From the Desk of the Editor...

So I realized back last week that I shouldn’t start on the Nicorette on Thursday.  Hear me out!  So, the thing is, I work on Thursday nights.  And Friday and Saturday nights, and things have been really messed up at work lately, and quite frankly that’s just a recipe for disaster.  Instead, what I decided to do was start on the pills on Sunday, which I was about to call today but then realized wasn’t anymore, because I’m off on Sunday and Monday nights.  So that gives me from 7 am Sunday til 10 pm Tuesday to get accustomed to it before I have to go back to work.  So I took the first one at church between services, because that’s a time I always used to go outside and smoke.

After church, I took a nap, ran a session of D&D, then finally got to watch the season premiere for Doctor Who.  What’s that, you ask?  Why haven’t I seen it yet?  Well, it just aired on BBC America on Saturday night.  And yes, I know, it’s been online for download since it aired in Britain weeks ago, but the thing is.  We have a download cap of 250 something or others a month, and they’re already threatening to cut us off from internet for a solid year if we breach that cap again because my roommate has to upload and download all the time because his job is to freelance song transcription for the Rock Band network.  Which is a beast, because for some reason, there’s only one provider for cable or decent-speed internet here.  This is a college town!  I live in a huge apartment complex surrounded by town…stuff!  But no, with only one provider, if they decide to cut us off, we don’t have anywhere to go.  So I’ll be careful about my downloads, thank you.  Also, I tend to forget what week it is, and it’s much more convenient for me to just check my DVR and be told that there are new episodes than to suddenly realized I missed an episode, then sit there trying to remember how many I missed, then track them down only to find that I got like three too many, and it’s just one of those things, you know?

Anyway, here’s what I’ve learned today.

1.) Nicorette lozenges are terrible.  At first, they taste like wintergreen, whatever that is.  Really, does anyone know what wintergreen is?  Is this pine-flavored or something?  I don’t get it.  But then, they taste like licking an ashtray.  I know, you say, ‘But you smoked as recently as yesterday morning!’ to which I say, ‘Yes, but that tastes like smooth, refreshing menthol.  Distinctly not like actual ash’.  But then, by the time you’re done with them, they somehow manage to get even worse.

2.) These pills are not a suitable replacement for cigarettes.  Not just the taste, mind you, but the feel.  And yeah, the idea is that it’s supposed to break you off the effects Nicotine has on the body, and so it should be expected that you’ll feel the effects slowly decrease.  But it wasn’t slow.  I don’t feel like I’ve been having Nicotine replacement and all I’m really missing is the actual physical motion of smoking, I really feel like I haven’t had cigarettes all day.  I feel like I’m quitting cold turkey again.  Should it feel like this?  I have no idea.

3.) The coughing has started.  You know, the bit where your lungs start clearing out all the crap that’s built up in them.  It’s, uh….it’s a special time in my life, kids.

4.) Dear Karen Gillan: Good Lord, woman.  Call me.

5.) I’m liking how this new season looks so far.  I know, it’s only one episode.  But it was an amazing one.  I don’t know that I like the new intro quite as much, but you know.

6.) Having removed almost every other option, it seems the most likely option left to find the issue with my truck is that the computer is acting up.  I’m going to dig through and desperately try to find something else it could be.  Because if it is the computer, I’m done.  I can’t even begin to work on that myself, and there’s no way I can afford to have someone else do it.  Incidentally, I stumbled upon a design for an electric car I’d started on a while back and began touching it up.  If this turns out being the computer, I think I’ll just tear all that stuff out and sell it off as parts until all I have left is the stuff I don’t need to replace to make this system work.  Should probably build a scale model to test the concept first.  But, you know, maybe not.  Where’s the adventure in that?  Theoretically, if this plan works out, the car would never need plugged in - the batteries would need changed every now and then, but no more frequently than the battery in a regular car needs changed.  I really want that to work.

7.) No, I wouldn’t be putting a computer in that, because I don’t need to and it isn’t worth the bother.

8.) The back of my sinuses and throat are starting this weird feeling they do.  This means one of two things, judging by the timing: either my annual bout with strep throat will be happening within the next three days, or it’s an oddly coincidental side effect of the Nicorette.  I’m guessing the former, but we’ll see if the actual virus arises soon.

9.) I want a damn cigarette.