Journals
tl;dr to this journal is that it (hopefully) serves more purpose to me than it does to anybody reading, but feel free to read if you wish.
So I wrote a long winded journal about addiction & nicotine prior to this one and said I would quit on that day.
Well, I didn't quit nicotine at that time unfortunately, but I did end up doing it a few months later (I made it two months). I ended up in a new job at the end of those two months and started smoking as a result of my coworkers smoking, and even after only a few days of it I was feeling awful so I very quickly swapped it over to vaping.
As glad as I am to know that I can avoid smoking even with the (by now) fully ingrained habits and dependency on nicotine, it's senseless to be consuming nicotine in the first place when I know that I function perfectly (Well, significantly better to be frank) without it. (Vaping being 'safer' is complete and utter meaningless drivel without long term studies anyways, but that's an entirely different can of worms)
So here I am about to embark on my second journey of cold-turkeying the nicotine and hopefully staying off it for good. I'm hoping that publicly stating it in some capacity will increase the likelihood of me holding myself accountable to it rather than trying to commit to it internally and forgoing it because nobody else knows about it, therefore no consequences to breaking it.
2017/12/25 Quit nicotine (2nd attempt)
So I wrote a long winded journal about addiction & nicotine prior to this one and said I would quit on that day.
Well, I didn't quit nicotine at that time unfortunately, but I did end up doing it a few months later (I made it two months). I ended up in a new job at the end of those two months and started smoking as a result of my coworkers smoking, and even after only a few days of it I was feeling awful so I very quickly swapped it over to vaping.
As glad as I am to know that I can avoid smoking even with the (by now) fully ingrained habits and dependency on nicotine, it's senseless to be consuming nicotine in the first place when I know that I function perfectly (Well, significantly better to be frank) without it. (Vaping being 'safer' is complete and utter meaningless drivel without long term studies anyways, but that's an entirely different can of worms)
So here I am about to embark on my second journey of cold-turkeying the nicotine and hopefully staying off it for good. I'm hoping that publicly stating it in some capacity will increase the likelihood of me holding myself accountable to it rather than trying to commit to it internally and forgoing it because nobody else knows about it, therefore no consequences to breaking it.
2017/12/25 Quit nicotine (2nd attempt)
Something I'm trying to wrap my head around...
7 Months ago, August 20th 2016, I quit smoking by trading it with vaping, after 4 years of smoking.
First few months I noticed I wasn't having the miraculous health & mental improvements that you hear about from ex-smokers and quitting smoking catalogs. The way I understood it at the time was that I would feel like a non-smoker but with the stimulant effect of nicotine.
Fast forward 5-6 months and I'm definitely not feeling all that much better (or even different) than I did while smoking, and through a few quit attempts I'm almost certain the nicotine itself is to blame.
While I don't believe vaping is the horrible devil that certain people seem to try and make it out to be, I'm not entirely certain about the peachy image that people try to make out of it.
Any negative experiences with it (such as mine, more on that later), seem to be argued almost exclusively with anecdotal evidence (you're stupid and don't know how to use a vape, you must have health problems unrelated to vaping, etc), with no consideration that perhaps vaping itself may contribute negative side effects.
The positive experiences are also almost entirely anecdotal: "I feel better"; You've been smoking your entire adult life, so how can I define exactly what "feeling better" means exactly?
Does feeling better means you're just happy to not be hacking up a lung, regardless of how both the nicotine and the delivery system (inhaling vapor particles comprised of pg, vg & nicotine) affect you? Or do you somehow know what it is like to have lived as an adult for any period of time, for some stupid reason took up smoking and then finally took up vaping, before sharing your experience?
Now what's been bouncing around inside my head is this:
Smokers are the most common type of addict. They will lie, blatantly ignore all types of evidence that they are harming themselves, defend their habits to a great degree of irrationality, and change their lifestyles and goals based on the physical and mental limitations imposed by smoking.
I have heard many stories about people's experiences with vaping... I also vividly recall many stories about smoking years ago. Hmph...
Now where this becomes interesting for me is that despite the claims of "feeling like new" I've heard so often from vapers, there is a very distinct disparity between said vapers I've met, vs non-smokers.
I worked in a vape shop for a few months and met quite a selection of vapers, and not a single person I've met has stood out to me in any regard... While the non-smokers (other than the ones who handicap themselves by being greatly unhealthy in other regards) I've met have always stood out to me greatly with their energy and "sharpness", even if they aren't strictly "healthy".
But finally, ask a vaper if they consider themselves an addict.
Many of them will (and I have heard it myself as well) claim that vaping is much healthier than smoking and that they only continue to vape because they enjoy it (which indirectly says they could easily quit if they wanted to, although I've also heard that part said directly many times as well).
Now, tell a vaper about how you left your vape at home and often they will completely reverse over their previous statements and join in with how nervous, anxious and stressed they were in previous situations where they couldn't vape for some reason or another.
So I ask two questions: Have we simply created a more digital addiction that solves none of the problems from before?
And can we say with certainty that vaping can even approach the quality of life of a non-smoker?
And with all that said,
April 14 2017-I quit vaping.
I look forward to the next few days of absolute anxiety hell from nicotine withdrawals... Thanks for reading.
7 Months ago, August 20th 2016, I quit smoking by trading it with vaping, after 4 years of smoking.
First few months I noticed I wasn't having the miraculous health & mental improvements that you hear about from ex-smokers and quitting smoking catalogs. The way I understood it at the time was that I would feel like a non-smoker but with the stimulant effect of nicotine.
Fast forward 5-6 months and I'm definitely not feeling all that much better (or even different) than I did while smoking, and through a few quit attempts I'm almost certain the nicotine itself is to blame.
While I don't believe vaping is the horrible devil that certain people seem to try and make it out to be, I'm not entirely certain about the peachy image that people try to make out of it.
Any negative experiences with it (such as mine, more on that later), seem to be argued almost exclusively with anecdotal evidence (you're stupid and don't know how to use a vape, you must have health problems unrelated to vaping, etc), with no consideration that perhaps vaping itself may contribute negative side effects.
The positive experiences are also almost entirely anecdotal: "I feel better"; You've been smoking your entire adult life, so how can I define exactly what "feeling better" means exactly?
Does feeling better means you're just happy to not be hacking up a lung, regardless of how both the nicotine and the delivery system (inhaling vapor particles comprised of pg, vg & nicotine) affect you? Or do you somehow know what it is like to have lived as an adult for any period of time, for some stupid reason took up smoking and then finally took up vaping, before sharing your experience?
Now what's been bouncing around inside my head is this:
Smokers are the most common type of addict. They will lie, blatantly ignore all types of evidence that they are harming themselves, defend their habits to a great degree of irrationality, and change their lifestyles and goals based on the physical and mental limitations imposed by smoking.
I have heard many stories about people's experiences with vaping... I also vividly recall many stories about smoking years ago. Hmph...
Now where this becomes interesting for me is that despite the claims of "feeling like new" I've heard so often from vapers, there is a very distinct disparity between said vapers I've met, vs non-smokers.
I worked in a vape shop for a few months and met quite a selection of vapers, and not a single person I've met has stood out to me in any regard... While the non-smokers (other than the ones who handicap themselves by being greatly unhealthy in other regards) I've met have always stood out to me greatly with their energy and "sharpness", even if they aren't strictly "healthy".
But finally, ask a vaper if they consider themselves an addict.
Many of them will (and I have heard it myself as well) claim that vaping is much healthier than smoking and that they only continue to vape because they enjoy it (which indirectly says they could easily quit if they wanted to, although I've also heard that part said directly many times as well).
Now, tell a vaper about how you left your vape at home and often they will completely reverse over their previous statements and join in with how nervous, anxious and stressed they were in previous situations where they couldn't vape for some reason or another.
So I ask two questions: Have we simply created a more digital addiction that solves none of the problems from before?
And can we say with certainty that vaping can even approach the quality of life of a non-smoker?
And with all that said,
April 14 2017-I quit vaping.
I look forward to the next few days of absolute anxiety hell from nicotine withdrawals... Thanks for reading.
So I've been playing Rainbow Six: Siege quite a bit lately after finally having a decent enough system to run it, and I have to say I am massively disappointed with it.
I love the game to death as a concept.
I love the tactical, slow and methodical teamwork that is involved as attackers, as well as the strategic gameplay of the defenders. It is incredibly satisfying to take your time, plan out your attack/defense [in real time], coordinate it with your team and come out on top.
However, I found that the netcode absolutely wasted all of the effort that was put into these ideas, and would go as far as saying the game is unplayable in it's current state.
A significant portion of my deaths were a result of an enemy managing to pull off what appeared to be super-human reflexes, but the killcam showed they had far more time to shoot me. Sometimes they would not even appear on my screen at all and yet I was on their screen for more than half a second before they killed me. Mind you none of the games I played had ping any higher than 90, and many of these deaths had people with twice(!!!) my ping.
My very first few rounds I felt that I simply was rushing myself too much, but some very apparent patterns began to form once I had gotten comfortable with the controls and overall gameplay.
So after a particularly bad game, I decided to try and do some research into the netcode of the game and I found this.
I cannot even begin to understand how ubisoft could possibly believe this acceptable not only because this is a game highly touted as a "competitive" game, but also because the entire basis of this game relies on accurate information between client/server. It is simply not fun to have the drop on somebody, only to have them rush around a corner and one-shot you in a nanosecond.
Even more abysmally, ubisoft has acknowledged the issues, and claimed they would fix them over a year ago.
If I was asked to summarize my experience with Siege, I would simply say don't bother. With the netcode in it's current state, you may get lucky and earn a few good kills but the netcode will take the rest of your efforts and beat you over the head with them until you give up.
I love the game to death as a concept.
I love the tactical, slow and methodical teamwork that is involved as attackers, as well as the strategic gameplay of the defenders. It is incredibly satisfying to take your time, plan out your attack/defense [in real time], coordinate it with your team and come out on top.
However, I found that the netcode absolutely wasted all of the effort that was put into these ideas, and would go as far as saying the game is unplayable in it's current state.
A significant portion of my deaths were a result of an enemy managing to pull off what appeared to be super-human reflexes, but the killcam showed they had far more time to shoot me. Sometimes they would not even appear on my screen at all and yet I was on their screen for more than half a second before they killed me. Mind you none of the games I played had ping any higher than 90, and many of these deaths had people with twice(!!!) my ping.
My very first few rounds I felt that I simply was rushing myself too much, but some very apparent patterns began to form once I had gotten comfortable with the controls and overall gameplay.
So after a particularly bad game, I decided to try and do some research into the netcode of the game and I found this.
I cannot even begin to understand how ubisoft could possibly believe this acceptable not only because this is a game highly touted as a "competitive" game, but also because the entire basis of this game relies on accurate information between client/server. It is simply not fun to have the drop on somebody, only to have them rush around a corner and one-shot you in a nanosecond.
Even more abysmally, ubisoft has acknowledged the issues, and claimed they would fix them over a year ago.
If I was asked to summarize my experience with Siege, I would simply say don't bother. With the netcode in it's current state, you may get lucky and earn a few good kills but the netcode will take the rest of your efforts and beat you over the head with them until you give up.
i will not let you to cut me!
Happy fuckin new years
today i got bit by a spider and now i can't
Anonymous is going to attempt to take down the UN, Xbox Live, US Bank, Capital One, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Just got burnout paradise and need for speed undercover, the problem?
I don't have a rig to run either of them right now.
Hopefully getting a rig to play them soon, in the meantime, tell me about how awesome or crappy they are.
(Not undercover though, already played it, and love it, and i am well aware as to how negative people are to this game, so please, i don't need 100 'nfs sucked since underground' comments :C)
I don't have a rig to run either of them right now.
Hopefully getting a rig to play them soon, in the meantime, tell me about how awesome or crappy they are.
(Not undercover though, already played it, and love it, and i am well aware as to how negative people are to this game, so please, i don't need 100 'nfs sucked since underground' comments :C)