theFreshScent

George Carlin, één van vruchtbaarste comedians van al tijd, is overleden. Ik ben zeker de meesten van u van dit zich bewust zijn, en het niet als wij doet enige originele hier rapportering is, maar als een blog die zich bij de tegen-Cultuur concentreert zouden wij totaal remiss zijn om iets hier niet te zetten.

Plus, persoonlijk, dacht ik hij grappig verbazen was.

Eerst, laat me u met twee artikelen van de New York Times verbinden. De eerste is uw boilerplate het levensrecapitulatie en andere is meer van advies stuk.

Nu wordt dat gedaan met, kan me ik op het punt van dit post bewegen…

Voor me, lettende op was George Carlin oog het openen. Het was de eerste keer die ik erkende grappig meer dan of cynisch zou kunnen zijn of slapstick, maar een uiterst pientere agent van sociale commentaar.

Deze mens kon het dagelijkse leven waarnemen en incisive observaties op maken hoe Amerika (en onze de 20ste eeuwmentaliteit) werkten. Meer dan dat, kon hij hen op een bepaalde manier vervoeren dat gemaakt ons lach en realiseer enkel hoe het absurde leven werkelijk kan af en toe zijn.

Voorbij de netelige wordplay of vuile taal, zal hij altijd één van de intelligentste en iconoclastische mensen in modern vermaak zijn. Voor dat zouden wij allen hem moeten danken.

Rust in vrede George, u grappige motherfucker.

Update: Gedachte zou ik wat extra materiaal in deze post werpen. Eerst, een paar citeert klassieke Carlin:

Wat als er geen hypothetische vragen waren?

Ik heb zo veel gezag zoals de Paus, ik enkel zo vele mensen niet heb die het geloven.

De elektriciteit is werkelijk enkel georganiseerde bliksem.

Is er een ander woord voor synoniem?

Als een mens zich in het midden van het bos sprekend bevindt en is er geen vrouw rond om hem… is hij nog schaadt te horen?

Denk aan hoe stom de gemiddelde persoon is, en realiseer de helft hen stupider dan dat is.

De godsdienst overtuigde de wereld dat er een onzichtbare mens in de hemel is die op alles let u. En er zijn 10 dingen hij u niet wil doen of anders zult u naar een brandende plaats met een meer van brand tot het eind van eeuwigheid gaan. Maar hij houdt van u! … En hij heeft geld nodig! Hij is krachtig allen, maar hij kan geen geld behandelen!

Als kwestie van hoofd, woon ik nooit eerste jaarlijks bij om het even wat.

De dood wordt veroorzaakt door kleine hoeveelheden speeksel over langdurig van tijd te slikken.

Daarna, is er a groot artikel door Jerry Seinfield ongeveer George en zijn wederzijdse eerbied als comedian.

So far, the responses have been great. We’ve gotten some funny ones, some weird ones and some reassuring ones. Turns out we’re doing a thing or two right as it stands, but we can definitely improve in other areas.

Let’s start off with something simple that I doubt will surprise anyone…

Yep, mind blowing right? A nice, round 100% of you think it is Ok to use marijuana for recreational use, with a slight caveat of 13% choosing the ‘It Depends’ option. Exactly zero people chose ‘No’ on this one. A real eye-opener right?

The next mixture of questions was designed to get your opinions on both features and content.

Let’s start with features, we created two major parts of the site - the tFS Headshop Locator and Feed Valley. We called them ‘Feature Elements’ and put them right below categories in the sidebar.

Turns out we either didn’t build them well enough or no one can find them, because the majority of responses were on the negative side. A whopping 14% of people use Feed Valley to grab news from other sites and an equally massive 22% of viewers used the tFS Headshop Locator (when it was still functional and not mangled by our hosting providers).

The amount of ‘Don’t Know What It Is‘ responses (54% for Feed Valley and 38% for tFSHL) really opened our eyes to how important navigation is and making it easy for all of you to spot the larger projects that we work on. You can bet the next featured aspects of tFS aren’t going to be as easy to miss. Count on it.

Next we wanted to get some ideas about our content. Asking which category you read the most was a no-brainer and the responses pretty much followed what our site stats show - you all love looking at Medical Marijuana. The MMJ category posted a 46% total, which is an impressive 20% difference between the next closest choice, News, clocking in at 20% of our responses.

Funnily enough, those responses totally contradicted how you felt about the next question - Marc Emery or Tommy Chong? Marc Emery is heavily involved with the legalization movement and seed cultivation. This would translate into readers being more interested with the deeper aspects of marijuana, both legal and structural. Tommy Chong, well known from his comedy movies, represents the lighter side of pot. Jokes, taking life easy and making fun of a few people or places along the way.

You guys favored Tommy by a pretty sizable margin - 65% to 35% - over Marc Emery. What does this mean to us? We’ll keep the news and strain info coming, but you also want to see some more humor and things to make you laugh. No problem, we can handle that.

There were some questions hard for us to put into graph form, but don’t worry, we’re paying attention to every one equally. The one consistent, major complaint has been over the lack of updates since the site last went down. We know you want to see more from us on the content front, and that won’t be an issue when we re-launch. Until then we have to keep quiet on the details.

So sit tight, know that we’re on top of it, and we look forward to dropping some development news in the coming week.

San Diego State just became home to one of the largest school-related drug busts in recent history. The final toll? Around 100 people were arrested, 75 of them students. The police confiscated 4 pounds of cocaine, 50 pounds of weed, 350 ecstasy pills, 4 guns and $60,000 in cash.

Considering this is front page news almost everywhere, this article going to be a simple news recap. Instead, we wanted to take a different angle, and talk to someone on the ground. It’s so easy to have an opinion made up by reading a single AP news article, but there are always other sides to a story.

Through a contact, we were able to interview an alumni from the most prominent fraternity involved in the drug sales - Theta Chi - and get a feel for what the local response is to this drug bust.

Let’s get on with it…

theFreshScent: This seems like an extremely serious issue and could possibly affect Theta Chi’s charter. Were these drug dealings completely common knowledge among house members, as the AP news article suggests?

Theta Chi Alumni: It would be safe to say that most brothers in a chapter know what the other brothers are up to, especially brothers who live at the fraternity house. If it is found to be true that drugs were sold on the premises, there is no doubt that their charter will be revoked. Theta Chi holds a strict no tolerance policy on drugs. Even alcohol is not allowed on chapter premises.

To see the rest of this interview, read on…

The grandfather of psychedelic experimentation, Albert Hofmann, has passed away.

Best known for his discovery of LSD (or Lysergic Acid Diethylamide for you scientific types), Albert is also responsible for the synthesis of psylocybin. I don’t know how many of our readers have had mind-altering experiences, but they are the direct result of this little known man, his scientific skills and a small dash of luck.

After creating LSD-25 and leaving it alone for 5 years, Albert accidentally ingested a small sample while revisiting his work. Without that small mistake, he would never have taken 250ug of LSD on his bike ride home.

It’s a sad day for responsible people worldwide, not the morons who take 15 tabs and end up arrested by police while trying to catch the sun in their mouth. It took serious balls to be the first person to take a trip down Hallucinogen Lane and I salute the man.

If you want to learn more about Albert and his life, check out the most recent LA Times article (very descriptive) or his Wikipedia page.

[photo Walter Bieri / Associated Press]

Correction: Looks like I messed up, thanks to lsdboy and our other readers who caught the 250mg of LSD mistake. It has now been corrected to 250ug.

I hope you can all tell, but we’re starting to ramp things up here @ tFS. The v3 blog is under active development, and we’re really excited about the new features and technical set-up that’s being put together.

That said, our website is only as strong as the content on it. We want to know what you think about the current version of tFS and what you would like to see in Version 3. Nowhere in our About page does it say that we’re mind readers, so it’s time for you guys to step up and give us the news.

This quick survey, linked below, will go a long way in helping us map out and design posts and content that appeal to YOU. If you think something blows, let us know. If you think something rocked and you want to see more of it, let us know that too.

Take the survey! Take the survey! Take the survey!

So, bottom line, the more people who help us by filling this out, the better our content is going to be. I hope that it’s a good trade-off, 2 minutes of time for some killer articles to read & pictures/videos look at.

As always, if there’s anything missing, hit us up via the Contact page or via email.

Oh yea, fill out the survey!

Somewhere in the afterlife, Steve Irwin is crying. Why? Because ever since his Crocodile Hunter persona became popular, unoriginal people have been ripping it off. Unfortunately, the worst version I’ve ever seen has just surfaced.

CelebStoner, and a few other sources, tipped me off to one of the stupidest anti-drug campaigns in existence. I say ‘one of’ because after doing posts like these, it’s hard to be surprised anymore.

Suffice to say, this latest PSA plays on all of the weed smoker stereotypes that have been debunked again and again: lazy, no activities, no intelligence, unsuccessful, etc… It’s like getting the same shitty tasting sandwich wrapped in sparkling new packaging, the contents are still rotten.

If you want to waste some time, check out the Stoners in the Mist campaign. I suggest watching it while high, it’s extremely amusing.

According to the Super High Me staff, the experimental “Roll Your Own Screenings” approach to their movie release has been extremely successful.

With an expected total of 40,000 release-day viewers (both public and private screenings), Super High Me has done an impressive job of coordinating a grassroots promotion campaign.

Having seen the movie myself, I was thoroughly entertained. And, coincidentally, thoroughly high.

The Doug Benson documentary covered more areas than I expected, especially the physical & mental tests that he had to undergo during the pre-smoke and post-smoke months. Although not the most scientifically convincing, they show that a functional adult with a higher than average appetite for marijuana is at no significant disadvantage.

His comedy was great throughout both the sober and non-sober tests, and I’m bummed no tFS staff could make it to his 4/20 show at the Laugh Factory in LA. My only complaint might be that the ending was abrupt. Instead of a quick synopsis or a “what I’ve learned” piece, Super High Me cuts out right after the 31st day of smoking is finished.

Then again, if that’s my singular complaint about a movie, the director & producer have done a damn good job.

If you’ve seen Super High Me, let us know what you thought. Until we get Doug to do 30 days of Smoking for tFS, this is the best it’s going to get for one of our favorite comedians.

It’s an exciting day here at tFS because we finally get to give you a quick glimpse into what we’ve been working on for the past few months. Let’s dive right in…

First, we’re happy to announce theFreshScent Twitter account. If you’re not familiar with Twitter, it’s a microblogging service that uses instant messaging, SMS or the web to send people 140-character bites about what you’re doing.

Even if you aren’t seeing a lot of posts on tFS, we’re very busy working on some of the stuff that I’m about to show below. By checking up on our Twitter feed, you’ll be able to see what’s keeping us busy and away from writing.

We thought this would be a cool way to keep in contact with our audience, even when we aren’t able to post as much as we’d like. Also, expect some links to videos, images or news stories that we find funny or interesting to check out. You know, so you don’t get too bored with us.

It’s a great service that has really taken off, so head on over to the page and follow us, or sign-up, or just grab our RSS feed and you’ll be good to go.

On to the next news…

As everyone knows, the site has been really choppy, quality wise, and we find that unacceptable. We also find it a bit stale to be honest. This design has been live since September 20th, 2006. That’s almost two years, and it’s time for a face lift.

Above you is a quick look at theFreshScent v3. Our new take on what we want to deliver to the Counter-Culture world. You might wonder why it’s taken so long to put this together, but we’ve re-thought this site from the ground up and made changes accordingly.

I can’t spill all the beans just yet, but expect plenty of new features when launch day is announced. There is a lot of exciting news on the horizon for tFS readers and it’ll be here before you know it. Who knows, we might even have another sneak peek for you.

As always, if you have any feedback for us we’d love to hear it. Oh, and Happy 4/20!

Well, well, well. It looks like our friends over at Attack of the Show have forgotten a certain green-friendly blog during their 4/20 blog roundup.

No worries. We’ve been flying under the radar lately, but just wait until this time next year and tFS is going to be at the top of that list.

Also, 3 links? That’s all they could find?

I think these guys need to step up their game a bit and respect the tech-head smokers out there. We do exist (unless magic elf men created this site and I’m just too stoned to tell), so it’s time to put a voice to the movement.

Hey Everyone!

Didn’t expect to see something new here did you? Well, we’re here to change all that. I know it’s been almost year since we last dropped anything of significance, and we’re sorry about the all time it’s taken. We’ve definitely been off-the-job longer than we’d hoped, but there’s always tomorrow to look forward to and we’re working to bring it closer each day. Now, let’s get past the intro and on to the good news…

First, we’ve fixed most of the outstanding issues with the site. It ended up being the combination of old plugins and an out-of-date main database that really screwed everything up. With the introduction of WP2.5, some serious house cleaning and a bit of re-programming here and there - the current incarnation of tFS is back and ready to go.

The footer is currently being worked on, and there is still a hiccup with the tFS Headshop Locator, but other than that everything is in working order. Feed Valley is back and in full effect. If you have any suggestions for new feeds to add there, shoot us an email. Expect improvements on the site to be ongoing during the upcoming few weeks.

Next, we’re going to start updating a bit more frequently. Not just the tFS Debris, but also some comments on an article and a quick review here and there. We have plenty going on in the background (yes, I know you’ve heard that line before), but now everything is running smoothly we’ll be able to drop some news and updates along the way.

Last, we’re just looking forward to getting everything moving again. We’ve been away from the game for too long and copycats have tried to take our place.

Not happening.

Expect tFS to be the center of innovation in the Counter-Culture industry and stay tuned for the coming attractions!

+ the tFS Team