HEROIN

Disclaimer: This is a post by veritas [mailto:].

heroin.jpg
A off-white solid chunk of heroin in foil.

Heroin. The name alone invokes fear in the hearts of man. Okay,
maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you’ve gotta admit, this drug sure
has a bad name. πŸ™‚ There is a particular ‘S’ suburb here that’s known
for having dealers of heroin on the streets. I went to check the place
out at the beginning of the week. There are several dodgy looking
people around the main street, and after standing in front of the
central part, I noticed several guys who seem to be a permanent fixture
of the place. One of the guys were obviously nodding out, stumbling
around with a vacant stare and all that. I went up to one of them and
stuck up this conversation:

Me: Hello, are you from around here?
Dealer: Yeah, what’s up?
Me: I hear you can get stuff here.
Dealer: (cautiously) What kind of stuff?
Me: Drugs.
Dealer: What do you want?
Me: What do you have?
Dealer: I only have heroin, you know, smack.
Me: Okay, how much are they?
Dealer: How much do you want?
Me: I only want a small amount.
Dealer: I have A$50 caps.
Me: Sure, I’ll have one of those. I hear there’s a lot of cops around here too, should we go somewhere else?
Dealer: Yeah, you gotta be careful around here, there’s heaps of
cops in this area. I’m scared man, you don’t look like the type that
buys smack.
Me: Well, I’m just experimenting. I’m a student, actually.
Dealer: Okay, walk with me.
(We walk into a shopping center)
(He seems to chew on something for a bit and inconspicuously slips something out of his mouth and hands it to me)
Dealer: Here you go.
(I hand him a A$50 bill)
Dealer: Is this your first time doing smack?
Me: Yeah. I was planning to just snort it.
Dealer: It works better if you smoke it. Just burn it on a foil and smoke it with a straw or something.
Me: Yeah. I know that method too.
Dealer: Okay, take it easy man.

h_cap.jpg
The bag of heroin, look at the detail in the knot. Very nicely wrapped.

After that exchange, I left with a small package wrapped in balloon
that just came out of someone’s mouth. I heard that dealers of heroin
do that here, so that if they’re arrested by the police, they just need
to swallow the balloon packages and they can just throw up or wait for
it to come out on the other end. Thinking about that disturbed me
somewhat, and I proceeded to walk into a restaurant to wash my hands.

h_capsz.jpg
Size comparison – pictured with an A$2 coin.

Upon reaching home, I inspected the package I had just got. It’s a
nicely wrapped bag that’s slightly smaller than the diameter of a
pencil. It’s very, very small indeed. The outer layer of the bag is a
balloon that’s been wrapped and knotted very tightly. I couldn’t undo
the knot so I just snipped it off with a pair of scissors. Inside the
bag was a small piece of heroin wrapped in aluminum foil. Professional
gift wrappers would be proud of the finesse going into the packaging of
heroin. πŸ™‚

h_open.jpg
The heroin is wrapped in a small piece of aluminum foil and put into the balloon.

Anyway, the heroin came in an off-white solid chuck, which was quite
hard to break up. I used a spoon to split it in half and made it into
powder by running the back of the spoon repeatedly over that chunk.
Sources say that the cap contains approximately 50 mg of heroin. I was
surprised at the small amount contained in the cap, until I learnt that
heroin is active at very small amounts. Usually first time users do
about ΒΌ of the bag if they’re injecting, but since I won’t be using
that method of administration, I decided to insufflate (snort) Β½ of the
bag and leave the other Β½ for smoking in two days time.

h_foilsz.jpg
The solid chunk of heroin in the aluminum foil.

h_rock.jpg
The off-white solid piece of heroin next to A$2 coin.

Heroin – Insufflated – 25 mg (approximately)

h_pwdr.jpg
The line of heroin after I powdered it with a spoon.

10:10 pm
burned a fair bit going up the nose.decided to snort half of that
amount to be safe. yeah its definately burning a fair bit when i
snorted it.

10:13 pm
just tasted the drip. bitter.

10.14 pm
yeah…i feel warm. then again its summer. hahaha πŸ™‚

10:16 pm
shit…that just like snuck up on me. i didn’t even notice it until
now. hehehe yeah, its euphoric πŸ™‚ i’m feeling sedated, very nice. gonna
snort the other half in 3 minutes unless something happens.

10:17 pm
this is going to sound cliche, but it feels good just to sit here.i
even forgot to turn on my fan and summer here is hot.now that i think
about forgetting to turn on the fan, i’m not even bothering to turn it
on. you know wat i mean?

10:20 pm
very noticable effects already, but i’m going to snort the other half anyway.

10:20 pm
okay, maybe that was a bad idea coz i’m still peaking right now…but whats done is done.

10:23 pm
yeah its very noticable now. i feel like the world is muffled…everything seems so far away.

10:27 pm
very prone to zoning out. just sat there looking at my hand and that just feels nice.

10:32 pm
everything feels so surreal. so surreal.

10:34 pm
i get that numb feeling. my face is numb and so are my fingers. everything has a slow quality to it. slow. tingly.

10:40 pm
its very different to a stimulant high. i’m just feeling so safe and
contented, its a cliche but its true. it feels the way it does when
you’re young and you’ve just woke up from a good night’s sleep and the
warm sun is shining in and today’s a holiday and you don’t have to do
anything, you just lay in bed and read and its comfortable. that made
me smile. πŸ™‚

10:44 pm
this just feels so good. it’s not like other drugs, its not the
ecstatic happiness of MDMA (feels like you’re about to go on a really
good vacation you’re really looking forward to), it’s not like
stimulants where you go “fuck i can take on the world!!!”, this is like
a comfortable, very comfortable feeling that you lose as soon as you go
into puberty. its an innocent sort of comfortable where the best thing
is that you’re feeling comfortable and safe and warm in your house. and
that’s all that matters, nothing can hurt you. its the feeling of
picnics and reading books and eating cheese cake and nice weather and
mom taking care of you when you’re sick and i’ve got it! its the
feeling of being a kid, where there are no real problems, only little
ones, and you don’t need to do anything, you just hang around and feel
comfortable and they’re parents there to take care of you. damn, thats
what it feels like. return to childhood.
its the feeling of waking up on a saturday morning to the smell of
french toast and you just lie around in bed waiting for your mom to
call you down to eat breakfast and you’ve had a great nites sleep and
the only thing you want to do is read a good book, a safe book where
there are no great problems and everything turns out to be okay in the
end. jesus, you just don’t get this feeling anymore after you grow up.
no wonder people get addicted to this shit. it’s really comfortable.

10:56 pm
my lips feel numb and my tongue feels swollen and it’s a little hard to
breath but it’s all good. damn, it’s all good. this is not the Oh my
fucking god, this is great when you take stimulants but the yeah…this
is real good of downers.

11:05 pm
feeling drowsy now.my eyelids keep going to half mast. heh.

11:12 pm
ugh…nausea. gonna lie down and read a book until i sleep. bye.

Afterthoughts: There was no withdrawals or crash to speak of,
but I did have this godawful nausea, dizziness and major stomach
churning at the end. It didn’t make me itch though. It felt very nice
and comfortable, but it’s not something I would do often. I’ve probably
said this before, I prefer hallucinogens and stimulants. It was a very
nice experience though. The feeling heroin gives is hard to describe,
but the best adjective would be comfortable. Very, very comfortable.

Heroin – Smoked “Chasing the Dragon” – 25 mg (approximately)

h_smoke.jpg
Paraphernalia – a hollow tube from a Bic pen, aluminum foil with powdered heroin, lighter.

9:02 pm
that warm feeling pretty much came instantenously πŸ™‚ when i burned the
stuff, it smoked a whole lot and i couldn’t get everything thru the
tube (wat a waste) so i started to breath with my nose as well and held
the smoke in for about 2 minutes. i felt The Blanket right about then.
πŸ™‚ i did get a whole lotta foil smoke though. interestingly, the heroin
turned into a liquid when flame was applied under the foil and started
to turn into a mini liquid river which ran down the line of the foil.
part of it turned into a black gunk and part of it turned into a
yellowish stain after all of it has been burnt. yeah i feel numb now. πŸ™‚

9:12 pm
yeah the feeling is the same as insufflating, but i think i got higher
when i snorted it though. perhaps i didn’t get all the smoke when it
started to smoke violently. it does feel nice, but not as intense as
insufflating.

9:21 pm
ah, i’m feeling it now. comformtable. πŸ™‚ made me smile again. heh. what
a late rally, i thought it’s supposed to be near instantanous for
smoking.

9:37 pm
had fun zoning out. don’t feel like staring at the screen though, gonna lie down and read a book. πŸ™‚

9:44 pm
i just had this bright idea to mix a couple of shots of my cannabis
infused grain alcohol into a beer and take a valium. i am aware of the
potential risks but this is such a small amount it doesn’t matter
anyway. cheers! πŸ™‚

10:00 pm
mmm…i’m feeling very chill now. πŸ™‚ yeah this is good. in fact i can’t be bothered writig, i’m gonna watch a movie.

10:06 pm
don’t mean to sound retarded, but this feels really good actually.

h_aftsm.jpg
What the foil looks like after smoking – yellow stain where it evaporated from a liquid and a black stain to the side.

Afterthoughts: Heroin is rather overrated in my opinion. It
certainly feels nice, but it’s not the best drug in the world, not by a
long shot. The media makes it seem like such a hardcore drug that you
can’t help but feel let down by the experience. It is however a very
illegal drug due to the problems surrounding its use and the potential
for addiction. Perhaps I just don’t have the type of personality that
appreciates heroin’s effects. I still prefer hallucinogens and
stimulants. πŸ™‚ It is a very nice feeling though, just not something
I’ll do very often. Interestingly, I got higher when I insufflated than
when I smoked heroin.

Caution:
Heroin is very illegal in most (all?) countries.
Heroin is physically and psychologically addictive.
While it may not be the demon drug the media and government makes it
out to be, it is easy to get into trouble in a very short time if you
do it often. Be careful and respect heroin.

43.9 Celsius

*sizzle* Help, I’m burning up. Melbourne hit a record high temperature
[theage.com.au] in 64 years – it was 43.9 degrees Celsius today. And
man, did I feel it. I went to the city today and I lost more water than
I could drink to replenish. People were going around shirtless and in
bikini tops, and the heat in the train carriages was simply oppressive. I felt like I was either going to melt or spontaneously combust.

zoomcrtp.jpg

Anyway, I managed to get a pair of shoes today. I don’t usually go
for Nike, but I was seduced by the air-conditioned comfort of their
store in Bourke Street. I ended up buying a pair that caught my eye –
Air Zoom Courtposite. It’s a pair of tennis shoes, I don’t play tennis,
but who cares, my previous pair was supposed to be for squash anyway. πŸ™‚

sstoohot.jpg

Look at this, I saw it while walking down Swanston Street. This was
pasted on the door of China Express, a takeaway Chinese food place. Heh.

Well, while seeking refuge in the air-conditioned comfort of a book
store, I also saw this new (?) calling card called Planet Telecom
Australia that is only 3.9 cents per minute to Malaysia. That’s a whole
lot cheaper than the closest one – Indo Card at 6.9 cents. There was a
large “No Connection” at the front, which one would assume to mean no
connection fees, this however is not true. They simply call the
connection fee a “service charge”, which they conveniently wrote in
fine print at the back.

plantel.jpg

No connection apparently means you could hardly hear shit while
calling. I had to say “hah?” more times than I cared to count when I
tried out the card just now. There were periods of silence where I
couldn’t hear anything at all and those happened more than a few times
throughout the phone call. Very, very distracting. The only redeeming
factor is that you can talk for 255 minutes if you call a land line in
Malaysia. This goes way down to 66 minutes if you call cell phones
though. I think using Indo Card will turn out to be more economical
because all the time spent going “eh?” and the subsequent repeating of
the previous sentence took up most of the phone conversation.

Where there is smoke

melbsmog.jpg

Melbourne is covered with smoke again from the bushfires. The
visibility today is worse than the smog from a couple of days back
though. To top it of, it was pushing 40 degrees today and I was down
with heat exhaustion again. Come to think of it, it seems that I’ve
been very prone to heat exhaustion ever since I was young. It always
goes away after a packet of those ‘Chi Kit’ Teck Aun pills (or as I
like to call it, Poh Chi Kit pills :)) though, so all is good.
Wonderful stuff, those. Miraculous, even.

Anyway, about my mid-term exam, I didn’t do really well. I was
expecting a different question for the second part and yeah…It’s too
hot to write today.

That’s the view of the pond behind my hall if you’re wondering.

Perceptrons, my dear Watson

<p>I’ll be having my mid semester exam for BUS3650 – Business
Applications of Neural Networks (my summer subject) tomorrow. I was
chagrined to find out that the subject requires a rather extensive
knowledge of equations and other math type stuff. I overcompensated by
raiding the library and checking out a stack of books related to neural
networks. I only need one though; the book that was written by my
lecturer, but having all those books does give one a certain sense of
security during the preparation phase. :)</p>

<p><img alt=”neuralbk.jpg” src=”http://www.sixthseal.com/archive/January2003/neuralbk.jpg” border=”0″ height=”188″ width=”250″></p>

<p>Hmm…why do all library books have this st and greasy feel to their covers?</p>

PICTURE.COM

picture.jpg

I just received a letter from The International Library of Photography
[picture.com] today. I had submitted a photo a couple of months ago
after being told about this contest by Daniel (I owe you dinner buddy).
Well, what do you know, they told me they’re going to publish my photo
in their upcoming anthology “Forever in a Moment” and they’ve
automatically entered me into the semi-finalists of the People category
in the International Open Amateur Photography Contest.

Unfortunately, I still have to buy the book (well I don’t have to, my photo will be included into the book regardless of whether I buy it or not, but I’ll want
to), albeit at the “contributor’s special pre-publication price” which
is still US $69.95. Apparently the regular price is US $89.95. It’s one
of those coffee table books, thus the price. It’s still very pricey
though, I’ve personally never paid A$140 or RM 265.81 for a
non-academic book before. I guess there is a first time for everything.

Oh well, at least they said “your photograph was selected for
publication because of its unique perspective and your artistic vision”.

Yes, I am easy to please. =D

It is now my duty to completely drain you

I missed my supervisor meeting today. It was all good though,
because the supervisor wasn’t there too, due to some miscommunication
regarding the meeting. The only guy that turned up was one of my group
mates, the other one was sick. Heh.

Anyway, the reason I missed the meeting was due to the strange phenomenon where a USB cell phone charger will drain
the battery instead of charging it when the computer is off. How
interesting, I’ve only see this once, I haven’t replicated it, so I
don’t know if it works all the time or under certain circumstances only.

Well, I did set my alarm clock (I use my cell phone as my alarm)
before I went to sleep last night, but neglected to pull out the USB
charger (which connects to the USB port). When I woke up, the cell
phone battery was completely drained and I couldn’t even turn it on
until I recharged it. Strange huh?

Anyway, no harm done, we’ve rescheduled the meeting to Thursday instead.

Oh, I overheard two people conversing in Heng Hua while I was
walking from the Clayton train station today. I’m Heng Hua and I’ve
never heard that language used much over here.

Spin!

sunair.jpg

My small but trusty SunAir dual speed personal fan is losing the
battle against the 35 degree heat today. I was woken up in the morning
by the MRS staff who wanted to change the fire evacuation procedures
map at the back of every resident’s door. They blacked out some stuff
with a felt tip pen and stuck some new stickers and then were off. I
could not go back to sleep though, courtesy of the extreme heat that
was apparent even in the morning.

Anyway, I watched Amelie
[amelie-lefilm.com] today. I’ve seen it around the network but I didn’t
bother to watch it because I didn’t think I would enjoy it. I’m glad I
gave it a chance because it’s a very sweet and endearing movie. Very
nice indeed.

I’m very scattered today.

Pokies

pokie100.jpg
What is the significance of this? Read on…

I just came back from dinner at Malaysia Garden
[eateries.com.au] with Jimmy. He’s going back to Singapore for good on
Wednesday. We had the “Menu C” banquet and whoa, there really was a lot
of food, much more than we could finish. The first dish was a soup, and
then there was a platter with satay, curry puffs, spring rolls and drum
sticks and then came a large fried rice with a dish of chili prawn and
another of sweet and sour chicken. After that, there was another
large plate of fried rice and a plate of veggies and another of beef
with cashew nuts. We couldn’t finish the second wave of food and we
barely touched it. There was still dessert to go, it was ice cream with
rambutans. It was good, but the portions were too generous. It was
A$23.50 per person though.

Anyway, we were feeling rather lucky after that so we stopped by
Lunico Hotel, which is just beside Malaysia Garden and played the poker
machines for a while. Both of us have never stepped into a pokies joint
here, so we were basically just playing for fun. I changed an A$20 note
into coins and just slipped them into a pokies machined called
Cleopatra or some other Egyptian themed machine.

There I was, pushing the buttons periodically when suddenly the
pictures aligned up just right and this happy sounding music started
playing and the “Credits Won” counter kept on incrementing. It went on
and on, I expected it to stop soon, but it was just out of control! =D
It went past 500 credits, went past 1000 credits, went past 2000
credits and it was showing no signs of stopping. Too bad this is a 5 c
per game machine (A$1 gives you 20 credits) so the number doesn’t
actually reflect the amount in dollars. Heh. Anyway, I won about A$164
from that spin alone. There really is something to “beginners luck” eh?
This is my first time on the pokies and I was racking in more than the
regulars who’s practically stuck on the chairs.

Anyway, I took out A$120 and used the rest to play some more. Why
A$120? Well, my bankroll was A$20 and I wanted to win a nice whole
number, thus A$100. I used up the rest pretty quickly though, it’s hard
to win on pokies, I just had a lucky spin. Anyway, A$100 is a good,
round number so I’m pretty happy. πŸ™‚

P/S – It just hit me that I’m gambling on a Sunday. Oh, how I’ve
sunken into the pits of depravity. Forgive me Lord, for I have sinned,
but thank you for the bounty anyway. πŸ˜‰

Green Dragon

gd.jpg
Green Dragon

Substance: Cannabis dissolved in 95% alcohol
Also known as: “Green Dragon”

gdleaf.jpg
The main ingredient

gdbef.jpg
allowed to steep in the 95% spirit

Preparation: I shredded some cannabis buds into small bits
and put them in this 95% (190 proof) pure grain alcohol called
Spirytus. Yes, that’s 95% Vol/Alc. I think this is the highest amount
of stable alcohol you can have without it pulling moisture from the
atmosphere and re-diluting it self. This is similar to the spirit
marketed as Everclear in the United States. I got this bottle at a
Greek bottle shop near my place. It’s A$ 50 for the 500 ml bottle. The
cashier asked me what I wanted it for, and I said “to dissolve plant
material in” and he went “oh okay”. πŸ™‚ Heh.

spirytusf.jpg
The front of the bottle – Spirytus

Anyway, I did drink quite a bit of the stuff, it really packs a
punch if you drink it neat. I usually pour some of the stuff into a
plastic bottle of diet coke and drink it. I learnt that this could be a
bad idea though, the grain alcohol is also solvent grade so it could
dissolve plastic. I’m not saying that it can, I really don’t know, but
it could. It easily rubbed off the blue use by dates on those bottles
anyway. It also tends to turn a chilled drink into a warm drink. Yuck.

spirytusb.jpg
The back of the bottle – Spirytus Pure Spirit 95% Vol/Alc

I’m digressing. Anyway, before I came back for a holiday, I shredded
some cannabis buds and put it into what remained of the bottle. When I
returned a couple of days ago, I noticed that the alcohol had been
colored a nice green by the cannabis. The cannabis has been left in the
bottle for a total of 5 weeks (and 3 days) so that should be sufficient
to allow the THC to leach out from the plant into the alcohol. I kept
it in a dark cupboard all this while and it turned a deeper green when
I shook the bottle. Anyway, I felt that this was a good time as any to
have a taste so I took a couple of shots in some diet coke on an empty
stomach.

gdres.jpg
The result after 5 weeks (and 3 days)

Time: 1:16 am

Poured 3 1/2 shots into 300 ml of diet coke. It tastes EXACTLY like
what marijuana smoke tastes like when inhaled. nice. yum. I think the
alcohol dissolved some nasty stuff from the plastic bottles too…yuck.
it tastes chemical. Chugged it anyway

Time: 1:40 am

Felt slightly drunk with classic finger numbness. heh.

Time: 2:07 am

Feeling slightly stoned too, but the alcohol is masking most of the
good aspects of mj. can feel enchaced auditory appreciation but no
munchies yet.

Time: 2:18 am

ah feeling slightly stoned now. πŸ™‚ good. but it’s a more relaxed
laid back kind of stoned though, not like the seriously stoned you can
get when you smoke bowl after bowl after bowl

Time: 2:27 am

it feels strange, but good. πŸ™‚ i’ve had alcohol + mj before, in that
order. drank a six pack and smoked a couple of bowls and felt great
too, but this is somehow slightly different to that feeling. for one
thing i don’t feel so sedated i’m about to sleep. perhaps that coz of
the caffeine? had a couple of coffees before this too. it is a very
nice feeling though, very laid back and chilly. much more mellow that
smoking bowls but it’s fun too. not as intense, and you have to consume
a whole lot of pesticide while at it too.

Time 3:15 am

Feeling wasn’t satisfactory so i pored another shot of the stuff
into a 500 ml can of beer and skulled it. i can smell the mj. mmm

Time: 3:34 am

feeling pretty good now. 1/2 drunkish 1/2 stoned but not a lot of
head fuck unlike when i’m stoned. it’s pretty mellow and nice though.
would go well with a couple of valiums but i’m saving my stash for a
rainy day.

Time: 3:50 am

yeah feeling nice. stoned and a little pissed at the same time. nice
nice nice. I’m watching My Wife is 18 – the one by Ekin Cheng and I’m
laughing myself to tears
haha
not so funny is the fact that i watched disc 2 before watching disc 1 though coz the files were mislabeled on the network.

Anyway, the stuff was good, but not as intense as I would have
liked. Perhaps I should have dissolved more cannabis buds into the
alcohol, I’ll do that next time. Note that you need a high proof
alcohol to dissolve the stuff in, coz THC is alcohol (and fat) soluble
but not water soluble, thus you’ll want a high proof alcohol like
Bacardi 151 or even better, this 95% stuff.

Coming soon: Cooking with Cannabis πŸ˜‰

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