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eCigarettes & eLiquid Topics That Went Nowhere
There are times when I sit down to write my column when I think I have a great idea to write about and then hundreds of words in the idea just doesn’t pay off. I’m left with a half-written column that has no good wrap up. So I save it and throw in my junk box on my computer. Occasionally I’ll take them out and see if I can punch it up, fix it, and deliver on it. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t. This column is a collection of some recent attempts to write a column and wound up being set aside. The initial idea seems fine, but then ‘poof’, its gone…
Take a look at what I mean…the first one, directly below, was just yesterday.
Spinfuel Choice Award Explained
When you walk out of a movie theater how often do you tell the person you’re with that the movie you just saw was “Awesome”, or “Excellent”, or “I loved it!” If you’re anything like we are you’ve probably said it a lot. (Or maybe you think all movies today just suck? Either way, it works… hang in there.)
The past few movies that we think were excellent and awesome movies include “Delivery Man”, “American Hustle”, the last “Thor” movie, and “300 – Rise of an empire”. All of these movies are very different from each other, but they all had one thing in common, we thought they were brilliant.
The same goes for video games like Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, Mass Effect 3, and Bio Shock Infinite. All brilliant games that between us all must have been played and replayed fifty times in the past year. TV Shows too, like “Lost”, “Last Man Standing”, “The Neighbors”, “Blacklist”, “Doctor Who”, and “Orphan Black”; and especially “The Walking Dead” and “Game of Thrones”. We love them all, despite being so different.
All of the above have, to us anyway, great plots, awesome actors, and incredible writers. When they are eventually cancelled, like “Lost”, we’ll grieve a while, and of course carry on shortly thereafter. It’s just TV, ya know?
The above are all forms of entertainment so of course they will be subject to our own proclivities for each genre, and each platform. And so it is with eLiquid, the juice that brings us just as much joy, fun, and satisfaction as many other forms of entertainment.
To us, eLiquid is more than a method for satisfying a nicotine craving; it is something we enjoy tremendously. That being the case we are bound to use the same adjectives to describe eLiquids we love.
When we decided that we needed a way to convey our love for eLiquid flavors, and/or brands, we discussed many different ways of doing so and we ultimately decided on a “Choice Award”. The Spinfuel Choice Award was born and since that time we’ve given it to more than fifty different eLiquids. Together we’ve “vaped” more than 500 different eLiquids, so its fair to say that we’ve awarded about 10% of the eLiquids the Choice Award because we absolutely, without a doubt, loved them and thought they were incredible.
The Spinfuel Choice Award is not a “Best Of” competition. It was never designed to be a Best Of competition. It is a “recognition” award for excellence. Sure, it has to meet certain objective guidelines, but we enjoy being able to point these particular eLiquids out to our readers as great eLiquids to try.
When I talk to people in person about the Spinfuel Choice Award I tell them that if they are not already familiar with the brand of eLiquids we are reviewing, but they would like to try a few of the flavors, look for the ones that are given the Choice Award, if you like the flavor as described, and it has our seal of excellence, then by all means, do give that one, or “those”, a try, you will more than likely love them as much as we do.
Vaping Has Earned its Place
Yes folks, ‘vaping’ has officially taken hold and will no doubt make it into the 2015 Merriam-Webster dictionary (we checked this morning, it isn’t there…yet.)
In less than .4 of s second Google will return 1,790,000 entries for the word. Two years ago it was definitely a geeky word to use, now…it’s commonplace. Even serious journalists use the term, celebrities too. Vaping has come into it’s own. Now let’s just hope that the people who have control over our lives (How did that happen anyway?) won’t do anything to screw it up.
eCigarettes and the Nonsense that Runs Rampant
I’ve become a big fan of the Spinfuel News Blog, edited by Jim Kurz, and I make it a point to follow all the updates throughout the day. You’d be amazed at the amount of news clips and articles that Jim has to wade through to find things actually worth mentioning, stories that aren’t retreads after retreads of the original story.
The 10 to 15 articles he chooses to disseminate to the vape community show us a world that seems to be in a state of panic over the harmless ‘harm reduction’ device known as our beloved e-cigarette. If I didn’t know any better I would think that ‘society’ is slightly more panicked about ‘vaping’ then it was at the height of HIV scare.
It’s as though every one of us that has chosen to ‘vape’ has signed our own death warrants, and all the self-important, left wing and right wing lunatics are out to save us from ourselves, even if it means lying, cheating, and scamming, their way to the absolute prohibition of vaping. It is lunacy at its finest.
Just the other day Jim posted a link to a story about a man who had been ticketed and appeared in court for ‘vaping behind the wheel.’ The story goes like this:
Last November a man in New York was ticketed, went to count, and was found guilty, for using an electronic cigarette in his car, while driving. Of course, initially the police officer pulled him over for apparently using his cell phone while driving, which is against the law, but once the police officer informed the judge in open court that he couldn’t identify the color of the phone, the judge still found him guilty… for using an ‘electronic device’ while driving. This arrogant judge looked at the defendant and asked him what the “e” stood for in “e-cigarette”. The man replied “electronic”, and that was all it took. Aha! Now we got ya! You were using an electronic device! Guilty!
This is sheer lunacy. Either the judge was one of the biggest assholes on the bench and couldn’t allow a mere ‘citizen’ to get away with a crime he didn’t commit, or he is one of the anti-smoking, anti-vaping zealots that saw a chance to punish someone doing something he believed was immoral and wrong. Take your pick; both are stupid as all hell.
Examples of ‘this kind of crazy’ are rampant these days. I go around these days shaking my head and asking ‘why,’ what the hell are they all so afraid of?
The Pussified Naysayers
Well, not everyone if afraid of eCigarettes, some are just greedy, some are just stupid, and some are just the kind of people that have to be against something.
In the classic movie from 1953, the Wild One starring Marlon Brando, there is this famous bit of dialog between Mildred and Johnny. The character Mildred asks Brando’s character, Johnny (the Wild One) “What are you rebelling against, Johnny?” and he answers back “Whaddaya got?” I suppose in 1953 that was shocking. Here’s an angry young man that doesn’t believe in anything, he’s just angry, so whatever you’re ‘for’ he’s ‘against’. This is the ultimate copout.
It’s the pussified versions of Johnny who are out looking for things to rebel against and some have chosen to pile on ‘vapers’ who are actually trying to do a good thing, stop smoking tobacco.
When they see someone vaping their little brains tell them they see someone smoking, and its been decades since smoking cigarettes was tolerated by society, so right away the person vaping is in the wrong. It’s bullshit, and you know, I’m getting really fed up trying to be all mature about it and trying to reason with these guys. I know I have to represent Spinfuel eMagazine in a professional manner, but sometimes I just want to go to one of these public meetings and scream my head off about the stupidity that has possessed them over something so harmless, and something so positive in our lives.
Because of the CHILDREN!!
What would you say if you owned an electronic cigarette company and one of your employees, someone that has been with you for a very long time, up and quit the job, without notice, without warning, because that person had read a newspaper article that “feared” children “might” start using e-cigarettes?
By the way, the job position held by this person was not a menial labor job, it took a good bit of intelligence to do that job, and this person apparently did it well. Yet, this person walked off the job because “children” “might” start “vaping”. Moron.
Losing The War
A few weeks ago our publisher, John Manzione, wrote that we “could” lose this war over eCigarettes.
We could lose our personal freedom to “vape”. While many people “poo-poo’d” the notion, it is becoming clearer everyday that ‘fact, science, and truth’ mean very little now. Today it’s all about perception, innuendo, money, power, control.
This is sheer lunacy. This is the death of common sense.
Only this time we have more than one 24-hour news station, and all but one happily screwing with the lives of Americans. And we have the Internet, where truth is inconvenient, and common sense in chat rooms and forums are nowhere to be found.
Journalists no longer bend the truth, they outright lie. They no longer lean into their bias; they bathe in it. It’s not about getting the facts, its about creating the facts, it’s about pageviews and eyeballs, it’s about getting people’s attention, its about controlling people’s fears.
For Vapers It’s 1984
If you were from another planet is there any doubt that you would think that this world was void of intelligent life?
A simple device, the electronic cigarette, is a device that has been deemed “infinitely safer” than tobacco cigarettes by dozens of scientists and doctors, yet you would think it was a device that might likely set off the complete annihilation of mankind by the way some people have gone over the edge and into the twilight zone because “vaping” is becoming a “thing”.
Why so many supposedly smart people are in a panic about something so insignificant to the bigger picture we’re all facing today?
People of all walks of life are being lied to in order to incite fear and paranoia. Science is being trumped by perception, and the truth is being held at bay.
Over what?
A battery (and a clearomizer) that vaporizes a liquid so that millions of people being held prisoner by the tobacco companies, through an addiction deemed stronger than heroin, can free themselves of this addiction, live longer and healthier lives, and be a productive member of the human race years longer than they would otherwise.
Does this make ANY sense?
