{shhhh. cut a check to chris locke quick}

Though they may not be earth-shaking, business-shaking, or the panacea of a lifetime of sinusitus and phleghm, the truth is that real-life best/worst practices are unfolding, here and now.

This isn't a hypothetical Harvard Review Business Case Study that poses the 'Blogger in Your Midst' question to businesses.

This is realtime.

Another way for PR practitioners to look at the ongoing Ketchum Conversation: How would you advise Ketchum if you were the PR Agency's PR Agency?

Note: The first two comments are from ex-Ketchum employees who have been actively blogging since 2001, and have been working to advance the space as it applies to marketing and PR and the real people that intersect those disciplines since 2001, including while with the company.

This I can predict with the utmost certainty: Folks are sitting down in a conference room or sitting on a conference call right now at Omnicom Group's Ketchum deciding the hows, ifs, whens, whys, and whos of their next communication with what they call the PR Blogosphere. If you were in the room, what would you advise?

Batters Up!

You Can't BS a BSer

I really like the title and substance of this post at Advancing Insights that references yours truly and David and Constantin on the Ketchum Thang. "The Pathology of Business Bullshit" is a right on way to look at it. An example now being played out real-time via the traditional BigPR 'control the message' mantra. This is just the malady that blogging sprouted up to remedy--it grows from the ground like echinacea for business.

It's not much like Western medicine practices that are predictable and 'managed-care' manageable; it's more like Traditional Chinese Medicine and accupuncture, twisting in the needles to unblock and re-direct the flow of energy.

Or maybe I've had too many steroids today.

{Full transparency disclaimer: I am sick and on antibiotics and steroids. Don't mess w/ me.}

I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends...

The latest interview with Ketchum's Blog Representative, Adam Brown, is up at Jeremy's place. I added a few follow-on questions that came to mind after a first read. I also helped out last night when I first scanned the piece and noticed it said Adam joined Ketchum in 1988. Whoops. Typos can really make one stop and think. It was actually 1998, in April, same week as I signed on. Jeremy said that's how it was in the bio he received, but he changed it after he did the ciphering. Not always, but sometimes I have a pretty good eye for proofing.

Pod Doc

Pappa Doc and The Kid do their first podcast, and its just great. I love the light and excited voice of The Kid layed just beneath Docs staccato expressions, until The Kid gets way excited and lights up the melody of voice over doc's in the pocket groove.

I've talked to Chris, I've talked to David, and now I know what Doc sounds like (Plus The Kid). That means I'm 3/4 clued. We ever find Levine, I got first dibs on his voice.

Love Notes to my Google Referrers...

How badly is your tooth chipped? You can probably get it fixed for about $150. Don't freak out.

I don't know when school starts, but I wish I did!

You know what? I'm not sure that anyone won the showdown between Vinnie Colaiuta, Steve Gadd, and Dave Weckl -- except for us fans who get to watch it forever because it was digitized. We won.

I can't believe you didn't know YAHOO stood for You Always Have Other Options! I'm glad I could help, but I can't believe I'm number 1 result on Google over such a funny little thing. But you know something--I really don't believe we really do always have other options. I hate to be a pessimist, but I think I might believe these are the only options I have. But you? YOU HAVE OPTIONS Girlfriend/Boyfriend. The sky is wide open to your potential.

As far as the Arkansas Bees go, I would just get a good can of Wasp spray at the dollar store, maybe Big Lots. Look, you can go to Lowes and get the expensive kind, but then you won't have the money to pay the Lowes card, and they start calling all the way from India to tell you that your attidude isn't helping. TRUST ME. Stick with the Dollar Store. Arkansas Bees aren't any worse than any other bees. (Oh Geez, Myrtle, did you mean Africanized Bees? You searched on Arkansas Bees--their is a difference. Never trust a dark bee. They'll mug you in the elevator.)

The DiGiorno Pizza cooking directions are on the back of the box. You use my post, you're gonna do it RageBoy's way and cook the cardboard. You do NOT want to go there. Just do what the box says.

Don't get me started about Earthlink Live Chat support. The first two times I tried it honey, It was m-e-s-s-e-d u-p. Okay? But now, I think they've worked the kinks out. I really would give it another chance. I think there's a new rule that they can't get offline with you until you answer with just the right string of characters. Don't try fuck you--they don't respond to it. It's like yelling into a black hole.

Whoever is making Halushki, you better invite me over. And I mean it. I don't care where you're cooking it, you either freeze some and send it to me or you invite my ass over with the most greatful set of molars and tastebuds you've ever seen. Now make sure you get the fried cabbage just a little bit brown--cook it long enough--because when some of those slivery pieces of cabbage get brown, the sugar in the cabbage carmelizes. HELLO! Czech Heaven.

When it comes to bronchitis pleghm, you are looking at the woman who can tell you more than you wanted to know: Taste, Color, Texture--you name it. Now, you probably didn't want these details when you first came here, but if it's green or brown tinged (maybe blood) get some antibiotics, a steroid shot in you ass, a take home Medrol Dose Pack and call in sick tomorrow. (Give me a shout on my cell when you go through the steroid shakes. I'll talk you down: 678-294-0900)

Ketchum? Just don't go there.

And last of all, stop worrying about getting a bigger one and start loving the one God gave you.

From CBO to EXBO, he's the Internet's Chief MoFo

David reports that Chris' tenure as Highbeam's Chief Blogging Officer has ended. Perhaps the big man's work there is done. You know, this blogging thing: once you get the rapid implementation done, the rest is pretty much value, value, value. (cough.)

There were many entertaining ideas in a recent email exchange on what Mr. Locke should "be" next. Michael O'Connor Clarke suggested this:

Maybe you’ll still re-emerge as a Highbeam Blogging Officer. Pity you weren’t doing this back when you did that gig in Japan - you could have been an Artificial Intelligence Blogging Officer, and then sued those Sony chaps for copyright infringement. Personally, I’ve always fancied playing the Official Blogging Officer – but six years of French horn messed up my embouchure. With my background in knowledge management, I guess I could try for Knowledge Intranet Blogging Officer, but I don’t think the world really needs another one of those.

Me, I was thinking TAE Blogging Officer has a nice ring. Which brings me back to my post the other day -- except it's not just for BigPR anymore. Smart companies won't let their bloggers get away just yet. Now isn't the time to do something "leading edge" and then take your jellybeans and go home.

What if MS decided having Scobel's mouth open all the time was more pain than pleasure. What if Scobel decided to retire to Jamaica and chase hurricanes? There isn't a thicket thick enough to hide him from the companies that would want their very own Scobelizer. You and I both know, it would be really stupid for MS to cut bait on its technical evangelist any time soon. Short of any hard jail time, Scobel's there for a while.

And that's the thing corpo-newbies need to understand: blogging isn't a project or a program; blogging's for life. It's not an engagement, it's a process by which your organization becomes ever increasingly closer to your markets. It's not linear. It's an inward churning circle, spinning like a hurricane, bringing your markets closer to your eye, where what you see happening will blow your hair back.

At the same time, it's an outward churning circle, like a reverse hurricane, and I don't even know what a weather bug would call that.

The point is, now that CBO has re-emerged as the Internet's Chief MoFo, you would be wise to follow David's links to what RB's up to. Or try some of these.

• Was Highbeam's Chief Blogging Officer
• Now Ex-Blogging Officer
• Continuing to write the most entertaining, Enlightening and frightening book of the 21st century. (Oh wait, he started it last century, so I guess that would be "of the last two centuries combined.")

Isn't it neat that after all of these years, he's still throwing down words blogspot? The Blogger/Google/Blogspot folks should feel honored. Here's why.

Named in a 2001 Financial Times Group survey as one of the "top 50 business thinkers in the world," Christopher Locke (aka RageBoy, aka Chief Blogging Officer) is co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual, and author of Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices and The Bombast Transcripts: Rants and Screeds of RageBoy®. He has worked at the Japanese government's Fifth Generation Project, at Ricoh, at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, at MCI, at IBM, as a consultant/blogger for HighBeam Research, and as a short-order cook at Nick Tahoe's Texas Hots. Locke has written for Wired, Release 1.0, The Industry Standard, Harvard Business Review and many other publications. His work has been covered by Fast Company, Advertising Age, Business Week, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, The Economist, The Financial Times, and like that. He has never recanted anything. Before now. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Peace, Out.

100,000 mile club

When I started blogging in 2001, a search on my name, in quotes, brought up two search results: one, a comment on an online discussion group about women's health, and the other, I don't even remember.

Today, I did a quick check for something I'm working on and saw that Google's kicking out more than 100,000 hits on my unique name, in quotes.

I think that means I get a new car.

To dispel any conjecture, no one else has my full name, with this spelling. Color me lucky.

Note to risk-averse corporations on the reverberating effect of the Internet--participating doesn't always mean "having a blog." It does mean participating in the conversation. Comments, forums, Wikis, IRC, conferences all of these places are hang out spots for bloggers in our "off" time (i.e., non-posting time). Wouldn't it be cool to be able to talk to us on the things we're talking about? You may even find, after a while, that you, too, want to blog!

We like to talk to people. Why the heck else would we be out here doing this year after year. You think we're after the free car?

OMG, The World Is Round?

Spurred by this NY Times article, Scoble is surprised that Dave Winer is considering treating his PC as a consumable, like an ink jet printer which now cost less than the cartridges, because Microsoft's OEMs don't provide Windows install disks when you purchase a PC, and it's nearly the same costwise--even less sometimes--to buy a new computer instead of purchasing a full-fledged copy of Windows.

Let the dumpster diving begin!

My guess would be that Scoble gets his Windows CDs free, or that perhaps they have WindowsXPPro CDs sitting around in candy dishes at Microsoft for all who wish to partake, but newsflash to Scoble: Most of us regular folks have to RE-BUY the software if we want to be able to pave our machines (to get rid of offending agents, because we deleted an important operating system component and screwed it up bad, or just because we feel like it).

I spent $2,000 on computers last year--my Acer laptop from buy.com (do NOT buy.com) and an HP PC from Microcenter here in Atlanta. The year before we bought a PC from a different store (or OEM as Scoble refers to them). In fact, I've been buying PCs for years, and it's been a long, long time since I got the actual software that would let me re-install, from scratch, the Microsoft OS. Maybe never.

Yes, Robert, the world is round and every day all around this round world, people pay for Microsoft's OS twice. Once on the computer and once in the box.

I hate that too. Grrr.

Oh and by the way...

Thank goodness all the men are doing the heavy lifting around this issue. We from Girls Gone Wild: PR Spring Break just wouldn't know how to hold all of those deep thoughts in our pee-sized heads, would we? Nooo. We haven't been writing on these topics for years, have we? Nooo. We're busy making our hair fluffy and color coding our Organizers with our earrings. Spending all that time in Media Map can make a girl perspire!

Make sure you keep it in the family, boys.

A good un

Tom Murphy has a sizzling rant on the silliness of the predictions regarding the demise of PR-Proper. Some are now prophesizing that your average PR flacks will morph into event planners, thanks to blogging. Follow the bouncing predictions. I think they all end up with telemarketing. So quit now and get yourself an extra phone line or a ticket to India.

I do agree with the folks who use the word "folks" a lot, whom Tom quotes, that command and control doesn't work, and that public relations is a dish best served as private relations, thank you Chris Locke for writing all of that many years ago.

However, I see the division coming along the lines of flexibility and speed. In other words, practitioners who stay small and nimble and on the outside of BigAgencies will make headway into all but the Very Large accounts of BigPR. But in BigPR, there will always be room for a good crisis guy. So don't write your telemarketing script just yet.

Things are changing. Tom is right that the hyperbole among the 'because I said so' blog bunch is getting annoying.

But then, I have been in that 'because I said so' bunch for years, so I guess I'll shut up now.

I think I have an event to plan anyway.

Jesse knows...

...what a sinus infection feels like. This pretty picture is me! It neglects the painful teeth though. And the cough I'm now sprouting thanks to the post nasal runoff.

It's wet enough around Georgia now to grow sinus infections from the earth, on little vines, waiting for noses to happen by and inhale them like jasmine.

Everything changes even while we're sick. The net stands still less and less often these days. I think that when we die we'll be summed up and remembered and forgotten before our bodies touch the earth. We will be vintage in 5 years or less. The age of an online antique reduced from 100 years to ten.

All the while, infectious agents will hold fast to the insides of sinuses everywhere.

Mama PR, Don't Let Your Good Bloggers Get Away.

Especially right now.

It's an odd thing. Besides my finger injury, which is now better thanks to all the funnies and encouragement you left me in comments, I'm sick. I know the routine by now, after all of these years. I get worked up over something incredibly important that's being discussed online, I try to make a difference, I realize I can't, and then I get a sinus infection.

Works like clockwork.

Does this mean that blogging makes me sick? Well, not blogging per se, but the twisting of blogspace by powerful non-participators who have not a clue what it means to be here--that makes me sick. The command-and-control oriented who don't know what it means to talk as people who happen to work in companies large and small, or for themselves, in the U.S., and globally, but as people first. Blog posers who use out terms like 'dialogue' and 'conversation' but don't understand what having one feels like. These folks make me spend my co-pay, and that gets me cranky.

The first step for the blogging clueless: Admit your are powerless.

Would it be so difficult, for example, for a company like Ketchum to admit that they've missed the blog boat but are correcting that by, say, encouraging their employees to blog, listening to what bloggers within the organization already know--striking up conversations (not defense arguments) with people outside the organization? To understand that the "PR Blogosphere" is not the some place out in the ether separate from the rest of the blogworld? To cop to the fact that it isn't just PR bloggers who think they've behaved stupidly?

To admit they have a lot to learn from others with commitment and caring and years of living in the blogosphere? And that they're ready to engage that expertise?

That some of these experts are the very ones they have systematically ignored within their own organization for years on this very topic?

To understand that blogging is about lowering yourself to the level of your market--to take off your PR Holy See robes and listen up? Not by "putting a blog up," necessarily, but by at least being interested?

And to help their clients understand this?

I could go on and on and cover old ground, talk about the conversations I had with my colleagues on blogging at a time when eKetchum barely had its "e". Back when I had Chris Locke, Gonzo-Marketing fresh, ready to talk with them about how they could leap forward in a largely undefined space by participating.

That's when Anthony Parcero and I were blogging from the inside, and even after I left, and blogging became "bigger," Anthony remained a participating-if-semi-secret-ketchum voice encouraging Ketchum, and PR as a whole, into the blogosphere--for the most part, without any sign that Ketchum was listening to its own clued employee.

Compare Ketchum's recent defense messaging with what Anthony has written in the past--someone who, as a technologist, is not at the top of the hierarchical PR food chain. From what I can tell as an outside observer over the last few years, Anthony kept his ketchum connection mostly behind the scenes. The reasons for that are his to write about or not. But his voice did not go unnoticed. Maybe even now noticed by Ketchum, as they scramble to catch up.

Compare and see if any of Ketchum's recent press sounds vaguely familiar to what one of its past blogging employees has been saying for a long time:

• Anthony on What is a Weblog
• Anthony on Interactive PR Strategies
• Anthony's Q&A

Kind of similar to the blogsong Ketchum is singing now. Except, Anthony's not there singing it anymore. It'll be interesting to see if Ketchum can learn to carry a tune. Won't it?

The fact is this: Ketchum needs to catch up quick and stop using the positioning that "blogging isn't always the right strategy" to explain its lack of presence in this space over the last five years.

Ketchum may need to take a page from the Edelman playbook and engage the services of a real live blogger (like David is for Edelman), to play devil's advocate and put a hand up when it's time to call bullshit bullshit.

It's a lot less messy than letting the blogosphere play that role for you.

Now excuse me while I go expel the toxins from my system.

typing without pointer...

With all the football i played as a kid, with all the horses I fell off of, with all the times my brother stuffed my clothes full of pillows and beat me to a pulp, with all the stairs I fell down, I must have never sprained anything. I know this because no appendage has caused me such discomfort in all of my God-given injuries.

This pointer finger thing (see below; linking is too much work) is not so good and it's swelling and I can't move it so good. It's not broken I'm pretty sure because I can bend it and the pain is down low, near the part where the knuckle bends, but I don't WANT to bend it because it hurts. Four Advil Bad. Jeremy told me to take six. He just wants me off Global PR Week because I jabber during conference calls. I wish I could link--i'll come back in tomorrow and link. Right now my injured finger wants to stay stiff and sort of curled, like a claw finger, and george said no no make sure you keep moving it but put ice on it, don't let it stiffen up, but now it's 1:24 and i would kind of like to sleep.

I am learning how to send my middle finger in to do my pointer finger's job on the keyboard. He can reach all the way to "t" and "b" now, but it slows me down.

This means my fuck-you finger has to work harder and reach farther, but hey, he's never been shy before.

Traffic Jam

Damn, that traffic jam...how I hate to be late...hurts my motor to go so slow...time i get home my supper be cold...i say damn, that traffffiiiic jam. (name that artist).

So, I'm driving through more cobb county and north fulton FLOOD WATERS today, doing I don't know what with my steering wheel, maybe it was when I called Tom, maybe not, and then BAM somehow I had jammed my left hand pointer finger into the steering wheel in a way that made no sense, and the bottom line is, I've never had a finger issue like this.

Luckily, I can curl it into a typing position. However, DAMN it hurts and I can't move it side to side, as in wagging, as in baaaaad Ketchum, and I'd link over to Constantin but really this finger dilemma is making things quite difficult and i feel like halley suitt with her cocksyx or whatever it's called bruised from falling down, except i wasn't skating or anything, i was simply steering a car.

what on earth is up with that.

When We Are Hypocrites

I've been writing a lot about Technorati and its recent identity crisis ("I'm a portal! No, I'm a search engine! No, I'm a portal! No, a search engine! No, I'm a mess!") lately. I just don't understand how an essential tool in a specific space -- i.e., blogging -- can become virtually unusable after a round of publicized enhancements, supposedly tested out on beta users like me. I don't understand how Technorati's full-scale search failure over the last several weeks can go unexplained.

And don't get me wrong. I love(d) Technorati. I use(d) it for clients and for my own blog travels. I paid the money. I joined the party. I expect more.

And I'm getting a little miffed.

Because when it's someone like Dell that fails to deliver, more brick than click, the bloggerati jump up and down and demand satisfaction. They call in the legit media and launch a feeding frenzy.

But when it's me and the folks who comment here about Technorati's weeks of non-usability, you hear a lot of wind. Is that because we're supposed to all be friends? Not bite the hand that ranks us? Because Dave Sifry's busier launching Live 8 sites and sending bloggers backstage, and announcing top 100s, than he is making sure that we can search beyond the new Technorati wasted-space homepage?

Is it okay to take Dell to the matt while making sure one of our own is immune?

No it's not.

So what is it? Why no word from on high? Is it the price point difference between a Dell Notebook and a Technorati Watchlist? Is it a loyalty on the part of the Top 100 that Technorati has appointed that buys silence?

I have tried to search more than a dozen times in the past month. I have gotten an error message every time I've tried to go beyond first-page results. I've blogged about it. I've included screen clips. When I'm lucky enough to arrive at an actual page without an error message, it is taking upwards of a minute or more. Today, I didn't even make it to the first page results. Instead I got the old error message again.

You see, I don't like the big colorful icons and links to things I don't care about taking up space and costing extended loading time. I'm not a teen, I'm not a tween, and I'm not a twenty-something, so get over all the FUN you're trying to make me have, Technorati. Just cut it out and fix your product.

I don't know about you folks, but I'd like a few answers. I'm not sure who Technorati's PR folks are. Maybe I should snoop around.

And maybe Dell should stop making computers and start making blog search engines. No portals. No search engines. No portals.... They'd have it a whole lot easier when they screw up.

Priestcasting

AKMA's On! He posted the mp3 of his sermon and a comprehensive 'sermon report' from St. Lukes. I've been waiting for four years to go to AKMA's church. Amazing. Stunning. I have met the man as a friend and a blogger, and now I've heard him at work, executing that about which he is most passionate.

Now, if we can get some video behind it, and bring other denominations on board -- to podcasting, to videocasting, to places like Odeo and Kaneva -- if we can bring Baptists and Born Agains, Friends and Lutherans, Unity and Unversalists, then virtual congregations can do a kind of inter-denominational shape shifting, breaking down church walls and exclusive doctrines to attend services without the barriers of geography and ritual.

In secret or in the open we can commune.

God willing, a new "flatter religion" is waiting for us there.

quotes of the day

Shelley: I'm not writing news; I'm telling a story.

Dave Winer: Now when they fuck us, we have a way of giving them a black mark. A little more metadata, and it'll start showing up on their bottom line.

Denise Howell: It's only taken me 40 years to stumble upon my epitaph, but this morning one spoke to me with perfect clarity: "She never took enough pictures."

Ray Sweatman: ...to where the morning doesn’t break but unfolds softly in a bloom

Broken Fema

Well sweet Mary, I want to get the good federal benefits and paid-for-PPO insurance that come with the tough job of wrting FEMA's communications. I could bring much clarity ot the process. I am even proficient in translating FEMA's instructions into Internetese: U R SOL, LOL!

Be well, Tom, and all-a you Floridians and neighboring southeasters.

SOLD to the highest bidder

Just really not keeping up. There are things I am doing that are taking way too much time, and things that I should be doing that aren't getting done. And it's time to clean out the garage and put every little not old thing (and every old vintage thing) on ebay, because it's time.

You know, when I think about ebay, I think back to when I first started selling--how long ago that was. The brink of dot-comunism. Back when life was good and no one was paying over-the-limit fees.

So today I signed in for the first time since I don't know when. I found that I owed $1.83 for some long forgotten transaction, and paypaled myself into good guy status forthwith.

Then I looked up how long I've been a member of that most wonderful "we can always get grocery money by selling the [fill-in-the-blank] on ebay, honey" community.

I could hardly believe it when I read: February 20, 1999.

That's 42 years in Internet time.

And of course, that got me reminiscing... about the good old days... about some of my finest ebay moments:

1) Shopping the dollar stores in 2000 and re-selling $1 items at a profit -- especially that particular little bear figurine for $15.75 -- and did you know that people with zebra collections are willing to pay nearly $8.00 for a $1 zebra pin?

2) A particular financially bad winter in 2002 when George and I found an interesting piece of photographic equipment in -- well near -- a dumpster, took it home and sold it on ebay for $150. We then spent the next Saturday afternoon doing dumpster drive-bys up and down highway 41. [Hint--plazas with new construction...]

3) The $75 I got for one of my old Barbies, which I managed to scrub off the ink I used to trace her body parts with a mixture of Melaleuca Oil and Irish Spring.

4) Selling the little pocket books I found in my friend's attic when we were 9 -- that her dad let me keep -- for $150.

5) Bringing in $400/month back in 2001 selling anything of value in our house until there was nothing of value left.

Then rebuying all that stuff.

The early ebay was very different from the ebay today. The entire 'automation' thing hit after I had been selling for a while, and power sellers really took over the marketplace. Buyers became discerning. Sellers became aggressive. Paypal became my bank. Everything changed at once. By the end of 2002, every original dollar store item had been sold four times over, and ebay buyers just plain stopped bidding for the thrill of it.

But I'm here hoping. Hoping that when I dig out our new good stuff from the garage, that ebay will come through. Hoping that supply chain and inventory efficiencies have not been completely achieved at ebay, leaving me room for my average six-day lag getting to the post office with my shipments.

Ebay 2.0

We'll see what it's got to offer.

Not fishing for compliments...

...because you guys have been supportive enough.

Today I start my second year of not smoking. The fourth of July was the one-year anniversary of my quit date. On the third of July, I grabbed an American Spirit and was going to have a puff until it was effectively lurched away from me.

Soon the feeling was as gone as it ever gets.

As any seasoned wanabee-smoker/ex-smoker knows, you never fail to justify the potential benefits of a future puff: "Well, it's an anniversary--of COURSE I can have a puff to celebrate the fact that I don't do it anymore!"

There are some readers to whom that statement makes perfect sense. God bless us.

So, you're wondering still, and I can tell you that naw. I didn't do it.

I still think about it almost every day.

Part of what has kept me quit is blogging. It's not accountability, per se, but something like that. Accountability by default. Or by laziness. In those moments where addiction comes knocking and I have every good reason in the world to have a smoke, I also think about this blogplace. The mind game goes something like this:

Man, I'll have to post about it, and Frank will tell me it's okay--one slip up does not a failure make; and Shelley will tell me to keep up the good fight, and RB will say RAH! You didn't drop Acid! Plus, I just told Don Park to keep at it and now I'm going to have one. McD will offer me condolences and encouragement, and Dean might stop by comments to say 'don't stop stopping'. Plus, if Winer did it, I should be able to do it. How lame am I that a year has passed and I would even think about writing an "I smoked" post. Sure, I'll call it: "So sue me, I puffed one." I can see the post now, talking all about how good it felt going down, blah blah, the same as it ever was.... Oh the hell with it. It isn't worth the effort it takes to post about it.

...and by then, the craving has dulled. I shake my head and move on with my day.

So thanks ya'll. You did it.