Recipe: chocolate clove (mint) flavored cigarettes.

 With the battering that the flavored tobacco industry took, in California, it's prudent to begin flavoring cigarettes on your own.

On one hand, the industry was very youthful, with hundreds of flavor startups vying for a market share in the smokeless tobacco industry.

Cigarettes just "feel" better (when smoked), with natural and organic flavors added to them.

Vaporizers, while nice, just have a bit of something lacking to them, compared to the enjoyment found in a nice cigarette, especially a flavored one.

USP nicotine is a strongly toxic chemical to wield around, and to entrust someone else, in a youthful industry, to manage appropriately, in vaporizer solutions.

Chocolate clove (mint) flavored cigarettes have a mild, relaxing hit to them, with a pleasurable flavor and experience, throughout. Simply order some simple ingredients online, and prepare your tobacco, upon settling in, for the night, after purchasing a pack - this project does take some foresight. 

Flavor concentrates versus fragrance components:

- some flavor concentrates are dissolved in a solution of propylene glycol, which is favorable for adding to both nicotine salts solution concentrate (vaporizer) mixtures and directly on to cigarettes, alike, although, when working with tobacco, in this case, the residues from the unevaporated propylene glycol, which is a food grade antifreeze, and which imparts the effect of "smoke," when used in a vaporizer, just might be additional fluff, so to speak; unnecessary, in other words, in a tobacco smoking setting. Fragrance ingredients are nearly all mostly volatile compounds - their volatility is actually intertwined with their worth, hence, the fleeting and transient nature of fine fragrance, whereas a lingering scent becomes a headache, in many cases. 

- fragrance ingredient extractions are time-worn and standardized procedures, with some manufacturers and supply chains practicing stringent, internationally and historically recognized, traditional chemistry procedures. Not that this isn't the case with flavor ingredients, as well, it's just that we don't "smoke" inhale our food; food is eaten, drinks are drunk, and tasted, whereas there is a fragrant aspect to smoking which could come in to consideration, in this context.

The Cocoa absolute, being a somewhat scarcely found product, is well-to-do, to be ordered from Liberty Natural. Their ¼ oz. size comes in a good, deep-well container, to which solvent may be added, to make concentrations varying from 50% to 10%, depending on the virginity of the solvent solution. I chose isopropyl myristate for my solvent, which is, essentially (or nearly) a fragrance-free version of isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol. In addition, IPM is fully volatile, and it will evaporate completely, while also dissolving a good portion of the fragrant and flavorful components of this Cocoa absolute. Just note that the solution is a fully liquid thing, so dampening your cigarettes, with some slaked-on droplets of solution will make the cigarettes fragile. I recommend doing this project when you're calm and settled down, for some long stretch of time, given a day or more, of productivity, by comparison.

The clove bud oil, which I like, as a throwback to Djarum "cigarettes," (they're actually labeled as cigars), gives a nice, mild and satisfying smoke, when directly applied to a cigarette (white paper portion).

A pack of Djarums.

The oil does not need to dry, before lighting up, but if you add the Cocoa absolute with IPM, I would strongly recommend fully drying out the cigarettes, in front of a fan, or under gentle heat, as inhaling isopropanol-type compounds, acutely, can cause temporary blindness, an unpleasant and hazardous condition to bear. For my choice of supplier: in this case, I went with Whole Foods' Aura Cacia Organic Clove Bud Oil, which came out to around $8.50 or $9.00, or so, after a 28% Amazon Prime member sale discount, from around $11.00-$12.00, or so. Just one or two droplets will do - no need to overdo it, and try to make a saucy, soaking cigarette, here. The flavor and fragrance components, here, are well concentrated, on their own merits.

That's it! As far as a mint flavoring - it would be nice, but I just haven't implemented it, in my flavoring outsets, just yet, so I won't jump the gun and write on it, for now. 

Update: some time had passed, and there was some discussion on the topic of mint, such as:

"I know you know what the best mint is, ... what is it?"

It took a while for me to recall the name of this special mint oil, but I knew that it was something good. Rich, fresh, smooth, and cooling. Then, I remembered that I was particularly fond of cornmint, which I had ordered from Perfumer's World, a couple of years back, or so. I believe that Liberty Natural stocks cornmint oil. Yet, even so, someone had commented that an oil of mint isn't all that agreeable, and that menthol crystals themselves ought to be used. This brought up the discussion of flavoring tobacco to a more primary sense, and someone mentioned cigarette filter crush balls, which are akin to the formerly stocked crush cigarettes, which, in southern California, were mainly Marlboro NXT and Camel Crush. I've tried this configuration, recently, in a cigarette butt that i picked up, to smoke, and it came out tasting just like the original crush ball cigarettes. I don't quite recall where I saw the crush ball flavoring pods online, maybe it was Amazon or eBay, or something, but I'm also not sure if the pods can be ordered and sent to a California address, due to the legislation that banned flavored tobacco products such as crush cigarettes.

Update: I traced back my previous browsing find, regarding end-user, DIY cigarette filter flavor pods. I found this machine on eBay for $10, that will insert the flavor capsules in to the cigarette filter, so that the cigarette can be flavored. There is also a link for 2,000 flavor pod capsules, priced at $40.00. I'll definitely try out this product solution, at some point soon, and I'll keep people updated as to how it works out.

The eBay listing page for the cigarette filter flavor pod / capsules installer machine, which has a link to another listing for the flavor pods themselves, as well.

Enjoy!

Some lightly dampened Cocoa and clove cigarettes, drying out, in front of a portable waist fan - an essential step, especially if you're in a hurry.

An Autumn Equinox Eve Hydrosol Elixir (Fragrance Recipe)

 

An Autumn Equinox Eve's Hydrosol Elixir 

This composition is for a 2 fl. oz. spritzer.

The starter oil was a bottom-of-the-bottle ring of leftover oil from a trefle magnolia citrus hydrosol. It had an impression of a fresh shampoo.

I added, to begin with:

2 drops of patchouli oil

This shifted the composition to heavily woodsy. I wanted to make a light, feminine, playful floral citrus fragrance, out of it, with a touch of spice:

6 mL IPM

50 mL water

14 drops magnolia

¼ mL Calibrian Bergamot BF

½ mL 10% Tonka bean absolute in IPM

¾ mL 10% Cocoa absolute in IPM

⅛ mL 10% blackcurrant Bud Absolute in IPM

5 drops Rose Otto

2 drops Carnation essential oil

7 drops cashmeran

⅓ mL coniferan

¼ gram Ambroxan 

¼ gram Exaltone

⅓ mL Limetol

¼ mL Fixateur

4 drops Anther

⅛ mL Canthoxal

1 slight drip vetiver oil

2 drops Cinnamon Flavor (maybe try 1; I used 2, and it's a bit prominent)

½ drip Black Hemlock Absolute

⅙ mL Rhubofix

2 drops 10:1 Water to Lavandin mailette Absolute Oil

⅒ gram Prismantol

⅓ mL Coumarex DB

This composition was fairly satisfactory and nice smelling, perhaps a mellis fragrance, citrus fresh, with rich, sweet, and sensuous floral effects to it. I found that spraying it a sensible amount didn't quite feel like enough, so maybe it has some stimulating and addictive features to it.

After carrying the fragrance around for a couple of hours, the fragrance oil, which had grown from ¼-⅓ band of oil on top of water, in to the ⅔ band of milky emulsified lipophilic layer, in water, as pictured.

If you get around to creating this fragrance, yourself, enjoy!

My favorite take, from out of Amazon Prime Day 2024.

This one just feels serendipitous to me, yet I can't share on other social media channels, from this hotspot. People have got to try this wacky UFO orb thing out! Yikes! 

Hint: look up "Dorom" on Amazon, whether it's the website, on a browser, or on the app. I had better luck on the web. Then buy one! If you don't see it's then it's probably done, his inventory. But the guy might be one of my buddies, from university days. Neat, huh? There's no deal like it...

My Android YY-35 Tablet's Chrome browser.

iPigeon.institute Recipes: iPigeon Udon Noodle Soup - a Curry Ramen.

 I do this one, here and there, as a fancier take on noodles (at least), compared to a standard bargain ramen noodle soup. This one will rate more around a standard Asian restaurant's offering of "some kind" of noodles; I just threw this dish together, with some influences from Thai food, and their hot and curry soups, with Udon noodles, hoisin sauce, which is Chinese, and a splash of vinegar, of your choosing, or selection (I had malt vinegar, which I purchased from Whole Foods, separately, but the rest of the ingredients for the soup are available at my local Ralph's - perhaps yours, as well). 

(Most of) The ingredients in iPigeon Udon Noodle Soup.

Ingredients:

1 pack udon noodles (2 in pack)

Golden Curry: 1/2 slab

Soy Sauce: 2 Tbsp.

Hoisin Sauce: 2-3 Tbsp.

Green Onions: 3, finely chopped, whole bulb and stalk

Cilantro: 1/2 bunch

Jalapeño Pepper: As desired, for spiciness 

Kara Coconut Cream Powder: ~ 1 Tbsp. (Work out 4 servings, per package)

Lime Juice: 1/2 lime, squeezed

Butter: 2-3 Tbsp (I used butter, which works fine, although toasted sesame oil would be more fitting)

Malt Vinegar: 2-3 splashes

It's fairly really simple, just follow the instructions on the udon noodle soup package, i.e. throw the noodles in boiling water, give it a minute or two, while you slice of scissor your greens, break up some curry solids and throw them in to the boiling water, put some coconut cream in there, throw the greens in (note: by this point, you'd want to stop cooking, nearly immediately, so that the greens still have some substantive form left of them), then, add in vinegar, soy sauce, lime and hoisin sauce. Perhaps some salt and pepper.

That's it! 

A tasty late night soupy meal.

iPigeon.institute Local Botanical Item Spotlights - Mitica brand honeycomb, from Gelson's.

Update, and quick note: yipes! This product could potentially cause severe eye irritation! Be very wary about using the product described in this blog article, as far as cosmetic use goes. 

 One of my more recent fragrance fascinations was with the raw material, the honeycomb. I'd once had a great sample of Beeswax Absolute, which I highly enjoyed, and, which I'd mixed in to some fragrance compositions, with some slight attainment about them. I found the material very overpoweringly dominant, in what I felt, at the time, were small portions (I was just beginning to investigate and experiment with perfumery materials, having come from a background in making fragrance compositions with essential oils and absolutes that are more commonly found in local retail stores. 

In any case, I was fascinated by the physiological, or psychoactive (bioactive, perhaps, at least), effects of Beeswax Absolute, and, once I had run out of my sample product, I'd sometimes obsess over the ingredient, and I'd spend a lot of time, here and there, trying to find out new things to know about the product, itself, and I also developed a fascination with producing the absolute, myself, as well. 

Recently, I came across a great retail product beeswax honeycomb, by Mitica brand, which I found at Gelson's grocery store. I made sure to pick one up, since I had lots of money on my Food Stamps account, still. The item comes in its own frame and plastic box (which, for aroma chemical extraction, might not be the best material, but this is just my first try at producing my own agricultural fragrance ingredient from this material).

A top view of Mitica brand's honeycomb box, which includes a frame that the beeswax and honey, contained within the honeycomb, is built upon.

A diagonal view of Mitica's honeycomb box and frame. I felt that the product was ideal, over other choices in retail honeycomb availability, particularly on account of that a box and frame are included with the product.

I had not much knowledge base to work from, as far as discovering literature in regards to the chemical and molecular composition and form of honeycomb and beeswax material, so I had to do some looking up, of things. I had some notion that I could try to produce an alternative product to an absolute, using regular cooking vinegar. I tried it out, by soaking the honeycomb frame, in the box, and I felt that it could take weeks, or months, or more, perhaps, for a full extraction, as limited as with vinegar, solely, as the extraction fluid, although evaporation would be fairly reliable, I figured, and there could be useful compounds produced, with acetic acid thrown in to the equation, given that I be patient. 

At this point, it's been a few weeks, or so, and I noticed some slight changes - almost of that the beeswax seemed almost alive, in and of itself, even under vinegar, since I felt that some of the beeswax seemed to have creeped along, further out, on to the frame's top edges, where I don't remember seeing beeswax establishments, previously. The vinegar solution, itself, slowly became yellowish, but there wasn't a whole lot of action, in this instance of experimentation. 

Upon investigating the solvency considerations of the material, it was learned that the extraction would be best done with a polar solvent. I don't have any of the standard solvents, on hand, but, at one point, I became reminded that I have dimethyl octenone on hand, of which, I'd had previously employed a similar (somewhat) product, in doing an extraction and production method, as an experiment, with 3-octanone, as part of the extraction. Dimethyl octenone has a fairly relative olfactory scent profile to 3-octanone, and I figured that it is a polar solvent, in and of itself, perhaps as a scarce fraction of some other, more gross product of some other agricultural crop, in being separated, for qualitative purposes.

With a 15 mL bottle of dimethyl octenone, I was capable of pouring around a third, or less,  of the bottle out, in to the vinegar solution, and still cover the entire top surface area. Immediately, I noticed that the two layers didn't immediately mix; it was like oil and water, so I felt that my decision to employ dimethyl octenone was justified. This was yesterday. The liquid in the box became very vaporous, so I felt that perhaps a timeline of an extraction, in this experiment phase, would work along a much quicker timeline. If you'd notice, in the first photo, some of the honeycomb cells are destroyed, over on the top left. There are also some "breathing holes" that had developed, as a result of introducing the dimethyl octenone to the solvent solution (I shook the box, so the liquids became a more thorough solution). I figured, dimethyl octenone, pungent and musky solvent-smelling that it is, it'll eventually evaporate off; I should seek to establish more generalized visible similarities between what I produce, regardless of what it is, specifically, and if the viscosity, or consistency, in terms of the product's thickness, or solidity, becomes a familiar and standard sort of outcome, it would be easier to sit and wait for this type of portion of patience being necessary, being that dimethyl octenone might only dissipate over several weeks, or so, perhaps. 

Part of the challenge would be discovering what becomes of the wax, itself. I would typically take a "hands-off" approach to playing with my extraction experiments, and just stick to observation, and just the slightest of mixing, or disturbance of the solution, but, in this case, I touched the corner of the beeswax, and it melted like cake frosting, so I knew, then, that the extraction would be successful, from here. Only time will tell, as to what the outcome of this experiment will produce.

Update:

This honeycomb / beeswax project continues to reveal delicate mysteries about its form, within the acidic, polar solvent liquid At this stage, 4 days later, following the original post, the Mitica honeycomb's plastic box proves to have taken on acid damage, bearing leaks, and penetration, through the outer layers of plastic, whereas the now emulsified lipophilic liquid, which has incorporated the beeswax, as liquid beads, as an outer phase of emulsifier, wherein the solvent layer acts as the inner phase, with the dimethyl octenone / acetic acid, perhaps mixed with the plastic, somehow acting as a surfactant, to make the emulsification fairly molecularly small. Have a look! 

This (not so delicate) bulge is pretty resilient, in fact - almost like a rubbery latex, in texture, but definitely bendable and flexible, with the plastic walls having disintegrated, due to the particular nature of the acidic polar solvency of the solution. I'd suppose it would be a perfumer's hand at pulling off this trick; some of it is just gestural artistry, since I didn't know that this would happen - although if you did the same extraction, it very well could happen for you, also. 

Pigeon-watching hotspots to see around town #2: The Pico Metro Station Parking Lot Refugee Flock

I don't get on (or off) on this Metro train station all that often, but recently, I spotted a refugee flock of pigeons hanging out, here, at the parking lot across the street. Since I was stocked up on bread (some of it was bread with butter), I knew that I couldn't let this flock of birds down; they hadn't always been here, and they may have been on their way in or out of town, to have gathered here. 

The DTLA Pico Metro Station parking lot, featuring a large flock of pigeons. 

Now, I know Downtown Los Angeles' various flocks of pigeons fairly well, to say the least.  I've been coming here to feed the birds, going on 7 years, now. I've spotted some pigeons here, in other recent trips, but nowhere near this many birds have I seen, in this location. It was a notable gathering. I wondered, "are they new? A transplant? (port)? They must be hungry, to be in an unfamiliar spot, gathered like this." I take it upon myself to make sure, (typically), that every bird I come across gets fed, but this was a notable challenge. Most flocks of birds aren't quite this large, in Downtown LA. 

In any case, these birds, some of them a localized flock, whom had been spotted perching atop the luxury highrise buildings across the street, potentially had an advantageous view of the terrain, while they perched, and they could have seen other nearby flocks that had been gathering in other micro-locales of DTLA. Pigeons are made for socialization - the more, the merrier, so to speak. When the flock flies off, sometimes it's a "high-flying" motive about them, where they swoop and swing around, in spirals and in circles, or in figure 8-style, for the sake of quickly drawing attention to themselves, high-flying, as it were, so that nearby and known perching flocks, of a different micro-locale, can catch them high-flying, as a signal of that something exciting is going on, around this commotion, such as meal time. The other nearby flocks would be the ones by the Olympic at Olive Shell Gas Station, the 26th Street / Orthopedic Institute "USC Dumpster Pigeons," and, also, perhaps, some birds from around 7th at Metro Station. There's a chance that these flocks had become neglected, and the newcomers wanted to try out this location, on account of so much foot traffic at the Pico Metro Station. I made sure to look out for this flock again, the next time I rode by, but they weren't there, so I'll have to figure out their schedule, and try to fit them in, sometimes, during the course of a week.

This flock would be an ideal one for sports fans to visit, being that L.A. Live, the Crypto.com Sports Arena, and the Convention Center are all very nearby attractions for pedestrians, which have frequent and regular events happening. 

The birds are a fairly standard flock of Downtown LA: they're not completely shy, and they know that some people will toss them food, if they're visible to passersby. 

The Pico Metro Station Refugee Pigeon Flock, enjoying a meal, on April 19th, 2024, at 3:43 p.m.

This flock would be a good one for people to patronize during the springtime (now) season, throughout summer and in to fall, I suppose, being that it's light out, and pigeons in this area will, most commonly, stay out until 6:30 p.m., while the sun is still out. I just recently found out that pigeons love peanuts 🥜, by the way, so that's a nice and convenient snack food to have on hand for them (or, if you hadn't prepared, beforehand, there's a CVS right across the street. 

.

Reducing Climate and Carbon Impact, Individually: Some Observations.

Here, in the Greater Los Angeles region,

people are generally commonly concerned with the quality and sustainable "health" of our environmental ecology. That being said, I've not gotten enough time in, in researching official documents and developments that had been put out (ostensibly): in essence, we hear, and see, in our news feeds, televised news reports, etc., that climate changes are coming, or are happening. I feel that, perhaps contextually, in the sense of a "spring cleaning," we can take an assessment of where we are, for the year's outset, and outlook, for that matter, being that spring would somewhat be the time for the emergence of conservational efforts that had been put forth, during the winter; things to consider, such as: had winter landscapes, with forward-looking "signs of spring" to look forward to - had these landscapes been planted? Are civic landscapes being maintained with care? "Does the population care, at all?" would come to mind, perhaps, in some cases, being that concerns and aesthetics such as this sort of civic upkeep markers of things to consider, had largely been disregarded, this year, with many landscaping jobs that could have been done, instead: seem to be simply "leftovers" of last year's trimming of the bushes, here and there, at times, I observed, out in the Civic Center of Downtown Los Angeles, for example, where many of the maintenance jobs, in town, also end up being disregarded, it would seem. 

Heading out to the Century City area, to check on the pigeon flock, out here, which I'd given much care for, I have the opportunity to hang out, and peruse a more upscale aesthetic, especially with the landscaping aspect in mind: planters had been planted, the planters are not "ruined" by the public, in general. I had some planting aspirations in mind, for better sustainability and management of my ongoing role, as a homeless person, out at all hours, as it were, as I move about, and around, in town, within the nitrogen cycle. 

I hadn't read "the book" on the nitrogen cycle, which happens to be available at the local Los Angeles Public Library Central Branch - although I did take a quick look at it (I know that it's there, at least, 😏 perhaps as a reference book [only for in-library reading, not for check out]). What I come to observe about nitrogen, at this point in time, is largely colloquial and common knowledge sorts of stuff. In my generation, we recollect the blockbuster movie hit, The Terminator, which featured one of our (both) beloved or reviled: [depending on individual tastes, I suppose] California governors - Arnold Schwarzenegger: a futuristic worldscape of a war-torn technological establishment, sworn to duty, thus bent on exterminating humanity (was it one of the sequels? I forget). 

In any case, many of us would recall, and reference - the hijacked tanker of liquid nitrogen that overturns, during a battle, and spills out its contents: a hopeless flood of sub-zero material that freezes the formidable shape-shifting, self-healing robot opponent - yet, only temporarily. 

With this in mind, the correlation I draw, as one of the few DTLA civic center homeless people, on  an ongoing basis, I feel... hmm <_<... I guess that I'm regularly feeling like I'm also being inundated with this liquid nitrogen substance, with how the slight nuances of windy drafts feel like they seem to have an "unnatural" slant, now, these recent years, in consideration. On one hand, I remember how cold I used to be, and it's definitely not like the cold of these recent years. These days, even the cold water is colder. It's not that I'd changed, all that much - I feel that some people, who indulge in bullying me, at moments like these nights, in which I stay outside, unwillingly, as it were, might be holding something with regards to "accepting change," (as folks familiar with the 12 Steps self help program could draw up, as the popular culture point of reference), against me, and, as I sleep at night, battles are waged against me, with this "futuristic" liquid nitrogen substance being one of the token tools of war. 

On one hand, it feels compelling, I suppose, (for some), to dominate someone, aside from themselves - wielding forces of nature (atmospherics, physics, materials, etc.), with liquid nitrogen at hand. 

The economics of playing around with liquid nitrogen are potentially easy fare, for the festively: for cold war games to play out - on others, "feelin' like" people. For whatever reason, at some point, during these recent years that I'd been through, where I'd have had to "consider" (experience) that some sort of locally-applied environmental coolant agent is the effect au jour, as it were, that I have to go through, for whatever reason. 

Maybe it's literally for my own better protection, as I do my best, customarily, when I'm out and about, doing the homeless person thing, once again, (in life), to prepare myself for outlier occurence weather events, as well as the more generalized regional weather, but, gosh - it's become so obvious - I'm going through micro-localized weather outcomes being laid out on me: the clouds - some of them, between the sun and myself, for example, hang low, and they're grey, meaning that they're dense, and doubled over, up top, by additional atmospheric clouds, which are white, memorably - as we'd recall, to a large degree, truly grey and cloudy days, here, in Southern California, and, more specifically, perhaps, in Los Angeles, ... 🤔 yet, here, in this context, I'd had become aware of the fact of that practically any and much of the outlying areas, surrounding Downtown LA, for example, are, (at these times), concurrently blue skies; without any cloud cover - in essence, suggestive of that some form of civil engineering be at hand. Who knows, perhaps some folks need to be chased, or hurried, at a minimum, out of town? The essence, of this micro-locales issue, in the consideration of vast and unnatural (man-made) disparities of temperatures, is a brutal thing to weather, so to speak. Some people end up ragged and disheveled; kicked to the curb, so to speak. Take, for example, that radiation damage to an individual's belongings takes place in a different segment of temperature spectrum - not roasting hot, as in, hot to the touch, but rather, the cold, the dryness, consequentially, being that water "disappears;" evaporates, or something like that (remember The Terminator movie thing), and "standard" violable metrics of discerning insult, or injury, or even of establishing measurements, in accessible means, by and large, becomes an unobtainable scenario to achieve. It's just people playing games, as a person in power, to some limited extent. 

Just how accessible, on the other hand, is it, to obtain liquid nitrogen - for f*cktard'd reasons, like "cooling down," smoking illicit drugs, terrorizing people? Apparently, it's conceivably within reach: 

Google Shopping options and availability, in this instance of my search query, for "liquid nitrogen price," (without quotes, as entered in the search form).

Apparently, this sort of strange habit becomes a type of service industry to fulfill. In a more traditional sense, nitrogen is much more familiar as an agricultural primary nutrient, yet, easily - it's commonly known that an over-application of a fertilizer product containing nitrogen will quickly wilt the leaves of a plant, and, consequentially, have the potential to kill the plant. In an untouched (by humans) natural environment, nitrogen exists as both atmospheric gas, with atomic number 7, as well as in soil, where nitrogen undergoes variable nitrogen cycle processes, along with available soil nutrients and resources such as oxygen.

A Google "card" widget snippet, discussing the variable desirability (thermodynamically-speaking) of the various forms of nitrogen cycle which are undergone, once nitrogen enters the soil.

Anyways, I had some aspirations to plant some peas, locally, around town, and I encounter constant opposition to that notion, in my internalized mind (or whatever kind of "mind" I happen to be experiencing, at the time). Sometimes it's some person standing in the way of me doing this simple work; for example, the management at the place where I stay, now, forbids me to bring my stuff in to the home - food, even, ... even though I'm not retarded. There's a bunch of problems there, in that regard.

A sprightlysparrowseedlings.shop iPigeon.institute subdomain blog post I composed, on my birthday, last month, concerning my pea-growing aspirations.

So, what to do about nitrogen in the environment, in it's various forms? On one hand, it's used to manufacture explosives (I guess), with the traditional common knowledge tidbit, that we're taught, as children, in school.

Some follow-up topics to consider:

- bottling up urine and flushing it, when caught in an accidental need situation to pee, outside. In instances where I am capable of it, I take on this challenge, for others who had fallen short of reaching the restroom, who had made sure to take me up on my suggestion to bottle up their urine, which I'd put forth in more private disclosures, previously.

- fragrances (natural fragrances) as carbon capture and wind energy resources, to dispel poisoning incidents, where unfavorable (anaerobic, or "lesser oxygenized") forms of nitrogen-cycle compounds have proliferated. The fragrance molecules are best put to use as aerolyzed, hydrolyzed sprays, in diffusion (be careful, in combustible materials situations [I suppose]).

Remember, that here, in Los Angeles, and, in California, consider ourselves a largely agriculturally-based state, and, innovatve, for that matter, and, foreseeably, we could stand a chance of avoiding more costly, or improbable, measures seen through, or not, of engineering efforts put towards avoiding our land ending up sinking below sea level, to the detriment of established work that had already been done, well enough.

Lenten practices at iPigeon.institute - 2024

Some people, here and there, over the years since iPigeon.institute had initially been founded, out of my renewed interest in feeding the birds, in town, posed the question, or they had surmised, perhaps, whether, or that - I feed the birds out of some kind of particular connection or affiliation with Catholicism, being that they ostensibly draw a connection between the birds being taken care of, with the imagery of Saint Francis of Assisi, who is typically pictured, in art and in sculpture, as being surrounded by small animals and birds. In addition, a seedy side of suspicions, upon ulterior motives, assertedly at issue, is suggested about the practice of feeding the birds, as we, here, in Southern California, of this generation, have, as well, come to associate Catholicism with child exploitation, and other tawdry deeds, such as homosexuality. I'll address these issues, in the following paragraphs.

I had just received the notion, early in the morning, today, as to update my blog (finally - it's been since late June, 2023, that I'd last published, I believe, since I died early in July (it was encephalitis, or something like that, this time, that I had fallen dead). These days, dying could be, kinda... like that, I've come to discover. Nowadays, out here, Fentanyl is on the rise, and, in my first instance of dying, I'd snorted a bag of what I thought was cocaine - a foolish thrill to marginally indulge, since I'm immune to cocaine intoxication and euphoria, like it used to be. This last time that I died, I had no recollection or warning of that I was going to fall unconscious - I simply woke up, naked, with tubes in me, in a dormitory-like room setting, with young nurses, about my age, and somewhat my peer demographic, although I was very uncomfortable about the situation, since I had no idea, for some time, where my belongings were - being a materialistic guy, whereas I'd been keeping up with important bills to support owning my belongings, it was a dire blow to my identity, I could feel. I was feeble, to some degree, when I had woken up, with some numbness on a couple sections in my leg, and my good hand was weak, in the forearm. Nobody gave me any information as to what had happened, or how I had gotten there. 

All of this being the by and large underlying premise of how I could possibly compose myself, given the consideration of that today is Ash Wednesday, as well as Valentine's Day - two days in which Catholicism looms large, on the calendars. People who are Christian, such as myself, don't make much of Catholic traditions - and, in the case of Valentine's Day, largely being a popular point of reference to a holiday, perhaps, yet, on our calendar, most standard holidays fall on days next to the end or beginning of the week; around the weekends - I'd suppose that this practice of dating national and federal holidays, in the United States, is potentially a context developed from out of our American society's roots in labor and manifest destiny, in which, as I'd come to ascertain - of that it's difficult, over time, in particular, to sustain a laboring lifestyle and workplace practice that works, throughout every day. Compared to Valentine's Day, which is traditional, still, in American society, yet moreso an arbitrary distinction, of a specific date, rather than a planned and more generally described "day, out of some numbered weeks," given the various calendar months. 

This being the case, I find that it's somewhat too misfortunate - this aspect of how I'd unexpectedly died, of all things, and self-sacrifice had been a heavy burden upon me, since I used my iPad Pro for accessibility issues, and, since my passing away had been a tragic experience for me. I'm still being burdened and stalked, in the streets, even by activists, in addition to gang members, although I do expect better outcomes for myself, and, I'd suppose, I could fairly much, not speak for others, since nobody presents themselves to me. 

I've been to mass, before, however, so I somewhat know how it is - it's a bit more liturgical and formal, in setting and ritual, at least, on a more generalized basis, as far as how the service goes. As far as content, I'd say that it really depends - various cultures have their own flavor, at times, so to speak, on religious services. I find that I'm in too dark a mood, on account of that I am a stalking victim, to care much about religion, or of things that people say, or claim to care about. There's nobody that's actually speaking to me, there's just voices in my head. People that speak to me, as voices in my head, are being identified, regularly, as being developmentally disabled, and bordering on retarded. 

 Alright, 

so, that's my story, as for this year. My significantly primary goal is to feed the pigeons, and develop them in to fine birds and poultry, over the years and decades to come. I get the feeling, as such, as though some people read an account like that, and - as well, "so easily" attempt to mount and claim a stake upon what they ostensibly "fear," in fearing death, of some inevitable outcome, whereas they're sitting or standing around, or something - gathering, perhaps, for the sake of stalking me, in town; in turn, upon religious standards, general practices, and expectations that people who are rational, the throughout society - get by on; "live by," in other words. 

I'm not a large-scale influential individual - I have vast and rich facets of my personality that I'm not addressing, even, for much of the time, out of my days, most commonly. I could communicate some various things on many topics, quite well, yet, beyond what I face, as obstacles to my civil liberties and rights, as an American citizen. I "suppose" not that people are so limited in sociability traits, and decency, solely; I imagine that, rather, some of the other "people" in my head, speaking to me, have a grip on rational outcomes, for people who refuse to repent from sinful acts. Death was easy enough - once I'd passed out, and, as I'd said, I didn't even notice it coming, this last time. The first time, it was like a desperate nausea, overcoming me, and that portion of things lasted perhaps a half hour. While I was unconscious, I didn't know, or realize anything further. Once I woke up, it was about 6 nights' stay at the hospital, and I'd eventually recovered, and moved forward, from where I was at, in life. 

Exciting new things to do with Logic Pro for iPadOS 17. (scratch, updating)

Following up on my first article for the Logic Pro for iPad Users group, on Facebook, here, in this article, I’ll detail some notions I’ve come across, through years of maintaining interest in topics ranging from the obvious - music creation and audio recording, for example, to more recent developments and prospects for the future of our digital and mobile lives - topics such as IoT and edge technology, in incorporating musical creativity in new and largely unexplored reaches in to people’s lives. In doing so, we’ll examine some of the existing hardware devices and software platforms that exist, currently in the summer of 2023, and I’ll offer my best estimations, or experiences, in working with, or, for studying, these extended-use case scenarios, which offer the creative minds of music-making, on Logic Pro, exciting and stimulating new horizons to explore, all within hands’ reach, on our iPadOS devices.

First of all, I’m composing this article, as Apple’s annual WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) 2023 is taking place (June 5th-9th). Yesterday, at the outset of the conference, we got some exciting peeks at brand-new hardware technology (VisionOS and updates to existing laptop and desktop hardware), which I won’t get in to, at the time being; here, for our purposes, I’ll detail some of the highlights, features-wise, which make the new iPadOS 17 a rich environment to perform some distinct and unique purpose-fulfillments in the development workflow, and how these tablet-specialties, as I’ll call them, figure in to creativity and professionalism for us, as musicians, and for iPadOS - our chosen platform for concentrating on certain aspects of development. 

Keep in mind - 

This article will cover a lot of ground, for newcomers to the audio and MIDI world hosted on Apple’s mobile iOS and iPadOS platforms - both largely similar and comparable to one another, yet, given some extended use-case scenarios, for either one - some things become distinctly advantageous, when considering Apple’s tablet designs, for the sake of becoming reinvested in digital audio workstations (i.e.Logic Pro, for iPadOS). 

Aside from the obvious advantages of having a truly responsive multitouch display as the workspace, as well as the user interaction workflow environment, there are several advantages to starting off with a new, and updating app installation iPadOS audio environment, where the general third-party plugin and instrument apps are known as AUv3 (Audio Unit version 3) and IAA (Inter-App Audio) - these are the largest standards established, as far as iOS / iPadOS audio is concerned; although, given the boutique-ish (somewhat) form of app development, given years of having established a reputation and user base, amongst App Store audio buffs, as far as generalized audio files needs, per se - a few of these small-purposed apps bear the weight of acts taken for granted, in coming from a desktop pro audio workflow environment. Here they are (there’s only a few, or several, heh heh 🤯😳): 

AudioCopy

In fashioning an abstraction of a complete newcomer’s (to iPadOS pro audio, that is), standpoint, imaginably, people would approach the performance and session considerations, depending on the types of background and skill sets that the user has. Something that isn’t immediately considered, perhaps, is translating audio files over, from audio that’s already been recorded - this is, for example, well understood, as master tracks, taken from session recording microphones - one track, each, to every microphone. So, there would be a kick drum track, perhaps some more drum tracks, a vocal track, guitar and bass amp tracks, etc. So, if you’re able to get these tracks, per se, in to your iCloud account, and or download them in to the Files app, using your on-device (iPad built-in hard drive space) storage, there are still a huge amount of apps, completely aside from Logic Pro, or Files, or… anything else available, off hand, which a person could use to take these raw audio files (specifically audio, we’re dealing with, here - standard formats, such as .wav and .mp3 files) - in short, there’s no other app, amongst everything else out there, that will allow a user to copy an audio file, from one portion of on-device or iCloud storage, in to some of these other apps, for portability, duplication, workflow progression, within some other plugin or filter app, for example. You’ll need AudioCopy for this purpose.

AudioShare

This is the other, companion, and, otherwise, indispensable app, which allows you to fulfill the obvious “receiving” end of the audio file management process - the thing being, is that other apps, as well as the iPadOS built-in app environment, as far as the Files app goes - since everything, essentially, is done within an app, here, in iPadOS. If there is no app for it, then it might just be that the user “just clicked” on something, or perhaps the user is just swiping around, exploring. There’s no extended file management capability, or specialization, for working with audio files, except for these standard and necessary apps, such as AudioShare. This app allows users to share audio files both locally - on-device, and within the iPadOS Files environment, which includes access to cloud storage (iCloud, Google Drive, Adobe Creative Cloud, etc.), on-device storage, plugged-in storage, etc. AudioShare is the app that will let you complete the copy-and-paste functionality, so to speak, as well as that it is also built in, somewhat as a standard, for higher-level functionality considerations within many audio plugins, filters, and instruments, as far as your file “push” and “pull” drop-down pop-up menus would be concerned - comparable to “Save As” on desktop environments. In this case, in iPadOS, the user would encounter a pop-up window, with various options, as far as where to save the file to, yet, if it were an audio file, the user would be significantly limited, as far as choices, as to destination apps, if the user didn’t have this app. There’s no way around it.

That being the case, that’s it, as far as stuff like that goes.

Now, we can explore common-use case scenario plugins, instruments, and apps.

Brusfri - noise-cancelling of an audio signal (microphone input, for example)

One of the most common pro audio use case scenarios is handling the signal-to-noise ratio of every recorded audio track. If you’re hot on microphones for your iPadOS device to connect to, you can jump to that section here (Title Link). There are somewhat limited, cheap-y, to moderately professional-grade quality mic’ing solutions available, depending on which model iPad device you’re working with, what connectivity, therefore, it uses - although, these days, … hmm… 🤔 actually- make sure to not try this out, for yourself - don’t go on a mean search and research binge dive, out in to the internet, to figure out as much, on your own - I’ll update folks when things change, but I really ought to make this clear - there’s not much of a really suitable Bluetooth microphone device hookup capability for iPadOS audio monitoring and recording - meaning, specifically, you cannot “be” the recording artist, “and” hear yourself, at the same time, with Bluetooth, specifically. Sure, there’s a lot of cool little bitsy hardware earbuds, and stuff, that are available, but keep in mind - Logic Pro for iPadOS was just released yesterday, and better solutions will arrive, over time, but a different authority manages the standards, development, and production of those hardware and communication / connectivity things. If you’re trying to get in to manufacturing hardware - let’s face it: some folks just can’t help but check out the scene, when it comes to that sort of thing 🤯😬🤷. I used to do that sort of thing, also.

Brusfri, the app, would easily cancel out so many considerations that a user would have, aside from obtaining any wired microphone that the user could get to rationally connect to their iPad, for their pro audio workspace environment to really have its basic, essential functionality - iPad and microphone, that is, connected by a wire. It’s not so old or useless an idea this point, to be sure. 

What Brusfri does, essentially, is exactly what, for example, a good Mastering / Channel Strip Compressor/Limiter would do, with a fairly simple layout, and premise - here, the basis is: run the audio input feed, or audio track, that’s already been recorded, and click the “ear” thing. It’ll cancel out an appreciable amount of background noise. In semi-pro audio, on mobile, at this point, obtaining a “modest” and “noisy” (crappy, even, or not “ideal”) recording is fairly standard. Brusfri largely makes that circumstance largely seem to fade away, and the audio input feed, or audio recording, will instantly sound much cleaner and much more usable. This is one of the indispensable, reliably developed and produced, audio plugin AUv3 apps out there, to include in your audio workflow signal chain.

Updating…

June 21, 2023 - some inspiration to throw together some kits (or, you could wait for me to do it, and upload some patches) - a 1.99 GB library of Future Bass Samples, MIDI templates, and more, featuring great sounds to use as starting points in your signal chain, to create Chill Trap and Future Bass tracks. It’ll be our latest group project.

Here’s the Google Drive link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11ZDFTC544O1q9ybk2PUrnUfJdVPWHaAq/view?usp=drivesdk