The Waterfall Bong

Happy weekend everyone! I took a few days off in the middle of my week, but I'm back to share with you what is, in my opinion, one of the easiest, cheapest, and most effective ways to smoke: The Waterfall Bong.

Now these guys do it on a grandiose scale, but the principal is the same - gravity does all the work for you. The waterfall bong and the "gravity bong (or bucket bong)" differ in their dynamics, and I find the waterfall variety to be even simpler. All you need is:

The Vortex is an acrylic waterfall bong sold in smoke shops
You might as well make one yourself 

A water bottle - bigger bottle = more smoke

A lighter - implied, but it is also necessary for making the carb

Some sort of bowl - preferably glass or metal; you don't want to smoke plastic

Use the lighter to make a smoke hole (the carb) at the base of the bottle, and another through the bottle cap. Put whatever you're using as your bowl through the cap, and if it isn't a tight enough fit, you may have to use something like clay or chewing gum to seal it airtight. Fill the bottle up with water (make sure your finger is over the carb), twist on the cap, and light the bowl as you release the carb. As the water drains out, smoke drains in, and once there's no more water just unscrew the cap and voila! A perfect snap.

A few hours ago I was frantically looking for a way to smoke the crumbs at the bottom of my bag (our house has unfortunately become, yet again, bong-less), but couldn't find anything to use for the bowl. I remembered I had held onto one of the glass bowls that broke, so I pulled it out and what do you know? It's a perfect fit. Check it out:

Blogs These Days

The more time I spend on Blogger, the more convinced I get that I may be in the wrong line of work. I'm not sure if any of you have hit the "Next Blog" button at the top of my site, but don't bother. You would think that, statistically speaking, you would eventually find one that interests you, but you'd also be wrong. I spent some time trying to get to know my fellow bloggers, and it turns out they're all very uninteresting.

Are these people really that bored? I mean I am, but I don't have three kids to take care of. Every other blog is about someone's family, which begs the question, who gives a fuck? I write about weed  because I like it, and I know millions of other people do too. This was the first blog that came up when I hit the button trying to prove my point, and fortunately for me, it's a perfect example. This guy even says in his header "Random thoughts, recollected and preserved, of little or no value". If it has little or no value... fuck it, I'm not even gonna bother.

P.S. You may have noticed this post had nothing to do with weed, and you're right. I'm branching out. In the spirit of the site, it being the place "where all those crazy ideas you had when you were high come true," I just had to share my frustration with The Blogosphere... The Bongosphere does a much better job, in my opinion. 

P.S.S. Comments have been enabled! Share your own ideas, frustrations, or whatever else!

The Art of Spliff

A couple years ago most of my friends in San Fran gradually started smoking more and more spliffs. A spliff is a joint rolled with tobacco and marijuana, and is great for those who smoke both, since they are readily available. Initially, I wasn't a fan. I preferred to roll my own joints rather than throw down with my friends on a spliff, because I don't (and never plan to) smoke cigarettes. My move to the east coast, however, has changed my mindset considerably.  I am now convinced that spliffs are actually quite nice, but there is an art:

• Never more than 50% tobacco. Even that is extremely high in my consideration, and I prefer around 20-30% - if you're stash is running low that's one thing, but try to keep it green.
• Make sure the tobacco is spread evenly throughout. The tobacco makes it burn more slowly and more evenly, so if there is significantly more tobacco in a particular spot, the paper there will burn unevenly.
• Use Crutches (filters). Don't worry, you don't have to break anything. Take a business card out of your wallet, tear off a corner, roll it up, and voila: filter. Make sure you put it in the paper before rolling - see video.
• King Size Papers! Sure, a regular 1 1/4 Zig Zag does the job, but it does the spliff little justice. There is much more potential (longer crutch, more room for error) in a paper that's twice as big.
• Lastly, learn to roll: Bongosphere approved spliff rolling video - I roll this way myself

(sure hope that isn't weed though - gross)

Maybe you smoke cigarettes, maybe you don't quite have enough bud for a full joint, or maybe you just like a head rush now and then, but either way, remember the spliff.

Teaching a New Blog Old Tricks

That's right - smoking tricks. Marijuana and tobacco users don't always see eye to eye, but ever since humans realized they could inhale certain things and get fucked up (I'm assuming), they've been trying to do cool things with the smoke after it does its job. 

We'll start relatively easy, with the first trick I learned, the French Inhale (or Irish Waterfall). It's really as simple as opening your mouth and breathing through your nose after a nice rip. You canuse the tip of your tongue to arch the smoke towards your nostrils - or even towards one in particular. You also might have to inhale a little harder than you normally would, but a minute or two in front of the mirror should have you inhaling like the French in no time.

I actually performed this next trick before I even knew what it was, and it's actually a pretty difficult one to get consistently - The Snap Inhale. Now I had no idea what this was called before I looked it up, but it's a pretty fun trick once you get the hang of it. Take a nice big hit (pick your poison), and before inhaling - the smoke must be in your mouth! - slowly open your mouth in an "O" shape and gently let a puff of air out by moving your tongue or jaw. Quickly inhale through your mouth, sucking all of the smoke back into your lungs.

The last, and most impressive trick I'm going to discuss is, of course, the Smoke Ring. To be honest, I just got this trick down a couple weeks ago, and I'm still practicing. If you've ever asked anyone how to do it, I'm sure you got an answer something along the lines of "make an 'O' with your mouth and just like, blow, or something," but I never really realized what that O shape was... it's not like whistling. The image to the left gives a pretty good picture of the shape of your  mouth, and the other trick is that you don't exactly blow the smoke out. The movement is similar to the Snap Inhale, in that it just requires a subtle moving of your mouth to push out a cloud of smoke - in this case, in the shape of a ring. 

These three tricks are really the foundation of all smoking tricks, and if you can get them down, you have the components to really do all sorts of creative things with your smoke. So go ahead: be a dragon, make a heart, or just exhale....

Wake 'N' Bake

Back home, being that I don't do anything all day and weed prices are less than half of what they are here, every morning is a wake and bake. At school, however, I cannot afford that luxury for a variety of reasons, which made this morning all the more special. Not only did I get woken up at 11 (mind you, that's early) to go get bluntwraps and start rolling, but everyone else in my house did too. That's right, even the kids who barely smoke. It was glorious.

We had eight couches in a half-circle around the TV in what had to be the largest smoking-circle in recent history. 12 blunts later, the Dominoes man walked into what he must have thought was some kind of hippy-college-pot party with about as many pizzas as there were people.

Whatever. After eating enough for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I decided the only thing left to do was go back to bed. I woke up about twenty minutes ago, and I'm ready for breakfast # 2.

Featured Strain of the Week: Super Silver Haze

Celebrating the one week anniversary of The Bongosphere, I am introducing a weekly, purely weed-devoted post about my personal favorites. In my first post I featured God's Gift, my personal favorite, and this week I'm following up with a close second. Super Silver Haze... because Silver Haze just wasn't super enough.

Super Silver Haze Trichome

And this is why they call it silver; I think this plant is more crystal than chlorophyll. These plants vary somewhat in their genetics, but Super Silver combines Skunk, Northern lights, and Haze to produce an incredible combination of body-numbing indica and head-rocking sativa. I just can't help but stare at this picture to the right - it should have been on my last post about marijuana art, because that is a beautiful beautiful thing. 

Three time cannabis cup winner, this bud will be worth however much you have to pay for it (which is going to be a lot). I've only smoked it one time I'm aware of, but this strain stands out above and beyond even the high grades like Trainwreck and Sour Diesel. Who needs Superman? Give me some Super Silver Haze.

Who Says Marijuana Isn't a Beautiful Thing?

I've been bored today if you couldn't tell. Here are some images I've gathered of some nice marijuana art.

James Moore - U.S. Drug War Prisoner, Texas

Look at this tattoo! Not only a fine piece of art,
But quite the commitment

All I can do is laugh at this one

Robert Barbour

Step Into the Bongosphere

...And I thought I was original.

From the Urban Dictionary:

Bongosphere 

1. The state or place where the things that make sense to you when you are high are true.

Doc finally understood the Grand Unifying Theory of Creation; but he forgot to document it before he sobered up and stepped out of the bongosphere.

I had never heard of the bongosphere before I thought of it, and I gave myself a big pat on the back when I did too. Imagine my dismay when I try to Google myself and this shit pops up....

Oh well, in a sense it actually endorses what I'm doing. Maybe this site can become a true bongosphere: where the world will come to bathe in the glory of our highdeas, and maybe someone will actually remember them.

Or maybe not. Wait what was I talking about?