Those of you with iTunes, this might be a fun thing to check out.

In looking for nature sounds to loop while I sleep, I came across the “Nature Sounds to Help Sleep & Meditate” album.

Sounds good, right?

Preview, if you will, the song “Night Time At The Lake” (#9) and tell me that you do NOT immediately think of Jurassic Park or imagine some giant, leatherskinned dinosaur herbivore making those sounds.

Exhibit A

Click to Embiggen.

Note, if you will, the fact that he fished up a turtle mount on his SEVENTH cast ever.

Clearly, he is a wizard. (Those of you who know nothing of World of Warcraft will have to take my word on this one.)

Exhibit B

This weekend, I devised a quick game of Hangman.

_ _ _    _ _    _ _ _ _ _ _ _

“B,” he suggested.

I wrote that down in the incorrect guess corral and added a head to his hangman.

“A,” he tried. Another incorrect guess. His hangman acquired a spine.

Things went on this way for a while. Correct guesses and incorrect guesses played out as hangman games do.

_ H Y   S O   S E R _ _ _ S

This is the point where he guessed the puzzle.

It was a movie quote from The Dark Knight. “Why so serious?” queried the Joker.

But Wait, There’s More!

The part where Mr. Moore is a wizard isn’t the fact that he barely guessed the puzzle in time to save his hangman (to be fair, he was on the phone AND the puzzle was upside down to him).

No, the part where it gets creepy is when we looked down at his incorrect guess corral and saw the following :

B A T M N

*cue Twilight Zone music*

Ergo Lorem Ipusm Ipso Facto I Don’t Speak Latin

Mr. Moore is a wizard.

Non-Smoker

Disclosure : I am not a smoker and neither is Mr. Moore. I also don’t have any money or kickbacks or reasons to write this post aside from a desire to tell others what I’ve learned.

That being said, both of us have smoking friends and both of us dislike the smell, mess, and that cancer stuff that are associated with smoking.

We also have multiple friends who have made the switch from tobacco to “tech”bacco.

What is an E-Cigarette?

E-Cigarette is short for “Electronic Cigarette”.

The nicotine is delivered through a cigarette-looking doohicky with a battery and an atomizer. The action is very similar to smoking, but without the tar and burning and soforth. It also loses the cancer-causing major health problems found with traditional cancer sticks while still delivering the nicotine payload that causes addiction.

What an E-Cigarette is NOT

E-cigs are not a smoking cessation device.

Sure, they can be USED as such, but they’re still delivering doses of nicotine, in all its addictive glory.

Why NonSmokers Care About E-Cigarettes

1. We care that regular cigarettes cause known health problems (of which cancer is only one, though it’s got a scarier and more familiar name than the others). We don’t want you to die early, lose your sense of smell or taste, get hooked up to oxygen tanks, or ruin your lungs. This is especially true for our loved ones, but it’s even true of YOU, random guy flicking your cigarette butts out the window of your truck. I care about YOUR health, too.
2. Speaking of flicking cigarette butts – that’s bad. It’s called littering, and it also causes fires. And I’m not only talking about little bitty trashcan fires, I’m talking about raging wildfires (I remember one that ate up acres of Texas near my home, caused by a flicked cigarette butt) and housefires that claim lives (we had a Fire Marshal give some examples of that as recent as yesterday). Nobody TRIES to fall asleep with a still-lit cigarette dangling from their lips, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t tragically happen on a VERY regular basis.
3. The SMELL. Or, shall I say, the LACK of smell. E-Cigs do not cause the bad breath (though I’ve not kissed a smoker, I have smelled smoker breath in casual conversations), the clinging odors, the clouds of noxious fumes, the stale scent clinging to everything in a smoker’s home and car … my experience as a non-smoker has told me that the smell is 100% eliminated.

Why Smokers Care About E-Cigarettes

1. E-Cigarettes are (currently) legal to use even in places that ban smoking. By current law definition, E-Cigarettes are NOT “smoking”.
2. Did I mention the DRASTICALLY reduced health problems caused by E-Cigs? I think I mentioned those.
3. I also mentioned the not dying in a fire thing, right? Good.
4. Cost. This one’s up to the smoker. If you compare nicotine cost in cigarettes versus E-Cigs, they are cheaper. However, there is no indicator of “now you have smoked one cigarette” with the E-Cig. If you can smoke till you get your fix, then E-Cigs are cheaper. If you zombie out and smoke till your fingers burn … you’re going to cruise through a LOT of E-Cigs in a short time period.
5. You can use E-Cigs as part of a smoking cessation program if you choose. Quite successfully, I might add, and this is based on the experience of my friends rather than reading online reviews. I have seen it work, though I don’t know anyone who would call quitting smoking “easy”.

GreenPuffer

One of my friends tried the GreenPuffer E-Cig. He got it from a kiosk in the mall and he had Very Bad Things to say about it. It did not work properly and was enough of a hassle that, had I not pointed out the Blu E-Cigs to him, he might well have gone back to regular cigarettes. Support and return policies were nonexistent.

From this, I want to note that not all E-Cigs are created equal. Buyer beware, indeed.

Blu

The Blu E-Cig is the one that I’ve heard great things about.

As a matter of fact, the only negatives I’ve heard have been that it weighs more on the far end than a cigarette (causing it to tumble from chatty lips) and that it doesn’t have the harsh, burning sensation on the back of the throat that regular cigarettes have. And yes, the smokers I know have called that a negative. They say it’s too smooth, and they miss that burning feeling.

Aside from that, the hardware has gotten rave reviews, and I’ve experienced the shipping from their website myself – fast, efficient, and private.

Three neat things about the Blu that set it apart from the GreenPuffer.

1. You can purchase what I call “Half-Caff” cartriges – half the normal dose of nicotine. You can also buy empty cartriges – no nicotine at all. This is especially nice if you want to try and use the E-Cig to stop smoking.
2. Blu comes in flavors! I’ve been told the coffee flavor is particularly noteworthy.
3. I’ve been told you can soak the used Blu cartridges in water to extend their life, thus saving even more cashola.

Learn More!

A great site that goes into more detail (and is written by a smoker, so should carry a bit more weight on the opinion-side) is this page on Squidoo:

The electronic cigarette