Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The words do not have to be perfect.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

Not all heroes wear capes.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

After roe, women are no longer free.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Second rate reporter says what?

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Food / Long Strange Trips (Open Thread)

Long Strange Trips (Open Thread)

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This story from U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s July visit to China would probably be getting more play if the former president-current defendant hadn’t been indicted yet again yesterday:

Here’s an excerpt from a HuffPo story on Yellen’s mushroom meal that includes some of her remarks on CNN last night:

“So I went with this large group of people and the person who had arranged our dinner did the ordering,” Yellen told CNN’s Erin Burnett on “OutFront” Monday. “There was this delicious mushroom dish. I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties.”

“I learned that later,” she continued.

Yellen’s mushroom meal was first reported by a food blogger who spotted Yellen’s group at the eatery. It was later confirmed by the restaurant, which posted on China’s social media platform Weibo that it was an “extremely magical day” — and that Yellen “loved mushrooms very much.”

“I read that if the mushrooms are cooked properly, which I’m sure they were at this very good restaurant, that they have no impact,” Yellen told Burnett. “But all of us enjoyed the mushrooms, the restaurant, and none of us felt any ill effects from having eaten them.”

Secretary Yellen is an economist, not a lawyer, but that’s some careful language. Yellen is also one of the president’s most underrated cabinet members, so she should have all the mushrooms she wants.

Weirdly, I have my own magic mushrooms and Chinese restaurant story…

Between my junior and senior years in high school, I spent the summer with my dad and stepmom. My stepmom wisely never tried to mother my sister or me — she was (and still is) our pal instead.

She and I used to sneak off behind my dad’s back sometimes to smoke pot or have horrible drinks like Champale or Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill wine. Once during this particular summer, my dad announced he and some friends were going on a fishing trip to the middle grounds in the Gulf of Mexico, which meant he’d be gone at least one night.

My stepmom had never tried magic mushrooms but was curious about them. I was an old mushroom pro already, so we decided we’d go looking for some mushrooms when my dad left.

Conveniently, we lived way out in the country right next to a big cattle ranch and were friends with the rancher, who was also on the fishing trip with my dad. We always felt free to use the rancher’s property for horse or ATV riding without asking permission.

Since it was summer, there was lots of rain, and when there’s also lots of cow shit and heat, you can often find lots of mushrooms too. So, we easily found and picked some, which we used to make a horrid mushroom and Crystal Light strawberry smoothie in the blender. We choked the awful concoction down and turned on the TV to watch cartoons and wait for the mushroom buzz to kick in.

As soon as we sat down in front of the TV, we heard a noise and looked out the window. To our horror, there was a car coming down the long dirt driveway! When it stopped and the passengers emerged, we saw it was my stepmom’s aunt and two adult cousins, who lived a couple of counties over. They had decided to drop by unannounced since they were passing through our town.

I didn’t know them well, but I knew they were churchy and would be a massive buzzkill. I told my stepmom we should hide and not answer the door, but like a dummy, she let them in. At this point, I was already feeling weird, but since I was known to be a strange, awkward person anyway, no one really noticed.

The next thing I knew, we were piling into their car, heading to a Chinese buffet restaurant in town for lunch. I was feeling sweaty and slightly ill.

As we crossed the parking lot to the restaurant, the bright sunlight hurt my eyes and made the edges of all the objects in my field of vision glow and shimmer. My stepmom and I kept exchanging horrified glances, as if trapped in a French existentialist play.

Later, as we pushed our trays along a buffet line, we started finding everything hilarious. We laughed uncontrollably at inappropriate objects of mirth, such as a black velvet painting of a fishing village, a vat of duck sauce and the aunt’s polite request for Sweet ‘n Low.

I don’t believe my stepmom’s relatives suspected we were under the influence of hallucinogens; they thought we were acting goofy and stupid, which we were.

Lunch ended abruptly when I ran to the bathroom and violently puked up the strawberry-mushroom smoothie. We left immediately afterward, and I think the aunt and cousins were glad to get rid of us since we were acting so oddly. My stepmom swore off mushrooms after that. Not me though. To this day, every time I pass by a rainy cow pasture, I think hmmmm!

Anyhoo, it sounds like Secretary Yellen had a much better time. The end.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

166Comments

  1. 1.

    Bill Arnold

    As we crossed the parking lot to the restaurant, the bright sunlight hurt my eyes and made the edges of all the objects in my field of vision glow and shimmer. My stepmom and I kept exchanging horrified glances, as if trapped in a French existentialist play.

    Out of context, that is gloriously ambiguous.
    (Very funny story; thanks for sharing!)

  3. 3.

    Josie

    Thanks so much, BC. I love this story. I suspect that many of us have such interesting tales of using fun substances and the hilarity that ensued. My sons are grown and enjoy hearing them. Not so sure about my daughter-in-law. She was evidently pretty much a straight arrow.

  4. 4.

    MattF

    Gary Abernathy is, in fact, a RW partisan hack. I won’t bestow that title on your run-of-the-mill conservative. It takes deliberate dishonesty, like this tweet. And then repeated, repeatedly. Pleased to note that Abernathy was nailed by an actual conservative.

  5. 5.

    Hildebrand

    What a great story to consume whilst on my lunch-break.

    Betty, you are the best storyteller around here – and that is saying a lot.

  6. 6.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Brian Kemp, about an hour ago.

     

    The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen. For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward – under oath – and prove anything in a court of law. Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair and will continue to be as long as I… pic.twitter.com/jaru2iBDo7— Brian Kemp (@BrianKempGA) August 15, 2023

  7. 7.

    trollhattan

    mushroom and Crystal Light strawberry smoothie

    Holy mother of god, was there no Mrs. Butterworth’s available?

  10. 10.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    Smoothie? No, that just prolongs things.  Choke those awful tasting things down them eat something tasty right after.

  12. 12.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair…

    …except for the one I “won” against that uppity Blah woman the first time. THAT one wasn’t fair. But other than that…!

  13. 13.

    No One of Consequence

    “There are Old Mushroomers, and there are Bold Mushroomers, but there are no Old Bold Mushroomers…” – Spore prints save lives. (never harvested my own, personally)

    Love the story, funny how one runs into Coyote at the least/most opportune times.

    Peace,

  14. 14.

    cain

    My wife in two weeks are going on a Psilocybin thing as part of a mental health journey. My wife really liked the one she went on so this time I’m coming along for the ride. I’m a bit hesitant because I’m a bit of a control freak. I sometimes get tired of input and want things to go normal because it gets too much.

  15. 15.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @cain: Well, just a heads up; once that ride starts, it don’t stop for hours

    Eta: Y’all got Marijuana in there? That helps maintain good vibes. Vibes are everything.

  17. 17.

    sdhays

    Since it was summer, there was lots of rain, and when there’s also lots of cow shit and heat, you can often find lots of mushrooms too.

    This puts a new spin on W’s nickname for Karl Rove – “Turdblossom”…

  18. 18.

    Maxim

    I have read a lot of good things about the mental health benefits of certain types of shrooms. On the other hand, I am allergic to molds and fungi, so I’m not sure the benefit would manifest as intended in my case.

  20. 20.

    cain

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Thanks for letting me know – that’s what I”m worried about. When I first had cannabis – I had a panic attack because I ate a whole gummi without thinking about it – and I couldn’t turn off the feeling which kicked in a panic attack.

    Cannabis doesn’t hit me the same way – as others. I don’t get any of the benefits of calmness or any of that other stuff. It’s just this dizzy feeling and well that’s it.

     

    ETA – https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/health/psychedelic-drugs-mushrooms-oregon.html

  21. 21.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Yutsano: The three-month ban would have put Kennedy — who’s mounting long-shot bid to unseat President Joe Biden as the Democratic standard-bearer — out of step with most of his party.

    He’s manifestly out of step with the party in so, so many ways.

  22. 22.

    prostratedragon

    Whenever you get that French existentialist feeling be sure to check your eyelids. (Hmmm, maybe just one or two sautéed with scrambled eggs …)

  25. 25.

    kindness

    I’ve had experience with dried and fresh picked magic mushrooms.  They were never a culinary delight.  More often though, just a delight.

  27. 27.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @kindness: I get deeply into spiritual, existentialist though on mushrooms. For me, they’re a sacrament. A thoroughly enjoyable sacrament.

  29. 29.

    cain

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Yeah, that should be fun. I’ll have to really figure that out – I did in a way – when I broke my wrist. I had a lot of panic attacks then too. Something about not being able to move can trigger a panic attack.

    It’s funny I had no idea I had so much anxiety until I hit my late 40s.

  31. 31.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @cain: Something about not being able to move can trigger a panic attack.

    Could be a trigger, could be a result of a panic attack. I have been very thankful in my adult life for what Buddhists and Wiccans have taught me about meditation.

  33. 33.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @cain: That’s how I’m legally able to have magic mushrooms here in Oregon. (see my link in my other post) It’s a sacrement and you have to be part of an indigenous church.

    Unfortunately, my religious beliefs are entirely my own.

  34. 34.

    eversor

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation:

    Not with the new stuff that you get OTC.  Comes in syrups as well.  You’re in for like an hour, walls don’t bleed.  Though if you chug the syrup, eat the actual shrooms, and then hit the DMT vape you’re going to be in a wild time!

    Or you can do what I did, do all that then slug half a bottle of tequila and eat a ton of TCH sour patch gummies and call out sick for the next day and play the new Zelda.  I regret nothing.  No I’m not sick now, but give me a moment and this food will be on the wall.

  35. 35.

    rikyrah

    Good! Those phucking right-wing clowns.

    Judge dismisses suit to halt Biden’s student debt relief for longtime borrowers

    By Danielle Douglas-Gabriel

    August 14, 2023 at 7:53 p.m. EDT

    A federal judge on Monday denied a bid by two conservative groups to block the Biden administration from canceling the federal student loans of more than 800,000 people who have been in repayment for more than 20 years.

    The Cato Institute and Mackinac Center for Public Policy filed a lawsuit earlier this month, saying the administration violated federal law by failing to produce the forgiveness policy through the traditional rulemaking process and offer the public the opportunity to comment. The groups also claimed the policy would harm their recruitment efforts and asked the court to stop the federal government from canceling any debt as the case proceeds.

    U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington of the Eastern District of Michigan issued an 18-page order dismissing the case, concluding the groups lacked the standing to stop one of the administration’s latest efforts to alleviate the burden of student debt.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/14/student-loan-forgiveness-lawsuit-dismissed/

  36. 36.

    cain

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I think it’s just a step – you’re notr really part of their church or anything. It’s a bit of a nod and wink short cut. The church is administrating the drug as part of a spiritual journey that you are paying them for.

  38. 38.

    CaseyL

    Magic mushrooms don’t do much for me: I feel energized, but can’t actually get anything done, and my nose runs a lot. Feh.
    No mystic visions of any kind, but I seem to have a built-in resistance to actual hallucinations – did a lot of acid as a college student, and never had the wacky visions other people report having. Walls shifted, shadows got weird, and I had amazing focus on whatever I happened to be looking at. But no hallucinations.​

  40. 40.

    cain

    @eversor:

    Or you can do what I did, do all that then slug half a bottle of tequila and eat a ton of TCH sour patch gummies and call out sick for the next day and play the new Zelda.  I regret nothing.  No I’m not sick now, but give me a moment and this food will be on the wall.

    Living life to the fullest. :-) I might do that playing the new Baldur’s Gate.

    I was quite disappointed that my desktop PC can’t handle it – it’s 15 years old or so and has a nvidia 970 that I bought 8 years ago to play witcher 3. I guess it’s time for an upgrade.

  41. 41.

    narya

    @cain: A very good friend and their spouse did this–it was super well-managed. Friend did a return engagement, as they are the one who is trying to address some issues, and the guide(s) seem to be a very important part of the journey. Are there ways (and do you have any inclination) to use the experience to explore the anxiety? In any case, good luck to you both.

  44. 44.

    oklahomo

    I have a neighbor who does this.  Once she was tripping so hard she thought our big black cat was a supernatural panther chasing her naked through the woods. ETA by does this I mean sneaks into all the local cow pastures on a quest for mushrooms.

  45. 45.

    Mart

    Did more than my fair share of acid in my youth. Even a sheet of Sandoz lab pharmaceutical that had been stored in a freezer in San Fran. Always had fun. Never tried shrooms. So a daughter’s boyfriend was growing them. Wife and I tried a little and just felt a bit off. Next time wife fell asleep and I decided to go for it and gobbled what we had. When buzz kicked in it was all about the painful need to hurl. Must have been ninety minutes working up the greatest hurl of all time. It was a horrible painful experience. Never again. Now if you know where I can find some Sandoz…

  46. 46.

    Kelly

    I have stepsons. I’ve gone with the uncle role rather than the dad role. Worked well for us.

    Currently camping in our folding trailer near Bandon OR. Somehow Mrs Kelly reserved a campsite 6 months ago for the hottest smokyest week of the summer. Air is fresh and cool here. Drive was a long strange trip through wildfire smoke. Smoke reached within a few miles of the coast. A little smoke color in the sun even here.

  47. 47.

    cain

    @CaseyL: I would have a hard time with that kind of stuff. Sure it’s probably neat for ten minutes then I’d want a break. :-)

  48. 48.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Enterprising Yunnanese restaurant in Beijing immediately replicated the order placed by the Yellen party & advertised it as the “Money God’s Selection”, which caused a lot of chuckles on Chinese social media.

    I am quite fond of Yunnanese cuisine, easily one of the more under rated regional Chinese cuisines. Such a bewildering hodgepodge of attributes from the 26 ethnic groups that live in the province, w/ elements from Burmese, Thai, Laotian & Vietnamese influences, as well as elements from other better known Chinese regions (Cantonese, Sichuanese, Guizhou, Tibetan). For ingredients it utilizes a bewildering variety of fruits from the tropical south, mushrooms from the Alpine north, Tibetan yak & black haired pig meats from the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, cured hams & sausages in the middle highlands, rice flour noodles & tofu made dozens of different ways, flowers from the plains near Kunming (the provincial capital), the famous Pu’er tea, not to mention the flavorful small bean coffee planted by French missionaries. If you really adventurous, there is also a bewildering variety of insects to sample (normally deep fried).

  49. 49.

    cain

    @YY_Sima Qian: ohhhh! Looks like I’m going to be going down the Yunanese cusine rabbit hole!

    I made chilli chicken yesterday which is indo-chinese food. It has a very passing flavor profile to Chinese food. :D

  51. 51.

    No One of Consequence

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: ​
     

    In my experiences, I have found that Coyote arrives unexpectedly, and if they don’t arrive by means of their own, my mind usually filled them in well enough.

    Your mileage may vary, of course.

  52. 52.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @cain: Enjoy the journey! I do wish Fuschia Dunlop will do a book on Yunnanese cuisine soon, & so that it is accessible to Western readers, as she has so capably done for Sichuanese & Jiangsu-Zhejiang cuisines.

  54. 54.

    HumboldtBlue

    I watched the fascinating Netflix story about our fabulous fungi and I immediately thought to myself I wanna try some magic mushrooms again because the first and only time I used them I had an utterly fantastic time.

    After 30 minutes of hell.

    I was a sophomore in college just outside of Philly, and one of my older brothers had graduated a few years before and was working in Center City in Philly. He called me up one weekend and said he was heading out with a bag of weed, beer, and some shrooms.

    I had never taken shrooms and was wholly unfamiliar with their effects. So he gets in on Friday evening and I have been setting up where we will go — in essence, what house party we would attend — and when he arrived we smoked a bowl and drank a beer or two. Then about 30 minutes before we headed out to a house party we took some shrooms, and from what I later learned it was maybe a tad too much for a first time user.

    We get to the party and I start to feel a little queasy, a little nausea, and I remember standing in the front room of this duplex trying to drink a Busch Light (my brother drank that shit like water) when the awful effects of shrooms began to hit. I was terribly unstable on my feet, horribly nauseated, and I appeared alarming enough for a woman to look at me with concern on her face as I made a mad dash for the front door and who asked, “are you OK?”

    I remember mumbling “fuck no” as I reached the door, made it down the steps and a few feet down the sidewalk before I barfed into the flower bed. The next 10 minutes or so were terrible, vomiting, utterly overwhelmed by nausea, I was sitting on the low brick wall that held the flowers for god knows how long until I heard my brother asking me if I was OK.

    Surprisingly enough, within a few minutes my stomach returned to normal, my head cleared and as I looked up he handed me a beer, I said “yeah, I’m OK.”

    I then took a swig from that can of beer and to this day it was one of the most delicious swigs of beer I have ever had. I spent the rest of the evening on a high I had never experienced before, one that opened my mind and loosened my tongue (not much needed as I ran my mouth non-stop and talked shit to anyone and everyone) that allowed me to display some of my charm and humor.

    I had spent my childhood and school years in bands and choruses, on stage in theater and musical theater, and I was not shy about singing or dancing and anything else that had to do with performing and acting out. I recall I had so much fun talking and singing funny and sarcastic songs we made up in the kitchen, drinking beer, meeting people, including two women who were my neighbors in the dorm.

    All I know is whatever charm I threw out that night worked and worked like magic because It later dawned on me the woman who had originally asked me if I was OK when I was clearly not, was one of those girls and I had not recognized her.

    Well, now I did, and when we got back to the dorms early the next morning I got an invitation, and it was one of the first times I recognized — because I had missed signs in the past — that I was being invited in.

    I accepted and promptly fell into a dead sleep and slept my way into the next morning when I was awakened and asked to move along.

    Still a great night.

    A few weeks later I took the bus into Philadelphia to meet my brother for lunch, and afterward, as I was back at the 69th Street station waiting for the return bus, the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a bomb on the MOVE house that later turned into a murderous scene that left a dozen dead and 100-plus homes burned to the ground.

    ’85 was a helluva year. Within a year, I was in the Air Force and wouldn’t return to college until 1997.

  58. 58.

    eversor

    @CaseyL:

    I think some people are more open to them than others.  I never truly “hallucinated” off mushrooms or LSD and I downed a ton of them.  Patterns shifted, shadows got cool, coolors more vivid, but there was never a “wow” moment.

    Same with the DMT.  I’d get wild patterns if I closed my eyes but outside of that wasn’t impressed.

    On the other hand I had a strong reaction to mixing ketamine with nitrus and 10/10 would do again.

    I know that it wasn’t junk stuff either as it was one, my guy, and two a poor woman friend who tried it thought she was dead and did see ghosts coming out of the walls.   Which was about the point she called up her boyfriend and informed him she was dead.  Which lead to a comedy of hilarities.

  59. 59.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @cain:

    Also happy Indian Independence day for those who celebrate!

    +1

    8/15 is also the date that Emperor Hirohito announced on radio that Japan would unilaterally cease hostilities. 9/2 is the date of the signing of unconditional surrender to the Allied powers on USS Missouri. 9/3 is the date when the Imperial Japanese Army in China surrendered to the ROC government, thus China (the PRC, & at least officially, the ROC on TW) memorializes 9/3 as the Victory Day for the Anti-Japanese War. For China, the Anti-Japanese War started on 7/7/1937, when the IJA fought skirmishes near Peiping (now Beijing) that quickly expanded into a general offensive across northern China, although many would date it to 9/18/1931 when the IJA instigated the Mukden Incident & seized all of Manchuria (& then salami sliced their way south of the Great War region & into parts of eastern Inner Mongolia in the subsequent years before 1937). China has a very different timeline for WW II than any of the other Allied powers.

  60. 60.

    tony in san diego

    My college buddy and I took some mescaline and went to see The Exorcist (first run). We sat in the back row and tried unsuccessfully to suppress hysterical laughter throughout!

  61. 61.

    Cameron

    Could never get my hands on mushrooms; had to make do with acid. On the upside, I was able to get an awful lot of that.

  62. 62.

    eversor

    @cain:

    Oddly your money is going to get you more everything but GPU than ever before , but that GPU is the killer.  On the other hand if you do go balls to the wall on the GPU and you have a new 4k tv odds are you can gsync/vysnc to it and play from your couch.  After you, in the spirit of this thread, down an ounce of mushrooms and hurl your guts out onto the cat.

  66. 66.

    cain

    @eversor: The one I want is 4080 which is about 1200 bucks. I can justify that expense because as an Intel employee I can get the i9 for about 250 bucks instead of the 600 retail.

    My 970 still lets me play most of the games I want to. It’s amazing how much I got out of that card – like 9 years worth. The only reason I’m getting a new one is because I want to play baldur’s gate with everything turned up but there is also a remake of hte witcher 1!

  67. 67.

    HumboldtBlue

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    This — and the drug use, drunken frolics and wastefulness of youth — is why we read this blog.

    I recall coming upon the Soviet Union’s invasion of Manchuria at the end of the war. I had never known the scale of the operation and just how powerful and massive were the forces gathered for the operation were.

  68. 68.

    eversor

    @Cameron:

    They deliver weed, shrooms, dmt, and all methods of these around here to you.  It’s funny.  You mean I can just order up strawberries flavored sour strips of drugs, dmt in a vape pen, mushrooms syrup?  And you will come here?  And drop it off?  And this is completely legal?  Why yes thank you!  Also I’ll take a brownie and if you have sour grape I like that more than strawberry.   No I don’t have a VISA I do have a MasterCard though.

    Beware the mushroom chocolates though.  Those things are potent, they also take like ass.  My friend told me to take two.  Me being me I took 4 and was fine.  The SO being the SO took four also cause I did and was very not OK.

  69. 69.

    cope

    There was a period of time in my 20s when my room mate and I were part of a group of three or four couples who started growing our own Psilocybe cubensis. We started with a kit ordered through “High Times” magazine.  It was quite an involved process as I recall, cooking the growing medium (brown rice), sterilizing canning jars, inoculating the rice and then shutting multiple cases of jars up in a dark closet for a few weeks.

    We staggered our production so that after the first batch was ready for harvest and consumption (bombs away!), a new batch would become available when the previous one was used up.  Scrambled eggs were the delivery mechanism of choice though I became fairly adept at consuming dried ‘shrooms as they were. The stomach churning was unpleasant but once overcome, multitudes awaited our fevered brains.

    They’ve been legalized here in CO so maybe I’ll get a chance to go visit some of the old friends in my head again one of these days.

  71. 71.

    cain

    @eversor:

    Beware the mushroom chocolates though.  Those things are potent, they also take like ass.  My friend told me to take two.  Me being me I took 4 and was fine.  The SO being the SO took four also cause I did and was very not OK.

    Some things need to be left up to professionals.

  72. 72.

    eversor

    @cain:

    My first GPU was in the glide era of rendering to play Quake 2 (which just got a new release!  It’s fun!  We should all play!) and I went off from there.  The ones that stick out are the ATi 9700pro (beast for it’s era), 6800 ultra SLI, then 8800gtx SLI, after which I went to nvidia titans for a while and then to an RTX 2080 super to a now 4090.

    My main box has an AMD Ryzen 9 x3d chip, the back up has an intel i9 10900k.  I couldn’t tell you the difference unless I was doing work work or running synthetics at them.

  73. 73.

    trollhattan

    @cain: My photo-processing PC went TU around Thanksgiving and its replacement has a “mere” 3070, which I needed to access AI noise reduction software but I suspect would handle a pretty heavy video load if needed. Not a gamer so nothing to observe beyond just that.

    OTOH our new 4k OLED teevee has a big processor and would be a hellova platform for such things.

    Been an expensive year so far.

  76. 76.

    laura

    You can purchase psilocybin at a Church in Oakland CA, and you can find mushroom chocolate bars around too. In March, we had a gal’s getaway weekend – because site, setting and company are key. An afternoon of microdosing ensued, just shaving chocolate curls and scooping them up with pretzel thins. After about 30 minutes, there were rainbow halos everywhere I looked. Lots of good music, hummingbirds, paints, lots of snacks and the really deep, connected to humanity laughs. It beat my anxiety back into the shadows and for a good couple of months restore my faith in mankind. It’s not for everyone, but it can be a joyful experience. The last time I’d had that particular type of fun was 1986 or 7.

  82. 82.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @trollhattan: they should have done this 3 years ago, if not sooner. Now take down all the other shit they allow like bad info on pregnancy, gender identity, etc.

  83. 83.

    Rand Careaga

    @cain:I do surya pranayama. (one nostril meditation)

    I did a certain amount of one-nostril meditation back in the early seventies, but it was the kind that involved rolled-up currency.

  84. 84.

    FelonyGovt

    @cain: My husband and I each ate a cannabis cookie at an outdoor concert in the park last year. The first one didn’t seem to do anything, so we each ate a second. Big mistake! I was OK (if wobbly), had some interesting existential thoughts and impressions, because I was kind of a pothead in my youth and I knew what a high was like. Hubby, however, had a really hard time with it, did not enjoy it at all, and we had to walk home. Learned our lesson… check the dosage and wait for it to kick in…

  86. 86.

    CaseyL

    @tony in san diego: ​
    Mescaline was my favorite recreational drug of all time. Kind of a combo of acid and speed for me. I don’t do any recreationals anymore, but for mesc I’d go for it.
    (Mind you, I haven’t had any since I was a youngster; FSM knows if it would be as much fun now as it was then.)​

  88. 88.

    sab

    @Spanky: My RWNJ brother is a finance guy and he has always said that Summers is an idiot savant. He can crunch numbers but he doesn’t know anything beyond that.

  89. 89.

    sdhays

    @rikyrah: I would love to see Christie emerge as the actual non-Trump because he’s pretty much the only one (that the media will pay any attention to) to actually critique Trump as a losing loser fraud. He won’t win (…well, who knows what happens if Trump is convicted before primary season ends?), but it will be entertaining and useful to have an actual Republican critic as the runner up that can’t be simply ignored.

  90. 90.

    eversor

    @Urza:

    At least here in DC they sell it at any shop that sells eddibles.  Totally legal as well.   Lasts maybe two hours tops.  You have to take a lot of it to really get hit.  They also sell DMT vapes as well.

  91. 91.

    RaflW

    Since we’re talking (at least tangentially) economy, FTFNPR has a story up about Bidenomics. The framing says that his signature policies are unfolding during “stubborn” inflation.

    Inflation is down by two thirds. From 9.1% to 3.2% in 14 months.

    I am so g*d damned sick of the innumeracy, sloppiness, and outright wrongness of the news outlets that really, f**king truly should be able to get this right. Gaaaah.

    eta: The above feeds directly into the “We don’t know why Biden’s economic program isn’t more popular!? It’s a total mystery.”

  92. 92.

    Bill Arnold

    @cain:

    I’m amused by how many of us have experimented with drugs or are regular users.

    It is wise to start with a low dose of such substances, like 1/4 typical, when sampling them for the first time.

  93. 93.

    Origuy

    In Italy, today is Ferragosto, a public holiday which originates from Feriae Augusti, the festival of Emperor Augustus, who made 1 August a day of rest after weeks of hard work on the agricultural sector. The Catholic Church moved it to 15 August, which is the Assumption of Mary. Mussolini encouraged Italians to take a day trip to a beach or the mountains.

  94. 94.

    RaflW

    @sdhays: Some reporter I follow dutifully posts the various condemnations of Trump that come from Asa Hutchinson. Of course, it’s as effective as a cow fart, but quieter, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

  95. 95.

    Urza

    @eversor: Yea, but every time i’m around DC i’m working and can’t devote a day to it.  Unless its in a shape that can go through the airport.  Got stopped for an in package lighter last time (hard to find a lighter around Seattle for lack of smokers).

  96. 96.

    cain

    @FelonyGovt:

    My overdose story is pretty funny.

    I had separated from my wife and I was alone in the apartment and my friend had given me gummies. I forgot that he told me to only have half a gummy because it was like 6 months or something since he gave it to me.

    So I get on it and of coursed nothing happened until it did and then.. It was intense. I started having a heart pulpitations, and I was feeling panicked. I went down stairs to the 24 hour concierge (it was a high rise apartment) and I’m liked babbling about saying something is wrong and I think I need to get an ambulance.. the security guy was pretty young and he just looked at me with big saucer shaped eyes clearly panicked on what he should do. lol.

    Finally we ended up calling emergency services (not 911) and thedy came over checked me out and then the one  guy looked directly at me and told me quite firmly that I was high. I was super relieved and started to feel better just from that. I could haved sworn I imagined an “asshole” added to the end of that. But they were kind enough not to charge me for coming over and I did not take the option to go to the hospital.

    That was the first time and last time I took that much gummies. Even now, I can only take half a gummy. I woke up the next day that night still high as fuck!

    It was an amusing ending and I faced some apartment ragging from the day shift people about what happened afterwards. :D

  98. 98.

    StringOnAStick

    @cain: I did that a few weeks ago and it kicked my depression off the planet and left me with an abiding sense of joy that has not lessened in any way. It’s decriminalized in my state too.

  99. 99.

    trollhattan

    @sdhays: He’s perhaps the only Republican who won’t let Trump get under his skin. Damning with faint praise but as long as he’s beating on the Trump pinata then I say, give the man some room and a microphone.

  102. 102.

    Bupalos

    I do  mushroom farming and foraging so I had to do a deep dive on the mushroom in question in this story. Turns out to be a regional Boletus speciosus, one of the blue-staining boletes (of which there are at least a dozen.) So it won’t be psilocibin or psilocin which are the “magic mushroom” compounds folks here will be familiar with. It has its own novel hemagglutinin that completely degrades when thoroughly heated. But undercooked, the mushroom is associated with a pleasant hallucinatory experience known in Yunan as Xiao Ren Ren (Little men) where people see masses of little 1 inch dudes marching around. It sounds hilariously specific, one account I read said nothing much seemed to happen, just some slight color intensification or something, but then he lifted the tablecloth and looked under the table and there they were. If he looked elsewhere, nothing interesting, then look back under the table, yup, they’re still there, hundreds of detailed little men, marching around.

    The rule of thumb in the west is just steer clear of any blue-stainers, and we go for porcinni/cep/king bolete. But apparently in this region of China it is considered the culinary king.

  108. 108.

    bbleh

    @cain: @narya: speaking as one not at all unfamiliar with this type of thing, I strongly endorse the presence of a guide if you’ve not done them before, for more than one reason.  I would not recommend deliberately exploring a fraught situation on mushrooms without a guide any more than I would, say, go whitewater rafting without a guide.

  109. 109.

    Roger Moore

    @sab:

    I think the big thing with Summers is that he’s accepted way too much of the finance industry conventional wisdom, most of which boils down to demanding blood sacrifices by workers to assuage the fury of the jobs gods.  It really doesn’t matter if his heart is in the right place; believing all that shit means any advice he gives will be fatally compromised.

  110. 110.

    RaflW

    @cain: I was just telling someone the other day that the last time I had THC, it was a rather too powerful hash oil cookie (well, cookie fragment). I was under the influence for like 5 hours, and had bed spins for part of it. I was camping, and hoped I could just sleep it off in my tent. Nope, the tent went on a (boring) helicopter ride to nowhere.

    I quit drinking a few years later, and that was hard work, ultimately very worth it.

    But quitting THC was a breeze, because I mostly ended up hating the effects and lost any desire to have that (it had been — in smaller quantities — fun for a time, but then verged over into body paranoia among other unpleasantness. Ugh.)

  111. 111.

    bbleh

    Also, has anyone seen the first RWNJ DRUG ADDICT BIDEN CABINET MEMBER OMG!!11!!! story yet?

    And is this connected to Hunter Biden?!?  How do we KNOW it’s not??  Special Counsel!!!!

  112. 112.

    sab

    @YY_Sima Qian: I just googled Yunnan food near me and got three results. One is forty miles away in Cleveland OH. Another is in Columbus two hours away. Judging by their names it really is Yunnan food. The third is actually in my city in astrip mall across town, and its very creative name is Chinese Food.

  113. 113.

    cain

    @bbleh:

    @cain: @narya: speaking as one not at all unfamiliar with this type of thing, I strongly endorse the presence of a guide if you’ve not done them before, for more than one reason.  I would not recommend deliberately exploring a fraught situation on mushrooms without a guide any more than I would, say, go whitewater rafting without a guide.

    We have a guide. We are staying at her place and will stay the night. This will be near Bend. I’ve met the woman before and she’s a nice sweet young woman.

  114. 114.

    cain

    @StringOnAStick: That’s fantastic! It did wonders for my wife as well. She said she felt light and airy – she did a lot of crying during the 8 hours or so when she did the guided magic mushroom thing. This will be her second time and my first.

  116. 116.

    Sure Lurkalot

    My spouse wants to do a supervised microdosing journey which will have providers and facilities in Colorado in a couple years. Currently legal to consume and cultivate.

    I did a bit of tripping my freshman year in college (Boulder, 70’s, but of course) but I declared my last time would be the annual semester end Fellini party at which pretty much everyone in my small dorm was costumed and drugged up. There was A LOT OF GLITTER.

    Turned out to be the 2nd to last time. My BF, spouse and I blended some mushrooms with screwdrivers about 15 years later on a whim. They made me pretty sick and then too high and too long but we did laugh most of the night.

    I can’t with edibles either…even at the lowest dose, just way more buzz than is comfortable for me. I do like pot though, always have and it helps when I’m having a string of insomniac nights.

  117. 117.

    HumboldtBlue

    @sab:

    and its very creative name is Chinese Food.

    Well, then, you know the food is gonna be GOOD.

    Like the local diner named Bob’s Eats. They still use lard, and no one else makes a pie like Bob’s.

  118. 118.

    raven

    Ya’ll sitting here talking about mold an fungi and shit and I’m dealing with mold in our rental!

  121. 121.

    Ken

    @Jeffro: NYT headline: [trump] Has 10 Days To Turn Himself In

    Do you need a license to be a bounty hunter, or is it something any concerned citizen can do?

  122. 122.

    misterpuff

    @oatler:

    When I was seventeen, I drank some very good beer.

    I drank some very good beer I purchased with a fake ID.

    My name was Brian McGee.

    I stayed up listening to Queen

    When I was seventeen

  123. 123.

    bbleh

    @Ken: unfortunately the indictment is not from Texas, so you can’t rope him, hog-tie him, drag him in and dump him on the floor, like an upstanding citizen.

  124. 124.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Ken: Do you need a license to be a bounty hunter, or is it something any concerned citizen can do?

    You just need the right suit.

  125. 125.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @cain: It’s not indigenous, but the Church of Ambrosia in the SF Bay Area also pro has mushroom-based sacraments. Their original location in Oakland has been around for a couple years and the city apparently has a live and let live relationship with them. They opened a location in SF but reportedly the SFPD has been less than happy about it

    Damn shame because one of COA’s goals is to buy from reputable sources with greater consistency of sacraments.

  129. 129.

    cope

    @eversor: That has been my experience with hallucinogenics as well.  I’ve never seen or heard things that weren’t there but the things I did see and hear could be delightfully scrambled. I was always pretty good at “dealing with reality” while tripping so, often, if I was with a group of giggling, stumbling, dazed and mumbling friends, it was up to me to get the movie tickets, find seats in the concert or order slices of pizza.

    The last time I did acid, it was on a flight from London to La Guardia.  That’s a great way to deal with jet lag by the way.

  130. 130.

    raven

    @Jay: God that’s what we are “discussing”. It’s around the air vents and out last month-long tenant was keeping it pretty cool (69) in high heat and humidity Georgia. The place was completely rebuilt 3 years ago with foam insulation in the floors and walls, new floor and new venting to the Hvac vents.

  132. 132.

    Dangerman

    i could probably count without taking off my shoes the number of Republican Politicians that wouldn’t be relieved if The Orange One seized up tonight …

    … but instead of just shutting the fuck up and letting him finally circle the bowl, they can’t shut the fuck up. Do a McConnell. Zip it.

  133. 133.

    Suzanne

    Lord, y’all are so much more cool and fun than me. I spent a couple of days this week researching fiber supplements before deciding to, uhhhh, take a shot.

  134. 134.

    bbleh

    @Dangerman: and if possible fall on the floor and take yourself out of action for a while.  Or permanently.  I’m saying this as a friend.

  135. 135.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @cain: I would proceed with caution if you are sensitive to anxiety.  Shrooms usually have a period of a good half-hour or so when you might feel real anxious.  It passes, but can be very uncomfortable.  My wife hates that feeling so she doesn’t have any interest in them any more.  That’s why, to me, the best way to enjoy them is to do something like going for a safe hike or someplace where you can just get away and burn off some energy if you feel the need to.  As long as I wasn’t cooped up inside, I usually was fine.

  136. 136.

    StringOnAStick

    @cain: I feel like I got back to the happy person I was 20 years ago; may the universe bless Michael Pollan for walking point in getting this information out there.

  137. 137.

    eversor

    @Urza:

    Or you could ask you know, a local, and slam it in a sour patch kids bag they aren’t going to check.  I speak from experience and they haven’t yanked my clearance.

     

    @bbleh:

    Nah just eat em and ride it out.  Won’t kill you.  You might be in for a wild ride though.

     

    @RaflW:

    On this the stuff isn’t the same.  A buddy of mine is way into all this stuff and does oils, wax, and shatter, with a titanium nail where he heats the stuff off it and runs it through a bong with multiple ice chambers.   This is awesome, and it is made of win and amazing, but weed it is not.

    He’s a good personal friend I’ve known for over 20 years now and so when the SO was at her sisters and he brought this device of doom over while we played Warhammer with the little plastic mens and womens I said fuck it!  I’ve smoked pot before, what is the worst than can happen!  I have a PHD in substance abuse I’ll be fine.  Good fucking GOD.

    I got so shit faced so fast I vomited, passed out, failed to call into work the next day, and woke up still stoned out of my mind the next morning.  In a sheer state of “oops” I called my boss who promptly asked if I was one drunk, and two ok, to which it was a “no, and yes” and then got laughed at.

    I don’t know how he does this constantly but it threw me on the floor.  All said though I did feel rather rested once I sobered the fuck up.  It’s not a hangover, I just woke up still blasted to the walls… over a day later.

  141. 141.

    Dangerman

    @bbleh: All they are gonna do is get a whole of their side killed or jailed. Do they really think Civil War (This Time We Mean It) II is anything but lemmings marching to a very bad end?

  143. 143.

    Manyakitty

    @sab: okay, where is the ‘Chinese Food’ one? Please say it’s in Fairlawn and I just never heard of it.

  144. 144.

    eversor

    @cope:

    I think that, for me, I fight the physical trip so much I never get the full hit so to speak.  If I’m going to do it and see the world melt my eyes are closed and I know as soon as I open them it just stops.  So I don’t see what the others do.  It’s more collors, the grass grows, the blankets moves, and…. that’s it.  But I giggle.

    I also don’t run from the pain part of it.  I always become aware of all the horrible things I’ve done and all my failures.  I know I’m going to get that and I sort of walk into it with the idea of “let’s see the highlights roll of eversor’s worst fuck ups and wrong doings” and I’ve found that helps.  At least it helps me.  It’s hard to explain it but I never would have confronted all that without it.  So I wander in knowing I’m going to get it good and proper and the then the release comes after.  Then I just sort of get the giggles while most others are still grocked out of their gourds.  Like you I’m the one ordering food and completing the next level in the games while the others are just talking gibberish.

  146. 146.

    Jay

    @raven:

    I would guess that you need a dehumidifier built into your HVAC system or ajacent to it. I would guess that condensation formed in the ducting. A camera inspection of the ducting might let  you know if it’s inside the ducts, or if is just around the vents where the cold air meets the warm air. Check the inside coils on the HVAC system as well.

    In the tropics, A/C units quickly become mold fests as the warm moist air meets the cooling coils.

    You can get mold testing kits at hardware store here. You swab, mail the swabs off, and they email you the results. Keep track of which swab went where, because they will tell you which mold, and how much.

    Some molds are very very bad, some not so much. The species, location and volume will determine the abatement process.

    If you are lucky, it will be a spray cleaning of the ducts and surface treatment around the vent areas.

    If you are really lucky, once things are cleaned up, you might be able to ensure that the HVAC can’t be set to a setting below the mean summer dew point, that will prevent condensation on the coils, in the ducts, or at the vents, if that’s the cause.

    It’s 40c here this week, we don’t have AC, but if I did, I would not set it below 25c. It, (AC) is supposed to keep it comfortable inside, not flash freeze a side of beef.

  150. 150.

    UncleEbeneezer

    My first mushroom experience was in college when I was living off campus.  We were supposed to take them the following night (and I had a Russian exam I was studying for) but a big thunderstorm came and our power went out so my housemates twisted my arm to take them that night.  We ate them dry which was unpleasant and washed them down with some orange juice because we heard that amplified the effects and then sat around with a bunch of candles until we started to feel something.  And WOW, DID WE FEEL SOMETHING!  At one point I tried to pick up my guitar to play off some of that anxious feeling I realized I couldn’t because I had six fingers on my hands.  I couldn’t really even make chords, and this was when I was already a pretty solid guitarist.  When I turned to my buddy to ask him if all of this was normal (he’d done them before) his face was changing shapes like he was made of liquid.  All he could say was “I don’t know…I don’t even…know.”  When I went upstairs to hit the bathroom, my own face was also shifting and morphing in the mirror.  All the while thunder was clapping loudly and our front door kept slamming open with the wind.  Finally, we decided to go for a walk.  It was hardly raining but very windy and lots of lightning/thunder.  As we were about to cross a fairly major road to head towards campus, a lightning bolt struck a power-line box/transformer on the other side of the street, exploding in a big flash.  We all confirmed that we weren’t just imagining it and continued walking for probably an hour or two all over campus, laughing our asses off and trying to avoid having to make conversation with anyone who happened to be out.  Fortunately almost nobody was.  By the time we got back to our house our other housemates were there (they weren’t tripping) and so we hung out with them, watching Beavis & Butthead and answering their questions about what we were experience.  My buddy was still feeling pretty anxious so he decided to go do the dishes in our disgustingly-college kitchen.  We had a bit of a roach problem at the time so when I went in to check on him he was frantically washing our cheap dishes with laser-like focus while roaches scurried all around him.  Eventually the shrooms wore off and we smoked a couple bowls to help calm us down and had some beers which now tasted great (whereas they were gross when we were first starting).  Crazy night.  I did shrooms maybe a dozen more times after that, but none of those experiences were as intense as that one.

  156. 156.

    sab

    @NotMax: Chinese Food. That’s the restaurant’s actual name. Not good marketing, because you can’t google search for them specifically as Chinese food, but Yunnan food worked. They look to be a neighborhood type restaurant. But I was amazed to find any kind of regional Chinese cuisine available in Akron, much less Yunnan. We mostly just have the Chinese-American with the same dozen or so recipes.

  157. 157.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud: ​

    I get high off BJ.

    “I’m high, alright, but not on false drugs! I’m high on the real thing: powerful gasoline, a clean windshield, and a shoeshine!”-Pastor Rod Flash​

    I did a bit of smoking dope back in high school and college, and for the first few years I enjoyed it a great deal, but then it got to a point where I’d suddenly go from not high at all, to being so stoned that I couldn’t remember the beginning of a sentence by the time you got to the end. Which effectively left me cut off and alone, regardless of who I was with, which was no fun at all. That pretty much ended my smoking days.​​​

  158. 158.

    cope

    @eversor: I used to tell my non-indulging friends that tripping was like  steam cleaning my brain. It usually left me feeling refreshed and reset. Also, like you, I always dealt with the demons rambling around in there as well as the angels. I can understand the current medical interest in hallucinogens for treating mental issues.

  159. 159.

    Geminid

    @HumboldtBlue: I used to live near the Little Debbie plant north of Stuart’s Draft, Virginia. They had their own railroad spur and would receive bulk rail car loads of flower and sugar that would be sucked into the factory through big vacuum lines. The lard came in heated tank cars and was pumped in.

    I always thought that if I were King of the World and wanted a war on diabetes, I’d drop a couple 2000 lb. bombs on the Little Debbie plant. I’d do it on a Saturday, because the company is run by 7th Day Adventists and they won’t even allow maintenance crews to work there on Saturdays.

    I used to buy fried pies when I lived in the Shenandoah Valley, and the ones I get now on the east side of the Blue Ridge are inferior. The bakers here use vegetable oil instead of lard, an innovation that would never be tolerated in the Valley.

  160. 160.

    Bobby Thomson

    I don’t trust my mycological skills enough to forage mushrooms.  As the say ing goes, “This one tastes like beef, that one killed Fred, and this one will make you see God.”

  161. 161.

    Bill Arnold

    @cope:

    I can understand the current medical interest in hallucinogens for treating mental issues.

    This 2018 paper was key (many subsequent papers). Such substances (including ketamine) can be rapidly transformative.
    Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity (12 June 2018 , full, open access, pdf)

    Here, we report that, like ketamine, serotonergic psychedelics are capable of robustly increasing neuritogenesis and/or spinogenesis both in vitro and in vivo. These changes in neuronal structure are accompanied by increased synapse number and function, as measured by fluorescence microscopy and electrophysiology.

    Increases in spinogenesis are especially interesting.

  163. 163.

    anitamargarita

    Last and best lsd experience I had was 20-some years ago in Berner’s Bay AK, cabin camping with good friends and better dogs. No hallucinations, but bone-deep, wide-eyed immersion in a rare sunny day in southeast Alaska, walking sandy beaches exposed by low tide, swimming in the ocean with my dogs (to their great surprise).  A joyful perfect day that sustained me for months.

  164. 164.

    evodevo

    @cain: be careful about that…take along a librium or a valium just in case.  I had a bad crash after an acid trip, and one of the above would have been most welcome the next day…a few hrs is fine, but 24 hrs later I was still gibbering and heading into anxiety.  Not a good time…

  165. 165.

    Manyakitty

    @anitamargarita: I enjoyed a similar experience 30+ years ago, but on a glorious autumn day and a motorcycle ride through the Cuyahoga Valley with a very cute, very nice boy. What a great day. 🥰

  166. 166.

    TheronWare

    I wonder if that shrooms dinner was like the peyote scene in  Young Guns. Aaahahahahahahaha!!

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