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Bill, I cannot believe you smoke. That's disgusting, and it's killing you. I'm sure we'd all like you to live a long healthy life so we can keep enjoying your splendiforous writing, so please quit smoking. Oh, yeah, it makes you stink, too. Your friends won't tell you that ...

# posted by Anonymous 6:21 PM

Todd, I'd like to thank you for your concern. I do shower and wash my clothes. (Sometimes at the same time. Why waste the water, right?) I have no friends so that's not an issue. However, at my last check-up, my cardiologist put me through a more strenuous stress test than he usually administers and then had me swallow this radioactive stuff so he could do a 3D scan of my heart. That was followed by several digital chest X-rays.

Knowing that I was overweight, had a slight problem with diabetes, and burned my way through 4 packs of cigarettes each day, he was gleefully expecting to tell me that I had only 37 minutes left to live and it had taken him 34 minutes to read the X-rays. Much to his chargrin, when he showed up in the waiting room, he was shaking his head and muttering, "I don't understand it. You're in perfect health..."

Now you might not want to take my word for that, but I'll let you in on a secret: The doctor, a nice guy, and very high up on the cardiologist totem pole in the country, let alone NYC, didn't want to take my word for it when I told him I walk 4 miles each day with my dog, and I haven't inhaled for the last 25 years.

Admitting that I was in great health wasn't the hard part for him. What was causing him the greatest grief was that he had refused to believe that I'd been telling him the truth because nobody tells their doctors the truth --except me. Haven't lied since I was 7. But that's another story.

I'm not telling you that I'm going to condone smoking. It'll kill as sure as a bullet and my parents, back before many of you were born, called them 'coffin nails' so all this BS about "I didn't know," is just that. My father died of a combination of several forms of cancer, emphasymia, and heart disease. My mother didn't die of her stomach cancer, but it didn't help. Both were loyal smokers of Camels and Pall Malls, respectively.

What I am telling you, the reason I'm willing to expose a portion of my life to you that you have no business knowing about, is in the hope that you'll learn that you should never jump to a conclusion about someone or something when you don't know all the facts. I understand that you meant well, but it can be arrogant and pretentious --even with the best of intentions.

# posted by Bill 7:07 PM

I am posting anonomously because I was unable to register. You kept rejecting my username. (a nice clean, unobjectionable name.) Oh well.

I just wanted to comment on the fact that someone suggesting that your smoking didn't fit their profile of a good human being was sort of rude, I thought. Just because they don't smoke is no reason to go around telling other people not to smoke.

I used to smoke a quit. I didn't quit for the reasons suggested by the other poster either. I quit because of the cost.

Now back to the subject: Alice's Wanderings. Maybe she is traveling so much because:

1. She must be making huge sums of money by writing this blog and the Computer Shopper column before it, or
2. She must be independently wealthy, or
3. She needs to be watched by the DEA bunch.

# posted by Anonymous 8:37 PM

1. Nah. I see the figures for the blog and CNET, well. It's a nice place.

2. Do the letters A-T-M mean anything more than "Automated Teller Machine" to you?

3. I did notice some black helicopters tailing her plane...

As for that previous post being rude, well, like I said, don't jump to conclusions before you know all the facts. Works both ways. ;-)

# posted by Bill 8:46 PM

I know how she does it; 1 click for the Blog; 1 click for the airfare; 1 click for the hotel. Click on the Google ads to support us my foot!!!

You need a shirt that has velcro for the destination and several scraps of t-shirt ( I have a feeling you might have several ) so you can change it as much as needed.

"Alice went to [velcro] and all I got was to keep posting on this blog"

Smoke away free American! Smoke away.

# posted by JD 4:20 AM

4. Bill is really sending Alice out for a carton of smokes (but I thought the no smoking nuts messed that up too[duty free])

# posted by WRM 11:40 AM

Breathing oxygen will kill you - I can guarantee 100% of the dead humans in the world inhaled oxygen at some point in their lives. (ok, ok, to be completely accurate I'll add the caveat that this only includes the humans who died post-birth.....)

But for some reason, I just can't stop. Man, this stuff is addictive....

Kevin.

# posted by Anonymous 1:20 PM

Bill, I hear you complaining but how do you think it makes US feel to be stuck with you while Alice runs off? ;)

ALICE COME BACK!!!

-Tom in Laguna Niguel

# posted by Anonymous 1:26 PM

WRM - I get my tobacco the way the first immigrants did, from the Indians.

# posted by Bill 1:29 PM

Tom, are wearing your underwear on the outside fo your pants?

# posted by Bill 1:30 PM

Best yet, Kevin, is the non-smoking proponents who are screaming about sending cigarettes to the troops in Iraq because smokes are unhealthy...

# posted by Bill 1:32 PM

Ok, all you Todds! Let me clear up a few things.

1)All of those other trips were for work,and yes, I do scary international work and any more said, I really would have to kill you. However, it does mean free travel to great places, in search of the tablet PC, which is fierce ugly work that someone must do. Bill does not fly, by the way, although I did get him on a train to attend COmdex, my biggest Bill achievement to date.

2) Google shut down our click program after two days, so that would not even cover airfare to Mexico. (sigh) Still time for that holiday PayPal donation though (couldn't resist).

3)Independently wealthy? How I wish. This is my first non work related vacation in years and it is el CHEAPO. Shots of tequilla are $3.50. Whoo Hoo. I may never come back!

4) This is being written on a public internet terminal running Windows 98 in Spanish. No tablet PCs in sight by the way. See, no matter how low tech things get, I still working overtime for the blog.

5)You runied Bill's Christmas gift: a Corona beer T-shirt with a large pocket for his smokes. I gave up on changing Bill's ways by the way- 4 packs a day and he will outlive us all, mark my words!
--Alice en Mexico

# posted by Alice 6:12 PM

Not to butt in here, but Alice is being modest. Along with getting me to spend 3 days in an Amtrak train compartment about the size of a small bathroom (and that included a small bathroom), she also was able to trick, er, convince me into walking just a "stone's throw" from the Las Vegas Convention Center back to our hotel, Caesar's. (Not to worry. We had separate rooms.) It would have taken an atomic powered catapult to heave a stone so far.

# posted by Bill 6:35 PM

So, when can we see reviews of atomic-powered catapults?

# posted by Tim 9:15 PM

Alright I have a question for Alice. Trips to Jamaica and Cancun to chase do tablet PC's? Come on now if I had to do a review on something I wouldn't go half way around the world to do it.
Do you have a job opening as your personal assistant?

# posted by JD 5:17 AM

JD - I had a history teacher in HS who did his doctoral thesis on the sewers of Rome. He wrote off his entire trip to Italy as an educational expense.

The waiting list for an interview to be Alice's personal assistant is 23 years long.... You're in queue.

# posted by Bill 8:17 AM

Tim, I reviewed the Hughes Mk IV C/ST (Catapult/Stone Thrower) in 1994. It's been so long now that I don't think it's anywhere around any more. As soon as the specs for the Mk XII show up I'll post them.

# posted by Bill 8:21 AM