box, I came upon a site which actually showed that holding your smoke in too long allows deposits of particulate material to buildup. This proves well enough that you can hold your smoke in too long. But, this still left one question unanswered; How long do I need to hold the smoke in to get nearly all the goodness, and still breathe out some of the tar? Google was going nowhere, so I went to MAPS, and found that their search was actually powered by Google. So, the best link the search turned up was an unanswered (go figure) question post from 1999, asking:

1) Have more studies been done regarding this?

2) Can someone provide me with abstracts or summarizations from the report I have not been able to find?

3) Can someone try to summarize the body of evidence? (From what I've read, it seems that holding the smoke for just one second gives just as much effect, but reduces the danger, in lowering absorption of CO.)

Well, in the time since the question was asked, the access of information has become quite a bit simplified. I was able to follow one of the references which seemed to fit my quest perfectly:

Azorlosa[1], J. et al., "Marijuana Smoking: Effects of Varying Puff Volumes and Breathhold Duration", /Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics/ 272: 560-69 (1995)

Now, I was not able to read the article in question (for free), but after looking at several articles that referenced it, I found the general consensus of the articles, and what I wanted to know, was this:

Inhaled THC is well absorbed after a brief interval, and subjective high and serum THC levels do not increase beyond a maximum 10-second inhalation (Azorlosa, Greenwald, & Stitzer, 1995)

There you have it. Hold it in for about 10 seconds, anything more and you're doing more harm than good. I know I'm going to have to change my smoking habits now.

I think this is pretty self-explanatory:

Hi, just wanted to send you this link in hopes you could post it in an article. Just trying to get his message out, because it's entirely and completely pathetic that a man burned himself alive to get his message out and the entirety of media buried the subject.

Thanks, peace! ;]

- Jon

Everyone knows I'm a sucker for a good end-of-the-world yarn, so it should come as no surprise that I'll be following the new webcomic by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield called "FREAKANGELS." Episode One went live this morning. It's a bit premature to judge the story; one thing that always always always drives me nuts about comics is that I never get enough story in one issue or episode or whatever. But the premise as described in the very first panel is enough to sink its ragged hooks into me and the artwork is flat out luscious. Plus, it's free, so head on over and take a peek.

I don't get out much, so it's rare that I find new music I like other than that weird bleepy drug-addict music that streams into my computer from the Internet sometimes when I forget to turn off the faucet. But I just stumbled across Kaki King, an amazingly talented vocalist/guitarist, who seems to be a master of something called "slap guitar" that I've never heard of before but is pretty damn cool:

Wow. I listened to a few tracks from her second-newest album, Until We Felt Red and I sure do like it. Dreamy female vocals and ambient guitar; somewhere I saw a comparison to Sea and Cake and Tortoise, which seems plausible. I'd add in my old-fogey way that her voice reminds me of Opus III (i.e. the female vocal sample in Halcyon and on and on, which everyone likes) and her electronic backup sounds are subtle and tasteful.

"E kills roughly 3-9 Americans a year. Peanuts kill roughly 50-100 Americans a year."

Damn straight.

File under: Big Brother comes to school:

A private school in Tulsa will be drug-testing all students.

Some Oklahoma schools test students who participate in extracurricular activities, but Bishop Kelly will apparently be the first to test all students.

Principal Alan Weyland says school officials will take a hair sample from each student starting this fall and test it for drugs including, marijuana, opiates, methamphetamine, ecstasy and cocaine.

Random locker searches aren't bad enough, now they're taking hair samples? I guess you can get away with anything at a private school.