No one here really cares about this shit, but I’m none to keen on the people who do, so I’ll try to make it, I don’t know, personal, haredawgian. I’ve gone off about compulsive collecting on what seems like a weekly basis. I’ve discovered two things just lately that make a lot of sense to me.
Let me start with a computer analogy because, well, all of y’all are on something with a microchip (how you do the Boc on a smartassphone is beyond me, between my fat little fingers and auto correct I can barely type See Spot Run in under a minute and it’ll come out something Cee shit runs).
My first computer was made by Zenith and called an EZ PC, monitor and box all welded shut. It had a total of 512 shared RAM and ROM. Yes, no hard drive the RAM held a little ROM as it read it from the dual floppy five and quarter inch disks. This was pre windows, everything DOS. I could use a word processer and play chess, but I had to type in commands to get to either and use Macros to do things like right justify or make a paragraph.
This word processor I’m on right now has hundreds of little pictures and if I leave the mouse on a picture a word balloon tells me what the picture will do. I don’t play computer chess, not against a program, these days, but I’m sure there are ones with vocal tutorials, probably with a variety of voices and attitudes to choose from.
That’s sort of what the e-cig market is like right now. I was a bit proud of myself for learning all those commands and humbled by not learning early programming languages. The e-cig business is going backwards. The newer and cooler stuff is aimed at completely mechanical (no processor) and build them yourself atomizers.
Ok, I like my mechanicals, but I got cheap ones. I like them because they don’t use energy unless the fire button goes and the fire button has a lock on it. There are, however, mechanicals in the couple hundred dollar range, and sure, some of them have gold or silver contacts. Um, brass and copper seem to work just fine.
A few weeks ago I got a new rebuildable and a few days ago I got a used ecig off ebay with a rebuildable dripping atomizer. Dripping; instead of a tank holding a few milliliters that feed to the wick, you drip ten drops of juice onto open wicks. I think the idea is it’s a cleaner hit. I don’t know. I know after minimal success and maximum time put into building coils for both I actually said out loud “If I wanted to be needled, curse, be cramped and frustrated I would have stayed married.” It’s ok, I didn’t even laugh and I’m the perfect demographic for that joke. It’s ok too if you did laugh (surprised you read that far) but, I suggest this is the spirit of care and concern, you might want to stand up, stretch and step away from the computer for a bit.
If the rebuildables had little pictures and when I moved my mouse over them they told me they would build themselves I’d be happy with them. The used vaper I got off eBay is an American made high end solid build and whereas it doesn’t do anything fancy it has a solid chip that pretty much reads your atomizer and adjusts. Yes you can adjust the voltage manually, which, by todays non-mechanicals is a simple feature, it still auto adjusts to make up for your foolishness. Even used it was expensive, but, you know, in perspective less than three cartons of cigerettes which I’d have gone through in less than two weeks.
There’s a neat little program (for folks who can’t do simple math) that adds up days, cost of smoking per day and how long you’ve been vaping and suggests how much money you’ve saved. Um, one of the sillier things my very bright older sister said once, defending her fragile X kid to his teachers who wanted him in special ed (fragile X wasn’t discovered as such at the time), was how incredibly high their combined IQs were. I pointed out, meekly, that you still had to divide that number by the four people. And I didn’t point out that said average lowered her and her daughters IQ and significantly raised the boy and the fathers IQ. Shit, I hope she isn’t reading this.
My point is that I’m probably breaking even cost wise, but I could based on what I have smoke free for a good six or seven months. I vape based on the manual I once got with Nicorette back when it was a prescription which pretty much outlined the frequency with which to chew, how close to meals and drink and ended with something like “Yeah, but you’re trying to quit smoking, if you’re jonesing and popping gum will help, pop one everytime you jones.” That’s how I vape. Unlike the gum, I’ve lowered my level on nicotine in the e-juice, but I never stop and think “You just hit that, you shouldn’t, it’s bad, how’re you going to quit that way?”
Honestly shame is what fucks up any kind of recovery. There’s a reason subliminal advertising of yore had skulls airbrushed into ice cubes in alcohol drinks; appealing to the death wish of people who can’t stop drinking. Most of the good things and most of the bad things we do are shame based. I don’t mean objectively morally good and bad, I don’t really believe in objective morality, a sociopath isn’t someone who doesn’t hold with objective morality, he/she has no subjective morality, he/she can tell you without blinking all about objective morality but there really is no such thing. In this area people seem overly willing to obey laws. I mean it’s almost like doing thirty three in a twenty five zone is somehow amoral, that a cop is somehow sanctified. Hmmm, guess that’d make donuts a sacrament.
I’m just saying some of our most noble behaviors come from the shame of having once violated some trust or some code we didn’t even know we had and the desire to never do it again. Also some of our worst behaviors e.g. I violated that code, I’m at the core a code violater, I might as well be proficient at it. Or, in simpler less broad terms 1) I am a bad person, I will make amends 2) I am a bad person I will excel at my badness.
Oh, yeah, so, the two devices that have enlightened me and have either quelled my compulsion or set me on a more productive path; Provari, the solid American built Cadillac idiot proof long warrenty Vaporizer and a new product that makes more sense than all the mechanicals and fancy but cheap chip units out there, an Ijoy Etop; it adjusts not voltage or wattage but amperage and like the provari there is an automatic setting. Both smoke very well and there is absolutely no fucking around.
Oddly enough another thing that drives the PV industry (e-cig is really not right anymore, things like Blu are e-cigs, it’s a different experience) is how cool they look. People have awfully funny ideas on what looking cool means. I remember lectures as a kid about how some kids got into smoking or drugs to be “cool”. I was never under the illusion that smoking made me look cool, although, truth be told, I smoked like a cool kid, like I was familiar with what was in my hand and natural. I didn’t do it to be cool, but, shit, you know, with all due humility and knowing what a geek I am, I have a hard time not looking cool doing even stupid shit. I mean that’s what I’m told, my personal POV is from inside, I don’t see a lot of what I’m doing from the outside. I used to in my dreams, I no longer remember my dreams. I must have them, I sleep long enough for REM and a person goes batshit without dreams, but I don’t recall them. I don’t mean they slip away when I wake up; I mean I don’t even remember having them. But I used to see myself from the outside in them.
The industries idea of cool, and I assume they are pandering to the consumer, often involes accessorizing, all components being the same color. Every now and again that’s a fashion in men and womens clothing. Um, not cool. Makes me wanna sell you a bridge or Ocean front property in Kansas. I mean if you’re attractive you’ll look good in any clothes, but if you are dressing to make yourself attractive, A purple tie with a purple shirt and purple sports jacket, purple pants and socks; no. That does not say Cool, it says Purple. Same with your e-cig. Accessories should complement or contradict, not turn a marginal choice into a colossal cock up.
Ok, well, there you have it. Therre should be some sort of prize for reading through all this nonsense. Parole? Go forth and sin no more child.
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