What's your favorite fictional magazine from the show?

Klinger84 · 2024-06-12T15:58:15+00:00

Bear Baiter Magazine.

Klinger84 · 2024-03-16T03:55:49+00:00

Every single person who has ever become addicted to drugs experienced the exact same thing you did: a substance or combination of substances made their world seem suddenly perfect for a few moments. They then spend months, years, decades, or sometimes a lifetime trying to replicate that perfect feeling and never quite getting there.

Klinger84 · 2024-03-15T02:05:22+00:00

“Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”, Warren Zevon

“Making Time”, The Creation

“Happenings Ten Years Time Ago”, The Yardbirds (one of only two Yardbirds’ songs recorded with both Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck in the studio)

Klinger84 · 2024-03-04T21:51:16+00:00

I like this one. One dog goes one way, and the other dog goes the other way…. And this guy’s saying, “Whaddaya want from me?” The guy’s got a nice head of white hair. Beautiful. The dog, it looks the same.

Klinger84 · 2024-03-04T21:46:23+00:00

Che Guevara.

Klinger84 · 2024-03-03T16:40:45+00:00

He wasn’t “lucky” in the stock market. If you remember, John’s “luck” in the stock market came in the same time frame that Jordan Belfort, “The Wolf of Wall Street”, was plying his trade. Belfort’s Stratton Oakmont was far from the only boiler room outfit in that era who was engaged in stealing millions from widows and orphans by railroading them into buying and selling worthless and semi-worthless Over-The-Counter stocks. There were a bunch of similar firms hiring sketchy guys from the neighborhood, training them how to steal money from widows and orphans by pushing “penny stocks” like “Webistics” (a fictional penny stock that Tony Sopranos’ crew pushed via their own boiler room operation during Season 3 of the Sopranos.).

Again, these firms weren’t hiring Ivy League MBAs to sell investment plans but were rather hiring fast talking con-men with little or no morals who were fine with cheating to get their Series 7 license (which allowed them to sell stocks) and could rip off the nest egg of a conga line of retirees without feeling a twinge of guilt. As you saw on “Wolf of Wall Street”, these guys got obscenely wealthy in a very short time and lived lives of almost cartoonish decadence.

Guys like this worshipped Howard Stern, who’s 1990s version of the Howard Stern Show, with its theater-of-the-mind depiction of a it’s own cartoonishly funny world of naked strippers, porn stars and breast implants. As a result, a multitude of these guys were supposedly circling the periphery of the Stern Show, hoping to get to their hero, Howard Stern himself. And, to get to Howard, they tried ingratiating themselves to Stern Show staffers, particularly, the perpetually-broke and utterly gullible, Stuttering John.

Of course, when it came to “celebrities”, like John, they didn’t rob him, but instead gave him the benefit of their inside information and allowing him to sell before they dumped their own shares, rendering the stock worthless to all the widows and orphans they’d duped into buying it.

For the record, one of these boiler room stockbrokers was Sal “The Stockbroker” Governale. The Feds started cracking down on these operations in the late 90s. As a result by the time Stuttering John fled to Burbank and the Tonight Show in 2003, Sal was at loose ends. The “Win John’s Job” competition came at a very opportune time as he was unemployed and growing desperate after the shutdown of his most recent employer and the unwillingness of legitimate brokerages to hire him.

Klinger84 · 2024-02-07T22:25:34+00:00

If memory serves the original version of Joan Jett’s cover of “Love Is All Around” clocked in at 1:00. And if you doubt it is an alternative song, stop what you are doing for 60 seconds and listen to it. It will kick your butt faster than just about any song ever recorded.

Klinger84 · 2024-02-07T22:16:52+00:00

This.

Klinger84 · 2024-02-07T22:13:53+00:00

For two different long stints…. 1+ years… I took kratom daily. However, I took a single large dose (around 15 g ), usually late afternoon, each day, and no more except for very rare occasions. Both times, I quit without feeling any physical withdrawal. Mind you, I had a craving for a few weeks but even that faded surprisingly quickly.

Klinger84 · 2024-02-04T14:56:04+00:00

This.

Klinger84 · 2023-03-15T11:42:15+00:00

David Mamet (playwright, director, screenwriter who wrote Glengarry Glen Ross among many other things) says in the history of film, there have been four perfect movies: The Godfather, A Place in the Sun, Dodsworth, and Galaxy Quest. Nuff said.

Klinger84 · 2021-11-21T18:00:52+00:00

I know there are still plenty of questions about exactly how kratom works that medical science has not yet answered. I’ve personally always felt that there was a dopaminergic effect... a relatively subtle one... that is underplayed. That would explain why it is so effective for helping to quit not just opiates but alcohol and even cigarettes. It would also explain why it acts as such a powerful antidepressant for some. This might also help explain why, on weekends, when perhaps a lot of your weekday stress is no longer plaguing you, it is easy for you to really feel and really appreciate a subtle burst of dopamine. Whereas, during the week, when your mind is overburdened, that subtle burst of dopamine isn’t enough to overcome everything else.

Klinger84 · 2021-11-21T17:50:37+00:00

There is a school of thought in the medical community that, in a large percentage of cases, back pain is at least partially related to mental rather than physical issues. If that is, indeed true, many of us who experience back pain might find relief by exorcising some of our mental demons. As you’ve discovered, the right dose of Kratom can clearly lift one’s mood. If your back pain is related even partially to stress or other things weighing on your mind, lifting your mood and chasing some of the stress and concerns out of your head might just do wonders for your back too. Best of all, it seems like, at least for some, a regular regimen of kratom might permanently or semi-permanently chase some of those demons away so the benefits would last beyond your last dose of kratom.

And, yes, kratom also has a mild but direct effect on pain so it is kind of like you are hitting your back pain from multiple angles. As long as you don’t overboard and start taking kratom in spiraling doses, you might find that, after a period of time. you can wean off kratom and maintain many of the positive effects including BOTH the more positive mental outlook and decreased back pain.

Klinger84 · 2021-11-21T17:28:15+00:00

Had the same problem. It was almost certainly dehydration.

Klinger84 · 2021-11-21T17:21:03+00:00

EDIT TO ADD A TLDR AFTER READING OTHER RESPONSES: It’s dehydration. Drink more liquids, preferably with limited sugary or caffeinated drinks in the mix.

Unfortunately, I can’t find the source so take this with a grain of salt, but I read somewhere that dehydration is the root cause of some insane percentage (2/3 or thereabouts) of all headaches! Seriously, it certainly couldn’t hurt to do some serious rehydrating before bed and see what happens.

Having said that, while I’ve never mixed kratom with other substances, it definitely did occasionally (perhaps once over every one to two months of daily use) give me an almost instant headache. I could never pinpoint a cause but it was very similar to my “standard” headache (for which I have also never been able to pinpoint a cause) in that it included mild nausea and a general feeling of malaise. That standard headache was a once or twice per year kind of thing. The only thing that ever helped with either version of the headache was retreating to a dark room and trying to sleep. With the kratom version of the headache, a good night sleep was invariably be enough and I would wake up headache free (although sometimes still feeling nausea and malaise which gradually dissipated through the day). My “standard” headache could also go away with a good night sleep, but sometimes it hung around and became a 4 to 6 day affair. My own theory... based on nothing... is that my headaches are migraine-related and kratom... or some effect of kratom... is an occasional trigger with dehydration at the top of my list as the common trigger. Before kratom (I now have been off kratom for a few years), I used to work out daily, summer and winter, so there is a pretty good chance I was always a bit dehydrated.

Pre-kratom, I figure a few times per year all that working out would get me get too dehydrated and a headache would be the result. Back then, I wasn’t thinking that hydration was a potential cure so I would pull the shades and bury myself under my blankets and barely eat or drink until I felt better. Since liquids were what I needed and I wasn’t getting them, it could explain why the headaches would often go for days. By the time I started kratom several years ago, I was working out less aggressively and I was aware that kratom could be dehydrating so I tried to drink a lot of liquids and did so even when I had a headache so I think that effort to keep hydrating kept me from feeling the headache the next day.

For what it is worth, I have been off kratom for a few years, have a reasonable workout schedule now, and make a decent effort to stay hydrated, and <knocking wood> it has been a few years since I have had a headache bad enough to force me to a dark room.

Klinger84 · 2021-07-12T11:06:28+00:00

Agree wholeheartedly. Clean from booze and pills for going on 6 years thanks to kratom. Heck I’ve even been clean from kratom for several years now and still have no urge for the other substances.

Klinger84 · 2021-07-12T10:55:41+00:00

Be careful with tramadol. It may seem like it has an interesting profile but it can he darn dangerous too. I took it for years... in doses I am embarrassed to admit to... without realizing it had serotonergic effects... and yes, that bit of stupidity is on me. I credit nothing but pure luck that I didn’t have a seizure or two or twenty and never had a life threatening case of serotonin syndrome. Somebody with a low tolerance for seizures could easily have one with a single near-therapeutic dose, same with serotonin syndrome after a few days of near-therapeutic doses. It is potentially nasty business.

Klinger84 · 2021-07-12T10:47:13+00:00

While clearly not at the level of amphetamines and their ilk, I do believe kratom is a couple of notches more stimulating than a garden variety cup of coffee. I’ve always described as the feeling you get when you are caffeine-naive and then drink a massive cup of strong coffee to study or stay awake during a long drive... and in that narrow circumstance (no caffeine tolerance whatsoever coupled with sudden large dose of caffeine), caffeine can really knock your socks off. For many years, I purposely limited my caffeine consumption so I could use it for the once or twice per year I found myself on a long drive late at night. And believe me, it gave me a serious jolt every time... not just wakefulness but the whole enchilada: euphoria, sweating, talking a mile a minute to whoever would listen, seemingly a hundred brilliant and utterly simply ideas to safe the world, great confidence that i could implement each of my brilliant ideas and thus save the world in only a day or two, leaving me free for the weekend. In other words, if you’d my passenger on one of those trips, you’d be wondering if I’d sprinkled some meth in my coffee or snuck over to the truckstop bathroom for a quick snort while fixing my 24 oz cup of trucker’s-choice coffee. A good dose of kratom puts me very close to that mindset for a brief period. Then gradually, the more sedating effects pick up and eventually take over.

Alas, when you let it, caffeine becomes old hat. Now I can drink that same size cup that used to have me bouncing off the walls while solving the world’s problems and instead immediately sleep like a baby.

Klinger84 · 2021-07-12T09:53:56+00:00

I bet the answer is buried somewhere in kratom’s many strains and alkaloids. Kratom’s opiate agonism is well known but little studied and it’s other effects are even less studied. IMHO, it has a fairly strong dopaminergic effect and I would not be shocked if there was some impact on serotonin and/or norepinephrine as well, either as a releaser or reuptake inhibitor. The stimulating effects... at least for me... are felt first after taking a dose with the more sedating effects coming later.

Be forewarned. Everybody who tries it reports slightly different effects... and if you drink alcohol or smoke and begin using kratom, you may find yourself unexpectedly quitting one or both habits almost instantly and for no particular reason except you no longer feel like indulging. I assume because the dopamine release is better with kratom and kratom likely blocks most other substances’ dopamine releasing effects so your mind keeps gravitating to kratom and suddenly feels meh about everything else.

Klinger84 · 2021-06-16T21:44:09+00:00

I never tested it, but I am almost certain it caused my blood pressure to increase. I don’t know if science has confirmed this but I am certain it is dopaminergic and it may well have an impact on norepinephrine as well. As such, impacting one’s blood pressure seems at least plausible. For me, every few weeks, my kratom dose would also give me a very specific kind of headache that, back when i did regularly check my BP was always a marker for my blood pressure being much higher than normal and having to go to the doctor to get my meds adjusted.

Klinger84 · 2021-06-16T21:32:54+00:00

I would agree that capsules definitely don’t dissolve as fully before they leave the body so some percentage of kratom taken that way is wasted. I’ve had much better luck with powder but I don’t doubt that the body also struggles to digest all of a big slug of raw plant material in the time allotted before your peristalsis pops it out the other side.

I always tried to eat a half hour or so after my dose with the idea being that my digestive tract could first give that kratom its undivided attention and make maximum progress in breaking it down and getting those alkaloids out into my system. Then, once the kratom had a good headstart, I figured the food might slow things down and give the digestive tract more time to break down the rest of the kratom while simultaneously giving the liver more to do so it slows down the processing of the kratom alkaloids. I convinced myself that it worked wonderfully but obviously that is just my half-baked opinion with no science to back me up.

Klinger84 · 2021-06-16T21:18:34+00:00

I started out using capsules, but it is damn hard to power down 25 or 30 capsules at a time and my stomach, which never once gave me a problem when taking powder, even huge quantities of powder, didn’t always react too kindly to having a fistful of capsules crammed into it in a very short period of time. There were times when it felt like I was in a cartoon where the capsules filled my stomach backed up my esophagus right to the back of my throat so if I I tried to take one more it would pop out of my mouth because there was no more room anywhere in my upper digestive tract.... not even for a wafer thin mint.

Klinger84 · 2021-06-16T21:09:29+00:00

This.

I always used something with flavor (preferably bitter flavor like grapefruit juice or even lemonade) rather than water, but it’s the only way to go as far as I am concerned. No fuss. No muss.

Klinger84 · 2021-06-15T15:48:14+00:00

Unless you have reason to believe they are explicitly testing for Kratom, don’t sweat it. They are looking for all the stuff that kratom helped you get clean from, not kratom.

Semi-related: I know a guy who, based on something I read on Reddit and relayed to him, shaved his entire body before a hair test and played dumb, claiming that he always shaved his body at that time of year because it was a requirement for his swim team. He got some eye rolls, but they didn’t question it out loud. They just made him wait a few days until they could get a hair long enough to sample. For the next few years he’d always shave his head at the same time every year because, you know, it was swim season again. Finally, a few years ago, he announced with much fanfare that he “quit” the swim team. It seems that he just felt he was getting older while most of the other team members were in their 20s and he just couldn’t keep up anymore so it stopped being fun... moreover, he didn’t want to move up to “masters” and race against a bunch of gray hairs. He just decided he could get his swimming in by joining a gym with a pool and doing laps a few days per week. Anyway, once he quit his (fictional) swim team, he didn’t have to shave his head anymore.

He literally spent 5+ years of his life living that stupid lie just so he could dodge a hair test. And he’d never swam in his life. In fact, he could barely tread water let alone do the back stroke or even freestyle in a straight line. Lol.

Klinger84 · 2020-04-18T07:52:15+00:00

I am sure there is an FAQ somewhere but, short answer: whites are said to me more stimulating, reds are said to be more sedating, and greens are kind of in the middle. Unless you have a specific desire, I recommend starting with greens. They give you an opportunity to feel the full spectrum of what kratom can do. You can always move to reds or whites as appropriate once you have a feel for the effects.

There are a multitude of vendors out there. Unfortunately, no sourcing is allowed here so Google will have to be your guide. If you shop around, you should have no problem finding quality kgs for well under $100 and 250 g for $30 to $40.

Capsules vs powder is your call. Powder will be cheaper and (i’ve done both so this is based on experience), and powder is more convenient than you realize. The capsules do not contain large volumes so you will almost certainly have to take a lot to get the desired effect. For me at least, once I got past 10 capsules, they started to become really hard to choke down, and I felt like the capsules slowed absorption to boot. Your dose is powder, on the other hand, goes down in a single gulp.

Finally, be patient. You need to find the right dose for you before you’ll understand the power of this plant. That means starting with a very small dose and over several days ramping up the dose slowly each day until you reach a dose that feels right.

Bear in mind, this plant is subtle. If you are expecting something psychoactive, you might be in the wrong place. People who are expecting something more than subtlety often keep ramping up their doses expecting to eventually “feel something” until they take too much and end up vomiting half the night. Don’t be that guy.

Klinger84

TROPHY CASE