Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Monster Hunter International
For anyone who likes stories like “Interview With a Vampire” but found themselves thinking they would love to see a hardcore S.W.A.T. team or some S.E.A.L.’s come in and stomp the ever loving darkness from the creatures of darkness, have I found the perfect book series for you.
When I got this book in hand, I nearly became a zombie myself as I would hardly put it down. Fortunately I managed to read through it so fast that my family, and personal hygiene, were only minimally impacted.
The official description is:
Five days after Owen Zastava Pitt pushed his insufferable boss out of a fourteenth story window, he woke up in the hospital with a scarred face, an unbelievable memory, and a job offer.
It turns out that monsters are real. All the things from myth, legend, and B-movies are out there, waiting in the shadows. Officially secret, some of them are evil, and some are just hungry. On the other side are the people who kill monsters for a living. Monster Hunter International is the premier eradication company in the business. And now Owen is their newest recruit.
It’s actually a pretty sweet gig, except for one little problem. An ancient entity known as the Cursed One has returned to settle a centuries old vendetta. Should the Cursed One succeed, it means the end of the world, and MHI is the only thing standing in his way. With the clock ticking towards Armageddon, Owen finds himself trapped between legions of undead minions, belligerent federal agents, a cryptic ghost who has taken up residence inside his head, and the cursed family of the woman he loves.
Business is good . . .
Welcome to Monster Hunter International.
If you like nearly non-stop action, dark humor, guns (lots of guns), or just plain prefer to see evil creatures of fiction being put down like the dogs they are, instead of romanticized and made to “sparkle” as is the common theme in recent years, you should absolutely love this book and series as much as I did.
I made the mistake of loaning my first copy out to a friend who lost it without ever even getting around to reading it so have subsequently re-purchased it when ordering the third book in the series as I know I will be re-reading this series till the pages simply crumble to dust like a Vampire in the sunlight.
Then I’ll get an e-book version of course ;)
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Great Starter E-cigarette package
After jumping into the E-Cig pool after years of smoking and hating the cost and health impact I tried what was commonly suggested as a good starting point, the “Joye 510”. While this was sufficient to get the wife and I off normal cigarettes (called “analog cigarettes” often by the “digital” e-cig users), it was only barely good enough.
We quickly researched for a better product and were able to find a lot of suggestions pointing towards the “eGo” product line which was reported to have much better quantity and quality of vapor (”smoke”) and better “throat hit” (the feeling in your throat that you have received a good “drag”) and a rather amazing increase in battery life which is one of the most annoying failures with early and/or common e-cigs such as often sold in mall kiosks still today.
We (the wife and I) ordered a single eGo starter kit and were able to get a good impression right away and decided this was the e-cig for us and have since bought additional kits for rotation and backup purposes.
The following is the basic starter kit which I feel is perfect for a smoker to order as a first measure to get off normal “analog” cigarettes and off to a satisfying start with “digital” e-cigarettes with a “cost of entry” of approximately the same as a carton of normal cigarettes:
eGo MEGA Starter Kit
2x Atomizers
2x EGO 900mAh rechargeable li-ion batteries
(over four times the capacity of a 510 battery)
5x Filled Cartridges
1x USB & A/C Plug Charger
1x Carry PouchClick Here to Purchase for $54.95
This price is great for a package like this which should last approximately a week or more depending on the amount you smoke.
A wide assortment of juices are available as well HERE!
Once you have a starter kit like this, you would just purchase bottles of “e-juice” to refill the cartridges when they run dry, and occasionally a new pack of filled or “blank” cartridges as the filler material (like a synthetic cotton ball to absorb the liquid) within the cartridges gets a little ragged after a while and it is easier to replace the cartridge than deal with the ragged filler. Cheaper alternatives exist such as buying a bag of similar filler material and replacing the filler in your original cartridges, but I haven’t found a need to go that cheap so far. Especially with how much we are already saving.
Between my wife and I, our cost per month for normal cigarettes was around $300-350 and initial cost of changing to e-cigs was probably around $200 including the first step to the unsatisfactory “510” model and extra bits to try to make them better such as low resistance attomizers and higher quality e-juice which some said would help. The second month including the change to the much more satisfying “eGo” model and extra parts for rotation/backups cost around $150. Now our cost is around $30-50 per month for e-juice refills and occasionally a new batch of cartridges, though we haven’t actually used up all the cartridges from the 3 starter sets we purchased.