Hookah Bliss on the ropes

When I first learned of N.C.'s smoking ban, I was really excited. I was so tired of going to crowded bars that allowed smoking where I felt like I couldn't even breathe (cough Goodfellows). But then I visited one of my favorite bars on Franklin Street, Hookah Bliss, where I saw posters all over the walls calling on customers to fight the ban. 

Adam Bliss opened up Hookah Bliss a couple of summers ago down on West Franklin and the place has taken off. It had a great vibe, quality shisha and a knowledgeable and friendly owner in Bliss. My friends and I took to it and it quickly became one of our favorite hang outs. 

Unfortunately, the N.C. smoking ban means that his business will become illegal when the law goes into effect in January. 

But something is wrong here. The law makes an exception for "private clubs" and "cigar bars," but no one else. Why these two? Well according to Bliss (and I agree) it's because the rich, white legislators like to go there and they don't want to see their favorite pastime put out of business. But where does this leave the hookah bars? 

It makes no sense that this ban should put them out of business. The purpose of the regulation is to protect people from second hand smoke in public places, like bars and restaurants. I'm pretty sure if you're going into Hookah Bliss, you're OK with second hand smoke. The reason you go there is to smoke or hang out with friends who are going to smoke. Obviously people in there don't care about second hand smoke, just like the patrons of cigar bars. 

Bliss and other hookah bar owners are working to figure out where to go from here, but it looks like one of my favorite hang outs is doomed. Maybe he'll keep the bar open there. I sure hope so. 

The Daily Tar Heel put together a nice little video about the issue, which is what reminded me of this. You can check that out below. 

If you're in Chapel Hill, make sure to stop by Hookah Bliss before January and do what you can to support them. 

Banned Bliss from The Daily Tar Heel on Vimeo.

Tuesday Guilty Pleasure!

Notice anything different? Think about it. Look to the left. Blonde hair, much more attractive... That's right, it's not me! 

This weeks is the first time that we will have a guest blogger come on and tell you about something they love that they really, really shouldn't. Ms. Courtney Patterson came to me saying that I should use this song as the next guilty pleasure, but I couldn't bear to put my name on this one. I've admitted some bad stuff on this series, but this was just too much. So I decided to let her take credit for it instead. 

So without further adieu, here is Courtney's Tuesday Guilty Pleasure in her own words:

OK, so I just watched the YouTube video of Katy Perry’s “Waking Up in Vegas," and I can’t really tell you why I like this song so much. I made it a point to not like the first two popular Katy Perry songs ("I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot and Cold"), but I this one is just so damn catchy. It’s a frivolous song for summer about going to Vegas and living the life of a high roller then losing it all. I think I like it better when I don’t really listen to the words though. The chorus just makes me want to get up and dance. I think that’s it. The tune of the chorus. I like fun upbeat songs.

Katy Perry |MTV Music

On second listen, I can see how she picked this song. The video is pretty cool, too, except that Katy Perry looks strangely like Zooey Deschanel. 

Next week I'll be back with a brand new guilty pleasure. This guest thing was fun. Less pressure on me....

La la la, I can't hear you! -- UPDATED

My girlfriend's roommate in Washington D.C. is an intern for a certain congressman here on Capitol Hill. Part of her job involves answering the phones, which means she gets to deal with the people that call and (usually) complain about whatever the congressman is getting ready to vote on. That means that over the past few days she has gotten an ear full about the cap and trade bill that just squeaked by the House this week. 

Here's the thing: only really crazy people call their congressman. By really crazy I don't mean legitimately insane (although I believe some are), I mean that they are obsessed with some little issue that they are blind and can't see the big picture or they are ignorant and watch too much Fox News. 

She got numerous calls last week from people making crazy claims about what the bill would do to their utility prices ("This is going to make my gas bill go up $10,000!"), saying that Obama is a Marxist (that's a new one) and even completely denying that climate change is going to happen. Whenever the intern tries to give them the real numbers of how much the bill would cost (numbers that she is getting from official budget projections), many of these callers immediately dismiss them. Where do they get their information? Why, the Heritage Foundation, of course. 

Conservative think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation, are jokes. End of story. Their sole objective in life is to do "research" that confirms or supports their crazy right-wing politics. Their findings aren't peer reviewed like studies by real scientists in journals and, because of this, are usually false or drastically skewed. The problem is that most people don't know that. People will swallow up whatever the Heritage Foundation is feeding them and then spit it back out at poor interns. 

These are the same people that say that there is no such thing as global warming when every other scientist on the planet not only disagrees but says the situation is getting worse every day. This leads me -- finally -- to the point of this post: a column in today's New York Times by Paul Krugman entitled "Betraying the Planet." It's a scary look into how many of our own elected officials still don't believe that climate change is real and that this whole cap and trade thing is just a joke. Seriously people?

We can't ignore this any longer. Something needs to happen. But what can we do when almost half of our Congress thinks that global warming is fake and that we're just overreacting? There is way to much focus on the now and not enough focus on the future. I wouldn't mind paying a little more for utilities if it meant that there's a chance it could keep Kansas from turning into a desert.

ADDENDUM: So apparently my post caused a ruckus over on Facebook, so I decided that I needed to respond to it. I put my response originally there, but I will repost everything I said here.

First, I want to correct something I said that I really hate when other journalists say and that Steven called me out on: my generic "government experts." I simply couldn't remember exactly who the intern said it was and decided to generalize. According to her, the budget people in Washington have said over and over that it will not cost more than a postage stamp a day for each consumer. Take that as you will, but that's where I was coming from.

As far as the cap and trade bill, I have to agree with Marion's stance. I don't think it's a great bill. It's not going to drastically help emissions and it's actually a weak bill in terms of how it will help the environment. But it's huge that Washington is taking a step to confront this problem and could lead to more strict regulation later. But this argument is probably moot because I don't think it's going to pass the Senate.

But it is definitely not as expensive as people want to think. It's definitely not going to lead to the doomsday scenario that Steven laid out. So what if things are a little bit more expensive? That's a price I'm willing to pay if it means that we can try to do something about climate change.

That brings me to the point that Steven made in his last post. Global warming is linked to carbon emissions. You can talk to any slew of scientists (I'm not going to try to link them all, but if you haven't already, read the Krugman article. He mentions a few). But, if nothing else, take a look at the graph of global temperatures over time that he uses in the article. The majority of the increase actually happened after around 1970 and has gone up exponentially since then.

Also, the prices of energy is not going to go up so much because the bill gives out tons of free permits, which means some of the bigger energy companies (gas, electric companies, and cement, steel and glass) won't even have to pay anything. It's really a weak bill on the surface and is not as drastic as people would like to think.

Finally, I just want to point out that none of this was the point of my original post. All I was trying to say was that it's scary to me that so many people -- including our politicians -- don't believe that global warming is real or that our actions and emissions don't affect it. Any slew of scientists will say otherwise. Just look around for it (and avoid think tanks). What do they have to gain by lying?

Finally, I just wanted to point out that none of this was the actual point of the post. The point was the fact that many people -- including our politicians -- don't believe that global warming is real or don't believe that our actions have anything to do with it and that disagrees with everything nearly every scientist around the world has said. What would they gain from lying about that?

"When it all, yeah, all falls down..." UPDATED

I haven't been totally into what's going on around the world for the last few days because of a much needed visit up north, but I just can't help but think that all the crap that has happened this week is a definite sign of the apocalypse.

First, this whole crazy thing in Iran. Not only was the election controversial, but then you have the killing of Neda that was caught on video (which wasn't the Basij's fault, but apparently a master plot by the CIA according to the Iranian ambassador to Mexico).

Then you have the deaths of Ed McMahon and Farrah Fawcett, which, while sad, were not entirely unexpected. But then we see two beloved fifty-year-olds leave us: Billy Mays and Michael Jackson. You may think it's weird for me to put those two on the same level, but let's be honest, over the last few years, who would you rather see on TV? I love me some Jackson 5 and "Billie Jean" era MJ, but anything after he turned into a white woman child molester kind of turns me off. And who doesn't love OxiClean? 

Anyway, I guess I'll give the latter two a tiny tribute by posting some of their best work right here on my prestigious Web site. I know they would want it that way. 

ADDENDUM: Last night, I forgot about a couple of other things that have happened recently that have really make me wonder "What the hell is going on??" 

The Varsity Theatre, a Franklin Street and UNC-Chapel Hill staple, went dark this weekend. I was in D.C. so I wasn't even able to catch a last minute movie during it's last weekend. Owner Bruce Stone cited various reasons for closing the movie house, but the bottom line was that it was no longer making money and with this economy it didn't look like things were going to get better. If there is a silver lining it's that the Chelsea, also owned by Stone, will remain open as of now. But, as Jordan Lawrence over at the Daily Tar Heel Blog said, "the Chelsea is an ugly little runt of a theater in a shopping center far off campus and it doesn’t have anything like the history of the deceased Varsity. But it’s got free parking, and that’s enough to bring in the kind of business needed to stay alive."

Finally, in world news, what the hell is going on down in Honduras?? Maybe it's my naivete of international politics, but this came out of nowhere! 

Tuesday Guilty Pleasure!

...Is back!! That's right, after about a month of neglect, I'm restarting the series of posts where I tell you about something I really like that I definitely shouldn't! I know, you've been on the edge of your seat. 

Ask me in person and I'll tell you that I hate this song. It's because I really don't like it. But at the same time, there's something addicting about it. I think it's the beat. Whatever you say about the song, it's got a solid beat. Honestly, I'm just going to have to go ahead and blame Salih and Thomas for me having any kind of positive feeling toward this song. They played it every five minutes in Florence. 

I really think I would be able to like this song without reservations if it wasn't for friggin' Fergie. Wanna ruin a great song? Hire her. "You're two thousand and late!" Seriously? If someone tried to record that in one of my songs, I would immediately kick them out of the studio. That said, I think Will.i.am does a pretty solid job with this. He might be the only reason I even can listen to this song.

I can't believe this is my guilty pleasure. I'm a little ashamed. Oh Salih....

Europe in a nutshell

Here it is: the long awaited conclusion post about our European vacation. With this post, I hope to give you a summary of the trip and find some way to rank cities, hostels, and mention some things that surprised me about the continent.

Here we go...

First, I want to clear up something about Amsterdam. Let's be, when anyone mentions Amsterdam, they immediately think one thing: marijuana. But here's something you might not know: it's technically still illegal there. Yeah, shocker, right? Well here's the deal. It's decriminalized. 

The Dutch have this little policy where they are willing to deal with anything on three conditions: if it's profitable, if it doesn't hurt anyone and if it's not in the public eye. So marijuana is technically illegal, but you can't get in trouble for it. This also explains why the places that sell it are called "coffee shops." They can't advertise what they sell in there. As long as they keep up a front like their doing something else, they can get away with it. The Dutch government can tax these, so it helps them some. And it's not hurting anyone. Maybe just a few extra bike wrecks. 

But here's the real surprise. Holland is (as far as I know) the only country in Europe where marijuana is "legal." So you would assume that it smokes the most, right? Wrong. They're actually seventh, just in Europe. Most of the locals don't even smoke that much. It's mostly the tourists. When people grow up with marijuana, it loses it's rebellious appeal and no one seems to care as much. Just something to think about when the discussion of legalization comes up....

Now for something just about Europe in general. One thing I have to admire is their different approach to transportation. Sure, there are cars in Europe, but not as many as there are here. So many people use scooters and bikes. Even more use metros and trains to get around. As we proved, you could easily get anywhere you want without ever touching a car. Try doing that in the U.S. and see what happens. Now of course the U.S. is more spread out and doesn't have the infrastructure to link the whole country like Europe is linked, but why can't we invest the same in public transportation that they do? Regional trains (like a system in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area) would make it so much easier to get around while also drastically reducing the amount of traffic on Interstate-40. 

The reason they have such great infrastructure is because of long term investment. Taxes go toward public transportation. Gas and licenses are much more expensive to dissuade people from driving and using public transport more. Doing that here could have the same effect.

The cars that they do use are very energy efficient. You won't see a lot of SUVs and I don't remember seeing any trucks other than work trucks. Instead, there are tons of hybrids and Smart cars. 

Finally, Germany is nothing like "Beerfest." 

Now for the hostels. I'm going to list them all out. The ones with stars beside them are ones we recommend in each city. 

Frankfurt:

Jugenderherberge Frankfurt

Frankfurt Hostel*

Berlin: 

Baxpax Mitte

Baxpax Downtown*

Meininger City Hostel Berlin

Amsterdam: 

Bob's Youth Hostel

Campground Amsterdam Bos*

Bruges:

Snufel Hostel

Paris: 

St. Christopher's Paris*

Aloha Hostel (NEVER stay here)

Milan: 

Hostel Galla

Florence:

B&B Maison*

Munich: 

Meininger City Hostel Munich (much better than the one in Berlin)

Now for the best and worse of the trip:

Best Hostel: B&B Maison (Florence)

Hands down, this place was awesome. It was the only place that really felt like a home away from home. The staff is amazing and the food is unforgettable. And you can't beat the great price. STAY HERE. 

Worst Hostel: Aloha Hostel (Paris)

We should have known better than to stay at a place called "Aloha" in the middle of Europe, but we really didn't have a lot of choices. Anything would have been better. No lock on the door, mean people at reception and some random Russian people stole our beds. Never again.

Best nightlife: Berlin

I know this might come as a surprise given what happened that night, but Berlin nightlife was definitely the best. You can get whatever you want there and nothing closes down until dawn. And you can't beat banging techno music.

 

Worst nightlife: Florence

Not that we didn't have fun, but I just can't justify a beer costing 5 Euro for a pint. Next....

Best people: Germans

The Germans were the nicest people we met all trip. Most spoke English and humored us when we tried to butcher their language. They seemed to genuinely want to help us and make sure that we knew what we needed to get around. 

Worst people: French

Do I really need to explain this?

And now, I'm going to try to rank the places we went and make some sort of sense of it. 

1. Munich: it had everything. Germany is beautiful. the people are great and very laid back. Munich is smaller, has a beautiful park and beer gardens as far as the eye can see. Definitely enjoyed this place the most.

2. Florence: The food. It's amazing. The only reason it fell below Munich is because being in the city isn't very nice. It's tight and crowded and very touristy. But when you get outside of the city into the country, it's absolutely beautiful.

3. Amsterdam: I didn't like this place at first, but when I got out of the city and into the woodsy area, it was much nicer. I think a longer stay there at a place not as crazy as Bob's would give me a higher opinion.

4. Bruges: Awesome older city with amazing beer. And they have French fries and mayonnaise. Sold. 

5. Berlin: This would be higher, but I had a bad experience and I didn't want to rank two German cities too high. It's a great place though and very cheap, which gives it major brownie points.

6. Paris: Despite all our bad luck, the city is very nice and has a lot of good things to see. And I've heard that the Latin Quarter is much better and cheaper. Maybe on a second visit I would spend more time there and away from the main part of the city.

7. Milan: Honestly, this is a slanted opinion because I only stayed there one night, but there's really not a whole lot to do there... at least free stuff. 

All right, I think that's all I have for now. This post has gone on long enough. If I forgot about something, I'll be sure to put it up here.

Pictures!!

Good news, everyone! All of my pictures should now be up on Facebook! I know, get excited. Not all of them have captions, but I can add those later. Enjoy! I'm going to start working on video now....

And way to go UNC baseball! Staying alive in the College World Series!