Mark this momentous day, December 9th, 2008. This was the day that I escaped the prison of nicotine addiction. I didn’t “give it up”, but I have come to the full realization that there is nothing enjoyable or good about smoking. Anything I can do while smoking, I can do better not as a smoker. So I do not have, and will never have a reason or motivation to smoke another cigarette.

I’m finally free from that weed and all the pain that it brought into my life! I feel like I’ve escaped from shackles in some dank, moldy medieval dungeon, and have stepped into the gloriously beautiful light of day, with the fresh air on my face. It’s that awesome!

It’s not hard. It’s not anything. Literally.

I just realized that I don’t have to “fight” nicotine. I don’t have to “fight” anything. I just don’t want to smoke anymore. So I’m not going to. The pleasant awareness of the reality that the physical addiction of nicotine is actually very minor, and will have to be suffered through as I would a head cold, or an upset stomach, for a couple days, is actually indescribable. I’m grinning like an idiot as I’m writing this.

Wow. What an awesome revelation. The funny part: this is going to “succeed” or “fail”. It can’t. Because I’m trying to “do” anything. My time at T.A.C. should have taught me that a void (in this case, of activity) is not any thing.

I just don’t want to smoke anymore. This is so wild, and hilarious. More will follow once (or as) I have to “suffer” through the physical “withdrawals”.

EDIT: Let me explain a little more:

It started on Slashdot. I had scrolled halfway through the main page of headlines, when I noticed in the the “Quick Links” section on the sidebar (it was the capitalized “XKCD” that caught my attention - I love that site, and everyone that tributes them). Anyways, as I thought of clicking on, and perusing AnimeFu (despite not being “Addicted to anime” as it suggests) saw the Penny Arcade link, and thought, “Hey, I haven’t been there in a a couple weeks. I should catch up on the comics.”

So I opened Penny Arcade and Everything (<–sounded interesting for a Professional Expert) in new tabs. Reading through the Penny Arcade comics (backwards) I come upon this one about a Quitting Smoking video game for the Nintendo DS

This got me interested in a new “aid” for “quitting” smoking. Looked into it. Discovered it was based off of this guy Allen Carr’s method, which he developed, wrote a bestseller, and has been doing clinics on since 1983. Read up a bunch from his company’s site (he himself died from lung cancer a couple years ago). If you laughed at that, and are thinking, “I can’t believe that you’re falling for such a lousy scam”, then you’re going to feel like a real a-hole when you get the facts. Anyways, bottom line. This guy doesn’t matter. His philosophy, on the other hand, does.

Simplified, as I interpreted it from the various sources, it goes something like this:
Smoking is an activity that you want to do. Every time you light up it’s because you ARE making the choice, “I want this cigarette and I’m going to act upon this desire”. Stopping smoking is simply saying, “Y’know what? I don’t want that cigarette” or “I’ll abstain from that activity, thank you anyways.” Just like you would if someone asked you if you wanted to go beat a litter of newborn kittens to a bloody pulp with a 2×4.

I mean, sure, murdering helpless baby animals may have its pleasures, but in the end its just not your thing (NOTE: If it is your thing, please remove yourself from the gene pool by the most expedient means, thank you). Likewise, smoking is just not my thing anymore. And I’m cool with that.

Again, what’s important here is that there is NO STRUGGLE. This is not a contest/battle involving your willpower, because you’re NOT DOING ANYTHING. Literally. If this is too difficult for you to understand, well, I hope you’re not a smoker.

Although I don’t see myself smoking cigarettes (or shooting heroin or murdering kittens - unless they deserve it) any time in the future. I ordered this dude’s book from Amazon (only $14 after shipping). I’ll give it to a friend who wants to stop smoking after I read it, if I read it.

END EDIT

I’m here on the patio of my pad in La Habra, smoking, drinking a beer, and thinking, “This Wordpress was freaking waaay easy to setup and get started”.
The default Xandros configuration is just fine on my black EEE for doing on the go posting, and what-not.
So, thought of the day #1:

How awesome would it be to build my Dad a fully-functional micro-CNC mill that he could have on his desk at work? I’ll tell you how awesome… totally-freaking-awesome! So on that note I’m going back inside to do some research on hackaday.com on how to do this. I’ll keep you posted with all my findings/progress.

**UPDATE** All the plans I found for a DIY CNC-Mill were on a much larger (although still tiny for CNC-mills) scale than I was remembering. Either that, or I wasn’t able to find the one I thought I remembered. Also, the costs all seemed to be in the $1,000+ range, whereas I was hoping for $300-$500.

Other things to remember:
1) Find a birthday/grad present for Joseph
2) Find out how to re-install an nLited XP on my white EEE
3) Make list of EVERYTHING I need to do (2 year limit)