Don't worry: just an arcane reference to AOHell; I wonder whatever happened to them....

Anyway: the new batteries showed up. So far, I'm good with them. I got extended automatics for the 510 this time [I'd never seen them available before] and, while they take a couple seconds to get used to, they work pretty well. So now my 510's a lot like my BluCigs would be if BluCigs were twice their size and worked this well.

I'd hoped to get black ones with red LEDs, but I'm not even sure those exist; so these are black with blue. On the bright side, unlike the blue automatic I've got, these don't seem to fade over time; like the red ones, they stay nice and bright until they start blinking because they're dead.

That wasn't easy to find out, of course. Draining the first of five batteries took long enough that I had to refill the cartridge twice to do it. Otherwise, I didn't really time it, though it took from the time I woke up until now, which is close to four hours. If I'm right about that, I should be okay out in the world for about twenty hours before I have to find a place to plug things in again. And, honestly, if I go twenty hours somewhere without plugging in a laptop, I'm already in hell.

Meanwhile, I've still kinda got the PCC and a couple standard batteries. And nothing's really preventing me from getting more standard batteries, except that they don't last very long around me. Also, I don't really mind that a fully assembled 510 with an extended battery is the size of a pen, if a little heavier.

You know what: hang on a second....

Just to save a thousand words. Minus the ones already typed, and minus the ones explaining the image....

The pen's just a UniBall Roller. Those aren't easy to find these days, which sucks because I like them; I've been using them since the early eighties, insofar as I ever use pens anymore. Next to that is the 510. Behind and beneath those are the four other extended automatics, the darker extended manual in the fifth slot, and the charger itself. Also my phone, which is a MotorolaQ9C for those who haven't seen pens lately either.

The manual battery is nearly dead, extended or not. In fact, one of the standard batteries here outlasts that thing now. Probably. Chargers also decay over time; I haven't tried out the old extended battery again now that the new charger has refilled it. Maybe it's still useful.

On the other hand, nowhere near useful, I got a couple replies to yesterday's EMails. To save you the trouble: I'd EMailed a couple departments at BluCigs.com to ask a couple of stupid questions. I got stupid answers.

From affilaites@BluCigs.com, I got a reply [fifty-three identical ones, all in the same minute, in fact] letting me know that they'd changed their whole system, so my EMail address was no longer my username. Instead I've got this goofy alphanumeric thing as easy to remember as my EMail address in no way whatsoever. But, that got me into the backend after all. Which means that I'm now waiting for a counterreply to my counterreply, asking why everything's reporting Zero Dollars back there. Zero in Pending; zero in Paid; zero throughout the account. And yet I know some people who'd bought BluCigs through my account, showed up in there as Pending, and didn't return the things within a month; so I'm a little curious about this; the FTC are gonna be curious starting on Monday if I don't get an amazingly fascinating response by then.

From info@BluCigs.com, I got a reply letting me know that they're not sending me a PCC to replace the one known to burst into flames because I never ordered any BluCigs.

Ahem.

Because I Never Ordered Any BluCigs.

This never happened:

I'm just that good at CG.

And I'm surrounded by idiots.

Lying, boring, meaningless idiots.

So, great. Here's what's gonna happen: I'm gonna ignore BluCigs.com's purposeless warning that their substandard thing is known to burst into flames. If it bursts into flames anyway, then the firemarshall can trace the catalyst back to this thing wot can't exist in my house, conclude that it shorted out and caused all this damage, give my lawyers enough to remind BluCigs.com that their products suck and that they shoulda sent me an unsucking replacement, and send BluCigs.com the bill for everything. Works for me.

Fortunately, most of the evidence that BluCigs.com are a group of probably fraudulent morons exists on the server in California, on my phone, and in various other places. They can't actually succeed in destroying the evidence with their trojan chargingcase. So there; neener.

Man, the existence of lying morons annoys me. Is it particularly eugenical to recommend letting them starve to death for a couple generations?

More later....

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