It's not much, but biking into Broad Ripple Proper and back in the mornings burns more calories than sitting at my keyboard.
Becoming a non-smoking user of Apple products has made me fat and stupid, and I'm trying to rectify that situation.
I think beer consumption at home is going to have to come to a screeching halt. If I want a pint, I can bike or walk to Twenty Tap or Fat Dan's.
There's also the synergistic effect that quitting smoking and doing most of my reading via the Kindle app on my iPad has had. I need to figure out a new reading ritual to replace sitting on the porch and smoking, because I've read maybe three complete books since I quit back in March, which is down some from my accustomed book-every-day-or-two clip.
And the reason I say three "complete" books is that the difference between reading on the iPad and reading a regular book is that on the Apple product, the distraction machine is built right in. Reading a history book and encounter something that tickles your hindbrain? Wikipedia is a button press and screen touch away! And while you're in there, better check your Facebook and Twitter, and see if anybody's posted in that forum thread you replied to, and your email account just chimed, and... where were we? Oh, yeah... page three. Still.
My Kindle currently has probably half-a-dozen or more books in various stages of completion, which is uncool.
I find I am reading more, although it's trended towards escape rather than enrichment.
ReplyDeleteI have the Kindle app on my phone, of course, and troubled myself to get the oversized hot rod Samsung with the barely pocket sized format. Luckily I am a big guy, and have big pockets.
My best reading times are out back on the patio, cigar and whiskey near to hand. I've spent entire afternoons and evenings out there, lighting a fire to drive away the creatures of the night as I dive into my electro-book living with the writers own created creatures.
Yes, I grow older and fatter as I do so, but I am strangely untroubled by that. I'm enjoying life, and few will mourn if I should be found out there one day, fire burned to ash and book turned to it's last page.
Carteach,
ReplyDeleteMy reading initially increased with the Kindle Fire, because the 7" screen made for a sub-optimal web-browsing experience for me, so there wasn't that constant distraction. The iPad, on the other hand, will let me surf just fine...
I'm on my second kindle (my wife, after falling asleep reading the kindle, rolled over on it. The screen never recovered...). I have no problem reading at any time, and it's always been either for escape or studying for certification tests.
ReplyDeleteAs a side note, I found that "We were Solders Once, and Young" by Hal Moore and Joe Galloway is now available for Kindle.
Why stop smoking?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.atlassociety.org/smoking
Let me first remark that we see here the contextual nature of ethical knowledge. Smoking tobacco has common stimulative effects that any smoker can perceive to the degree that he experiences them. The alertness that smoking can induce is a very useful state to be in for most productive tasks, and so if one had no reason to think smoking was otherwise harmful, one would have good reason to conclude that smoking was likely to be beneficial, and that smoking was essentially virtuous.
Now that there are those electronic nicotine inhalers that dispense with the whole nasty business of breathing combustion products.. why stop?
I really like my plain kindle for just that reason. I can bookmark something that jogs my interest, and then later look at the bookmarks on my desktop. I have used the kindle app on my phone, which is also good in a dark room like when I'm reading in bed, and on an Ipad (we use them at work) but for just plain reading I like the old kindle the best. Cheap, ginormous battery life, paper like screen that can be used in full light, and no distractions.
ReplyDeleteWhen I quit smoking the first time it took for any amount of time, I had a Palm V. I used it to play a game of solitaire every time I wanted a cigarrette, and I played the first 16xxx games in numbered series in a row. It was a very handy way to avoid the coffin nails. Of course I backslid from time to time for years, until I finally quit once and for all.
I understand how changing the routine of smoking makes it easier to quit, believe me.
After I had my heart attack, I just quit tobacco (after more than 30 years) cold turkey, no problems. Just a matter of keeping busy.
ReplyDeleteI'm a genuine doctor certified ADD (the squirrel boss, the squirrel), and the only way I could kick tobacco was to discover that I was allergic to the stuff, which explained the migraines and blindness attacks.
ReplyDeleteThat was 60 pounds ago. Actually, 30 pounds now, and dropping. Zero sugar, zero starch, zero caffeine, a half pound of bacon for breakfast, and at least some semi-serious walking every day, and some weight work two or three times a week.
But God I miss it, and always ask people to blow some smoke my way whenever possible. Seriously.
Now if I could just kick the internet.....
Congrats on kicking cancer sticks. Don't take up "vaping". A friend did that and now he consumes three times the amount of nicotine as he did smoking, because he smokes the damn thing all the time, since it's legal to smoke the thing anywhere. Last night at the hookah bar he was hitting his vaporizer between hookah hits. Talk about a ton of "smoking".
ReplyDeleteIt's tough, my dad quit when I was kid and instantly gained 30 pounds. But better to carry some extra poundage than carcinogens in your lungs everyday.
Good luck regaining focus.
-Rob
Remind me to never mention not smoking again.
ReplyDeleteDon't consider the Books that you haven't finished "UnCool." Treat them as "Emergency Reading Material" in case you get stuck somewhere in circumstances beyond your control.
ReplyDeleteLike Airports, Hospitals, Courthouses, the DMV.....
If you a truly a dedicated Apple user, you need to go get a bad haircut and start wearing really ugly glasses.
ReplyDeleteRecently bought an iPad, and am becoming addicted to the voice activation feature instead of typing everything. Also, I know what you mean about reading with the distraction built right in. Surfing instead of reading is a constant temptation, and even moreso for when I'm trying to get some writing done. I'm not ready to go full Marko and write with a quill pen and hand-mixed ink, but I do understand the temptation to retreat into ludditism when the tool so easily becomes a toy.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I use a plain e-ink Kindle for my reading: the screen and interface really aren't adequate to anything but reading, so distractions are at a minimum.
ReplyDeleteBooks I had started but not finished started piling up until I realized I stopped reading them because they weren't interesting. Then I got rid of them. Not all books are worth your time.
ReplyDelete@annonimouse 9:05
ReplyDeletemany years ago, some studies were done on that subject. It was found that once addicted, intake of nicotine was required to bring the subject back up to their normal level of alertness.
IIRC, to elevate above normal levels of attention required dosages that caused unwanted side effects. Things like headaches, tremors, high pulse rate, numbness, and more.
Most all of the effects of nicotine addiction fade away with time, although there is some research that indicates there may be permanent changes in brain chemistry. I'm not sure if that has been nailed down for sure, or how wide spread it might be.
There are two groups that humans fit into regarding nicotine. One, probably larger, gets addicted with use. The other seems to be able to use it on an occasional basis without addiction. Not sure how one would determine the size of the second group.
Why would you quit smoking? I thought cigarettes were good for you?
ReplyDeleteYeah, file this one under the hypocrisy tag. A few months ago Tam and her boot-lickers were all about tobacco having nothing to do with any type disease. Why the about face?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous Pussy,
ReplyDelete"...all about tobacco having nothing to do with any type disease."
Bullshit.
Link or it didn't happen.
Tam,
ReplyDeleteYou don't know me from Adam's housecat, so feel free to take this comment for what it is worth in that context. I have been reading your stuff since the original High Road...I guess I would have to count myself among your vast fan base. When you told us that you had skin cancer, my first thought was, "God, I hope she quits smoking." Two weeks ago, my Father was diagnosed with terminal pancratic, liver and lung cancer. He smoked two packs a day for over 30 years. If I have him with us until Christmas, it will be a miracle. So, with regards to your quitting smoking, I just want to offer up a sincere and heartfelt "thank you". May the free ice cream machine have many more long years of service to humanity!!
Here's your link
ReplyDeletehttp://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=15907727&postID=316165069140437171&isPopup=true
Holy shit, you are one pathetic loser.
ReplyDelete1) You actually took the time to search through old comment threads.
2) A forgotten conversation from 2011 still burns in your mind as though it happened "a few months ago".
3) Nowhere in said conversation did I state, as you claimed above, that tobacco had "nothing to do with any type of disease". I have never made such a claim in my life.
4) Despite the fact that you could die tomorrow and I would never know or care, I appear to have a rent-free 16-room mansion in the front of your head. Are you here dipping my pigtails in the digital inkwell because you want to ask me to prom or something? Or you hate me but come read my shit anyway because it's some masochism thing and your gimp suit is at the cleaners?
I typed "smoking" into your little search bar and it was right there. You asked for the link! How does that make me a loser? Sorry to be off on the date, I don't read this blog daily.
ReplyDeleteTrue, you never said tobacco had nothing to do with diseases, but several of your boot lickers did. You simply agreed with them. So why exactly are you quitting?
The petulant little lip quiver you make when you say "boot lickers" is so cute.
ReplyDeleteSay it again!
Tam,
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on making the decision to quit smoking. And good luck.
I quit cold turkey roughly forty years ago after smoking for only six years (since I was fifteen.) It took about two weeks to get over the nicotine addiction and nearly five years to quit craving them even though I could no longer stand either the smell or the way they stopped up my sinuses.
The secret is to find new ways to keep your hand/fingers busy. Hold that kindle/beer/whatever with both hands, drive with one hand on the wheel and the other on the stick shift, etc.
And good luck.
I like how everyone is now 100% behind your effort to quit, and before they were pretty solidly FOR smoking. Make up your minds!
ReplyDeleteI love the way everybody's wishing me luck, like the cigarettes are trying to jump into my mouth and I have to dodge them or something.
ReplyDeleteI also like how Annoymouse can't read. Nobody's changed their position on the smoking thing. Not even me. If you want to smoke, spark up. You can even smoke around me. Just be sure to blow the smoke in Annoymouse's face. It makes him all cute and rage-y.
So, you admit that smoking is bad for your health?
ReplyDeleteLook, Mr. Lake Erie Educational Computer Association in Olmstead Falls, OH, I never said it wasn't bad for your health.
ReplyDeleteIs it the cause of all ills the way puling fuckwit busybodies like yourself claim it is? No. Does it cause or aggravate respiratory conditions? Sure. Standing around sucking in particulates, even if they weren't carcinogens, isn't good for lungs...
...but neither are lots of other things, which leads to fuckwittery like your spiritual sister standing there and making that annoying little exaggerated cough at me for my smoking... while I was standing under the "Designated Outdoor Smoking Area" sign and she was standing in the diesel exhaust cloud of a MARTA bus.
I may not smoke cigarettes, but I'll never be a nonsmoker. I hope you all die in crotch fires. Now get back to work before I call your boss.
Hadn't thought about it, but I suppose the lack of other stuff it can do is one of the reasons I like my simple nook. I can hold a bajillion books, and not be distracted. For me, it's a win.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Og - I Love my plain-old-Kindle (now a Paperwhite): it's an ideal reading device.
ReplyDeleteI own an iPad and iPhone, but have never even considered reading a book on them.
Even funnier -- out of all the commentors on that old thread, only TWO actually claimed that smoking wasn't bad for you and that the research claiming so was flawed.
ReplyDeleteFar more commentors talked about how they thought smoking was harmful or unpleasant.
However, most seemed to opine that, regardless of whether or not they liked tobacco smoke themselves (including several who had adverse reactions), they felt that, as a private property and personal choice issue, it was none of teh government's business.
Which is a fully consistent position, not "bootlicking".
I wonder if this current Annoyingmouse is the same Annoyingmouse who was trolling back in 2011?