Well, after that brief commercial intermission, we are back on the air. We're only $9,381 away from reaching our pledge goal of...

Oops. Sorry about that. Thought I was Jerry Lewis there, for a moment. Regular readers of this space (all three of them�Hi, Bob, Lisa, Mandy) no doubt noticed that our broadcast was briefly interrupted yesterday. This is because, in a grand and laughable irony of this modern age, the web company I work for lost its internet access, and since it's the only place I can access the web from right now, I was unable to update. Due to this, I lost innumerable millions of dollars from the advertising revenue this Diaryland homepage generates for me. Fear not, however, for my consultants tell me I'm back in the black today, and I'll only have to sell off ONE of my east coast estates.

Whew.

Anyway, now that my financial troubles are over again, I can get on to the all important self-centered angst of my day to day life. For now, that angst includes, but is not limited to, my struggles with that Irish fiend, Nick O'Teen. That bastard has abused me since I was 16, forcing me to smoke and reducing my lung capacity to that of an asthmatic tadpole. I want him to stop.

Let me set this up: I'm 25 now, and I've been smoking since I was around 16, right when I started hanging out with that 'bad element.' I'm not one of those namby-pamby smokers who buys a pack and slowly smokes it over a week. Or, one of those really annoying people who berate you for smoking, only to start bumming off you when they've had a couple of drinks. No. I am a career smoker. A professional. I buy a pack in advance. I own ashtrays. I time walking or driving according to how many cigarettes it takes to reach my destination. I can get off the El, and reach into my coat, grab a smoke, light it, and put the pack away, all with one hand. For me, smoking has been a science, an art, and a calling.

A few days ago, I realized that I didn't have to buy a pack of cigarettes after I smoked all of the ones in my current pack.

This was a major revelation. An epiphany. I always knew this, but I had never really seriously considered putting the concept into development. Not even when my dad died of a stroke. In between crying over his bed in intensive care, as he lay in a coma, my brothers and I would go outside for smoke breaks.

So, what's changed? I'm not sure. I mean, I have no new information on smoking that I haven't always had. I didn't just learn that they use dead babies' eyes for the filters or anything horrible like that (note to self: check other products for dead baby eyes). I mean, I know it's bad for me for one thing. This is a no-brainer, and I would always sarcastically pretend to have no idea smokes were harmful whenever some helpful wise-ass pointed out that they were. Also, the economics are discoraging. If we say a pack of smokes costs four dollars, over the course of a year that's well over $1200. I could have gone on a nice trip to Europe each year, if I had saved that money. Instead, those pints of Guinness I would have drank in Ireland, or that walk through the Louvre I could have taken in Paris, reside now in my lungs in the form of some crusty gray-black tar. Lovely thought, isn't it? Trading international adventure for a smoke after lunch. Damn.

So, I think I'll try to quit. Let's see if I can save four bucks every day. Maybe, a year from now, I'll be updating this space from a cyber cafe in London.

Nah. Who am I kidding? I'll be at a pub.