Mike Salsbury’s Blog

This could be a very easy review to write. I could sum the whole experience up in just two words… “It ain’t.” But if I did that, you’d wonder what happened to that wordy writer you’ve come to know on this web site. You might also start asking yourself “ain’t WHAT?” Fear not, dear reader, I shall not let you down.

I purchased a can of Southwest Specialty Foods, Inc.’s Whoop Ass Chili Mix directly from their web site a short time ago. I bought it as part of a larger order of their products that I’d placed. I placed that order after having been on vacation in Arizona and picking up some of their spicy microwave popcorn. The popcorn was quite good and had just the right amount of heat, so I was hopeful that this product would be as good.  Sadly, this was not to be.

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admin Food chili mix, critique, evaluation, rating, review, southwest specialty foods, taste test, whoop ass chili

Earlier in the year I review The Bloodhound Gang’s CD Single “Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo”.  It was definitely a good disc.  Thus it was with some enthusiasm that I fired up this album on Rhapsody and gave it a listen.

This recently-released (September 27, 2005) album is the latest from the group.  It contains the title song of the CD Single I mentioned above as well as a number of other tracks.  Overall it pretty effectively mixes techno sounds with rock and the standard Bloodhound Gang lyrical delivery.

The cover of Hefty Fine, as you can see at the right, pictures a very large and apparently naked man inside a cardboard box, along with a warning to parents that the album contains some explicit lyrics (which it does, and which Bloodhound Gang fans expect).

The album runs a bit under 40 minutes, about 3 of which are silence, and that feels pretty short for a modern release to me.  On the other hand, most of the tracks are quality stuff, so better to have a shorter album with decent music than a longer one full of crap…

The album starts with the track “Balls Out” which starts out sounding a little like a dance track, but picks up.  The lyrics are delivered in a rap-like format for the most part, but the instrumentals feature a strong bass beat and some very jamming guitars.  If you thought the “explicit lyrics” sticker was an exaggeration, this song would convince you otherwise before it’s over.  I think I heard most of George Carlin’s 7 words you can’t say on television in here.  On a 1-10 scale, I’d rate this one somewhere in the neighborhood of a 6, mostly due to the strength of its instrumentals.  The lyrics don’t impress me that much, probably because I’ve grown up enough that it takes more than a stream of 4-letter words in a song for me to get a kick out of it.

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admin music album, CD, critique, evaluation, Hefty Fine, music, rating, review, The Bloodhound Gang

In
the last
article in this series, we took a closer look at search engines. We
saw how they find sites to spider, saw how our web site looks to a
search engine spider, and talked about how search engines classify pages
using keywords and keyphrases. This installment will talk about how
search engines decide which pages should be listed first in their
results, why others get listed later, and why some get banned or blocked
altogether.

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admin General Computer Topics keyphrases, keywords, ranking, rating, relevance, search engine

The 2 Guys
Smoke Shop in Salem, New Hampshire recently sent me an email offer
on the A.
R. Robaina line of cigars.  They caught my attention because
they contain 40% pre-embargo Cuban tobacco.  I’ve never been able
to bring myself to pay the rather high prices charged for pre-embargo
Cuban cigars, so I figured this is about as close as I’m ever going to
get.

In addition to the 40% Cuban long filler, the cigar
boasts a Cuban-seed Ecuadorian wrapper from the 2000 crop.  The
wrapper is a very rich dark brown with fine veins.  Its
construction is very firm.  Unlit, the cigar has a wonderful
smell.  A draw through the punched but unlit cigar was easy and had
a hint of spiciness to it.

Once lit, I found that I was in
for quite a treat.  The aroma of the smoke was by far the most
pleasant I’ve ever smelled.  It had what I can only describe as a
perfect “classic cigar” smell.  The flavor was a rich
medium-bodied one.  The smoke was very creamy white and (if I had
the talent to do so) would probably have blown wonderful smoke
rings.  Keep it away from your eyes, though.  It burned mine
like no other smoke ever has.  It also made my head swim more than
any cigar ever has.  Felt like I’d just pounded about a half-dozen
beers by the time I was about a half to two-thirds of the way through
it.  Wow…

The cigar burned evenly.  The ash was
firm and medium gray in color.  It stayed on the cigar until I
tapped it off.  I don’t think it would have stayed on if allowed to
grow to about an inch. 

If this is what a
“real” Cuban cigar is like, I understand why people love
them.  I enjoyed everything about this one and can’t wait to smoke
the other one I bought.  I’m even considering picking up a few
more.  (BTW, 2 Guys has a really good price on them that puts them
in just about everyone’s price range. I don’t know if I’m allowed to
tell what that price is, since they can’t, but let’s just say that an
“Abe Lincoln” and a couple of coins should get
you a single, before shipping.)

On a 1-10 scale, with 10
being excellent, this one has to be about an 8.75!  Definitely
recommended.

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admin Cigars A. R. Robaina, A. R. Robaina Familiares Cigar Review, cigar, cigar review, cuban, familiares, rating, review, Review of Robaina Cigar, Review of Robaina Familiares Cigar, Robaina, Robaina Cigar, Robaina Cigar Review, Robaina Familiares, Robaina Review, smoke, smoking

As part of a trade with a member of the CigarBid.com forums, I
received a Cohiba Red Dot Pequeno cigar.  Yesterday, while waiting
on my step-son to finish playing 9 holes at a nearby public golf course
(Wilson Road for those of you who know or care), I lit up the
cigar.  (Since then, I purchased a 6-pack tin from CigarBid.com and
took some better photos for the article.)  Here is a review of my
experiences…

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admin Cigars cigar, Cohiba, dominican, Dot, herf, Pequeno, rating, Red, republic, review, small, smoke

I just returned from a vacation in Florida where I had the opportunity
to pick up some cigars at the excellent Oasis Cigar shop in
Sunrise, Florida. If you are in (or visiting) the Fort
Lauderdale area, I recommend visiting this shop. And if you happen to
speak Portuguese, you definitely need to visit to talk to the owners.

I picked up 2 of these cigars during my visit to Cigar
Oasis. I had previously smoked and very much enjoyed another
Perdomo Reserve cigar, one of the Cuban Cafe
Series P’s, so I looked forward to reviewing this one.

Unlike the Perdomo Reserve Cuban Cafe series I
reviewed earlier, the “La Tradicion Cabinet
Series” is a maduro and the series “P” is a
perfecto 5 and a half inches long with a 55 ring gauge. The
Perdomo web site describes the Perdomo Reserve
Cabinet Series “P” Maduro cigar as featuring “a
distinguished and contemplative blend of medium bodied, double-aged
Cuban-seed tobaccos. Grown in the rich, dark soil of the
Perdomo family plantations nestled in the Nicaraguan
regions of Esteli, Condega and the Japama valley”.
Cigar
Aficionado rated the Perdomo Reserve Cabinet Series
“Red Box” or “Red Label” cigar a 92 and named it one
of the top cigars for that year.

The wrapper of the
Perdomo Reserve Cabinet Series “P”
Maduro is dark and slightly oily looking, typical for a
maduro though lighter in shade than some other maduros in my collection.
The wrapper has very fine veins running through it. The cigar has
clearly been constructed to the highest quality standards.

Unlit, the Perdomo Reserve Cabinet Series “P”
Maduro has a very pleasing aroma. A draw through the unlit
cigar revealed a definite but pleasant “punch” and the
fermented flavor you’d expect from a well-aged cigar. Drawing through
the cigar was quite easy.

Since I was attempting to smoke
the cigar while sitting next to the beach, lighting it with matches
proved to be quite a challenge. Still, once lit it burned very evenly,
requiring a turn only once to correct a slightly uneven burn. The ash
was a medium gray in color, very firm, and stayed on the cigar until
forcibly knocked off.

The flavor for the first inch or so of
the cigar was pretty strong to my taste, but very quickly mellowed out
after that. In the end, the smoke had a very pleasant flavor and a
decent body to it. There were some hints of chocolate or earthiness in
the last portion of the cigar. It burned pretty warm up to the end, and
left my head swimming quite a bit when I was finished with it, which
took close to an hour.

On a 1-10 scale, with 10 being
excellent, the Perdomo Reserve Cabinet Series “P”
Maduro rated about a 7.9 in this review. Not as good as the
Cuban Cafe series (which I rated a 9) but certainly one
I’d smoke again.

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admin Cigars analysis, aroma, Cabinet, Cabinet Series, cabinet series review, cigar, Cigars, comment, commentary, criticism, critique, discuss, evaluate, evaluation, examination, experience, flavor, judge, la, maduro, Perdomo, perdomo cigar review, perdomo maduro, perdomo reserve, perdomo reserve cabinet series, perdomo reserve review, perdomo review, perfecto, rating, ratings, red label, reserve, review, reviews, series, taste, tradicion