T + 45 hours (or: Breathe... breathe... that's better)

The 36-hour barrier came with the ringing of the alarm clock this morning. That's one more proof of the law of unintended consequences I guess. And a handy one at that. I get to rouse myself every morning on an even-word boundary (don't ask).

Another unintended consequence -- and an unfortunate one -- is that I'm starting to realize that this withdrawal thing is making me a bit more *ahem* "talkative" than usual. Which is enough to strike fear in the hearts of some, and stir wonder in the souls of most. Because I have never been accused of reticence by anyone who knows me.

A lot of people, both ones I know and ones I don't, have been of irreplaceable assistance during this quest. But two of them deserve some special props. Maybe even medals (the Order of the Purple Ear maybe?). At the very least trophies should be awarded here.

One of the most heavily afflicted by my recent abuse of excess energy has been my awesome friend JC who has been -- by my best guesstimate -- subjected to somewhere between 2500 and 5000 words worth of me keeping my hands busy over the last two days. And she's done it without a single complaint, without even a single hard word. 'Cuz she's just a rockstar that way.

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Another victim of my verbal hemorrhaging is my way-cool, uber-wonderful new umfriend Debi. She's been on the receiving end of (probably) an even greater volume of verbosity than JC (the heart quails, does it not?). But she gives as good as she gets, and that's just fine with me. (Stop. I mean it.) I'm not sure how much I should go into it 'cuz I sure don't want to jinx it. But have you ever known somebody with whom the first time you met turned into one of those omigod-its-four-hours-later conversations? Yeah, it's like that.

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The Mighty Tiff has described the smoke hanging over much of North Carolina as barbecue-scented. In her latest post she gave a hunger-inducing description of this smoke complete with a vivid word-picture of meat sizzling over a charcoal flame complete with enough sound and visual effects to make me seriously contemplate an early dash to the Quizno's down the street. It was a verbally Epicurean temptation the like of which is rarely seen. My comparison of the smoke smell (and choice of likeness) is very different as I described yesterday around this time. Fortunately for those of us in the RDU area, the wind picked up last night and shoved all that stuff further west. The Triad is getting today what we had yesterday. And the really good news is that this combustion-induced overcast has cooled things off by a good 10 or 15 degrees (it's down to 90).

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We might want to get used to this kind of thing though. I've just started Fareed Zakaria's book The Post-American World in which he says that over the next dozen years or so China and India will build about 800 new power plants, most of which will be coal-fired. I forget now how much he said that would multiply CO2 emissions, but it was substantial. I'm only through a couple of chapters, but there are some other interesting -- if counterintuitive -- ideas posited in the book as well. It promises to be a thought-provoking read.

I like those.

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In other news (from the same Amazon order), the Biloxi-area based 3 Doors Down recently released their self-titled fourth studio album.
I'm thinking of recommending they change their name to "Nickelback South" after this offering. Meaning that if you like Nickelback (I do), you'll probably like this album (I did). And if you don't like Nickelback, you probably won't. Which is a (to use one of Tiff's Lovely Wordporn words) circumlocutory way to say "they sound just like Nickelback on this album".

Really. They do. It's spooky.

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Whether yesterday's pseudo-smog was actually BBQ-scented or not, thinking about Tiff's comparison coupled with not having a cigarette to calm my oral fixation finally just drove me to the Quizno's down the block from where I work. I think I may have awakened a sleeping monster. Their prime-rib cheesesteak is some good! Normally I'm not a big fan of prime rib. But sliced thin, and toasted with some onions and fake Swiss cheese on a whole wheat hoagie roll... I could be converted. Throw in a bag of jalapeno flavored chips and a bottle of that Lipton Citrus Green Tea with far too much high fructose corn syrup in it and you got some pretty good eats. I picked up a bag of the Keebler Cracker Crisps (herb & parmesan!) to save for later, but now the pump is primed and I'm going to have to eat them. Oh well, at least now I have some change for the vending machine. If this keeps up I'm going to blimp out before I'm nicotine free. But it's okay, I can lose the extra weight if I'm alive to do it.

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That's it, I'm out. Watch this space...Stumble This!