Hammy Needs a Wallet

Or gerbil or guinea pig or whatever it is


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snuff

snuff \SNUHF\ ,
verb:
1. To extinguish or suppress.
2. To cut off or remove the snuff of (candles, tapers, etc.).
noun:
1. The charred or partly consumed portion of a candlewick.
2. A preparation of tobacco, either powdered and taken into the nostrils by inhalation or ground and placed between the cheek and gum.
verb:
1. To draw in through the nose by inhaling.

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"Snuff" has, as the definitions above attest, multiple meanings, the first of which when I think of it is the tobacco. I never developed the steady habit of dipping snuff and haven't had a taste of it in quite some number of years. It's a nasty habit, especially when the person dipping spits into a cup. Yuck. I've got several friends who dip and swallow - gag - and each one has stomach problems ... no wonder.

I was once told my grandmother used snuff, but it was the powdered form, not the currently popular "leafy" substance more akin to chewing tobacco. According to the story, Grandma would chew on a matchstick (not the lighting end, of course) and then "dip" it into the snuff container and then rest the match with "wad" between her cheek and gum.

I think most everyone has seen an old movie, perhaps a cartoon with someone sniffing snuff up their nose. I've tried that and sure 'nuff, I sneezed...then the tobacco slowly slid down my throat. I didn't throw up, but it was a near thing. After I got used to it, though, it was tolerable.

My memory is fuzzy as to where I bought the stuff, but on some school trip I found a store that sold various sorts of smoking supplies including a wide assortment of "odd" snuffs. I saw a particular type with many different flavors called "Cokesnuff" and I bought a couple of the small tins, cherry and mint. (as I recall)



It was much better "tasting" than the old fashioned sort of snuff I had tried before, but didn't have the flavor of Coca-Cola ^TM; I didn't know why that was, but it was still pretty good. Between my school buddies and I, we went through the tins fairly quickly and I kept the nifty little containers for years and years.

It wasn't until a few years after school that I realized I hadn't been in a tobacco shop, but instead had been in a "head shop". (No wonder there were so many pipes.) And, of course, the "coke" in "cokesnuff" wasn't about the drink, but was instead meant to mix with cocaine.

To top all that, around the same time as THAT revelation, I couldn't figure out why anyone would want to make a movie about "snuff"...until I watched one That was when the first definition came into play.

Wisdom From Liz

The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.

- Elizabeth Taylor




Image courtesy of Caricature Zone

Bullet with Butterfly Wings - Smashing Pumpkins

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Kept hearing this song on the intro to Animal Planet's Whale Wars and finally decided it was time to see who performed it. I've not really kept up with most popular music/bands over the last couple of decades and don't listen to Top 40 radio, so this one escaped me. (Wiki says VH1 ranks it as the #91 hard rock song of all time; I'm surprised I had not heard it prior to watching the TV show)

sibylline

sibylline \SIB-uh-leen\ , adjective;

1. Prophetic; oracular.
2. Of, resembling, or characteristic of a sibyl; prophetic; oracular.
3. Mysterious; cryptic.

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I thought I had seen this word used before, but had some unsettled feeling about it, something I couldn't remember why this word was disturbing. The Dictionary.com site didn't reveal any clues, so I Googled the word, accidentally spelling it wrong and using a "Y" instead of the first "I" , like the name "Sybil".

"Did you mean ...... ?" asked Google. I thought I did, then I didn't.

Sorry, no link to my mistake. Google it yourself - if you dare.

(My first impression when I saw those things was "Whoa, ride 'em cowgirl!")

On This Day - July 8th

Looking at my Excite start page earlier I noticed in the This Day in History module that in 1889 The Wall Street Journal was first published, in 1947 construction began on the United Nations buildings, in 1960 the Soviet Union charged Gary powers with espionage and on this day in 2000 the fourth Harry Potter book (Goblet of Fire) was released in the US.

The most important thing I noticed was that this is the day Edward Berner, a druggist in Two Rivers, WI, poured chocolate syrup on ice cream in a dish. Up to this time, chocolate syrup had only been used for making ice cream sodas.



The man was a genius.