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We all love the idea of biscuits but, much like BSCiTS, the reality is not plain sailing. The cost of a biscuit has risen over the last decade in both financial and health terms. BSCiTS too came burdened by both considerations as well.
For a start BSCiTS was vague (at best) in its proposal for funding: “The precise study design, methods and sample size will depend on the total amount of donations received.”
And, on the topic of funding, Siegel was seeking an incredible amount: “Our total fundraising goal ($4.5 million) is based on the minimum amount of funds necessary ” Yes, he was hunting for at least £2,800,000 through crowd funding.
Now clearly, based on his list of qualifications and previous contributions to the on-going vaping debate, Siegel is not a stupid man – but it takes some level of naivety to propose “the research team reserves the right to alter the scope of the proposed research project to keep it in line with the funds raised. This may entail reducing the time frame or sample size of the study. Alternatively, the researchers may choose to conduct a survey-based study instead of a behaviora (sic)l study if the funds received are not sufficient.”
Having ruled out tobacco and tobacco-controlled electronic cigarette involvement in fund-raising he was expecting the vaping community to fully fund an incoherent study that would cost more than the collected money spent on every other piece of research carried out to date. Unsurprisingly, the BSCiTS team was bombarded with questions searching for clarification and assurances.
Everyone who is a seasoned user of social media appreciates that there are those who will always fail to grasp the point, some who wilfully ignore fact and then those who troll for their own internal reasons. Children are taught in school that the best response is to ignore online comments you find objectionable.
What we witnessed with the recent case of Professor John Ashton is that academics have the potential to be removed from real life, having an inability to deal with people they’d otherwise not come into contact with despite making decisions that effect their lives.
The lack of funding forthcoming is the most probable reason for the team calling it a day but where Siegel has let himself down in the eyes of many is that he made vapers on social media the #1 issue causing them to pull the plug.
Along with blaming vapers, Siegel also suggested that people were only willing to donate if they could dictate the methodology and, thereby, the outcomes. Indeed, he went so far as to say that vapers are being “hypocritical given the e-cigarette community’s rejection of biased research studies produced by tobacco companies and public health professionals alike.”
It is a shame that he is unable to grasp what the key issues are here – issues neatly summed up by Julie Woessner, President of the highly active American vaping consumer group CASAA:
Has Siegel taken the points on board? Unfortunately not; on Thursday he continued to whinge on his blog about the “venom” and “battering” he has received:
Albeit a bit-player to date (compared to the far more self-directed and cost-effective Doctor Farsalinos), Siegel’s contributions have been welcome. Ideally he will be able to see his way past his Facebook growing pains – as someone who has attended faculty meetings in the past he ought to have the tools to deal with attacks on his ideas. It would be nice to see a small group of vocal vapers realise that alienating a supporter is hardly in our collective interests either.
Now let’s all have a nice cup of tea and a Hobnob.
One of my pastimes is to live in a fantasy world planning for the moment when a drab reality is changed forever by a statistically improbable lottery event. I will happily paw over the Rightmove app looking at multi-million pound properties. I can justify this as if I don’t win a jackpot I will have an excellent working knowledge of the floor plans of the rich if I turn to a life of crime. Now, winning the lottery is virtually impossible – I am not sure of the actual statistic but I’m sure that I am more likely to be struck by truck loaded with White Lightening than win. Especially considering I never buy a ticket.
Some of the properties in the Lake District go for £1.8-£5million. One would imagine that if you are rich enough to afford such residences that you ought to be able pay for good health. Odd then that someone should choose to live next to the Sellafield nuclear plant. Physicists might be able to explain the reliable and safe nature of such places but I know one thing from life – if the guide on the tour bus is telling you to look at a rare duck out of the left window you just know there’s a terrorist using a piece of fissile material to fight with a jet-pack enabled shark out of the right one.
But, the damage I am doing to my psyche by frittering away unrecoverable moments through window-shopping pales into insignificance compared to the threat posed by comedy. Statistics from a survey I just made up demonstrates that 83% of people attending a Jimmy Carr event never recover from the brain damage he inflicts upon them. Poor comedy isn’t the only risk, doing good comedy is pretty lethal too (Eric Morecambe/Sid James/Tommy Cooper) – which is why I consciously guard against the dangers by trotting out rehashed routines from Michael McIntire in order to prevent anyone finding me remotely funny. You want more proof? Frankie Howard, Ronnie Barker and Russell Howard: all dead, albeit one just in a persistent vegetative state.
Most accidents in the home do not result from a battery being incorrectly charged or children drinking pints of nicotine base. No, two other sources rank much higher: cooking and DIY. To reduce your risk profile it is strongly advised you avoid both of these by becoming comfortable living in squalor and avail yourself of the many fast food delivery services. The added benefit to this is the creation of additional time to coil, wick and shop online for more vaping ephemera.
Stress is a killer, they say. They don’t say that about vaping well, some might but they’ll presently cease due to online bullying. Moving and divorce are claimed to be two of the most stressful things you can do. Clearly the people responsible for assessing this have never tried to speak to 3’s customer services, cancel a SKY subscription or enter a CAPTCHA code.
All told, there are many things in life worthy of avoiding in order to live more healthily but vaping (instead of smoking) isn’t one of them.
Like the actions of some politicians in Northern Ireland, it’s all based around vested interests, fear and banning things they don’t fully understand rather than educating themselves. It doesn’t matter what the subject is – it all gets cloaked in the robes of being done for our own good.
It appears that E-cigarettes are more frightening to politicians, and in need of more immediate attention, than the on going conflict in the West Bank. But then, come to that, so too are these vacuum cleaners I’ve not come across. Apparently they have the power of Nico Rosberg’s F1 car, kill pets in the home and are threatening to club baby seals in the Arctic.
If these steps to ban things are really for our own good then why do I always find myself missing them? I remember that once upon a time I could enter a room or climb the stairs without stubbing my toes on a dog bone or treading on Lego. These days I take my life in my hands moving around the house at night due to the light bulbs having all the luminescence of a glow-worm’s fart.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for curbing the excesses of the pointless cleaning culture. A certain relation who shall remain nameless spends his or her life removing every last bacterium from work surfaces – a waste of time, I believe, that could be better utilised supporting the flagging brewing industry and keeping football players in Bentleys.
But banning?
Continuing with our hoovers: our relation isn’t going to spend the same amount of time removing dead skin cells from the carpet. Less power equals less vacuum equals less detritus in the collection area. No, my in-law will simply put in extra hours with the result that the electricity bill will be the same.
I’ve never been a fan of banning anything. Banning alcohol in depression hit America resulted in an almighty fail, the war on drugs continues to be won by drugs and Mary Whitehouse’s campaign to rid the UK of video nasties just raised their profile into cult movies.
I’d also contend that if the real goal was to reduce environmental impact then maybe, just maybe, some serious investment into green energy sources might be a way to save the world, save the country from being held over an oil barrel and prevent the volume of greenhouse gas produced by people talking about it all. But that would be a mad solution; who needs a workable route when kneejerk responses are so much more fun?
“Ahh, Dave” everyone says to me, “what you are forgetting is that politicians are the cleverest and most responsible people in society, elected to office to make decisions on behalf of dim-witted folks like you.” Well, everyone, what I say to you is this: Phillip Hollobone.
Vaping has forced me into contact with my local Baptist euro-septic. It was a coupling as successful as Michael Bolton and Michael Bolton’s hairstyle leaving me with the lasting impression that not only must it be very easy to get into Oxford University but that degrees are now given away with three Weetabix vouchers making them worth 3/5s of an Alton Towers ticket.
If politicians like Hollobone really want to save me from my idiotic actions then they’d abolish the lottery (well, someone has to win, don’t they?), all forms of DIY tools and place an alcohol-related block on accessing social media.
But no, campaigners and politicians don’t want to save me from myself – they just want me to make the mistakes they think I should be making in order to support companies such as JapanTobacco International.
At least writing this piece has given me time to contemplate my position regarding bans. Despite having a pronounced libertarian view to personal choice I’m pretty sure that if someone asked me to support banning people from running for Parliament I’d support it. But it would fail.
Did banning the “misuse” of the WHO logo work? Did it flip. Within minutes of Clive Bates replacing the image it began cropping up as avatars on Facebook and Twitter. Inside of an hour clever wags were dreaming up a variety of novel twists to their corporate identy – conveying the suspected pharma-driven motives for their e-cig position.
Will attempts to curb the rise of vaping work? It may well impact on those smokers who have yet to try vaping as a quit method but for the rest of us the genie is totally out of the bottle. And speaking of bottle, I can hear my Dark Puros-filled Pandora calling funny that never happens with the hoover.
“When as a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Yep, if you’d asked me back then who was my favourite character it would have been the robot but I’m not a kid anymore. Now if I look at the robot I can fully appreciate Zachary Smith’s take on him – he was an annoying, interfering, meddlesome idiot. Constantly harping with warnings of impending danger he was nothing more than a jumped up Health & Safety officer in a silver suit.
As for Will, if he were in my school class I’d bully him mercilessly for being the squeaky clean git he is. And I say this as a teacher.
Warnings about dangers are all fair and well if they are delivered in context and measured. In response to the letter to the World Health Organisation the vaping world’s Zachary Smith (played by Professor Glantz) took up a pen to respond.
Unfortunately for us all Glantz is neither camp, entertaining, worth watching or constantly up to mischief. Oh, hang on a second, I take that last bit back because if there’s one thing Prof Glantz is always up to it’s mischief – just the incredibly dull and stupid kind. Dull and stupid like the kid in our village who waits for half an hour for a car to appear before walking across the road i.n.c.r.e.d.i.b.l.y.s.l.o.w.l.y.
In his letter (where he managed to find over a hundred people who should be educated enough to know better to co-sign) he made a succession of unsubstantiated claims.
E-cigs are dangerous because they rope young people into smoking and vaping. Unfortunately what Stan was unaware of (or chose to ignore) were that the research he cited proves exactly the opposite. It demonstrates the number of teen smokers in the US has fallen alongside a minimal increase in vaping that suggests either kids gave up without vaping or used vaping to quit. Stupid Stan.
Electronic cigarettes are dangerous because they contain heavy metals. I think the big mistake he makes here is to confuse the term heavy metals with Heavy Metal. Obviously no sane parent would want their child doing cocaine with Lemmy or having lessons in how to kill bats in the land of Oz.
He was trying to say that they contain heavy metals that are dangerous to health but, erm, so is the air we breathe and the water we drink. He wants us to think they are as injurious to our wellbeing as becoming a drummer with Spinal Tap.
Unfortunately for Zachary Glantz he forgot to check up on what the actual readings are and how they compare to the legislation on safe levels. Tested levels have shown the presence of nickel and lead in vape is in the order of 6x less while chromium is over 70 times less the agreed daily safe dosage limit. I could go on but that would get as dull as reading one of his press releases.
While working with a chemical company we did a project with NASA to create a micrometeorite detector. I’m pretty au fait with the concept of micro particles as a result so when he warns the World Health Organisation that vape contains them I come over all face palms. It’s not the size of the meteorite that kills you in space; it’s the speed it hits you at. It’s not the cloud of microparticles that kills you; it’s what the cloud is made up from. In the case of vape we know it’s not got the 2,000+ carcinogens and toxins that smoke has.
I really wish Professor Glantz could get lost in space instead of trying to use the space between his ears.
In an article not written today by Clive Bates (and consequently not shared widely via social media) evidence has come to light of a direct link between blinkered ignorance and opposition to vaping, a highly dangerous condition going by the name of Ecigbola or e-Bola.
In order to ensure public safety, he didn’t continue, there is a pressing need to quarantine all members of the World Health Organisation immediately in order to prevent a pandemic of stupid. Clive didn’t say: “Let’s be clear about this, the situation presenting itself is one that calls for direct action on a level with the threat itself.”
Wikileaks published evidence of the WHO in the full grip of e-Bola. They were caught planning nonsense in a cartoon by a bored executive. “To be honest, we never suspected the man doodling on his notepad in the meeting was paying attention,” said a top ranker.
If you are concerned that you, someone you know or someone you’ve never met but works in a public health capacity may have contracted e-Bola then look for the following telltale signs:
- Headaches, leading to the wearing a blindfold or closing eyes tightly in the presence of bright evidence.
- Diarrhoea, mainly verbal when confronted by the media (can be in written form).
- A loss of appetite, for reasoned discussion.
- Difficulty swallowing, the truth.
- Rash, of abusive tweeting.
- Chest pain, due to being swollen with Big Pharma cash.
Professor Damage, the Imperial University of Japan Tobacco Incorporated, recently completed his WHO-funded-it(?) study into toxins produced by electronic cigarettes. “We decided that the best method was to do away with the traditional time-wasting approach of experimentation and peer-review so we’ve jumped straight to a conclusion,” laughed Damage from his isolated island of evil.
With eyes wide shut and addressing a wall, he added: “We all know that vaping gives you herpes and reverses time so let’s just start being honest about it.”
Bates didn’t point to this as yet another frightening example of e-Bola stricken ostriches but the analogy is clear: instead of suffocating themselves in sandpits they are parading around making stupid comments for cash. Lots of cash.
“This is why we needed to set up a ‘not quite a celebrity any longer‘-driven charity campaign” no one was quoted at a press conference that didn’t happen. “The causes of e-Bola appear to be rooted in the opulence experienced by those in highest public health office and their need to hang on to those Pharma-funded caviar banquets. We have enlisted the support of the popular band Sir Bob and Midge the Lapdog to encourage them to give up their trappings,” no one continued.
Clive Bates has yet to clarify whether e-Bola is a real disease but seeing as this is now on the Internet all indications point to that it is. No representative of the World Health Organisation was available to confirm if they knew it was Christmastime.
“It’s e-Bolatime; there’s no need to be afraid
At e-Bolatime, we let in cash and banish vape
And in our world of plenty we drink champers at the Bolshoi
Throw your hands over your eyes at e-Bolatime”
Compare us to any other primate – we have bigger brains and (on average) bigger penises. This is not a comparison I suggest you make in public at a nearby Zoo. As a race we tend to be absorbed by aesthetic rather than pure function. While sucking in our cheeks and looking upwards to cameras for selfies we fix our hair and colour match clothes.
A mod and atty are about the vape and flavour and yet the online world is blossoming for aftermarket parts to enhance your device from drip tips to replacement caps and tinted Pyrex. Post a picture on a forum of your favourite set up before long someone will say looking at it makes him or her feel violently ill and suggest a way to improve it.
*For those interested – bins are a good way of improving the appearance of this device:
But does it matter? Of course not, what may look good to you will most certainly offend someone else’s eyes. There’s no best looking device, there’s no playbook of vaping do or do nots.
My problem is that of being ridiculously clumsy. Given, I’m getting better and controlling my limbs again now and it’s happening less frequently, but it’s a given that tall 18650 mods move themselves to a region of maximum clipability every time you aren’t looking.
As someone who works by a computer during the day I’ve got tired of the inevitable swearing session as something (usually with a glass tank) arcs through the air due to my stupidity. So I’ve had a good hunt for alternatives.
Pinky: Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?
Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky – try to impose our values over the rest of the eWorld!
I’ve explored the world of 18500s, I journeyed to the centre of 18350s – heck, I even teleported to the land of 14500s for a very short time a time equal to that of their inability to continually deliver satisfaction. Just like London: many might appreciate them and be fun to visit but I don’t want to live there.
Aesthetically I love the idea of 18350 and 14500 mods, they’re dinky but they’re never going to overthrow the Earth. Narf. The lifespan between charges means I feel I’m constantly swapping batteries out as their useful mAh period vanishes quicker than this week’s magic wire for coils online merchant’s Facebook account.
And so I eventually bit the bullet and did what Megan suggested, I went large.
I can’t say I’m staggered by the increased lifespan of a 26650 but what has been wonderful is the increased pleasure-giving girth. A Mojo Megan is far sturdier on the desk, a Black Oak lays its roots down like a tree standing by the riverside – it shall not be moved.
People say, “Ah yes, Dave, but those things can’t be taken out and about with you – they’re hardly pocket friendly.”
Maybe those people have small pockets, I don’t know, but placing a 26650-tube mod in your jeans on a night out certainly attracts some interested glances. Like the lovely ladies in the survey point out, there is no one-size-fits-all in life, there’s just whatever makes you happy.
Either by luck or judgement I avoided consuming one of the many liquids stored under the sink as a child, but it’s only time. Friday night is coming and the drinks shelf is empty, creative cocktail thinking is called for when needs must. Quite how I managed to stay alive this long, considering the filtering I did through traffic to get to my last job on my GSX1400, beggars belief.
The papers have a new candidate for a Darwin award every week as they plug their Ego battery into the mains using a charger made from a Blue Peter guidebook (using string, some baking foil and a roll of sticky-backed plastic) and then video themselves impersonating Fantastic 4’s Johnny Storm.
You’d like to think that someone who has a degree would be able to remember to turn the lock button on a mod when setting it down – but I’m typing this very gingerly after leaving the Viggo firing the .4ohm Magma while making a coffee. There’s nothing like grabbing hold of a mod that is approaching the same temperature as the core of the Sun. The body is programmed to automate a drop reflex in such situation. I have discovered that the brain operates an over-ride function when dealing with a valued mod.
Just last night I had sparks flying from the Atmomixani Dome after the positive screw had managed to drill itself through the insulating piece and short to the build deck. Going through my spares kit I had a replacement for everything on the atty except that one item; lucky for me my inability to self-organise stretches to throwing away bits and lo, in my vape kit, I found a suitable replacement.
Apart from the large dose of stupid I consumed for breakfast it would appear I also have magnetic properties. Out in public I attract nutters, my inbox is full of bizarre requests and every single lost piece of Kanthal has now been found. They can located in my left foot which, had that been the plot of the film of the same name, would have made far more enjoyable viewing; I would be played by Rutger Hauer.
Out of all the dangers I face by far the greatest is the temptation to hurl a genny at the wall. Even Bear Grills would crumble if he had to redo a coil and wick four times before it worked. I suspect the earthquake in Britain this week had something to do with a genny-related tantrum.
Of course, as so often the case, when we think of dangers we focus on the physical. Wild bears, zombie apocalypses and zombie wild bears consume most of my daily worries – but it is the mental anguish which vapers will be most familiar with.
For weeks the children are denied access to food other than beans, forced to hang around Tesco waiting for empty boxes to plug the holes in their shoes and listen to my old LPs instead of downloading Now 251. For weeks they endure deprivation just so I can sit and repeatedly refresh my browser because the greatest atomiser known to mankind.
It is the mental torment that afflicts us because it’s a pain no one can see. Well, no one who isn’t looking through our French windows as the product goes out of stock before Firefox kicks back into life.
And what about the poor vapers who eventually give up waiting, break down and buy something different only to see the object of their dreams suddenly appear on a website but the money has been spent? What support mechanisms do we have in place for them? None, that’s how many.
The MRHA can go on all they want about efficacy of products but what I want to know is are they going to ensure that I can buy a Hellfire? Are they flip. I will keep clicking on the site in the knowledge that the day one is for sale I will be reduced to a wreck of my former self.
Once I couldn’t decide which girl to go out with and so I made a list of pluses and minuses. By the time I’d finished the list the girl who’d won had decided she’d rather be going out with a bloke who owned a Lada – a ten-speed bicycle can’t compete when the stakes are that high.
I have a feeling that a similar situation will happen as I weigh up which mods will have to be sold on. But, on thinking about it, I could always just cut off my left foot and take it to a scrap metal merchant. It’s that or putting the wife on a corner and the last time that happened someone traded her for a used sofa.
All of this pales in comparison with the greatest mental danger that can afflict a discerning vaper; the choice of what atomiser to put on which mod.
If you are fortunate enough to live with one mod and one atty then you are in that blissful monogamistic state, you don’t have to suffer the worry that the drip tip contrasts garishly with the top cap and that people will mock you as you vape in public.
I’ve developed a Mormon approach to device ownership and, like the notion of having more than one wife, it isn’t as carefree as you’d imagine. Just imagine having eight women telling you to put the toilet seat down and put your used pants in the wash basket, not on the floor.
Every…single…day. *Shudders*
All the mods, attys and drip tips demand attention. On my last visit to the doctor she asked me what I thought my major problems in life were. She was clearly not a vaper judging by the brevity of the appointment – but at least I now have a clean bill of health. I probably spend as much time deciding on the mod/atty/tip combo that I do actually vaping the thing. Of course that’s actually a bad thing as it cuts down on having to recoil, injur myself and get more Kanthal jabbed into my flesh.
There ought to be a warning about vaping, someone should seriously get on that.
Dave Cross
Thing is, and there’s a truism from football, that form is temporary and class is permanent.
I’m not a dedicated follower of fashion and resolutely refuse to accompany my daughter shopping. She’s 13 and apparently clothes are important to 13yr-old girls. I know this because I stood with her for twenty-three minutes and nineteen seconds as she attempted to decide which top to buy. Once, never again, will I spend twenty-three minutes and nineteen seconds before leaving the store and go listen to the radio in the car.
It’s got to that stage at home where my teenagers mock me for my clothes but I’m OK with that, it’s all part of my anti-fashion/anti-brand stance. My teen punk ethos bleeding into my middle age spread. Or so I thought.
As much as I refuse to countenance paying more than a tenner for a shirt or £20 on shoes I keep finding myself pulled out by the rip tide of vaping fashion into deep waters. One minute I was happy paddling with my Kayfun-lite, the next I’m sitting looking at a Dome wondering how on Earth it floated onto my desk. And then it struck me that I am my daughter; I spend far more time flitting from browser tab to browser tab comparing vape gear than she ever does with clothes. I’m not knocking the KFL, far from it. As someone who was using Evods and learning to swim in vaping circles I was given an almighty push in the back to flounder about with it.
The Kayfun, in its present iteration, is still the only silica atty I keep going back to again and again. Yes it dribbles a little bit from the fill hole even though Svoemesto have now put an o-ring there but it doesn’t have the hit or miss quality of the Taifun or the ridiculous size. I got a GT because everyone was going on about how they were better than Kayfuns and, being more sheeplike than the ones that cartoon wolf tried to steal (only to be pounded by the dog), I followed the crowd.
Now it’ll sit here on the desk and be used once in a blue moon either because of its bulk or because the exact same wick and coil set-up will dry hit or leak. More than anything I’ve learnt that going with the pack only leads to frustration.
It’s not an easy thing to do if you are me and have my vast list of bad choices I’ve made. If I just reel off the unaided vehicle-based decisions I’ve made you’ll get the picture:
- A Vauxhall Victor estate – 2 months, dead in the drive
- A Polski Fiat – 1 hour, died after one mile
- A Moto Guzzi – three days, shaft seized
- A Leyland Princess – one month, died on the A1
- A second Moto Guzzi – died while doing 80mph in the outside on the M6
- A Volvo 440 – died during test drive when I was selling it
- Trust me, it goes on…
So, I was quite proud of myself that I gave the Aqua a wide berth. Especially when I looked at how fussy it was inside at a recent vapemeet. That was a real bullet-dodging moment for me. It ranks up there with the time I avoided being arrested with my mates, for driving around Northampton throwing lit bangers out of the window, on the way back from the pub.
It seemed a great idea at the time. Stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
This is the person who has lived through two major housing-price crashes and both times they came days after I bought a house. It wouldn’t have been so bad had they been decent houses but I opted for quirky and unique. People don’t buy quirky and unique. I should be kept away from money, decisions and cheap Chinese fireworks.
The second proper mech mod I bought fell into that quirky subset. I loved the design in the way a mother loves her hideously ugly baby. After two large price drops on the vendors website I couldn’t give it away. Well that’s not true because I have just given it away, no one would have bought it.
When it came to mods there was one I resolutely stayed away from, I didn’t buy a thing from Atmomixani because the world and her husband had one, real or clone. For months I resisted until my birthday loomed and the wife wanted to know if there was anything I’d like.
Figuring that I would never pay for a Nemesis I suggested it. What do you know? I made a decent call for once. But then you already know that because you’ve probably got one. I guess when you make the volume of poor choices in life that I do then some of them will come good; it’s like the roomful of monkeys with computers.
I’m doing myself a disservice. For a start I’ve never read a Dan Brown novel, watched Titanic, listened to One Direction or dialled to have a contestant evicted from a televised house/jungle. Not all my choices have been stupid.
The mods and attys I have now may not be anybody else’s cup of tea but what does that matter? The wick in my Pulse-G may look like a monstrosity but it’s my disaster and it vapes brilliantly.
Living in the now and exploring is what makes vaping the journey it is because, like travelling, the wrong turn can often take you to the most interesting of destinations. Just don’t follow my lead.
Dave Cross
Warning signs for me is if there is a ‘sticky’ greeting me, telling me not to spam the forum. This aim of such a message is to let you know this group is serious and takes the stuff within even more seriously; that the Internet is serious business.
I can almost guarantee that within three posts of almost all of them I will see at least one reference to a certain large vendor based in Hong Kong. That’s the point I pull the ‘Leave’ button. I’m not making a value judgement here; people do what they want with their money. It has got to the point where not even Let Me Google That For You can raise a smile on my face.
But then you have Facebook groups like Coil. And, given the website you are reading this on, Stealthvape being a home to lovers of wire; I’ll wager you’d find it fascinating too.
Coil causes me a problem. Firstly they have the spam message and secondly they let me join. I have a Groucho Marx philosophy towards places that entertain my presence.
I’ve remained a member simply because whenever I feel I am engaging in something utterly pointless I can go into it and watch people doing things with wire which, to someone like my wife, are devoid of any purpose whatsoever.
The artist in me finds the time spent bending wire into incredible shapes so wholly engaging, entirely beautiful and altogether pointless. It’s glorious.
We all start vaping from roughly the same point and we rapidly understand that there is a better vape to be had out there. Like the people who scour the lives of the rich and famous in Hello magazine, we know there is better than the vape we currently have – something more akin to that draw on a post-coital cigarette.
But FB Coil Porn arrives at that point, drives past it, sticks its arse out of the window while questioning your parentage and telling you that you have stupid hair.
This is the quest for the perfect vape taken to extremes. This is the film ‘Perfect Storm’ starring George Clooney with Mark Wahlberg… only they are in a boat made of Caesium with ten Godzillas and it’s raining knives while being infected with necrotizing fasciitis.
Absolutely bonkers.
The thing is Facebook is more than that for vapers. We feel compelled to take pictures of our mods and attys. We take these pictures and share them with the world. We take them placed in funny places, we record videos of us using them and we display our vaping-related injuries like badges of pride.
Given that half of the pictures I see on a weekend have a vaping device placed next to a can or a beer glass it is no surprise that these injuries keep cropping up.
I like football and am a member of a couple of club forums but nothing like this exists in this sphere. Sure, there are those who will post up from time to time how many grounds they’ve been to – but they don’t come accompanied with pictures of extreme spectating.
- “Look! Here’s a picture of me watching the match upside down – the whole 90 minutes!”
- “That’s nothing – here’s a picture of me standing on one leg for the whole game“
And football fans just don’t ask the same questions online either.
- “Guys, do you know if I can get in to see City play by buying my ticket from HongKongFooty.com?”
- “Hello, I’m new here, I just wondered what football team you people would recommend I follow? I tried supporting Coventry but found it a bit boring and not exciting enough for me. Ta“
As vapers we seem to be an utter league apart from most normal folks. Online forums are the same, threads dedicated to coil builds and what’s underneath the cap.
In my entire time on football forums I’ve never seen one single thread asking if anybody plays football or watches it while going to the toilet!
Vooping?
Really?!
Anyway, enough of this, I am compelled to show you a picture of my build on my dual-wick Vicious Ant Kraken using 0.3mm Stealthvape Kanthal A1 wire 😀