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Uncle_Billy_Slumming
11/21/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!
What does smoking have to do with PR, Pirates, Espionage, Vivi Nevo, or the economy, stupid?
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!
Oh, but wait...also? Smoking is awesome! How'd we get off that topic?
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registered
11/21/08

@Senor_Wences: I thought we'd agreed it was awful, not awesome. I despise the habit. I'm sick of tar-stained everything in my apartment. I'm lucky I don't have a sense of smell.
I pity my friends, who pop in and almost reel from the stink.

Smoking ain't awesome. It's just a filthy addiction. I say so as one who knows.
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Senor_Wences
11/21/08

@registered: Ah, Registered. I just got sick of the support group that began to grow, though I helped invite the vampire in.

Smoking builds strong bones and teeth.

It makes you a hero.

It stops the huns in their tracks.
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MisterHippity
11/20/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!
I smoked three packs a day for 24 years. I quit three years ago.

How? The patch! The patch works. Two weeks at 21 milligrams a day, two at 14 milligrams a day, two final weeks at 7 milligrams a day and then ... no more patches. Just freedom!

Although it wasn't easy, at the same time, it wasn't nearly as difficult as I expected. In fact, I wish very much that I'd done it 20 years ago.

It's a chemical addiction. You just need to wean yourself off the chemical. Don't use the gum! you have to fight the urge to chew too much (just like smoking too much). With the patch, you surrender control over the intake -- that's the key.

SMOKERS: Use the patch! It works! Free yourself!
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@MisterHippity: I like the patch a lot. Especially because I follow rules, and so definitely do not try to cheat it, like some people do, then they get the shakes and the shivers and whatnot and go all "Wha' happen?"

I was able to ditch 'em for a year after the patch. Then it crept back, and I've tried again, but I find I lose my will now when I get down to the low dose, and give up.

A quitter in everything except quitting.

But, yeah, I recommend the patch for anyone. It's a fantastic tool. And Bloomberg keeps giving 'em out for free, if yer a New Yorker.
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MisterHippity
11/20/08

@Senor_Wences: Wish I lived in New York and got the free ones. Those suckers were expensive.

The hardest steps of 14 mg down to 7, and then 7 mg to zero. The first couple days after each step are pretty touch. But damn, Senor, try again and stick to it! You already know you can, because you did it before!
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Senor_Wences
11/21/08

@MisterHippity: Yeah, sigh, thanks, cheerleading Hippity. I am ready to try again. They're pretty close to ten bucks a pack here now, too, so, I mean...geeze. Kind of out of hand. Unfortunately I recently ran into a friend whose half-brother is a reservation Indian upstate with a total sideline...I haven't yet given him a ring...on the theory that I should just quit, instead. Oof.

Oh, but also? Smoking is awesome!
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VoxPopuli
11/21/08

@MisterHippity: Yep, the patch worked for me, too. I quit nearly seven years ago.

But, I never, never lecture anyone about smoking. I know it used to just annoy me when I was a smoker, so to each his own. I will duck out of a smoke cloud these days though.
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extra!extra!owentookVAQUERO'sstar★
11/20/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!
Did anyone post this book yet?

It's a very good book. It works. It changes how you think about smoking. Although, it does cause you to despise/be disgusted by those who smoke. Which is bad. But you're fighting an addiction. So it's ncessary. And you won't be smoking. And you'll live happily ever after. I promise. Rainbows! Unicorns! For everyone! Limited time offer. (it really does work. But don't ever pick up another cig again. Because then you have to start all over. And that's tiresome.)
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@vaquero: Tried it.
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extra!extra!owentookVAQUERO'sstar★
11/20/08

@Senor_Wences: Oh noes! Did it work at all? Even for a short time?
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@vaquero: Not really, for me. But I hated the way it was written, so it put me off from the get go. But I honestly don't mean to put down anything whatsoever that works for anyone else...if it works, it works, and hooray!

But I do think Chantix should be avoided like the plague. That one I'll put a big red flag on.
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registered
11/20/08

@vaquero: Tried it too. Didn't work for me. Which really annoyed me. The reasoning was so sound, it took some of the guilt away (you are not to blame for being an idiot 12-year-old who lit up)...

And btw, my comment that you would never want a child you loved to get hooked was lifted from an A. Carr book.
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registered
11/21/08

@Senor_Wences: With you on the Chantix. I found this drug before my doctor did, thanks to heavy advertising.

It did nothing, absolutely zero, to help me quit, although I soldiered on for almost eight weeks. I have scars on my skin from raking my nails down my arms over the withdrawal.

I kept on thinking of suicide, which is now a known side-effect of the drug.

I vomited in the center aisle of the local supermarket, also a side effect of Chantix.

And I farted like a New Zealand sheep for eight weeks.

Mostly it embarrassed the hell out of me. But the suicide thing was very real. Pfizer now has to put a warning on the boxes. People have killed themeselves taking this drug.
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Senor_Wences
11/21/08

@registered: Complete truth, the Chantix suicides. Gawd, my pal had such a freaking psychotic break, he was ruining his life and the lives of everyone who cared about him for a good three months. He still doesn't believe he was off his rocker, but, whuf, it was looking like he was going to be crazy forever...but you know it's bad when your loved ones begin begging you to go back to smoking.

Kids: Don't smoke. But if you do, NEVER take Chantix.
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Baroness
11/20/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!
In Manhattan, we smoke because we're all living out a glamorous 1930's movie, in black and white. Seductive fatalism is in our minds, cigarettes ain't nothin' while our boys are overseas, no doubt dying for a fuck. With a woman, that is.

So yes, true NYC romantics absolutely love fussy tourists complaining about cigarette smoke outside, on sidewalks. Because they want to live forever. So they can gorge themselves on crap food and crap TV. Meanwhile, true NY'ers know it's all a crazy game. We enjoy life while it's here, tease each other with innuendo, have brutal existential sex. And then we have a cigarette. What's so hard to understand? Tourists, when in Rome, shut the fuck up and stay there. New York ignores you. Deal.
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@Baroness: Um, where's my brutal existential sex?
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Baroness
11/20/08

@Senor_Wences: Waldorf, Suite 446. Hurry.
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@Baroness: This isn't one of those things again where I get there and sleep with what turns out to be a dead Chinese woman and Ashton Kutcher jumps out and the joke's on me, is it? I mean, fool me once...
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Baroness
11/20/08

@Senor_Wences: No, I don't deal with that sort of foolishness anymore. It's just the banquet downstairs is ending soon, and though I'm sure the Baron will be back up here in a wheelchair within the hour. Tell the goons at the door your name is Mindy, and you're there to do my nails- they will believe anything. Just get over here, stop wasting time! I was always intrigued by what Senor Wences could do with that hand..

You've an hour, otherwise Bono will be up here boring us all to death again.
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Meg
11/20/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!
Smoking is horrible for you health. The death is often slow and painful. Non-smokers AND smokers know this. Addiction is hard. These fights tend not to encourage smokers to quit. And yet, non-smokers are still right about the deadly side effects.

Basically, WE ARE ALL ASSHOLES!!

Okay, fine, not everyone, but I sure as hell am.
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Unfun
11/20/08

@Meg: Good analysis. :) I agree. I'm an asshole for smoking, in a way, but so are we all, for our own reasons. So let's give each other a break.
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minou
11/20/08

@Meg: That's funny. I smoke because you're an asshole.

(You know I am kidding and really I love you, though, one asshole to another)
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Meg
11/20/08

@minou: I'm an asshole because you smoke!
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minou
11/20/08

@Meg: And I'm sure you know that I only drink because you cry?
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Meg
11/20/08

@minou: Why do you think I cry? Drink up, asshole!
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minou
11/20/08

@Meg: Actually I drink, smoke, and take anti-depressants because my students won't do their fucking homework. At least that's what I tell them.
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registered
11/20/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!
There isn't one of you who wants your child or niece/nephew or any kid you care about to start smoking.

Anyone want to argue against me? I thought not.
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Unfun
11/20/08

@registered: What's your point exactly?
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@registered: You don't really want me to go into why I insist my child or niece/nephew smoke, do you?
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minou
11/20/08

@Senor_Wences: Seriously. I barely even smoke anymore and I'm way more concerned about what passes for personal responsibility these days than I am about my lungs. At this rate the fucking paternalism will kill me before the Camel Lights do.
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Unfun
11/20/08

@minou: For reals. I'll never been rabidly anti-smoking. Live and let fucking live.

But I really fucking want one right now. Sigh.
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@minou: Now that the whiners seem to have backed out of this smokey room, oof, I wish I barely even smoked anymore. I've tried just about everything. Gawd, I hate the idea that my lungs are turning into chocolate pudding.

The sanctimonious fuckers are the worst. Some of these kids today fell for that "Smoking Stinks!" shit hook, line, and sinker.

I'm pretty freaking sure the tobacco companies have known for decades what the magic bullet would be to make us all get off these things and not care.
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Unfun
11/20/08

@Senor_Wences: Why can't they just make a non-deadly cigarette! That's what I don't understand. There must be a way...and the whole thing about how many chemicals are in them, why not just NOT PUT THEM IN THERE? LIke how and why did the cyanide get in there? Does not compute.
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Annie Nonymous
11/20/08

@Senor_Wences: I quit for a short time and am now a closet smoker. Tried the Chantix and it really made me stoopid. What I missed the most about it was the few precious moments that smoking allows you to get the fuck away from annoying people. Yeah, it is the annoying people who make me smoke, that and the people I annoyed so much they wanted me to smoke.
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minou
11/20/08

@Senor_Wences: Well it's not Chantix. Don't try that shit. I can take cigarettes or leave 'em as a fortunate side effect of Wellbutrin. I was always really pathetic at being an addict to begin with, though. I just seem to lack the stick-to-it-ivness to really get hooked on anything. I will never give up my couple of smokes a day, however, even if it is just to prove that I don't have to.*

*Were I ever to bear a child, pregnancy would be the one exception.
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@Unfun: Am given to understand the American Spirit guys don't do all the additives, but their cigarettes suck.

I mean, saltpeter? Criminy. They put that in there so they stay lit. Because relighting a smoke is such a tragedy. (Oh, okay, it does kinda suck.) But meanwhile, fellow's erections become problematic and couch fires run rampant.

The level of evil which tobacco companies have attained is sheer poetry. Wonderfully old-school James Bondian villainy.
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gawksFromaRock
11/20/08

@registered:
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gawksFromaRock
11/20/08

@registered:
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@Miss P: @minou: Oof, Chantix, no bueno. Watched a friend go seriously psychotic on that shit. Tried the Welbutrin, but oh no no no no. I became a drooling freakshow on that. I get something out of using the lozenges...am able to get through a day at the office without really smoking. Hypnosis worked once great, second time not at all. Acupuncture...nah, kinda, but not as long as the hypnosis. Drastic change of lifestyle by moving to the other side of the planet worked while I was there and they didn't carry my brand, but that failed almost as soon as I moved back. The list goes on and on and on...
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@gawksFromaRock: Australia or Ireland?
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registered
11/20/08

@gawksFromaRock: Very unfunny. Don't tell me you wouldn't throw up if these were actual pictures.
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registered
11/20/08

@Unfun: I thought it was clear. Read the post. No one who cares about children could possibly want them to take up this habit.

I chain smoke. When I'm around the next generation, I wear a nictotine patch and tell the girls the reason I'm single is because guys don't want to date girls who smoke.

I really don't think I'm a sanctimonious prick. Sharp-tongued bitch? Yes. You expected less from this site?
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registered
11/20/08

@Senor_Wences: No, I really don't. Does that answer the question?
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@registered: Yes, yes it does.
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MisterHippity
11/20/08

@registered: Keep that patch on! Step down! Free yourself!!!

I was a chain smoker too. I did it, and I'm a weak little coward. So if I can do it, YOU CAN TOO!!
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sparkyl
11/20/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!
DO ALL OF YOU PEOPLE SMOKE?!!! I don't smoke because I was raised by two chain smokers who each sucked down at least a pack and a half a day. We used to take two week road trips in a closed vehicle every summer. They called it vacation, I called it child abuse. Not one of my four siblings smokes either. I think we got enough second hand smoke to quadruple our risk of lung cancer. And how are my parents, you ask? Mom dead at 67 of COPD (emphysema to you old timers). My dad, at 76 can still walk across the room. For now. PSA? No, outrage that intelligent people still fall for this advertising crap. It ain't cool, it's deadly.
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karion
11/20/08

@sparkyl: You know what you need? A cigarette.
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BookishLookish
11/20/08

@karion: She needs a clove cigarette.
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apocalypse-nowish
11/20/08

@sparkyl: Um, excuse me, but I started smoking because I wanted to look cool. Not because of advertisements.
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@apocalypse-nowish: I mean, yeah...have you ever seen a great cigarette ad campaign? Just about the dorkiest thing going.

Oh, but there's this:

Those were the days.
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apocalypse-nowish
11/20/08

@Senor_Wences: I think the last time I saw a cigarette ad on a billboard was 1988.
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@apocalypse-nowish: I'm pretty sure I still occasionally see cigarette billboards in, whaddayawannacallem, distressed neighborhoods. But they may have been up since 1988.
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sparkyl
11/20/08

@apocalypse-nowish: You don't think you're influenced by the media to smoke? How did you form your opinion that smoking was cool?

My mom was totes cool carrying her oxygen in this adorable little satchel! And the coughing and hawking up phlegm every morning was soooo hot! I'll leave the party now so you can enjoy.
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@sparkyl: I think I'm influenced by my addiction to smoke. Now, media, on the other hand, has me buying diamonds by the handful to proclaim my undying love.
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Sargasm
11/20/08

@Senor_Wences: For reasons that are neither here nor there, I saw a pain management doctor who told me that I "chemically cope" because I'm a smoker. Not, say, because of my nicotine addiction. But whatever! ("Do you have any other addictions?")
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@Sargasm: Laughing out loud. Criminy, I eat a lot of dairy to "chemically cope", too. This does NOT sound like a doctor who was good with giving out the pain meds.
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Sargasm
11/20/08

@Senor_Wences: I got what I needed. I think the beyond-bizarre first appointment was to weed out the drug seekers via intimidation and a refreshing freedom from logic. The second appointment was much better.
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@Sargasm: That makes perfect sense, actually.

Whuf, I hope it wasn't too freaking serious, but "pain management doctor" sounds pretty freaking serious.

And did you have to wear that cone around your neck? Was that when that photo was taken?
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Sargasm
11/20/08

@Senor_Wences: I had to get the collar when I broke my paw after I got neutered, but that bitch had it coming. It's all good now.
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gawksFromaRock
11/20/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!

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gawksFromaRock
11/20/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!

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gawksFromaRock
11/20/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!

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gawksFromaRock
11/20/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!

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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@gawksFromaRock: All right, that made me laugh out loud. Can someone do it for all the presidents and make a placemat out of it?
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gawksFromaRock
11/20/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!

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minou
11/20/08

@gawksFromaRock: I love smoking.
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registered
11/20/08

@gawksFromaRock: He looks youger in this pic. He's never denied smoking. Anyway, it's been widely noted that his right hand guy carries around a supply of nicorette for him, so he's still hooked. Which does not bother me. I don't want a Potus going through withdrawal.
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billybobnyc
11/20/08

@registered: This the photoshopped picture that right wingers post when the are talking about him on craigslist "rants and raves." So I have heard. Have you ever had a cigarette dangle in your mouth? The second-hand smoke is very irritating to the eyes and it gets in your lungs, which is why I prefer to blow it in other people's faces.
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registered
11/20/08

@billybobnyc: I agree that this is an unlikely photo, but did I mention he is smoking hot?

You have a point. Most smokers use their hands to move the cigarette back and forth. It's pretty rare to see someone with a cigarette just dangling from their mouth. Even if you are an evil smoker (as am I) it's just uncomfortable. The smoke gets in your eyes.

However: Do you think by exhaling smoke in other people's faces you are somehow avoiding getting it in your own lungs? Aside from being incredibly rude, that would be a stupid train of thought.
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gawksFromaRock
11/20/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!

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i'm a bottle
11/20/08

@gawksFromaRock: I love it. Please, tell me that this is genuine and not photoshopped.
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karion
11/20/08

@gawksFromaRock: Yeah, see, it works for me. Smoke 'em if you got 'em, Obama.

Out of curiosity, is there anyone at Gawker that doesn't smoke?
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Unfun
11/20/08

@karion: The commenters at the commenters balls are a smokey bunch as well.
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Cookie Dough Monster
11/20/08

@karion: *lone person raises hand*
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Meg
11/20/08

@Cookie Dough Monster: Nah -- at least as far as commenters go. I'm an ex-smoker! The worst kind of non-smoker there is.
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Helman
11/20/08

@karion: Smoker, here.
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Senor_Wences
11/20/08

@Helman: Just smoked just now. Camel straight.
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inflammatorywrit
11/20/08

@karion: I smoke. Delicious, delicious smokey smoke.

God I hate it. But I love it.
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karion
11/20/08

@inflammatorywrit: @Unfun: @Helman: You know what's great? It almost makes sense to smoke in these times. Sweet smoking goodness.
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The Curse of Millhaven
11/20/08

In reply to Media Conspiracy!
Clearly he smokes hope.
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MrInBetween
11/20/08

@Sillius: No, he inhales carbon dioxide (and other toxins) and breathes out pure oxygen, like trees.
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registered
11/20/08

@Sillius: He is smoking hot.
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