There’s a grow shop in Akron called Indoor Gardens that offers a cannabis-growing class. Upon completion of the course, the instructors give each student a few cuttings in order to start their own small garden. A blog reader took the Indoor Gardens class and gave me a sample of his hybrid Cherry Zoap cut. Thank you for the weed!
Cherry Zoap hybrid
My sample of Cherry Zoap weighed 2.0 grams. The bud had a very sweet and fruity smell to it. The scent definitely gave me cherry vibes.
The nugs were trimmed nicely, with no visible stems, sugar leaves or leafy material. They were bright green in color with tiny, curly orange pistils that stuck close to the bud. Shiny trichomes were visible both on the outside and inside of the flower.
The nugs were far from dry. They gave a very nice squeeze and did not make a crunching sound while doing so. Flakes did not fall off while breaking the bud apart with my fingers, which is not something you can always say with dispensary weed.
For example, I recently bought a tenth of Jack Le’Pew from the Pure Ohio Wellness “Locally Grown” brand. The bud was dry as bone.
The ideal properties of the fresh, homegrown Cherry Zoap carried over to my grinder. When shredded through the Santa Cruz Shredder, or mashed though the Flower Mill, the Cherry Zoap held its own and behaved as expected. It didn’t turn to a powdery dust like some of the dryer strains I sample.
Cherry Zoap packedCherry Zoap punched
The Cherry Zoap burned at about a medium speed and ashed very light. I could tell it was flushed properly by both the ash color and taste. I didn’t taste any earth, dirt or nutrients.
There was an almost candy-like sweetness to the flavor. Alongside that, I could slightly detect the Zoap’s gassy, gluey properties. The top terpenes were probably limonene, myrcene, caryophyllene and maybe some ocimene or humulene. The smoke was not harsh and did not make me cough or produce phlegm.
The medical effects were pretty chill but I did seem to get sort of a sativa-like head buzz. This strain did not make me anywhere near sleepy, but I felt unmistakable body relaxation and pain relief. It also took away a nagging headache that was driving me crazy. The Cherry Zoap was excellent for use during morning and mid-day house chores.
I gave the homegrown Cherry Zoap hybrid a 7/10 for taste, 3/10 for harshness, 7/10 for strength, 6/10 for smell strength and 60 to 90 minutes for length of medical effects. Thanks again to the contributor for the excellent sample! May your thumb become greener with each harvest.
August 22nd, 2025 was a historic day for the city of Massillon, Ohio. It was the first day of the high school football season, and anybody who knows anything about Massillon knows the city holds a special place in football history. The people of Massillon love football!
More importantly, this was the city’s first day with a legal cannabis store. There is a Story Cannabis location coming to Massillon sometime soon, but Bloom beat them out to be the first dispensary in the city.
The sign looks nice!
Despite having a late night the previous evening, I woke up early and parked in Bloom’s spacious strip mall parking lot right at 7:00 am. The store was set to open at 8:00 am. I was the first one in line. At the front door there was a guy putting up signage on the windows. I asked him, “Do you work for Bloom?”
He responded, “No, I’m just the sign guy.” I said “Well, hello sign guy!” He finished affixing the signage, said goodbye and walked off. After that, a few customers got in line, probably around 7:10 am.
There was a sense of excitement and joy in the air as I spoke with the Massillon locals. One of the customers had some interesting stories about their several years of experience in the Ohio cannabis industry! Another passionate consumer, wearing a Massillon Tigers hoodie, explained to me about how much this day meant to them and the city.
They told me about how sick they were of smoke shops selling harsh, ineffective Delta-8 vapes and low-THC hemp flower. Those stores are everywhere in Massillon, even right next to the new Bloom! The responsible consumer had waited a lifetime for their home town to get a legal cannabis dispensary.
Despite being able to get zips of fire for $175 from their buddy, the Tigers fan loved how Bloom offered so many different choices and options. They told me they were going to try some 92 Cookies from Buckeye and look around at some terpene profiles to find some other flower options.
There were a few overjoyed Massillon residents showing me images on their phone of what they planned to order and asking my opinion. One customer was interested in Airo pods. I explained to them the difference between the live resin and distillate pods. I recommended live resin. We also discussed details about 510 carts and terpenes.
A few of the Massillon Bloom employees stepped outside to greet the crowd. I knew a few of them from the Akron Bloom store! One of the Massillon Bloom employees, Aaron, was someone I worked with a few years ago at Ohio Cannabis Company! It was a nice surprise seeing him. I knew I would see him again at some point, but I didn’t know it would be then!
Finally the doors opened, and I clapped and cheered as I walked into the spacious, well-lit showroom. The employees welcomed me. There was no specific check-in room. You just checked in with your ID right on the showroom floor.
After checking in, my budtender was none other than Aaron, who was also the budtender for my first-ever legal cannabis purchase which took place at Ohio Cannabis Company in 2023.
While I was the first customer through the door and to check in, the customer behind me had an online preorder. Since their order was all ready to go, they were the first one to make a purchase from Bloom Massillon. I was the second purchaser, but the first to place a walk-in order. I selected a Sweetscape Live Resin 510 cart from Buckeye, since I had yet to try Buckeye’s live resin.
After the purchase I thanked everyone, said my goodbyes, and headed home. I had an excellent time this morning at Bloom’s grand opening in Massillon! However, this was not the first dispensary grand opening I recently attended.
A few weeks ago I was in the Solon area and got word that a new Botanist location would be opening the next morning. It was short notice, but I thought to myself, “What if I could be the first one to make a purchase from their store?” It would take determination, dedication and a will to wake with the roosters, but I decided it was worth it.
On the morning of July 28th, 2025, I cracked open a can of coffee, hopped in the car, and got to Botanist a little over an hour before opening time. When I got there, the check-in employee told me it was cool to hang out in my car. They would make sure I was the first customer to walk through the door.
As I sat in my car, a police officer kept driving past the parking lot and looking at me. I thought to myself about how state, national and worldwide weed laws have changed over the last few decades. While Ohio’s legal cannabis laws and marketplaces are far from perfect, we’re lucky to live in these unique times. These are the times Ohioans have been patiently waiting for!
A Botanist regional manager walked past the car and I struck up a conversation with them. After noticing my industry badge, they asked a little bit about me and my experience in the industry. We chatted for a bit, I gave them a Bill’s Bud Blog sticker and they headed inside.
I was the first customer in line with coffee in hand on July 28th, 2025 at Solon Botanist’s grand opening.
A few minutes before 10:00 am, the check-in employee told me it was cool to step outside of the car and form a line. The guy next to me in line recognized that my car air freshener was fashioned in the likeness of the pro wrestler Earthquake. My brother had got me the air freshener for my birthday. I talked about old-school wrestling with the customer until the doors opened!
While checking in at the front desk I once again saw the regional manager from earlier. They told me that they had already read all of the poems on Bill’s Bud Blog! They had even pinned my sticker on the breakroom bulletin board and wrote one of my poems on their company whiteboard! I wish I could remember which poem they said it was.
All of the showroom floor budtenders were friendly and accommodating. There was a sense of exhilaration to the showroom. Everyone was ecstatic. I ended up getting a gram of Farkas Farms Super B hybrid bubble hash and I was indeed the first customer to make a purchase.
The budtender at the checkout counter looked familiar. They told me they used to work at Story in Cleveland. That must have been where I saw them.
A few weeks later when I went back to Solon Botanist, the first thing they said to me when I hit the showroom floor was “You look familiar!” I feel like I’ll always have a connection to that dispensary since I had such a great experience being the first one to exchange money across the counter.
During that second visit I learned about another new dispensary in Solon called Verilife. I had been to Verilife’s Hillsboro location and got an impressive $80 half ounce of Cantucci Cookies from their brand called Matter (spelled matter. with a lowercase m and a period at the end). It’s nice to see more Ohio dispensaries popping up! There are more to come in 2025 and beyond!
If you’d like to feel the feeling of being the first customer through a dispensary door, keep your eyes peeled for announcements about shops opening in your area. Since Ohio dispensaries can’t legally advertise, you’ll have to rely on word-of-mouth or internet sources.
Mustard Seed is a large grocery store and sit-down restaurant at 867 West Market Street in Akron. Local musicians perform on the upstairs stage quite often. I was once there when the band Time Cat played a David Bowie tribute set. It was awesome!
On Saturday, December 21st, 2024, Euphoria Pleasant performed their second-ever live show. It took place at Mustard Seed! The band played twelve songs for over one and a half hours.
Euphoria Pleasant – Live at Mustard Seed in Akron, Ohio (12/21/2024) Runtime: 1 hour 36 minutes 16 seconds 213mb MP3 download (.zip file)
Track list:
Deep Waters
Grazing the Sun
Think Tank
Chameleon
Desert Storms
Descended from High Places
Ebb and Flow
Raisins and Sun
Swung and Smooth
Deep Waters (Second Playthrough)
Wavy Improv
Grazing the Sun (Second Playthrough)
Euphoria Pleasant is: Guitar – Berhane Selassie Okantah Bass – Mike Fiander Drums – Noah Powell
In Akron you’ll find a bowling alley called Station300, formerly known as Stonehedge. In addition to countless bowling lanes they have an equal number of modern and classic pinball machines available to play.
Station300 Bowling in Akron, Ohio (Image from Google Maps)
My brother Kenny and I have been visiting the place for years to play pinball. Not only do they always have a wide selection of machines but they have deals where you’ll get three games for two dollars. Not many other places do that in an era where the average price of a pinball game is one dollar per player.
There is a huge selection of pinball machines at Station300. (Image from Google Maps)
While grippin’ the flippers at Station300 (I still want to call it Stonehedge) you never know who you’ll meet or what they’ll say. We once met some guy with his wife, I think his name was Adam. He was really good at pinball, I couldn’t believe how easy he made it seem to get a ridiculous score. He told us we needed to check out this place called Vaporosity in Sharon, Pennsylvania near the Ohio border.
Vaporosity sells nicotine vape juice and accessories along with a wide array of used Blu-Ray disks, DVDs and video games. They also house a massive gallery of pinball machines. When we finally found the time to do so, my brother Kenny and I made the trek out to Vaporosity to see what it was all about.
We decided that on the way there we would stop at a record store near Youngstown called Fat Hippy Records.
The shop is owned by music enthusiast Zac Younkins from Brookfield, Ohio. At Fat Hippy you’ll find a huge selection of vinyl records, cassettes, CDs and novelties, the likes of which are rarely seen these days. Available genres include rock, pop, punk, ska, metal, doom, desert, sludge, jazz, funk, soul, hip-hop, rap, R&B, comedy, spoken, reggae, dancehall, world, traditional, folk, country and others.
Walking into Fat Hippy Records and talking to Zac was like linking back up with an old friend. I had never met the guy before, but we seemed to connect on a number of levels. We talked about movies, our music collecting hobbies, Pyle cassette decks and the upcoming Kool Keith concert at the Westside Bowl.
Zac told me about his Bandcamp fundraising project called the Fat Hippy Records Anniversary Compilation. It’s a yearly release featuring all-new tracks from artists like Kool Keith, Illogic, MC Homeless, Jazzy Lion Man and many others. All proceeds generated from the compilation’s sales are donated to the National Endowment for the Arts to keep art education in schools.
I thumbed through records for nearly an hour. I felt like I had made several scratches upon the surface, but there were hours left of digging to do in order to get through it all. I zipped on over to my favorite section, the stoner/doom metal records.
Stoner/doom metal records have the coolest album covers. This one is for Distorted Folklore by the band Orbiter.Heavy Trip’s Liquid Planet is a newly-released Canadian stoner rock record.
I have seen several great shows at Youngstown’s Westside Bowl, including Daikaiju, Miesha and the Spanks, Conan and most recently Bongzilla. On the vinyl rack sat Bongzilla’s newest album, Dab City. I hadn’t heard it yet, so I grabbed it and took it to the register.
On the way to the checkout counter I stopped at the hair metal cassette section. It had been too long since I’d taken a chance on a band that I’ve never heard before. Would the gamble pay off? Standing near the front of the display was the 1990 debut release from Nelson.
The three dollar risk ended up paying off tremendously. The cassette was excellent! Unearthing unique gems like this is the reason why I love the genre of rare hair. I even contacted my buddy Hair Metal Matt to ask if he’d ever heard the album. He was more than familiar with it and expressed his appreciation for the fact I owned the release on cassette!
During the checkout process, Zac was enthusiastic about the fact he uses hand-stamped paper bags when selling vinyl records. He told a story of visiting trendy shops in SoHo neighborhoods and witnessing them hand-stamping their takeout bags. He then told me he’d give out free Bill’s Bud Blog and “Hashlips” Harry Hughes stickers to customers!
Here’s the Fat Hippy Records hand-stamped paper bag.
My brother and I enjoyed our stay at Fat Hippy Records but it was time to drive a few minutes across the PA border to play some pinball.
Vaporosity in Sharon, PA (Image from Google Maps)
We walked into Vaporosity to a laid-back, calm atmosphere. The two employees were off in the corner watching a DVD movie, intensely discussing current plot points and their various storyline implications. I got the vibe that the guys who work here smoke vapes and watch movies all day, pulling from the thousands of used discs sitting on the shelves.
The pinball tables were located in a large room to the left of the vape shop. Most of the machines were turned off until you asked an employee to flip it on for you. All of the tables were operated on coin drop, there were no silly scan cards or loyalty programs to deal with.
Here are several of the machines you’ll get to play at Vaporosity. (Image from Google Maps)
One nice aspect of Vaporosity’s gallery is that they house some hard-to-find releases. We played a few of the lesser-seen tables such as Earthshaker, Houdini and Jim Henson’s Labyrinth featuring David Bowie.
Another thing I found unique about Vaporosity is the fact that vaping is allowed while playing pinball. At most arcades you have to sneak outdoors or into some sort of a broom closet to rip your portable vaporizer, but not at Vaporosity. They also have a bunch of rare vinyl and music memorabilia on display, including a unique collection of every physical release Lana Del Ray has ever produced.
On the way out we expressed our gratitude to the staff for their hospitality. We bought a used copy of Mortal Kombat 11 for Nintendo Switch, hopped in the car and headed home. Later on I ended up buying a Pyle cassette deck like Zac had recommended. I used it to listen to the Nelson tape! All had come full circle.
Wonderfest is an annual street festival which recognizes the uniqueness of Akron’s West Hill Neighborhood. The day-long celebration features music, food trucks, handmade craft vendors and art workshops.
This year was the third annual gathering but my first time attending. I was there to see Euphoria Pleasant, a new instrumental jam band which showcases the talented Berhane Selassie Okantah (Instagram) on guitar. This was to be their first live performance as a group.
I parked a few streets over from Oakdale Avenue where the festival took place. The vendors and artists were still setting up their booths, so I walked around and talked to a few locals.
A glassblower approached me while I admired his vases and plates. He told me that he liked my glass pendant. I asked him if he makes any pendants or pipes. Through a grimaced expression he replied “No.” He invited me to the free glass blowing class later that day but I had to decline due to work commitments.
My alien pendant from Ghost Glass, given to me by my brother Kenny.
When the food trucks opened I went to the taco vendor. I bought three tacos for ten dollars. The meat choices were chicken or beef. I wrestled with this decision in my head for several moments and ultimately went with beef.
There was nowhere to sit and eat, so I walked back to my car (the carfeteria). Upon glancing at the tacos, before even taking a single bite, I realized I should have chose the chicken option. Hunger was the deciding factor in my choice to move forward and consume the cuisine.
With a belly full of beef I walked towards the beer garden where the concert was to take place. It was an open lawn with a stage and seating area. It was a great place to hold an outdoor concert! There was nobody sitting at the check-in table so I walked into the garden and took a seat near the front of the stage.
The performance was perfect and the weather was wonderful.
A few minutes later a woman walked up to me and politely said “Excuse me, this beer garden area is 21 and over only. You will need a wristband to sit here.” As I pulled my ID out of my wallet to prove my age, two unsupervised children ran past us, laughing while waving sticks. She didn’t bat an eye at their presence, which I thought was odd. She put a wristband on my wrist and walked away.
When Euphoria Pleasant began to play I walked towards the front of the stage. I went into the concert not really knowing what to expect and I liked what I heard. The musical style was melodic, bluesy and relaxed, which was a perfect soundtrack for the blissful 70 degree Saturday afternoon.
I can’t wait to see these guys again.
The vibes were pleasant and they truly made me feel euphoric when combined with the Roach disposable, which I puffed during the performance. The sound reminded me of a Jimi Hendrix CD I used to listen to all the time called Morning Symphony Ideas. After attending this concert I’ve heavily gotten back into Hendrix.
Berhane on guitar!
The bass player, Mike Fiander, laid down a solid foundation for Berhane to groove upon. Noah Powell, the drummer, was truly amazing. He reminded me of prog rock greats such as Neil Peart and Mike Portnoy.
Noah added unique personality to the tunes while he toyed with timing and smashed satisfying symbol splashes. He wore a shirt for the band Periphery. I checked this band out after the show and enjoyed their sound! I can see how Noah draws inspiration from prog rock and I’m certain he will continue his musical journey with confidence and creative conviction.
The most intricate and well-crafted tune was Descended from High Places. All three musicians shined bright on this one, showcasing their unique talents and abilities in complete unison. The song took me on a roller coaster journey that left me in awe and truly established the band as one to watch out for. The drumming was varied and nonstop. The bass boomed and bridged the barrier between the drums and Berhane’s guitar, which told a tale of treachery and triumph.
Even more shocking was the story of how the song was written. When I asked Berhane a few days later about the track, he said they wrote the tune in one take during band practice. It spontaneously formed like it was meant to happen, almost as if the notes had been descended upon the musicians from a high place within their collective consciousness.
Euphoria Pleasant plans on being active throughout 2025, so look forward to more music in the future.
The band doesn’t have a website at this time but I will update this article when that changes. For now you can enjoy Euphoria Pleasant’s 2024 Akron Wonderfest performance by downloading or streaming below.
Euphoria Pleasant Live at Akron Wonderfest 2024 Saturday, October 5th, 2024 at 12:15 pm Runtime: 39 minutes and 17 seconds
Setlist: 1. Ebb and Flow 2. The Nameless Jam 3. Descended from High Places 4. You Might Already Know 5. 10/5 Vibes 6. Four Minutes
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