Wife and I don’t speak with one another much anymore so I don’t know where she actually went. But I did take a peep at her Greyhound ticket before she left, and thus I know what day she’ll return so she can’t come busting in on me like she did last time.

While she’s gone I’m keeping a little diary, and in slightly edited format it goes like this:

DAY ONE: Decided to keep the toilet seat up for the duration, which makes me wonder if those Guinness Book people keep records on stuff like this. I’m also curious to find out how far back I can stand and still mostly hit the bowl.

DAY TWO: Trying to plan ahead so I went to the Supercuts by Raley’s and got me the works: cut, tint, styling, shave, some Old Spice. Chances are pretty fair something will go wrong in the next few weeks and I want to look my best for the Sheriff’s booking photo mug shot website.

DAY FOUR: Finally think I might have the time to get that old embarrassing tattoo removed, which has kept the wife from ever seeing me naked with the lights on.

DAY SIX: I quit feeding the cat and already saved enough to buy a bonus six-pack! Plus I can make a pretty good lunch with all those unopened cans of cat food.

Fresh from TWK’s Kitchen:

One stalk celery, chopped

1Ž2 small onion, minced

One can Friskies Mackerel Cat Food

3/4 cup mayonnaise

Mix ingredients in medium-size bowl. Spread on sliced rye bread. Drink minimum five strong beers before consuming.

SEVEN: Haven’t flushed downstairs toilet since 15th of last month. Wonder if the City Council will give me some kind of plaque for water conservation efforts.

DAY 12: Wife e-mailed, said she met some guy from Chippendale’s, which is a high-end furniture making outfit. Hope he gives her something special to bring home!

DAY 14: Tore up all the orchids and lilies and heritage roses around the place and put in some revenue-enhancing plants, if you know what I mean. Not pot too obvious. I planted several hundred Afghan poppies. Tom Allman and Bob Nishiyama could stroll the yard all day and never suspect a thing.

DAY 15: Friday was Sushi Night, so this morning I cleaned out the fish tank and filled it with a nice young Gallo Chianti. Got some buddies coming over Ginger Baker, Lynette Fromme, maybe Abner Haynes and I’m thinking of taking apart the vacuum cleaner and making a beer bong out of it. Not like I was running the old Electrolux over the rugs much anyway.

DAY 19: If you had a sneaky wife who didn’t trust you where do you think she’d go hiding her checkbook? Well, mine tucked hers way down into the laundry basket and it took me this long to find it. But perseverance pays off (or in my case it pays off my tab at the Water Trough).

DAY 22: Cat died today, or maybe last week. Gotta make it look like a suicide.

DAY 24: Some nosy guy from the County came snooping around saying the neighbors are complaining about a “sick, horrid smell” coming from the house, which I’m thinking is the unflushed toilet I got going downstairs. It is mighty ripe, but did I go calling government busybodies when I smelled pot growing in their yard last summer? No, I did not. I simply went over the fence and helped myself to a small portion of their crop, and they are certainly welcome to do the same.

DAY 27: She thinks I just drink and lay around when she’s gone, but I’ve already made a rubber band ball, wrote a poem, and put all my warrants in chronological order

DAY 30: E-mail from the wife today says she’s in touch with some lawyer over whatever’s going on with the Chippendale guy, which just shows how dumb she can be. I mean, shipping furniture might require a moving company but it’s way overboard to think you’re going to need a lawyer. I told you she wasn’t the brightest. I’ll have a talk with her when she gets home.

There’s Tommy Wayne, standing in the kitchen in his tattered bathrobe, leaning on the sink and eating out of a can, while Tom Hine is out in the garage sitting in his ’74 Plymouth with the engine running.

© Ukiah Daily Journal Staff

In today’s society, being grossly overweight to obese and living an unhealthy lifestyle has become status quo, especially Americans. And the battle to improve Americans’ health is zeroing.
Barry Popkin, director of the University of North Carolina’s Interdisciplinary Obesity Center, explained: “I believe soda is the next tobacco”.

Soda drinkers haven’t reached outcast status like smokers before them, but were proposed that sugar taxes and social pressure to be healthy can put a damper on doing the Soda drinks.
Statistics show that Americans are consuming up to 300 more calories per day now than they were 25 to 30 years ago, and two-thirds of that increase is from caloric beverages like soft drinks, sports drinks, energy drinks, fruit juice and even milk.
However it is known that milk has important vitamins and minerals, but the sweet beverages have no health benefits. And not only one study showed that people who drink caloric beverages don’t compensate by cutting out other food, that’s why the calories add up.
In the past, two states, Maine and New York, tried to ban soda drinks but unfortunately have not succeeded. Last year the suggestion in New York to impose a 1-cent-per-ounce tax on sugared beverages could have reduced their use by 13 percent, or about two portions per person per week, according to a recent article.
Spokesmen for the American Beverage Association said that proposed taxes on sugary beverages are “a pure money grab” and unfairly discriminate against one product. She batted away soda’s comparison to tobacco, “a known carcinogen.” And they also added that these two products, cigarettes and soft drinks, have nothing in common.
Health-conscious consumers are, however, increasingly turning away from regular soft drinks in favor of diet alternatives.
Scientists found that the regular soft drink market lost 15.6 million adult drinkers from 2003 to 2008, while the diet soda market gained 7.8 million drinkers.
Mr. Popkin concluded that sugary drinks are the known criminal, leading to weight gain and increasing the risk for diabetes. To that end, he sees the beverage tax as a major way to help fund reform and improve health and quality of life.

Smokers in Turkey tempted to flout an imminent ban in cafes, restaurants and bars will be spared execution as allegedly meted out in 17th-Century Istanbul — but their Prime Minister has likened cigarettes to terrorism.
A woman smokes in a bar as she drinks the Turkish traditional beverage Raki in Ankara in this February 12, 2008 file photo.

That’s a measure of how strongly Tayyip Erdogan feels about tobacco. Sultan Murad IV is said to have roamed the streets ordering the execution of those who defied a smoking ban aimed at curbing coffee house sedition.

One of the world’s oldest prohibitions of smoking, Murad’s failed and as tobacco’s popularity grew in Turkey, the saying “smoke like a Turk” took root in languages across Europe.

In modern times, Erdogan is the driving force behind the next phase of a widely popular ban taking effect on July 19, which aims to curb the habit in a country where 22 million people, including around half the adult male population, smoke.

But at a time of economic crisis, the prohibition — adding restaurants, cafes and bars to the places where smoking is not allowed — is viewed by a minority as a potential assault on their culture.

Erdogan, who long since banned smoking in cabinet meetings, also faces opposition from owners of thousands of establishments across the Muslim, European Union-candidate country, who see the ban as a threat to their business.

Some in the bar industry point out the smoking ban coincides with the introduction of restrictions on alcohol advertising this month, but experts reject suggestions it is a stalking-horse for tighter controls on the sale of alcohol.

“Let’s keep alcohol and cigarettes separate. They are different things,” said Law Professor Hayrettin Okcesiz of Akdeniz University. “If there is a ban on alcohol everyone should have the right to protest, but we shouldn’t see this is as step towards an alcohol ban.”

Among opponents are those who work in nargile, or water-pipe cafes, an ancient tradition which has enjoyed a revival in the last decade among locals and tourists.

“This is the Ottoman culture which comes from our ancestors,” said cafe owner Ali Yogurtcu, 54. “We will protest if they try to ban this, but I don’t think they will try to destroy it.”

SMALL FINE

A meagre fine under Turkey’s ban — 69 lira ($45) against a ceiling of 500 euros ($700) in neighbouring Greece — masks fierce determination on the part of Erdogan.

His personal dislike of the habit may give the ban the momentum it needs to succeed in the world’s seventh biggest cigarette market.

When the anti-smoking campaign was first launched in 2007 he famously declared the struggle against cigarette usage to be “as important as the struggle against terrorism”, words which resonate strongly in a country which has witnessed a bloody 25-year-old Kurdish guerrilla insurgency.

In Turkey, 100,000 people are estimated by the Health Ministry to die annually from smoking-related illnesses — about 0.45 percent of smokers. Globally, some 5.4 million die annually out of about 1.3 billion, which at 0.41 percent makes Turks fractionally more vulnerable.

Surveys indicate around 90 percent popular support for the smoking ban, which started last year in workplaces and shopping centres. The authorities say that has already lowered cigarette consumption slightly.

Support has been helped by a growing interest in healthy lifestyles as people enjoy greater prosperity and expect better standards of living. But there have been problems.

A group of convicts rioted at a prison in the southeastern province of Siirt, climbing onto the roof, lighting fires and throwing stones to protest at the ban on smoking at the jail.

Smoking has also continued in some cafes in shopping centres, where retailers have complained about its impact on trade as the economy slumped nearly 14 percent in the first quarter of the year.

These fuel doubts about whether the ban will be implemented in the thousands of smoky, male-dominated tea-houses in towns and villages across Turkey where many men spend much of their free time, gossiping or playing backgammon.

Tea-house owners say more than 80 percent of their patrons smoke.

ALCOHOL ON THE AGENDA?

Others say Erdogan’s anti-smoking fervour reflects efforts to change society in a country where his Islamist-rooted AK Party is accused by secularists of promoting a more conservative vision since it came to power in 2002.

“I think we have been heading towards a camouflaged alcohol ban,” said Tahir Berrakkarasu, who heads the BEYDER association which represents cafes, bars and restaurants in Istanbul’s bustling Beyoglu district, the heart of the country’s nightlife.

“Why is this happening? It means that alcohol isn’t wanted in this country,” he said, referring to what he says is a six-year government campaign targeting bars with a stream of taxes and bureaucratic obstacles.

The advertising restrictions on alcohol that take effect this month ban linking alcohol to food and cultural values: drink producers say they will severely curb their marketing ability.

Semih Mavis, who heads the Turkish operations of Efes Beer Group, the country’s largest brewer, said the restrictions boost the likelihood Turkey will be perceived as a country of “prohibitive interventions” in people’s lifestyles and entertainment.

Waiter Mustafa Kivrikdal, 32, serving in a water-pipe cafe, was more outspoken: “I think there is a religious factor in this,” he said. “They are against alcohol and they are against smoking and they want to put an end to this.”

Nonetheless, there is little sign of conservativism taking hold around the bars of Beyoglu, which swells with hordes of drinkers at night. And even among those enjoying a smoke before the ban is imposed, there is support for the move.

“If there is a punishment people will obey this,” said aviation company employee Elif Arda, 23, smoking at a table outside Sahika bar. “I think people will get used to it with time and that will be a good thing, even if I still smoke.”

Even though the authorities say implementing the ban will be a challenge, they point out Turks are receptive to change, citing the success of a 13-year-old ban on smoking in buses and the country’s adoption of the Latin alphabet in place of Ottoman Turkish script in 1928.

“We can see that the people who live in this land can adapt very quickly to change,” said Ubeyd Korbey, who chairs an anti-smoking association and played a role in drafting the ban. “And we now have a very decisive prime minister.”

© Thestar

Electronic cigarettes are helping save lives. If you smoke 20 to 30 cigarettes a day, and have tried everything to quit, or at lease cut down but without success, you might like to try an electronic cigarette.

The Electronic cigarette can help to significantly reduce the amount you are smoking. Within days you should be able to reduce the number of cigarettes you smoke and even feel healthier.

The electronic cigarette is the only device that actually simulates the action of smoking, which is the hardest thing about trying to cut down, as you are likely to be more addicted to the ritual than the nicotine.

Now available in New Zealand as a registered Medical Device the nicotine-free electronic cigarette called Elusion; comes in slender packaging and mimics a real cigarette. When inhaled, the battery-powered device produces an odourless, vapor mist almost identical in appearance to tobacco smoke.

The electronic cigarette does not contain nicotine, or any of the other harmful chemicals found in tobacco cigarettes. And because they produce no smoke, they can be used in workplaces, restaurants and airports.

The Elusion electronic cigarette is really easy to use, you just charge it up, connect the two pieces together and you’re away. It’s also a cost effective way for you to manage your habit.

© Scoop

Don’t fret smokers. There are alternative ways that tobacco smokers can save money and avoid the price hike of cigarettes. At least, this is what the Portsmouth Herald raved on the front page of their Sunday edition this morning.

With the increase of 45 cents per pack which will take effect this Wednesday, many individuals are scrambling to stock up while the prices are low. But, the media just took on a new “low” by providing solutions to offset the taxes. They propose: rolling your own cigarettes.

First of all, these taxes are meant for us to improve our standard of living. They were designed to bill people who are choosing to smoke at the cost of their lives and the lives around them. Our country is flooded with enough problems for the people who make healthier choices of living, yet are still scraping to pay bills.

Further more, much of the community that reads the Portsmouth Herald are parents of children in the school systems. These systems strive to help children make smart choices about drugs and alcohol. Every opinionated article has its place, but this front page “helpful hint” overstepped the boundaries of its devoted readers.

So, when a minor is caught rolling tobacco at Portsmouth High School, will that be reported on the front page, too?


Copyright © Examiner

Motion pictures are watched in theatres near you. Movies, however, are increasingly distributed through other channels, and thus exposure to film content is vastly underestimated if limited to movie theatre attendance. In the US, for example, feature films are viewed seven times more often on DVD than in theatres.

In 2006, US$ 24 billion was spent on recorded movies, for sale or rent, in the US alone. This amount nearly equals the global motion picture industry’s total theatre box office revenue of US$ 26 billion. In 2005, Western Europe spent US$15 billion on DVDs (27% of global spending) and Japan spent US$ 9 billion (16%). Europeans purchased 657 million DVDs and rented DVDs 753 million times. In comparison, 926 million cinema tickets were sold in Europe in 2006. Annual DVD sales per DVD-equipped household were highest in Ireland, the UK, Belgium and Norway (9.9–11.5 videos), while DVD rentals were highest in Ireland and Croatia (20 videos per household).
DVD usage in other regions of the world is unknown, but is likely to be extensive as well. Recorded sales do not, however, tell the entire story. An industry-sponsored 2005 survey of more than 20 countries concluded that piracy – legally reproduced DVDs and unlicensed Internet downloads – cost the global motion picture industry US$ 18 billion in cinema ticket sales and DVD sales and rentals. Pirates were reported to occupy an estimated 90% of China’s film and DVD market; more than 75% of the markets in Hungary, Russia and Thailand; more than 60% of the markets in Mexico and Poland; 25% or more of the markets in India, Italy and Spain; and 7% of the market in the United States. Films are also a staple of cable and satellite services. There were 350 million cable households worldwide in 2004, 25% of which are in the Asia-Pacific region, and the number is growing rapidly. In addition, market analysts project 100 million digital satellite households worldwide in 2008 and more than 400 million broadband Internet subscribers by 2010.

It wasn’t all that long ago that merlot was the whipping boy of the wine industry. Overproduced and under-flavoured, it was infamously damned in the movie Sideways during a pre-dinner scene where would-be novelist and pinot noir snob, Miles, informs his pal, Jack, that “if anyone orders merlot, I’m leaving. I am NOT drinking any f-merlot!”

In the months that followed, merlot’s image took a battering, as did its sales. Fortunately for merlot producers, what goes around comes around, and just when it seemed the grape was doomed, its modern day competitor, shiraz, began losing its lustre.

Eerily reminiscent of merlot’s demise, shiraz has found its reputation marred by a sea of mediocrity, especially at the fighting varietal level where soupy, cedar-y, sour reds are driving consumers to consider not drinking any f-shiraz.

It’s music to the ears of the merlot producers hoping to get back in the game. In fact, while shiraz and pinot noir were competing for shelf space, some fairly intense self-examination by growers, producers and retailers has resulted in a merlot renaissance among consumers who crave rich, dark fruit-flavoured wine with supple textures and glossy fruit.

There is little doubt some of the finest merlot still comes from Bordeaux’s Right Bank in St. Emilion and Pomerol, although current prices make most Right Bank labels little more than trophy wines that are literally bought and sold at auction with very little drinking in between.

Modern-day merlot, at least the stuff that gets drunk, is more likely to come out of Sonoma, Chile and Tuscany or, as we are witnessing repeatedly of late, from Washington and British Columbia, with the latter two regions showing a great deal of promise.

There is something about Pacific Northwest merlot that places it well above the norm. The fruit is rich and, for the most part, ripe. The tannins are mostly soft or at least fine-grained at the top end and the flavours come with a supercharged, spicy savoury thread and just enough acidity to keep it lively on the palate.

Of course, talk is cheap. It’s what is in the glass that counts.

In British Columbia the single best practitioner of merlot has to be CedarCreek. The CedarCreek Classic Series 2006 Merlot ($20) proves we can do something special in B.C. Big and open with higher toned, spicy, fruit pudding with vanilla and black cherries, it is Bordeaux with fruit. This is delicious, well made, affordable merlot.

Equally appealing with a grilled bird is the Mission Hill Merlot Reserve 2006 ($25), with its dry, round, supple styling and coffee, peppery, herbal, vanilla flavours. It’s lean but with finesse. Similar in style is the Road 13 Merlot 2006 ($24), with its smoky, vanilla, cherry, cedar aromas and coffee, cedar, tobacco, peppery, cherry, mineral, stony flavours.

All of these are terrific “food” wines that make a meal more interesting.

If you believe in the idea that some grapes grow better in some places than others, then Washington merlot such as L’Ecole No. 41 Merlot 2005 ($47) should be on your radar. This Walla Walla red is consistently among the finest merlots made in the state. Look for ripe peppery fruit flecked with orange and chocolate. Dense, round and full-bodied with soft tannins, it is a treat to sip. Again, Bordeaux-esque with fruit.

Speaking of Bordeaux, you can reorient your palate quickly with a glass of Chateau Mayne-Vieil 2003 ($28) from the Fronsac region. The blend is 90 per cent merlot with 10 per cent Cabernet Franc. Typically reserved, its cedar-y dark fruit flavours and small-grained tannins call for food or, perhaps, a post-dinner dalliance with cheese.

Still in Europe, I was recently impressed with Falesco Umbria Merlot 2006 ($25). This mid-Italy version has a meaty, peppery, sausage nose while the palate is awash in dark plum, peppery, tobacco fruit and vanilla flavours. There is fine intensity and concentration but it will easily pair with any number of grilled beef dishes.

The Tommasi Merlot Le Prunée 2006 ($22) from the Veneto is another light, elegant, balanced merlot with an earthy, barnyard, plum fruit nose. The textures on the mid-palate are soft with plummy, spicy cherry fruit and liquorice notes. This is classic Italian styling that suggests dinner dishes like osso buco, sausages or meat-sauced pasta. Ready to drink.

Much of the merlot coming out of California has been less than compelling but you can’t go wrong in select parts of Sonoma and Napa Valley. A real bargain is the latest Kendall-Jackson Merlot Vintner’s Reserve 2006 ($25). This is a delicious tri-county blend of mountain, hillside and bench fruit from Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino counties. Structurally correct and full of smoky, black fruit and rounded fine-grained tannins, it slides down effortlessly. Private wine shops only.

Another Golden State winner is the Benziger Merlot 2004 ($34) from Sonoma County. The style is dry and fresh with peppery, plum, black olive and tobacco flavoured fruit with a cardamom and coffee finish.

Moving up the price ladder, a new classic is the Highland Estate Taylor Peak Merlot 2006 ($65). Taylor Peak is 100 per cent Bennett Valley grown fruit (inside Sonoma Valley) that spends 17 months in French oak of which 37 per cent is new. Look for cool blueberry black fruit and blueberries with bits of tobacco, spice, compost chocolate and licorice. Impressive styling that focuses on mountain fruit gives it power but with Bordeaux Right Bank-like finesse. You can easily drink or hold this merlot, for a decade. It is only available in private wine shops and restaurants.

Looking back on the last 40 years of merlot, it’s clear that popularity works in strange ways. Having survived its times at the top of the wine game and at the bottom, merlot is once again working its way back into the lexicon and mouths of wine drinkers. Who knows, maybe somewhere in Santa Barbara County, Miles, Jack, Maya and Stefanie are ordering a merlot as you read this.

Source: Piquenewsmagazine

Cigarette smoking is full of meanings especially in mythology and religion. Its unreal character has made it possible for imaginative man to see therein mystery and magic. Even for modern people, smoke has a strong charm. To the cigarette smoker, the clouds he puffs out seem to represent a part of himself. Just as most people like to watch their own breath on cold winter days, so they like to watch cigarette smoke, which similarly makes ones breathe visible.

This pleasure explains the emotional attitudes of many toward smoke. One smoker said: “Smoke is charming. I like to watch the smoke. On a rainy day, I sort of lie in a haze in the middle of the room and let my thoughts wander while I smoke and wonder where the smoke goes.”
Smoking provides satisfaction because it is a playful, inventive activity. These cigs characteristics were said by another smoker: “It’s a fascinating thing to watch the smoke take shape. The smoke, like clouds, can form different shapes…. You like to sit back and blow rings and then blow another rings through the first ones. You are perfectly relaxed.”
Some of the attractiveness of a lighted cigarette got from the appeals of fire in general. Fire is the symbol of life, and the idea of fire is surrounded by much superstition. And also, it is interesting to note that signs of superstition can be seen in the smoking habits of modern man.
For example some people never will light three cigarettes on one match. It is said that this superstition is based on experiences during World War I. As three soldiers were lighting up the third man was hit when the light of a match flared up for the last time.
The tradition of lighting another smoker’s cigarette for him may sometimes have an erotic meaning, or it may provide as a friendly gesture. Match and cigarette are contact points.
The cigarette smoking moments often leave on people’s memories an important impression never to be forgotten. Here is such an occasion, described by an office clerk of twenty-one: “I can remember the moments when I returned home – no matter how late – after having been out with a girl on a Saturday night. Before going to bed, I’d sit on the fire escape for a while and enjoy a smoke. I’d turn around so that I could see all the smoke going up. At the same time, the windows would be bright with lights on the other side of the courtyard. I would watch what the people were doing. I would sit, and watch, and think about what my girl and I had talked about and what a nice time we had had together. Then I’d throw the cigarette away and go to bed. I feel these were really the most contented moments in my life….”
This study shows that smoking is as much a psychological pleasure as it is a physiological satisfaction. As one of smokers, explained: “It is not the taste that counts. It’s that sense of satisfaction you get from a cigarette that you can’t get from anything else.”