!dev && rant

Went to the café earlier today to buy some cigarettes, because the nearby beauty/drug store is phasing them out due to what according to the cashier I asked is because "we are a beauty store so cigarettes don't align with that philosophy!"

If they really stand for beauty, they wouldn't have employed you, ugly fucking bitch.

So, onwards to the café which I recall has a cigarette vending machine. Closed.

To the next one!

Me: "Um, do you have a cigarette vending machine?"
Bartender: "Nope."

Some motherfucker who was drinking there: "You know, you could stop smoking and start living healthy-"

Me: "you know how difficult it is to stop smoking? ^^"

Me (internally): YOU FILTHY WASTE OF OXYGEN, THIS IS MY BODY, MY LIFE, I CHOOSE WHAT TO DO WITH IT!! Or are you divine oracle of knowledge about health somehow an authoritative source of advice?!

You know what that sounds like? It sounds like those fucking morons on every Windows rant saying "yOU sHoULd rEalY usE LenOx!!". Or the motherfuckers at every family dinner saying "I am vegan, therefore you shouldn't eat meat!!"

Same motherfucker: "Oh it looks like you're sweating too!"

YEAH YOU PIECE OF SHIT, I REALLY DIDN'T NOTICE THAT YET!!! IT'S 32 FUCKING DEGREES IN MY APARTMENT, MY ASSCRACK IS WELDED TOGETHER, YET YOU THINK THAT I DIDN'T NOTICE YET THAT I'M SWEATING?!!!

If only I could shoot them in their fucking heads and expose them for the brainless pieces of shit they are!!!

Yep i hear that crap myself. My awnser is "We're all going to die. I just do what i enjoy until that point"

@xzvf Well yeah I would agree with that if I would smoke a lot, but generally I only smoke after I've had booze. Not only that but this translates to only about 1 cigarette per day. The damage that that does to my lungs (or my wallet for that matter) should be trivial.

I'm pretty much the other way around. Teen, just got 18, and now and then I talk with an adult who's drinking or smoking, TELLING ME NOT TO SMOKE. Yea lol. Listen to yourself. If you like smoking, then don't pretend like you were fucking clever about knowing that it's harmful. I don't need your advice, I never wanted to do that to my body after all.

Then again there are so many nice people (my "boss" at internship, my dad, ...) who smoke and are really cool about it. They know it's addicting shit but they still sometimes use it for a break - and don't try influencing me about smoking.

God damn I should stop, it's already way to long. But agreed, fuck those "I know what's right for you" people.

@xzvf I've never heard of any landlord taking smoking into account for determining the rent.. most of the time it's just the same rate for everyone, with the only possible variable sometimes being income. As for the value of goods, same thing I think.. the only thing which my landlord required is that if I smoke inside the apartment, I have to clean any tar residue from the walls when I leave. That's why I generally smoke on my patio whenever possible.

Sorry to hear about your lost family member. In that case I fully understand your passion.

@BambuSource Guilty as charged :') most of the time it's meant as a means of saying "please don't start doing it because stopping is so difficult!"

Personally I started smoking when I got in contact with bad friends. All of them smoked and peer pressure got me to start smoking as well. Now I cut ties with those people but the remnants of the addiction remain. Again, I smoke only when I drink and can live without.. it's just a habit of sorts to drink some booze, smoke a cigarette and then go to sleep.

Point is, I've always regretted having started with smoking in the first place. But I know that it is unhealthy and I know that I should stop better sooner than later. Just like I know that Linux is superior, or that eating meat (particularly beef) is bad for the environment. But I like to be told about things that I don't know yet.

Just the other day I found out about this file manager called FX Explorer which is pretty much a drop-in replacement for ES File Explorer Pro and which I love. It's privacy-oriented, doesn't phone home (unlike ES) and does everything I need, including streaming media from file servers to external media players. I immediately adopted it. But I hate to be constantly told about the things that I already know, and if I could change them I would have done long ago.

Just please never start smoking more. My grandpa was a chain smoker and died of lung cancer. He broke down in a doorway and the doctors could only declare him dead.
Don't do that shit to your grandchildren.

I can confirm that it actually is easy to stop smoking. Just leaving this here :)

@boese It isn't.

@PrivateGER sure, it is.

i agree with your last sentence, but i would change it to "children".

@boese Quitting is not easy. Face it. Breaking habits is an extremely hard thing to do.

@boese Teach me your ways _/\_
@Hu-bot0x58 It can happen to everyone I guess.. it's true that smoking causes faulty DNA replications (which can cause cells to become cancerous) to occur more often though. Those faulty replications happen all the time and are often not dangerous, but while the odds are always there, smoking does increase them :/
That said, I'm not a biologist.. just watched some YouTube videos from the PBS Studios channels which covered the matter a couple of times.

@Hu-bot0x58 They have a bunch of channels on all kinds of science topics, so there's definitely going to be one that'll spark your interest :) personally I quite like SmarterEveryday, minutephysics and MinuteEarth. A new one is Hot Mess which covers climate change, very important in this hot mess that's the summer of 2018.

(edit: Come to think of it, not sure if minutephysics and MinuteEarth are part of PBS Digital Studios.. nonetheless, great channels!)

@rutee07 No idea to be honest, didn't check.. the bartender was preparing a couple of glasses of Jupiler which is a light beer in here.. so yeah, pretty much Kale juice :P

@rutee07 hahahaha, I would've loved to! XD

@Condor and anyone else wanting to quit smoking, I've managed to do it by reading Allen Carr's book, called something like "Non-smoker, at last - the easy method of quitting smoking" (i don't know the actual English title, just roughly translated from what i got).

At the very least, search "Allen Carr smoking" and you should get an idea.

What surprised me is that the method described in the book allowed me quit smoking without a single second of craving or any other sign of quitting. Also, in the first 3 weeks i had an insane boost of energy, i had to SPRINT UP AND DOWN THE STAIRS to consume the energy!

On the other hand, I've had a girl at work trying the same book and she said it didn't help her, that she won't "buy" the psychological "manipulations" that she felt the author is trying to achieve. I personally think she didn't really want to quit and used those words as an excuse.

@wannabee I literally frowned my eyebrows like o.O at that comment because it sounds so much like an ad. I am not dependent on cigarettes, and never really crave for one these days. But meaningless claims like "I read chapter X of Y's book and it made me stop smoking!" make me question the whole legitimacy behind it. At least provide some substance.

What I can say is that you can only quit smoking once you want to. I've quit about a year ago for a few months, and it was because of determination. Now I have been smoking mostly to kill time - which mostly occurred in the mental institution that I was in before and bus stops where I had to kill time between transfers. Now I've ditched both and don't have a desire to smoke anymore. All I have to do is keep myself busy. That said, the realization that smoking is unhealthy and the desire to stop smoking ASAP does help a lot. Willpower can move mountains!

@Condor I have to say that while writing that comment it did occur to me that it looks like one of those silly American suburban TV commercials, promising this and that... But hey, i got results, as i said, as unbelievable at it sounds, but not by reading chapter x of y, i read the whole 180+ pages of the thing.

Anyway, if my comment looks deceitful or ad'sy just say the word and I'll delete it, it was meant to help

@wannabee no worries, if it was a genuine recommendation I'll try to remember to check out the book one day. Generally I feel like only the realization of dangers (such as increased error rate in DNA replication) and determination can help to make one stop smoke though. Hence my skepticism.

@Condor well, the author actually starts with explicitly telling you that he won't talk about the cancerous effects of smoking, mostly focuses on the positive aspects of quitting and how the addiction is actually psychological, rather than chemical. This last bit helped me greatly escape without any side effects of quitting, like craving and such.

Yes, it was a genuine recommendation based on the success I personally had with it, while I openly admitted that it didn't work on my colleague that tried it. Again, I suspect she didn't really want to quit, she may have thought that the book will do miracles, which no book can. You really must want to quit for it to work.

Here's for success, no matter the source / method 🍻

You know, you could stop smoking and start living healthy

@Bitwise dude chill with the smoke :3

3 packs is a bit too much :O

@cursee Someone would comment it.. I knew it! :P

@Condor a dozen comments and nobody did it. So I really had no choice :3

@PrivateGER I faced it, as I said. It depends on your motivation, for me it was easy.

@Condor nothing special, tbh :) i set a goal (date) and just quit. It is your mind and motivation which needs to be ready. When you realise that smoking is kinda senseless and that you're harming everyone around you as well, then it will be easy for you too :)

@boese You definitely didn't really smoke then. It's not just motivation. You are going through withdrawal.

It is ironic to hear drinkers advising somone to quit smoking. I have never seen a drunk person code all night, it just turns them into retards, whereas some of the greatest hackers I know chain smoke at the keyboard. Nicotine helps them think (something never said of alcohol). My advice is to switch to ecigs or start vaping. Plenty of nicotine and none of the negative side effects.

In any case, none of this addresses your original rant, which was about assholes volunteering their unsolicited sage advice about beauty and health when all you wanted was a cigarette. Next time tell them cigarettes help you stay off methamphetamines.

@Bitwise I would get so annoyed just by the time consumed! I good cig is fine but I get annoyed having to go get a cup of coffee maybe two or three times a day. 3 packs of cigs per day, that’s multiple per hour. Not judging just kind of amazed actually.

@PrivateGER nope, there is no such thing like physical withdrawal, maybe max. the first few days. I smoked like 1-2 packs per day over 15 years. Is that enough for you to count as a smoker?

@boese The missing nicotine causes a withdrawal. Maybe your body is special and can handle it, but most people crave nicotine after a while.

@PrivateGER within a few hours the nicotine is gone and there is no more physical withdrawal. Psychological habits subside after about 2 weeks, then you'll feel better. And if you have survived the first 6 months, the relapse rate is low.

@PrivateGER nope, i have a standard body like everybody else.