:pagebrak

Fuckers shoulda had the balls to make Alan Alda president, though >:

Alan Alda playing a republican made him cry himself to sleep everynight. :(

Use your goddamn edit button to page break. >:

See, the West Wing would be perfect if it weren't for the inconvenient fact that I don't give a shit about politics. :(

Hell I imagine if I ever tried smoking I'd double over in coughing fits after the first puff. :wimp

I just get a weird rush of adrenaline. YOU SHOULD TRY THE MENTHOLS I'LL BET THAT'LL HELP

In the interest of my general affection for some of you, please don't smoke menthols or you will discover what inhaling asbestos feels like

I really like cigars, GW's a fruit.

I've actually comme into contact with an Opus X.

WILLIE

Fathom: what are your favorite cigars? Well, I guess it'd be better to ask if you were to that point yet where you have favorites.

I think I'd had some "aromatics"* before then, but the first time I had a truly "good" cigar it was a Cuban Romeo y Julieta. I thought it was so good, even with no basis of comparison, that I kept buying the Dominican-made R&J's when I got back to the States. One time my cousin was watching an episode of CSI and they said "Dominican's are just as good" as if it were scientific fact that terroir has no effect on the tobacco leaf. If they'd said something similar about wine, half of Europe would probably have cut off diplomatic relations until the script writers had been executed.

*In my observation, the way you get a cigar snob who rejects the idea of a flavored cigar to smoke one is this: add $7 to the price and call it an "aromatic".

I think I've mentioned the fact that I love cigars before, I'm glad we're in agreement on this.

Oh shit, I guess you might know cigars if you talked about a $50 one. I wasn't trying to sound like a dick with "if you were to the point...", I just didn't know your vantage point.

I think the highest rated cigar I've had would have been the Cuban Montecristo I had my sister smuggle back, I think she paid around £12 UK but obviously it'd fetch a small fortune on the domestic black market.

While she was kind enough to get me one in an aluminum tubo, I didn't discover until the New Year's ball had dropped that she'd opened it for a preview smell and it needed to be re-humidified. Still, that was one powerful experience.

cigars are gross, dudes

Seth, did you really like the Romeo y Julieta? I've seen that at the local supermarket and thought about trying it, but I don't know a lot about cigars so I never did.

Yeah, I've at the very least grown comfortable buying them. Obviously they're not as good as the Cubans because the Dominican soil isn't as rich, but they still manage to fit in a great deal of flavor in a very well-crafted binding.

I'll justify my premium name-dropping with the fact that I really enjoy El Mejor maduros, for which I generally pay no more than $2 a cigar. The problem with them is that the wrapper falls apart as the maduro leaf soaks saliva much worse than any other cigar type I've noticed, so it begins to fall apart and look nasty/be a pain in the ass toward the end. When R&J started making maduros, as I prayed they would for years, I at first was amazed at how the better construction improved the maduro experience but every now and then I'll run into the same problem after having paid four times the price as the El Mejors (albeit with more subtle overtones added to the experience). For the distinctly Romeo y Julieta experience, I think that their Viejo line is the best in the American market. I've only seen, I think, their 1876 line in places other than good tobacconists, so I'd guess that's what you saw. It's a good line to be sure, but I'd recommend their others for the fact that once you begin talking about cigars that cost no less than $6 for a decent size, tacking on 50 cents makes a huge improvement. I guess that has to do with "if our name is on it, it shouldn't cost less than..." marketing, but I was impressed when someone pointed out to me that Arturo Fuente has some very good values right beside their super-premium lines. (Their Curly Top, or whatever misnomer they gave it, only costs like $2.50 at most tobacconists.)

i saw in movies that baseball players chew up tobacco, and they splited like gum, i wonder what it taste like

So, if I was going to make the extra trip to a tobacconist, which cigar would be a good one to start out with?

Man I'm pretty depressed that John Linnell from They Might Be Giants can sing better than I can :(

I just recorded myself singing along to see if I can sing in tune and hahaha no. No I can't. >:

I've got a nice singing voice, did I tell all y'all this

I would know if you would record yourself and post it on the internet for freaks like me to listen to >:

I can't even sing baritone because half the time it's too high ;_;

I don't sing in front of people ;<

I'm sure I'd drive all the ladies crazy, though

Well, I really don't know because that depends on all kinds of psychological analysis I can't do well over the internet.

If you want something basic and won't cost you a lot to introduce you into the world of cigars, I'd probably go with the Arturo Fuente I recommended because it's good, it's hand-made, and it's cheap. It will start you with a basis of comparison as you work your way upwards, if nothing else.

If you want to enter the world of cigars with the pomp and circumstance you'd expect from the next British monarchial coronation, then maybe get a $9 (or so, depending on the market around you) Acid 1 by Drew Estates. Drew Estates is the brand responsible for the trend I mentioned where you take a flavored cigar and re-market it, but their Acid 1 is distinctly marked as "non-aromatic" as opposed to everything else in their Acid line. I don't know why, since I can't imagine any of its flavors coming from any substance that wouldn't kill the tobacco plant outright, but it's literally a candy bar that you puff. It might give you a false impression of what a classicist's cigar would be like, since they're nothing in common, but it'll at least serve as a gateway into the art of burning money in the most literal sense possible without offending federal agencies*.

That being said, I'm the type who rotates between mere puffing and the "french inhale". If your lungs find out that you're smoking an Acid 1, it will punish you severely by connoitering with your stomach and causing you to throw up.

*Have I posted this picture of me in the past month? Maybe? It'll be a fine tie-in with my admonition to Gus about Scav Hunt as the 2008 list release is mere weeks away.

Oh yeah me too I start crooning like Barry White and I have to fight off the vagina with a stick

i smoke menthol cloves on occasion!

God gave us cloves to make us feel cultured when we drink hot whisky and call it a toddy. Not so we could smoke them.