KUDOS!!!! NJOY Alternative Smoking Device

I am happy to report that my newest purchase regarding my health has proved an effective and outstanding solution.

I speak of the NJoy Alternative Smoking device. This was my Xmas gift to myself. I knew that one of my biggest obstacles with quitting was my oral fixation. Yes, I'm orally fixated. My pleasure-center is my mouth. I like to talk, smoke, laugh, sing, drink coffee, have a beverage all the time, wear flavored lip balms, kiss, (and other intimate things)...to name a few examples. What i missed more than anything else whenever I tried to quit smoking in the past, was the actual ACT of smoking. There was no substitute for that behavior.

In the early 90's I recognized this fact and used it for a speech class wherein we had to develop a product and give a presentation. Unfortunately, I had some deadbeat (younger) classmates on my team. I had to do most of the work. I came up with the product (LifeLight, Vitamist) and presented it. It was an alternative smoking device that produced MIST or VAPOR rather than smoke, and worked electronically, providing the same pleasurable sensation, but also added healthy ingredients and flavors. I even had vitamins and herbal supplements in mine. But alas, I did not have the capital to patent or develop and market it.

Well, NJoy has a product like this, though they don't yet offer vitamins. They do have flavors (Apple, Vanilla. They also come in menthol and non-menthol).
It consists of a cartridge with a smoking tip (like a Tiparillo) and a rechargeable tube. The NCIG Burgundy Starter kit cost $74.99 and then I paid $19.99 for the extra cartridges. So for a little over $100, I was on my way to being a non-smoker. The kit comes with two rechargeable tube/batteries and the charger, plus the sample cartridges, but I ordered the extra box of 5 cartridges. They come in menthol and non-menthol, with or without nicotine, and in different strengths. So you can start with the nicotine, while avoiding the 300 toxins that are in most cigarettes, and then wean yourself off the nicotine by going lower and then to the nicotine-free cartridges. Or not. You'll still be doing yourself a HUGE health favor, by getting rid of the smoke and toxins.

Another perk? Cost. According to the literature, the cartridges are supposed to be equivalent to one pack or perhaps one and a half. I was delighted to discover that they last twice as long, or more, for me. I think they might even last 3 or 4 days. I'll keep track of that. So, that $125 per month I was paying for a pack a day habit--now will drop to about $40, maybe less. And I will always have the option of ceasing use of the NJoy. But I probably won't for reasons mentioned before regarding my fixation.

I've been using my NJoy for 5 days now, and NEVER WANTED TO SMOKE A CIGARETTE. I have three packs sitting on the corner of my desk and never once felt the need to open one of them. It has been amazingly successful. It has been the easiest QUIT ever. And I feel very strongly that it will remain easy, and I won't ever want to go back. No more smelly clothes or smoky house; no more ashtrays, no more cigarette burns, no more being banished outdoors to smoke, no more rejection from non-smokers, whether as friends or potential dates, no more health risk, no more huge expense, no more FEAR of cancer from smoking, no more tight chest and coughing, and no more continual underlying anxiety that goes along with doing something you know is flirting with your own early-mortality.

My best friend also ordered a kit and she is having the same wonderful results. Both of us have tried for years to quit and could barely get past the first few days. I have a feeling this is different. For one thing, I DON'T SEEM TO CARE about having a cigarette anymore.

Another good thing--we can smoke our NJoys ANYWHERE. Since it's vapor, and not smoke, there are no restrictions. We might have to pull out the explanation card provided by the company to explain to those who would banish us for smoking, but it's obvious there are no laws of rules that prohibit us from creating vapor. And I still get to enjoy my oral fixation. And I love sitting in a coffeehouse or restaurant and "smoking" while chatting over coffee. Now I can still do that. And it harms no one, not even me.

As I did years ago with my own version of this idea, I still believe it can revolutionize the health care industry as there can be fewer and fewer smokers, and thus, fewer deaths, and costs.

I checked into being an Independent sales Rep for them, but they require you to spend about $500 in getting stock, first, and I'm not willing to do that, since I'm trying to save money all the way around--for my relocation to Colorado. I wrote to them to tell them my thoughts about that. Maybe that will change. Because I do know that I will tell everyone who smokes and who asks, that they can be happy non-smokers without all the fuss.

KUDOS!!!!!!!

Kindle has a fatal flaw

Every so often there comes along an innovative and potentially society-changing idea. I will address one in this post, and another in the next....the interesting part about both these ideas is that I had them years ago, but, like most people, didn't have the capital to patent them or fund the development.

The first, is the Kindle e-book reader, and the Digital Text Platform offered by Amazon. I knew that the big reason e-books would not succeed was that people needed to feel that could be almost anywhere and read a book, and reading books on a computer monitor was just too cumbersome and limiting. I knew we needed something the size of a hardcover or paperback book, which we could see a page at a time, as if we were reading it in a physical, paper book. Enter the Kindle device. It aspires to provide this solution, but I fear its rise to universal usage is limited by its most prohibitive obstacle. Namely, the DTP format is not capable of handling the task.

On the Kindle Blog, this post espoused the glory of Kindle:

Amazon’s Digital Text Platform: Why You Should Sign-up NOW!

December 25, 2007 in Kindle Device, Kindle Tips & Tricks | 3 comments

Amazon’s Digital Text Platform (DTP) allows you, yes YOU!, to publish anything you want and put it up for sale in the Kindle Store. How cool is that?

Do you have an old novel that you wrote in college? or are you trying to find a publisher for your next best seller? Then Amazon’s Digital Text Platform is for you. So what is Digital Text Platform I hear you ask;

Digital Text Platform is a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets you upload and format your books for sale in the Kindle Store.

You can read the FAQ which will guide you through setting up an account, formatting your document and how to uploading your content to the Kindle store. There is also a very active user forum for Kindle publishers to discuss the platform.

Now I think this is a very smart move by Amazon to offer this service even though we know there are a limited number of Kindles out there. Amazon is keeping tight lipped about the number of devices it has sold.

As more people get the Kindle in 2008, I think we are going to see an increase in the number of people, and companies, who decide to publish content through DTP. I don’t think its going to be just authors who use this service, its only a matter of time before blogs and print media truly jump onto the Kindle bandwagon and offer Kindle exclusive content, which I think is what Amazon wants them to do instead of just re-publishing their content in Kindle format. Think about it, soon we will be begin to see Kindle exclusive newsletters , novels, blogs entries and newspaper articles. DTP for me is what Kindle is all about, its going to give the power back to the writers. No longer is the publishing house going to decide whether you’re good enough to get published.

What do you think?

I posted the comment below:

This is all very well and good, but there is little information for the authors themselves, aside from a forum on the DTP site wherein authors like me post about all the issues, but don't seem to get a solution...oddly, there is no customer service to speak of--no one who seems knowledgeable about solutions to the many issues DTP presents to the AUTHOR. CreateSpace, (Amazon's POD publishing arm) on the contrary, has outstanding customer service, efficient and competent reps and their finished product is professional and high-quality. Why can't the Kindle/DTP folks follow their example? There are inherent and prohibitive problems with the DTP format. I am the author of 13 books with more on the way--I still have my Kindle/DTP account on a holding pattern, because I am not satisfied with the way the conversion MASTICATES the manuscript. Novels and books aren't just text files. They have a format, typographical elements, and often, images as well. These DO NOT translate well to DTP. In the case of one of my non-fiction books, if the images don't land where they are supposed to, or if they are not included, the text then makes no sense. I'm simply not okay with the fact that an image lands in the middle of a sentence and looks like it was taken with a toy pinhole camera made from a shoebox. The standard for publishing is the .pdf file. It keeps the layout, formatting and typography as-is, and prevents alteration of the text when used in e-book form. This is the obvious format for DTP/Kindle/e-books of all kinds. Perhaps the Kindle was premature. Ever heard of getting the cart before the horse? To the Kindle-Developers, et al: First, make sure the horse can maneuver the cart properly, before hooking them up together.

Until then, I suppose we authors will have to offer .pdf versions of our books on our websites, but without the benefit of the traffic Amazon has.

The Merging Unit of Email Accounts Operating Board

Never ceases to amaze me. I don't know if it's that a spammer/phisher will try even the most absurd and lame tactics to achieve their purpose, or that there really might be a substantial number of people out there who would fall for it.
This Phish-Spam dropped into my box recently....{with my comments}


Dear Account User,{thank goodness they remained professionally formal and didn't use my actual name}

VERIFY AND CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT TO AVOID CLOSURE !

This Email is issued by Customer Care Service of the merging unit of email accounts operating board. We have sent this email to you for safety. {ooooo....sounds so important. Not just "email accounts" but "the merging unit of email accounts operating board." Yet, have they mentioned the actual NAME of this business? This is a fine example of euphemistic Gobbledygook} }

We are having unnecessary congestion resulting from numerous anonymous registrations of various email accounts.{Numerous ANONYMOUS registrations...just like this letter}

Due to the congestion, we would be shutting down most email accounts which appeared anonymous and unused on our secret assessment unit. {more euphemism} Your Email account was among those to be deleted. This email is a notification for you to verify and indicate to us if you still want to keep and use this account.

To confirm your E-mail account, fill out your Login Informations below {Euphemism for "Give me your private information so that i can do something illegal with it}.
after clicking the reply button.


* User name: .....
* Password: .....
* Date of Birth: ...


Subject to Email accounts client protection policy, we will not access your email account. {No, but they will access your credit card accounts, and any other accounts they can find} We require your user name, password and date of
birth to que {obviously they don't know what a queue is, as they can't even spell it correctly} automatically on our secret assessment unit were every valid account appears to safeguard your email account from automatic deletion by our system.

Your account will not be interrupted and will continue as normal if you fill out your Login Informations as listed above.

Warning!!! Refusal to this demand will suspended your Email account anonymously and your email account will be closed permanently without further notification on our termination date.{fear tactic; often used in politics and sales}

Thanks for your attention to this request.
We apologize for any inconveniences.

Sincerely,
Customer Care service - {no names of anyone or anything}
Email Accounts Operating Board.>>


Now, if you fall for any of this and lose anything, whether it be money or credit rating or otherwise, it's your own damn fault.

Why the Bailout won't work

USPS, WTF?

It didn't take very long after moving here to realize that something was amiss with the local mail delivery. I would miss bills and notices and shipments of products, and Netflix, and other things I know someone sent, but i never received. Then it got more serious. Like, my notice of property tax for some real estate i own. That wound up costing me a $100 fee, since my tax payment was late--and when i DID RECEIVE THAT letter, i was told I'd better hurry or my property would be sold at a tax sale for non-payment.

I wound up getting stopped and ticketed for expired tags. GUESS WHY? I don't drive very much since i work at home, and I only notice my tag dates when i receive the usual renewal notice. I didn't get it, because the mail carrier DID NOT DELIVER IT TO MY BOX. who knows where it ended up. So i was driving around with expired tags. That cost me SIX MONTHS of payments to the Police Department before it was over.

Then i began to get calls from neighbors. Neighbors who lived on similar sounding streets. Similar, but not the same. One had two of my Netflix. One had my electricity bill, one had other mail mistakenly delivered to them that belonged to me and incidentally, was ADDRESSED CORRECTLY. All my neighbors were very nice and some even brought my mail to my door and handed it to me. Their kindness was only matched by the rudeness of the Bella Vista Postmaster, as it turns out. I called him several times, and he never called back, and finally i reached him and the first thing out of his mouth was rude, then the second thing, then the third.

I said, "Look. All I'm trying to do is get this problem corrected. I am not receiving things i should be and my neighbors on other streets are bringing me my own mail, and I'm also finding theirs in MY box..."

He dismissed me with some catty remark and when i said, "Hold on a minute, aren't you in charge of this? Isn't this your job?"

He told me not to tell him what his job was and HUNG UP ON ME.

Fucker.

I filed a complaint online with the Inspector General who sent me some other notice that i should contact someone else. I'm in the process of that, but i wonder if it's a case of just picking my battles, since I'm not going to be here that much longer. Maybe i should skip the "Going Postal" response.

I am SO ready for my move to Colorado, where at least they are capable of reading an address and matching it to the right box. I mean, it's not quantum physics. I'm sure there are plenty of capable people who would love to have that carrier's job.

And now, a word from the Toddler Party....

Harness the Power of Google

Here are the top ten uses fro Google that most of us haven't been using, and most don't know exists....

10. Get Local Time: Type in What time is it followed by any city to get the current time.

9. Track Flight Status: Enter the airline and flight number to find out the departure time and estimated arrival for any flight.

8. Convert Currency, Metrics, Bytes and More: Google has a built-in converter calculator. You can enter quarter cup in teaspoons, seconds in a year, 5 US dollars in Euros and countless others.

7. Search for Pages That are “Better Than,” “Similar to,” or “Reminds me of”: Enter “better than keyword” or “similar to keyword” to find Web pages you never knew existed.

6. Use Google as a Free Proxy: Enter cache:website.com to view a Web page that’s been blocked from the computer you’re using.

5. Remove Affiliate Links From Product Searches: To avoid seeing search results from certain sites, enter –site:website.com.

4. Find Related Items: Enter ~ (tilde) before any search term to find related items as well.

3. Find Music and Comic Books: Enter -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3) "Band or comic book name" to find music files and comic books.

2. See Images of People, Objects, Etc.: Type in a search term, and click on images to see photos of the results.

1. Search for Faces: If you’re looking for a photo of a person named Rose, and don’t want to see photos of the flower, add &imgtype=face to the end of your image search. It will show you only images of faces.

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* Lifehacker.com January 2, 2008