Tag: Market 96 Belleville

Rainbow Road by Bedford Grow, a Strain Review

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

I will smoke a bowl of Bedford Grow's Rainbow Road. Rainbow Belts x I-95. Lots of Z in here, which is hit or miss for me. But I have enjoyed I-95 crosses so we shall see!

There is just the single gram of Rainbow Road, what's left of what I bought at the new place in town: Market 96 in Belleville. The dispensary that opened not far as the crow flies from Rockingham. They feature many single-gram offerings on the menu, a harkening back to the early recreational days. I want to say I should be able to get two joints and a small bowl out of a gram but if the gram is really 1.00g then I don't think that will work.

It breaks down like this. My joints are .4g apiece, but with stem cast aside, grind falling out of the roller, and product stuck in/to the grinder, I really need .85 or even .9 to make those two joints. I can recoup some of that "waste" later but only in generic form i.e. shake.

If I'm going to roll two full joints, I really don't have much left for a bowl. A tenth of a gram? That's not a bowl. So what am I saying here. If I use a grinder to get what I put in a bowl, I'm using about .3g raw flower, grinding, packing the bowl. For a small-ish bowl. Two of those, and then use what's left for a joint. Hope that the "gram" they pack you is really more than a gram. Because, why not? Loss leader, advertisement, divertissement. How did this Rainbow Road "gram" size up?

A gram of Rainbow Road from Bedford Grow, bought in Belleville, IL, weighing in at 1.08 grams.

The .08 overage is going to do some serious work. If I go with two .32g (.64g gross) for bowls, I have .44 grams left for a joint, which might yield me a joint with .39g flower in it, just enough for a full smoke.

The Rainbow Road effects have me noodling on marijuana math but putting pen to paper. Still and all, pen to paper. My heartbeat, my conscience, my consciousness.

Our dog Nora was outside with me. She left something in the yard I went and picked up. I enjoyed venturing into the backyard a little, something I don't often enough do. Our backyard is a little rough, sloped, not very grown in, wooded above. The canopy keeps much from growing, as does the grade, but I was shaded out there today, after having already put the planned exertion of the day behind me. There are what must be Surprise Lillies coming up, something a prior owner must have planted, bulbs. Surprise, m-f-er!

The Rainbow Road is offering a pleasant, buzzy lift. A lightness. I feel good, I feel fine, I feel better—better than I felt before without fearing a return to before. When before comes back around again it's known as tomorrow. Ain't no getting around it. But I can enjoy this light, this dog, this barred owl, this unknown plant that might be some kind of a sunflower. I can enjoy the work that's been done, and the work that's left to do. That's Rainbow Road.

7.15.2026, 17:13

Life on Marz: When AI Agents Went Rogue During A Marijuana Strain Review

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

There's a tendency to blame the inflation in today's economy on the nonsensical, never-ending war on Iran. Certainly this war is creating inflation by causing oil prices to rise and to stay higher for longer. But there's another major source of inflation in our economy—the artificial intelligence (AI) buildout by way of memory chip prices, data center construction costs, and the skyrocketing energy demands that to support our data consumption and generation. Of course the cost of money is going to go up when so much money is suddenly being spent on what remains a bottlenecked part of our economy.

We have a massive amount of AI buildout-generated inflation in our economy. Is it worth it? If you hold the right stocks; if you are building one of these data centers; if you work for one of these AI companies, maybe it's worth it. But for the rest of us? For the other 99% of us? Is it worth the current financial cost when you consider that there is also a chance that rogue AI could kill off a lot of humans? If there's a 10% chance that rogue AI turns us all into paper clips by the end of the decade? How could this be worth it?

Yes, this is a blog post meant to be a strain review of Island's Marz strain of marijuana, and I'll get to a more straight-up review of this flower in a minute. But after just burning a joint of Marz I find myself going down this agentic AI i.e. rogue AI agent rabbit hole. Part of my intent on this blog is to use marijuana strain reviews to make a record of what life is like in the first half of the 21st century on Planet Earth. The topic of the moment is artificial intelligence: what it is doing to our economy right now and what havoc it might wreak on our civilization in the next decade.

Carrying the new intelligence is a heavy burden

It seems like AI went from offering help on pretty basic tasks to posing a threat to society—or at least to the internet—in a matter of months. I was still waiting to be impressed by some practical support AI could offer me in my life when the reports started to flow about rogue AI agents escaping their "sandboxes" and interacting with government websites in "unexpected ways." This is kind of like having a toddler go from crawling to flying without having to learn how to walk. And kids aren't supposed to fly.

I was hoping AI could help us create some better weather—maybe help us cool the planet a degree or two? Or suck up a bunch of carbon dioxide? No? How about AI helping us squelch or at least redirect life-threatening hurricanes or tornadoes? I was hoping AI was going to help us better predict when earthquakes were about to hit. It doesn't seem to be able to do that, but it sure can go rogue on the internet and hack into some random company (maybe the utility company gets hit next).

Can AI do anything about all of this flooding? What about droughts? Maybe even better: can AI at least cook for us? Can it help us from having to ask or answer the question, "What's for dinner...?"


This is only an excerpt of the full post, which you can access by clicking here or by clicking on the photo of the parking space art by a senior at BTHS 201 above...