Orange Starburst, Breaking a Personal Rule, and a Very Brief Update

I’m going to break one of the rules that my wife and I have in place for our children, a rule that I truly wish we did not have to have, but for our own sanity we needed to impose:

We don’t talk about Halloween before October 1st.

What? Why? you may be asking me as you read that line above. What kind of joy-killing monsters are these parents? Look, I love Halloween. I’m a gamer (more tabletop and less videogames, but a little of everything in general), and even a former very serious LARPer.

If you’re out of the loop on this one, LARP stands for Live Action Role Playing. It can be anything from dressing up in homemade armor and battling with wood or foam weapons, maybe in a fantasy setting with imaginary magic or a sci-fi setting with NERF guns or a realistic setting possibly even reenacting actual historical events. Alternately it can be dark and political and and interpersonal, where everyone is pretending to be an erudite and immortal vampire, playing out machinations centuries or millennia old, where the game is (supposed to be) more about long term scheming and social manipulation than it is about who has more super powers and can kill the other guy faster.

But all of these LARPs really lean into costuming and set decoration, like theater taken into the world and improvised while maintaining the various roles that each person plays. So many LARPers I’ve known over the decades since I started playing (and since stopped) have been SUPER into Halloween, and for these obvious reasons. It’s like a short term LARP where you (or your children) get candy. I’ve talked a little about how I like to craft various things, mostly for my tabletop gaming, but also in general. I love the idea of Halloween.

But my children love Halloween too, so much so that for years now they’ve been like the people who love Christmas so much that on December 26th they declare with both joy and sorrow that there are only 364 days until Christmas next! What fun! We would spend 11 months talking about Halloween costumes. Which – if my children wanted to commit to costumes with any chance of not changing their minds at the 11th hour – would be great. But they don’t. They change their minds up until we start actually making (or helping to make) their costumes, at which point it’s too late to change. So we set a hard line at October 1st. That gives us a solid month to make anything, and it gives the kids 11 months to change their minds.

Personally too, I was hurt too many times before we had a rule to minimize this whole thing. And by hurt, I mean that we’ve talked about so many family costume ideas which the kids then bailed on once they found out what their friends were doing for costumes, or they just decided they didn’t want to be the Belchers from Bob’s Burgers, despite the fact that it is the perfect family costume for our family of five, and we all love the show.

Ugh. I thought this would be short when I started. This week has been nuts, as many are. My wife’s 40th birthday was this past week, and one of my kids is sick enough that we bought more COVID tests just to make sure (we’re clear of the COVID, no worries).

So, the brief update is that I’m retooling and updating some of this site, so if things start to seem a little different, you’re likely not going crazy. It probably won’t end up being one of those massive all-at-once overhauls, but little changes here and there. I’ve updated my About page so far, but more is coming.

So, why talk about Halloween at all? Well, I wanted to save this review for closer to the holiday, but I’m enjoying the strain now, and I want to tell you about it.

The strain is Orange Starburst, cultivated by Grass Roots. It’s a cross of two of their other strains, Doughnut ‘n Cider (which is so seasonally appropriate for the Fall) and Turpee Slurpee (which if any strain sounded like a made-up Halloween candy, Turpee Slurpee may be it). Plus the name is straight up a candy that we see a lot of on Halloween, it seems to be the most left-behind of the Starburst flavors. I’m surprised that it’s a strain name that has survived the slow shift of strains named after trademarked products being renamed or shortened or misspelled, like Gorilla Glue (GG4), Runts (Runtz), and Skittles (Zkittles or Zkittlez). Maybe one day this will be called Orange Ztarburst, or Orange Starberst, or the dreaded Orange Ztarburzt.

I wrote about how Grass Roots has a “thing” that gives most of their strains a sameness back when I wrote up Runtz. I won’t rehash is all here, just read that bit near the middle of the post and come on back here.

Welcome back. Orange Starburst is another one of these strains, specifically too because it’s a cross of two of Grass Roots extant strains. I really do love it sometimes when a grower has a signature or just some quality of their flower that lets you know it’s theirs. Orange Starburst hits all those notes.

First, the buds look like a Grass Roots bud, pale to medium greens with little dots of darker greens speckled here and there, bright orange clusters of pistils generously throughout, a medium dusting of trichomes, and a dense but not too dry feel to them. The buds are longer than they are fatter, which may be one of the more variable characteristics of Grass Roots’ buds, which may have to do more with the genotypes than the cultivation.

The aroma of Orange Starburst is… well… Orange Starburst. These bags burst with pungent orangey overtones, but hiding beneath there’s a hint of lime, sage, and sweet tea, giving it a depth of character that is enticing and inviting. Mmm, this candy smells like… weed? Yum!

I keep going back to my initial notes on the flavor, because I feel like I’m selling it short with only checking “Light Funky” and “Moderate Pungent,” but I don’t want to call it orange or citrus, or anything else more specific. The flavor of the smoke is funky and pungent. It hints that the aroma was overwhelmingly citrusy, and as usual I beg that you don’t take me for criticizing it, as it’s delicious, it just becomes a much more broad flavor palette than the specifics of the aroma. That being said, the smoke is lightly velvety, with a hint of spicy mouth and throat feel after the initial inhalation. The hits were nice, just smoky enough to know you’re smoking, but not at all harsh.

The high also gets me back to Halloween. Last year I imparted the effects of Jack Herer upon myself and my brother. I’m surprised I didn’t tell the story of the first time I smoked Jack Herer in that post, but it was Halloween last year, and I ripped a half gram joint of it before catching up with my family (including brother and nephew) and it was a clean and energizing high perfect for a parent whose kids are old enough to Trick-or-Treat on their own, but you still want to hang a little back and watch them having all that fun. But this isn’t a review of Jack Herer.

Orange Starburst is another perfect high for this activity. It’s uplifting and moderately euphoric if a bit giggly, but minimally fuzzy, so responsible parenting can still happen easily (assuming you are normally capable of that, or that you even need to be in the first place). It also comes with a light head and body calmness, and a very switchable feel where if I’m up and about I feel very light, but if I’m sitting I fall into it a bit and feel a touch heavy, which is perfect for starting up and out walking around, but wanting/needing to sit and relax when it’s all done. I also didn’t get the munchies with this one, which would be dangerous on Halloween. I did get thirsty though, which I count as a good thing most of the time. I’m a bit prone to munchies, so if I can make myself drink a ton of water instead, awesome.

So there it is, Halloween in September, and strain to go with it. I hope you enjoy my ramblings and ranting. If you’re looking for a good Halloween high, grab some seasonally appropriate Orange Starburst.

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