Unfortunately due to the PACT act with Snus I started to use dip a lot. This caused gum recession very quickly, so I now try to stick with my snus when possible.

As far as e-cigarettes go, I still take a puff every now and then, but it’s really uncommon and only when I’m really stressed or something, I get a craving for a cigarette and just puff on that. I haven’t touched a cigarette for 2 years or so now, but I have smoked cigars, very rarely.

Pretty much I use my moist snuff or snus and that’s it all day, and I’m fine. I will be quitting that in the future as well, though I’m not sure about how to approach it.

So yes, the “harm reduction” path has worked for me, but who knows something else other than tobacco may kill me, it’s the risk you take living life. Stress, anxiety, and depression has caused me 100x worse health effects than cigarettes ever did.

Simple answer is I like to write on it now and then. It’s more of a primer for writing my adcopy and other things that actually do make me money. So, this is what happens when you don’t have commercial interests in mind and just write – nothing really.

It’s funny that I can write horrid things on a site I’ve optimized for SEO and make buckets of cash, but when I try and write for people and give them something of value, nothing happens. This is mainly because I don’t have the budget to properly SEO this site in a “legit” manner.

This is a problem many sites face. You have a choice: Blackhat your way to the top or pay a bunch of money for proper links and write articles for already established sites. You also need a writing team and a lot of other things to have a “proper” site. Many people just spam their blogs and have thousands of crap articles, but yea they get traffic. I’ve also been very sloppy with the SEO on this site. I never have anything really in mind when I write a post.

Some day, maybe, just maybe this site will run at a profit, but for now – it’s just a hobby activity and a primer for other things. Makes me sad but it’s the truth for now.

Perhaps if I would’ve stuck with this blog as my primary activity for the last 3 years and wrote 3 articles or more per day I’d be in a different situation at this point, but I chose to work with TONS of other things that have slowed down the progress here by a ton.

My plan now is to at least post once per day on here for the foreseeable future and hopefully this thing will give me SOMETHING. Expect layout changes as well, because the dark theme is on the way out, and the server is going to be changed to a faster one.

Stay tuned…

Anyway, the main reasons are:

My dad died, I got depressed, I had major anxiety issues, I got sick with labrynthitis. Unfortunately, I am still struggling with vertigo, even though it’s been 3 months. Another thing to note is I got sick about 3 times in a row before getting this. (influenza, stomach flu, and sinusitis, every time I got better I got sick again)

Funny thing is before this, I hadn’t been sick for years.

My symptoms have been:

• Brain fog
• Extreme Vertigo (Entire room feels like it’s spinning)
• Balance issues
• Anxiety/Panic
• Gastrointestinal issues (anxiety)
• Heart palpitations (anxiety, had an EKG anyways, my heart is functioning basically perfectly. Palps stopped after I got the EKG. Go figure. )
• Ear Fullness
• Nausea
• Blurred Vision/Distortion
• Nystagmus (Involuntary eye movement)

Now, will I return to my former self? Absolutely. It was a bad year, time to hit the reset button and get back to  work and real life stuff.  The labrynthitis was probably caused in the first place by the huge depression & anxiety issues to begin with. Am I getting better? Yep. Every month I get a little better. I still can’t do “risky” things like get on a ladder and I have to be VERY careful with stairs.

Let me tell you, I would’ve rather broken my arm again in 2 places and have a full cast for 3 months than this. I broke my arm pretty bad when I was about 14ish, the bone almost popped through the skin. That was an easy experience compared to this. Just the initial huge amounts of pain, but I can deal with pain easier than this psychological torture extreme vertigo puts you through. I was stuck in bed for a friggin’ month! The next month I had barely any mobility. Third month I’m starting to get back to normal again, but not quite there yet. I thought I was dying at several points.

(Thankfully, full on rotational vertigo with nystagmus occurs in relatively few disorders – and is somewhat rare in people with MS. I don’t have any other MS symptoms, pretty much rules that out. BPPV, epley maneuver is useless so it rules that out. Started very strong and is slowly going away pretty much fits VN/labs to a t, though maybe a bit more severe than most cases. Tumors/brainstem strokes are like winning the lottery to get the same symptoms as labs so I’m not worried about it for now. I researched the heck out of this thing and pretty much agree with my dr.  In summary most likely DX is vestibular neuritis. )

You do not want inner ear damage. Period. You get the joy of living in agony every day for months on end while on the inside you’re perfectly healthy. Before this experience I had no idea what anxiety was capable of. Now I do, and it’s not pleasant. It can cause some nasty physical problems that will make you feel as if you’re dying. Never again will I think someone with hardcore anxiety isn’t experiencing anything truly terrifying, because it is. It truly is. If you haven’t been terrified for your life with anxiety, then you haven’t had true anxiety, and you can’t speak down to people experiencing full anxiety.

That’s about it for now. I will post some new tech stuff later on, reviews and such, and try to get back to my normal routine. See ya then.

Now with that out of the way.. I didn’t have much experience with other forms of smokeless tobacco like dip, chew, etc. I always wondered why people used it when there was Swedish Snus. I ran out of my “usual” Thunder Frosted Extra Stark. So guess what? The local tobacco store sells nothing other than that camel and Marlboro garbage. I couldn’t feel that unless I put the entire can in my mouth. It’s designed to keep people smoking.. Anyway I headed over to the dip section because I figured that would take care of my craving. Picked up some Grizzly Long Cut.

First thing I notice when I put it in my mouth, the entire inside of my mouth is covered with brown saliva. Nasty. (swedish snus barely makes any spit and I just swallow any it does create because it’s barely anything and doesn’t bother me at all.) It burns like crazy, and seemed to tear my mouth up A LOT more than swedish snus. I went through only 2 1/2 cans of the stuff, and my bottom lip feels like i’ve been putting swedish snus there for like 6 months or a year. I can’t imagine how it would be if I continued to use this stuff.

The only real advantage I found in dip is that it creates more taste and if you want to have a more “active” experience with a spittoon, it’s not a bad experience. Other than that, it pretty much sucks.

The other problem I have with it is that it’s weaker than my usual Thunder Frosted. I didn’t have direct comparison until today, but I would have to use 1/12+ of the can to get the same amount of nicotine out of Grizzly as I got from Thunder Frosted ES.

Next problem with dip is that it is fire cured. This creates way more cancer causing agents in comparison with swedish snus.

Conclusion on Dip: Only used as a last resort. Not as bad for you as smoking, but not a real pleasant form of tobacco.

Swedish Snus Overview

spitless
not linked to oral cancer
small pouches you just throw in your upper lip.
after using for so long it feels like putting in a mint.
your mouth barely gets torn up at all.
wide variety of flavors.
no mess.
barely stains teeth.
tons of different strengths available.
tons of different types available, such as white portion.
no “looks” from other people because you’re spitting.
looks like you’re using mints.
pancreatic cancer is the only form linked to its use.
98% less dangerous directly compared to smoking. (check out Dr. Rodu, Tobacco Harm Reduction Sites, and some news articles on Swedish Snus.)

Conclusion

If you’re going to use tobacco, you ought to be using Swedish Snus. There’s no doubt in my mind this is the “ultimate” version of tobacco. Smoking is terrible, it destroys your body more than even chew or dip, by a lot. Dip is also annoying and a pain. No one likes seeing people spit all over the place.  Destroys your mouth. Chew rots your teeth. Cigars cause lots of oral cancer. Pipes cause lots of oral cancer.

Which will you chose? The choice seems obvious: Swedish Snus.

A number of things point to e-cigarettes being relatively safe (however there needs to be more research done) and I have used them for months, guess what? My lungs have cleared up, I can finally breathe again. I feel good, generally.

I’ve heard about snus being a pretty healthy alternative to cigarettes as well, and some people combining it with e-cigarettes to finally “lay down” cigarettes completely. One day I had no batteries for my e-cigarette and I was out and about, so instead of buying a pack of cigarettes (which would’ve broke my 3 month long cigarette free streak) I opted to pick up some camel snus. I felt something familiar, a “good feeling” not like when I vape on my ecig to kill withdrawal, that’s a completely different feeling. Then I remembered that there are MAOI’s in tobacco, and that’s what I was probably feeling more than anything. Remember, I didn’t use these MAOI’s for 3 months, however I think they were the problem. I was still holding on to my old cigarettes because I really felt something was missing from my e-cigarette, and it was bothering me.

Later on I decided to try swedish snus, and man is that ever stronger than camel. I had an “MAOI” rush. (I had been puffing on my e-cigarette like normal until the package came, and had just put it down prior to popping in some swedish snus.)

All of a sudden, I feel much better, and feel like I used to when I smoked. This resulted in me throwing away all my cigarettes (finally). I had been holding them because I wanted that MAOI feeling back. I missed it. I was going to ignore it as much as possible and try to get over it, however this makes me feel safer. Now I can say for certain that I don’t have any need to smoke.

Note: You have to realize that smoking is the WORST POSSIBLE WAY to get nicotine, period. I know a lot of people are brainwashed into thinking that smokeless tobacco is WORSE for you than cigarettes. That’s completely FALSE. Unfortunately, cigarettes have the highest rate of all cancers. Oral, lung, pancreatic, etc. Yes there are risks to snus, however those risks are very small in comparison with smoking. (90% – 98% safer)

Conclusion

In my opinion, combining e-cigarettes and snus is going to be the absolute best combination for anyone to quit smoking. Some people don’t care about the MAOI’s much, others do. However, I think e-cigarettes and snus are great choices for anyone willing to stop smoking. Pick up a blucig and see if e-cigarettes are right for you. Otherwise check out northerner.com.

Still, I would like to quit nicotine/tobacco completely, but I’m a pretty big addict. The least I can do is try to be healthier with my habit, and it’s so nice that the “powers that be” shield all harm reduction is secrecy.

I’ve been looking around the net to try and find the actual exploit (milw0rm, packetstorm etc.) haven’t been able to find it. I’m guessing it’s private still. Hopefully wordpress fixes this issue soon because from what I’ve read all versions of wordpress are vulnerable right now.

That of course can’t be good can it? Regardless, I’ve went through and upgraded everything possible including plugins, wordpress, and I upgraded some things on my server.In the mean time I’m going to look around for anything else that was messed with and change some things

Anyone else hit with this?

UPDATE: Seems like there was some confusion about which versions of WordPress are effected, it seems you’re safe so long as you’re running 2.8.4. When my blog was attacked, I was running WP 2.8.3. Usually I update right away, this time I didn’t. That’s what I get for slacking off

It’s not to get users started on the wrong foot either, I think these can be compared closely to a DSE901. No matter what, it spreads the word about E-Cigs and I’m all for that. I think more and more people should know about them. Who’s to say InLife E-Cigs aren’t a good product anyway? Surely not me because I haven’t bought one. Maybe I will if I earn enough through them and then give a review. I’ll tell you what, if there was an affiliate program for the Janty Dura-C and every other E-Cig I would be the first to promote them. Guess what? There’s not. So I’m stuck. Either I promote through MLM and get paid, or I promote for free. Promoting for free doesn’t pay the bills Also, PPC costs money to run and if I’m  not getting paid to drive traffic and spread the word then I’m LOSING money.

Anyway, this program is MLM, or multi-level marketing. If I make a sale then I get $30, I would also make money from referrals when they make money. Pretty much like a pyramid scheme, no? The thing to keep in mind is you will get your $30 per sale whether you refer people or not. It only costs $30 to sign up, and if you make one sale you’ll get $30.

Another thing to consider is that if you do get referrals/buys  you’ll be smoking e-cigs for free in a way.

I spoke to someone about this and some do claim InLife E-Cigs are high quality, but I don’t know. I’m just upset there aren’t more affiliate programs for e-cigs I’m familiar with. That’s life, you can’t always “Have it your way” like Burger King

It’s pretty obvious that Google owns a good chunk of the internet. If, suddenly it disappeared, would Yahoo take over again? Or would it be a struggle between Yahoo and MSN? Millions of people wouldn’t have their e-mail anymore. Some might not even know how to find another search engine Where would everyone go that’s currently on YouTube? How about Blogger?

Sure, there’s other places they could go, but would they be able to keep up with the massive new influx of traffic?

I’ve been thinking to myself, is Google a monopoly of sorts? If it is, that can’t be good. A monopoly is never a “good” thing for the users, even if they are free services. Google makes massive amounts through advertisers paying them. There’s very little competition, even from Yahoo and MSN. Everyone uses Google. I’m willing to bet even people that use MSN and Yahoo go to Google occasionally.

Google is everywhere, is it the big brother of the Internet? Google has so much power over anything and everything you see on the Internet, it does become at least somewhat scary.

Here’s a cool video on the subject I found through YouTube (AKA Google)