Taste Tripping Party

About a month or so again, I was reading an article on CNN about miracle fruit. They are small berries that confuse your taste buds into thinking sour and bitter foods are sweet. This, of course, sounded awesome, so I purchased some miracle fruit tablets off of ThinkGeek.

For food items, we had lemons, limes, strawberries, and sharp cheddar cheese. For drink items, we had a variety of beers (stout beers were supposed to taste chocolatey, from what we had read) such as, Guinness draught, Guinness extra stout, Newcastle, Hefeweizen, and Rouge chocolate stout. We also had cabernet sauvignon, Sauza Gold tequila, cranberry juice, and grapefruit juice.

We all took one tablet each. ThinkGeek’s site said to take half a tablet, but the box said to take a whole one. We weren’t in any danger of running out of them, so we each took a whole one. The tablets weren’t terrible tasting, which was good, since they took a couple minutes to dissolve. Someone said they tasted like Fruit Roll-ups.

Jonathan’s was the first to dissolve, so he decided to try a lime. He said it tasted like it had been coated in sugar.

Kris was next and went for a lemon. He highly approved.

Here is our general summary of each item:
Lemons - Tasted like they had been coated in sugar. Ben thought the lemons were the items that changed the most, and Kris thought they had the most intense flavor.
Limes - Similar to the lemons, although most of us thought the lemons were better. The limes were Jason’s favorite item.
Strawberries - So sweet and a popular item. I said that they were the best strawberries I had ever had. Jason thought they were delicious, and they were Becka’s favorite item.
Sharp cheddar cheese - This was sitting off to the side, so I don’t think most people tried it. Wayne thought it tasted like sweet mozzarella.
Guinness draught - People were divided on this. No one really thought it tasted like chocolate at all. Kris really liked it (but admitted that he really likes Guinness normally). Jason thought the taste changed the least of all the items he tried.
Guinness extra stout - I don’t seem to have any notes for this one, but I’m assuming it was similar to the regular Guinness.
Newcastle - Both Ben and Wayne said this was their favorite of all the beers.
Hefeweizen - Everyone was pretty much in agreement that this was the item that had its taste least affected by the tablets, although Jonathan said it “tastes like coffee, sweet coffee.”
Rouge chocolate stout - This supposedly already had a chocolatey taste, although to us non-beer drinkers, it just tasted like beer normally. This was one of Kris’s favorite items, and Wayne liked it as well.
Cabernet sauvignon - This was interesting and divisive. I normally think most red wines are too bitter, and the tablets made the cab taste sweet. Which was weird. Because if you smelled the wine and then drank it, it didn’t make any sense. But it wasn’t bad, in my opinion. Ben really liked it, but Wayne hated how the sweet taste didn’t fit.
Sauza Gold tequila - I think very few people tried this (I know I was not one of them), but Jonathan did not like it at all.
Cranberry juice - One of the most popular items. It was SO GOOD. Probably my favorite item of the night. Jason said it tasted like fruity syrup.
Grapefruit juice - Kris thought this was the item that changed the most. He thought it tasted like pineapple juice. It was also one of Jonathan’s favorite items. However, it was Ben’s least favorite.

To anyone considering having their own taste tripping party, here are our tips:

• Try all the food items before you try the liquids. We thought the liquids washed our tongues off too much and dulled the effect.
• Lemons, limes, strawberries, and cranberry juice were our must-have items.
• If you don’t like beer normally, the tablets will not make you like it. It still tastes like beer.

Also, make sure you have Tums on hand because of all the acidity in the things you’ll be consuming. (On a side note, we thought Tums tasted like Smarties…)

I think the effect lasted for about 15-20 minutes for most of us.

And now it’s time to make fun of people.

Okay, I am generally a nice person. I’m one of those people who, if someone cuts me off while driving, thinks of all the possible things that could be going on in their life to excuse their terrible driving etiquette. But if there was one place where I just really wanted to make fun of people, it would be online dating sites.

I will preface this by saying I have been a member of said site since 2004, mainly because they have lots of fun quizzes to pass the time when I’m bored. I’ve also met a number of very awesome, close friends on this site, like Jason (who is coming to visit this weekend, woohoo!), Chance, and Andy. So they aren’t all losers. (Except you, Chance. )

Anywho, being on there mostly for the quizzes, I have clearly stated in my profile that I don’t want to be hit on. Not that I don’t welcome the occasional flirt, but I used to get a ton of mail on the site that was just like, “I want you,” or some nonsense (actually, to be more accurate, “i want u”). So I do that to weed out most of the people. It was even creepier when I had my relationship status set to “seeing someone” and still got those emails. Needless to say, it is marked on my profile that I “reply very selectively”. In other words, I rarely write anyone back. And today, I’m showing you why.

These are all actual messages that I’ve gotten in the past two weeks.

Thanks, person who writes like he is texting.

I suppose this one isn’t all that bad, despite lack of capitalization. But, still. If you don’t ask me a question, I’m not really sure how to respond. This isn’t a job interview. “Tell me about yourself” will only get silence from me.

I am still wondering if this was an insult or not.

This one….I mean, did this guy expect me to respond to this? I’ve been on the site for five years, and it was to mainly take quizzes. That hardly qualifies me for being OCD.

This guy apparently did not get the “do not hit on me” memo.

This one either. And note to all the guys out there: if you can’t even proofread a super short message like this and realize that “geeky” does not have two gs in it, then I probably am not going to respond. I’m even less inclined when you use a ton of question marks and exclamation points.

I would have paid to see my face after reading this one. I mean, huh? Are these song lyrics, or is this guy just deranged?

I will say that my “very selective”-ness does not just come from avoiding strange messages. I will also admit that I am guilty of not responding to people if they list certain things in their profile. Like, if their favorite band is Nickelback (okay, if they list Nickelback at all). Or they watch only reality TV. Or if I don’t like 90% of the movies they list. Or if I’m just not in a mood to talk to people. And, yes, I judge people based on grammar.

It was a crazy weekend.

First of all, Jason and Becka’s wedding went extremely well and was very beautiful. There are about 95 pictures in the photo gallery for your viewing pleasure. I have the full sized versions if anyone wants prints. My new camera did very well on its first outing.

Ben and I arrived in Knoxville at about 10 pm on Thursday night. He went to the Manplex for Jason’s bachelor party, and I headed over to Jason’s parents’ house for the bachelorette party (pics of that in the gallery as well). The party was pretty fun. We drank screwdrivers and lemon drops and watched a video of Jason as a baby. I had to keep hiding Becka’s cell phone because she and Jason kept calling and texting each other.

Friday morning, I got up and Jason’s dad made Karen and I some blueberry pancakes. After we ate, we got Faithe up, and all left. (Becka had already left to go to her hair and make-up consultation at Belleza). I found Ben, and we left to go to the rehearsal. It was scorching outside, so we tried to keep the rehearsal short and sweet. After a few hiccups, we finally got the whole thing down. Then Ben and I went out to the mall to pick up his tux.

On our way there, Ben nearly hit another car that was in his blind spot. Then after we got there, we were nearly side-swiped by another car who wasn’t watching where he was going. Luckily, both incidents were only near misses.

After we picked up the tux, we went back out to Jason’s parent’s house for the rehearsal dinner. They had gotten Little Caesar’s. Yummy! I haven’t had Little Caesar’s since moving to Nashville, since the closest one to my apartment is in Franklin and it seems silly to drive all the way out there for pizza. Then Ben and I went back to the Manplex to take a nap.

When we woke up, we headed out to Matt and Karen’s house. Ben passed the road and decided to do a U-turn in someone’s driveway. Upon backing out, the car went a little too far and slid into what we thought was a ditch. We got out of the car to find it hanging off a 6 foot drop! If we had gone any further back, the car might have fallen off and flipped. Ben called some people and a few people came by to help. They tried to push the car back onto the road, but it just slid back further. So, to avoid being killed or the car being destroyed, we decided to call a tow truck. Luckily, Matt had AAA and let us use it.

We finally made it to Matt and Karen’s house, where we watched some episodes of “Friends” (hey, it’s just like home!) and then eventually passed out.

I got up bright and early Saturday morning, and Becka came to pick me up to go to Belleza. I had my nails, hair, and make-up done there, which took about 2 hours. Then Becka and I headed out to the Laurel Theatre (where the reception was going to be held) and got dressed. I had given Ben my camera to take pictures of the guys getting ready, so I took some video footage while Becka and I were getting ready. Finally, we headed out to the Knoxville Museum of Art.

The girl doing the photography (also a guest) was running a little late (she forgot her camera), so the wedding started about 15-20 minutes late. But once it did, it was over pretty quick (someone told Becka it was about 8 minutes long). Although the day had previously been overcast, the sun came out for the entire ceremony. It went well, without any snafus.

We all headed over to the theatre for the reception. Jason, Becka, Ben, and I were all seated at the table on the stage. Ben was enthralled with his “Best Man” champagne flute. The food was very yummy (especially the deviled eggs…I must have eaten about 20 of them over the course of the day). I took lots of pictures of the cake cutting and dancing. I got asked about every 5 minutes when Ben and I were going to get married, lol.

After the reception had died down, we all went home to change clothes. Since the theatre was rented out until dawn, the plan was to come back and play Guitar Hero and finish off the keg. Ben had left his car at Jason’s parents’, so he and Jason went off in that direction, and I went back with Chance and Kelley. After a little while, we got a call from Ben that he had a flat tire. We met up with him at Calhoun’s, and after the tire was changed, we drove out to Wal-mart. Unfortunately, their tire place had already closed for the night, so we left the car there to come back for it in the morning.

Then we headed back out to the theatre. We played some Guitar Hero and helped clean up the place. Finally, we headed back over to Chance and Kelley’s to sleep.

In the morning, we went back out to Wal-mart to get the tire fixed. We watched “Hoodwinked” back at their apartment and then went to pick up the car and head back to Nashville. We stopped briefly in Crossville to tell Ben’s mom Happy Mother’s Day.

I’ll try to have the videos up at some point this week. I really need to get Firewire put in my desktop so it’s not so much of a pain to do it (I have to use Tera, which takes forever since she doesn’t like to work).

Birthday party recap…

I got to Chili’s at 9:00, and the hostess told me there was a table with a large group of people that should leave within 15 minutes. In the meantime, we were seated at a booth. I was going to wait till we could move to the table before I ordered any food or anything. In the meantime, some more people showed up and we spilled over onto a table next to the booth. And more people, which didn’t fit. These people were never going to leave that table. Around 11:00, we decide they are never going to leave, and I’m no longer hungry, so I cancel my order of chicken crispers that hadn’t yet arrived that I’d ordered at like 10:00 and go for the cake. They say they are out of cake. The sole reason we went to Chili’s in the first place.

What to do? We decide to call another Chili’s. Luckily, Ashley has the phone number of the Chili’s on the strip stored in her phone. We call them. They have cake but they close at midnight. We decide to place a to-go order, pick it up, and take it to Patrick Sullivan’s with us.

I entrust Jason with my camera and tell him (for whatever reason) to take pictures of the drive there (see, now you understand the pictures in the photo gallery). Ben and I get in the car with Greg and Faith, get the cake, and meet up with everyone at Patrick Sullivan’s.

Now, I had called ahead earlier to make sure that it was okay to go to Patrick Sullivan’s if we had people under 21 with us. They told me it shouldn’t be a problem. But apparently it was, and Greg and Faith had to leave, since Faith was underage.

Also my camera’s batteries had died, so I don’t have any pics of me and the cake. But after that, Jason and Becka left to go to Walgreens and pick me up some more batteries.

I received a preorder of Final Fantasy IV on GBA from Andy, and Jason and Becka got me a book with the rules to every game imaginable in it. I got a cute Presea figurine from Ben and he says something else is coming. All in all, it was a pretty good birthday.

Also…

Congratulations to Becka and Jason on the birth of their son Aidan, born Monday, June 27!

I finally updated the photo gallery.

I still haven’t found my cable to hook my camera up to my computer though. Hopefully I will be able to find it soon so I can put pictures from Sabrina’s wedding up next week. But for now, for your enjoyment, are pictures from Jason and Ben’s birthdays and Sam and Greg’s moving day. I know you’re excited.

Back from Atlanta!

That was a great trip. We left early Wednesday morning and sped towards Atlanta. We arrived around 11:30 or so, got turned around a few times, and eventually ended up at our hotel. Since it was still early, we couldn’t check in, so we freshened up in the bathroom and were soon on our way to the Marta station.

It was blazing hot outside. We had packed a ton of water, even though you are only supposed to have one bottle per person. But the security really wasn’t that tight. After walking around aimlessly for awhile, we finally found the schedule board. Jason and Becka decided to go off to find the Maurice stage while Ben and I opted for the Brian stage where the Vandals were about to start. The Brian stage was out in the parking lot in the hot blazing sun, while the Maurice stage was in the cooler ampitheatre. So we ended up going back and forth, trying to cool off. Because of this, we ended up seeing some very sucky bands on the Maurice stage and a couple cool ones. Bands we saw included: the Vandals, the Casualties, New Found Glory, Yellowcard, NOFX, Avenged Sevenfold, and Bad Religion. Very cool stuff.

When we got back to the Marta station, we couldn’t remember which station to get off on. So we tried one. Wasn’t it. Tried the next one. Wasn’t it. Tried the next. Nope. We did this five or six times before we finally found the right one. We were all pretty exhausted by this point.

The next day we slept in till about 11:30 before getting up and going to Six Flags. The first thing we went on was the Free Fall, which was pretty awesome, although I’m sure Acrophobia if it had been open would have been more awesome. Then we went on the Georgia Cyclone, which was an old wooden coaster. That pretty much sucked. Very shaky. And painful. Ow.

After that, we took a break for lunch. We left the park (due to insane prices) and went to Wendy’s, where I found out that you can pay $3 for a miniscule amount of chicken strips. Then it was back to the park.

It was starting to get really hot again at this point, so we went over to Splashwater Falls to stand on the bridge and get soaked. But that didn’t happen. There wasn’t a whole lot of splash that hit the bridge. We didn’t want to wait in line for that, so we continued on our way.

The next ride we hit was the Ninja, which is a coaster. It was pretty cool, but was nothing compared to what was coming up: Superman. Oh. My. God. Greatest coaster ever ever ever ever ever. We were in the front. It really felt like you were flying. Can’t even describe it. If you’ve never been on it, GO NOW. I mean it. Stop reading this and GO.

We were getting hot again after that (the wait for Superman was over an hour), so we decided to hit a water ride. We found Thunder River, which is one of those water rides with the big tubes that hold a ton of people. I got moderately wet on that and it cooled me down a bit.

It was beginning to get late at this point, so we headed over to Batman the Ride. That was pretty awesome too, in a different sort of way than Superman. It’s a hanging coaster, very reminscent of the Hangman at Opryland (RIP). We went on the Mindbender after that, which was the world’s first triple loop coaster, and it has no over-the-shoulder restraints, even though it has loops, so you can put your hands up even upside-down which is pretty cool. We went on Batman two more times after that, since we were right there and the park was about to close.

After all that, we drove home. It was a very fun trip, and we hope to go back to Six Flags in a couple months when it’s cooler and less crowded. I’ve put up some pictures in the gallery if you want to check them out.

Amazing.

I just got back from Indianapolis.

I’m really at a loss for words. There is nothing I can say that can adequately describe last night.

Well, first of all, we got to Indianapolis in plenty of time. We were supposed to be at the fairgrounds at 6:00 to meet a guy that was selling us an extra ticket. But we ended up driving around Indy for like an hour and a half looking for a hotel relatively close to the coliseum. Apparently there aren’t any.

We finally found a hotel a little bit further away, and then got dressed and headed off to the fairgrounds. We got there at about 6:45. The doors had opened at 6:30. We met the guy, got the ticket, and then I realized that I had left the other two tickets in the car. Duh.

Finally, after we had all three tickets in our possession, we headed inside. They had to search us, and they were searching the guys and girls separately. I did manage to get the stealth cam in by strategically placing it in my shirt.

After we were in, we headed down to the floor and sat down to wait. It was 7:00 at this point, and the concert was scheduled to start at 8:00. I went and got a wristband so I could drink, but after paying over $4 for a tiny cup of Smirnoff Ice, I decided it wasn’t worth it.

At 8:00, The Mars Volta came on stage. They opened with “Roulette Dares,” which made me extremely happy. They continued to jam for the next hour playing an extremely extended version of “Cicatriz ESP”. I really don’t think the majority of the crowd knew who they were, cause they all kind of stood there and stared.

A Perfect Circle came on stage at 9:45, opening with “Vanishing,” as usual. The crowd started to get a little pushy during the first few songs, but they calmed down (at least in the part where I was standing), and I stopped worrying that I was going to die.

I had a decent view of Billy and James for most of the show. I had the tallest person in the world standing right in front of me for a few songs, though. I was probably about the same distance from the stage as I was for the Jewel concert.

It was Maynard’s birthday, of course, so we all sang to him. He’s forty years old now. Getting up there. He asked us to perform various experiments in censorship, and he did a magic trick for us (which I couldn’t really see because I had the tallest person in the world standing directly in front of me at the time). But he said he was going to drop a water bottle and then it was going to levitate. We had to say the magic words. He had to do it twice cause the first time it didn’t work, but apparently he dropped the bottle, it bounced, and he caught it. And as usual, he told us to “think for yourself, question authority” and that we had the power to change authority in November. The usual spiel.

I recorded “A Stranger,” but, of course, it doesn’t sound that great. At all. So I’m not posting it here. I will have to look around and see if I can find some better recordings of the show. I would have recorded some other songs, but at some point, I ended up with a guy behind me who was singing really loudly and off-key, and I could hear him better than Maynard, so I figured recording that wouldn’t be that great.

I can’t decide what the highlight of the night was. Possibly “A Stranger,” since it’s not usually a part of their set. I can’t even begin to describe how awesome they are live. Maynard had been sick lately, and had to cancel and postpone some shows earlier this month, but he sounded fully recovered and absolutely wonderful.

The set list was as follows:
Vanishing
Pet
The Hollow
Magdalena
Weak and Powerless
Rose
Blue
Thinking of You
A Stranger
The Package
3 Libras
The Nurse Who Loved Me (alt.)
Thomas
Fred’s Got Slacks
The Outsider
The Noose
Judith

I realized after we got back to the hotel that I forgot to buy a t-shirt, so I suppose I will have to find one on Ebay. Or I could just wait till Atlanta next month. Yay! I can’t wait to see them again!!