If you’re terribly worried about wasting time—like, you don’t especially wanna do that—then today’s entry may not be for you. Because, if I have a point, I’m not sure what it is yet.

So far, I’ve kinda got this:

I sorta quit smoking. Kinda.

I’m not really thinking of it quite that way. Quitting. I see it more as a furlough. Sort of a vacation. Where I take some time off and just kinda coast on royalties, or something. I might get back to it later.

I kinda did this a couple years ago. Whenever that was. I tried out electronic cigarettes, figuring that I could smoke those in restaurants. But it turned out that, if you try going back and forth from electronics to real ones, the electronics kinda suck. It also turned out that the electronics suck if you can smell real ones. And, at the time, it turned out that, if something wore out, it took a week to get a new one mailed from wherever.

These days, things are a little different. Not a lot, really; but somewhat. Most of the downsides remain but, when something breaks, I can probably make it a mile to 7Eleven to replace something.

Though that has its own downsides.

There are a few places in town where I can get the sorts of things I can get online, for about the same price, plus about eight percent in sales tax. But those are nowhere near me, here in Southeast Aurora. In fact, the last place I got anything was at Aurora Mall, a matter of feet from the Century Sixteen. Though I think that kiosk has now closed, since they weren’t doing well enough to cover the lease.

At Sev, I can get selfcontained NJoys. They should be just about perfect: close enough in size and flavour and potency to real cigarettes to replace them. The only downside is that, while they claim that one cigarette equates to about two packs, we scientists identify that as a lie: for eight bucks, you get something lasting about four hours.

I suppose a couple packs could last only four hours, and for about the same reason: the funny difference is that, with real cigarettes, you smoke one and put it out and wait a while to light another; with electronics, you never seem to be done vaping, so you just kinda go until it dies.

That tells me one neat thing: I’m not strictly in it for the nicotine. If I were, a single NJoy could last all day. Instead, on average, I’m looking at about fifty bucks a day to chainvape these things. Partly because I only sleep ten percent of the time.

Or less, it turns out. Because one thing nicotine—meaning for the most part cigarettes—proves good for, in my case, is that it kinda calms me down. Because—lucky me—I’m pointlessly intelligent and majorly hyperactive. I posted this to facebook.com earlier:

So, I haven’t been smoking today. And that reminds me why I usually do: it slows down my thought process, preventing this…

TARD: So, this one time…?
THOUGHTS: Yeah; one time; different than this one; almost as if time were some sort of variably relative system of nonlinear matrices preventing all events from happening simultaneously; a fact you’re belabouring in your sad, failed attempt via pausing like Shatner in a coma to manipulate me into acknowledging that you recently made a series of boring noises; though, that having been upwards of a second ago, I now suspect that your brain locked up and may now be in the process of rebooting before you can assault me with yet more purposeless mumblings.

On the bright side, I’m keeping fairly occupied reminding myself not to exterminate these subaware animals. So far.

Which bounces me over to a nearly unrelated subject. You know how it’s fun to insult stupid people? You know why that is? Not because the stupid people will ever get it, being stupid; because other unstupid people will get it, and laugh. Meaning that you don’t—supposing you’re unstupid—have to dumb things down all that much. This, for example, is wrong:

Note the variation on no it should be, which is the mating call of the Great North American ‘tard.

If you changed When Animals Attack to When Imbeciles Molest, I’d be more amused. Because I don’t need this dumbed down to work for people with IQs of seventy-five. Even when I’m not smoking. In fact: especially when I’m not smoking.

Speaking of stupid people: I just got this in the backend, which I got to find out about because the server thought now would be a good time to puke for a minute or five. Bothersome, since it’s currently 11.34pm and I’m trying to get this written and posted before midnight.

From Acme Big Bang Theory TShirts and Suicide Pills on Testing the Hypothesis # [Pending]
Have you ever thought about adding a little bit more than just your articles? I mean, what you say is fundamental …

A) No.
B) Shaddup.
C) From just that excerpt, I can tell that you’re a bot spamming meaningless drivel at a random entry, with no context related to its actual content.
D) Shaddup.
E) Understanding that spammers rely on their victims to have the general intelligence of damp sand, your flaw is obvious: no one that stupid could ever find the backend of a WordPress CMS.
F) Shaddup.
G) Die in a fire.

It’s seriously embarrassing to watch these idiots try. And that’s while remaining optimistic enough to assume that it never works. I’ve never for example seen credible proof that anyone’s actually fallen for a Nigerian 403 scam; if that’s actually happened, then I seriously question the purpose of childproofed caps.

Just…stop being stupid. I know: that sounds easier said than done. It’s not. If stupid is all you are, then just stop being.

It’s a verb. Look it up.

Pictured: Verbs

11.43pm. This could still work, supposing the damned server does.

It helps that I kinda have no idea what time it is. Usually, I measure time kinda vaguely, and still get it a little wrong: I do X number of things, and that’s about twenty-four hours. Even if my tracking goes wonky if I’m writing a novel or playing a videogame. Today, all I know is that, officially, I got to Starbucks just before seven, less than five hours ago; since then, it seems like about three days have gone by. I’m thinking way too fast.

I suppose that’s almost part of the plan. If I have a plan. In December, I got bronchitis. It sucked, but it went away. Mostly. Yet, since then, I’ve been having some trouble with breathing. Not a lot; I’m okay. It’s just weird.

So, I guess I’m thinking that I could go a while without cigarettes, probably vaping instead, and see what happens. If that gets me out of whatever dangerzone I might be in, where doing much of anything could trigger anything from spasmodic coughing to a damned heart attack, then I should be able to move around a little more.

I think there was more to this plan, back when I could think correctly. Something about burning off energy more physically, which might be a good thing. I dunno: I’m not smoking.

I’ll figure it out eventually. Probably while also figuring out free energy and a cure for cancer. And maybe remembering to write those down.

Here’s today’s webcomic:

More later….

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