This is a no-nonsense first hand review of the drug ‘Bupropion’, used to help people quit smoking.
What follows are just my personal experiences when using the drug to quit smoking. This drug has side effects, so you should consult with your doctor, and think carefully before using this last line of defence to try and quit smoking.
I recently put up a personal blog post about my experience of weight gain after quitting smoking which you can read here. I used the drug Bupropion after 7 previous attempts where I failed to give up smoking. I’ll admit it, I just couldn’t stop. People who don’t smoke might find this very odd, after all you just need willpower right? The trouble with willpower is that it fluctuates from day to day and even from hour to hour. Even if you could keep a high level of positive willpower up for an extended period of time Nicotine is a lot stronger. Some people manage to quit cold turkey and beat the odds, and my hat goes off to those people. I however dived headlong into lethargy and negativity when I tried to stop.
So, after admitting to myself that I couldn’t stop, I asked various doctors for advice, but unfortunately I got warnings about how bad it is for me and that I need to stop. Warnings that I was giving myself already anyhow. The patch or nicotine gum was often mentioned in doctor’s visits, but I’d already tried these and they did nothing for me, as they contained the nicotine that I was craving. I wanted to be free not just from cigarettes but from nicotine addiction also, otherwise I would never be truly free.
Then, I decided to do a lot of research on Youtube and on the Internet for accounts from people who had used medication to stop. I found the drug Bupropion looking particularly promising so I watched and read every bupropion review I could. I knew that the drug had side effects and that a 300 mg dose per day meant a 0.1 percent chance of a seizure as a side effect. All in all I figured that this risk was a lot less risky than smoking all my life. So, after comparing different drugs I went out and bought bupropion, the brand name was Quomem – a month’s supply.
I read that it takes at least 1 week to get into your system, so in the instructions it was recommended that I keep on smoking whilst starting the course, then plan a date, no more than 3 weeks in advance, of when to stop. I planned to stop 2 weeks into the course.
After about 4 days I could really feel the drug taking effect. Dopamine levels began to remain high and I found out that nobody really knows for sure how the drug really helps people stop smoking. It’s a bit of a mystery.
I found that I was on a kind of natural high, even after a full day’s work I felt like I had just gotten out of bed and felt fresh and unstressed. I remember sitting in a Sizzler restaurant and hearing some guitar music, where I then began to drift off as each note sounded so nice. In a nutshell, I felt mildly high and extremely happy.
If you have ever smoked or drank alcohol in the evening, you’ll know what I mean by having a drink or a cigarette to get rid of that itch, that edge that you feel after returning home from work or after a stressful day. Bupropion took that edge off 24/7 and cigarettes began to have no effect on me. I was already feeling that high that cigarettes give you and didn’t need to smoke one. The cigarettes became useless in a way, as the urge had gone down to smoke by about 70% for me personally.
So, I moved my deadline for quitting smoking back to just 1 week and easily quit. People that I knew, who lit up near me were baffled that I was experiencing no urge to smoke. I began to almost worship this drug and started calling it a miracle. I didn’t feel depressed or the usual feeling of ants crawling over my body after giving up a vice. Everything was going silky smooth.
Side Effects
Then the side effects started to come. I had restless leg syndrome, where I felt that I had to move my legs around at night which disturbed my sleep, so I had to take a sleep inducing antihistamine in order to fall asleep at night. I would sometimes get up and go to the toilet numerous times. One time I counted myself going to the toilet 6 times in 1 hour. People may have assumed that I had bladder problems. Those were the side effects I experienced up until the fourth week.
The course was meant to run up to 6 or 7 weeks and no longer, but I had to stop after the fifth week. The reason being is that the drug’s effect started to reverse, as in I felt down and depressed rather than on an up. I also had dizzy spells where twice I had to sit down as I felt as if I was about to collapse. Even people around me started to notice the downward curve in my mood.
So, I stopped taking it after 5 weeks and it took around 2 weeks after this to get the drug and the side effects out of my system.
A Successful Outcome
In this bupropion review you’ll notice that I prescribed this drug for myself, which I obviously wouldn’t recommend, always consult with a doctor if you are thinking of using medication to stop smoking. However, even with the side effects, bupropion helped me kick the smoking habit for what is now 5 months. I don’t regret taking the drug at all as it has maybe saved my life.
Bupropion, if you are advised by your doctor to take it, will not stop you smoking by itself obviously, but it put the urge to smoke down by around 70% for me personally and I found the other 30% of determination that is needed quite easy to muster under the circumstances.
5 months ago I quit smoking and have experienced ‘quitting smoking weight gain’.
Quitting smoking was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. In fact, I failed at the attempt around seven times before finally finding the key to quitting. Since then I’ve packed on a few kilos, I’d say at least 6 kilos in total which I’m now in the process of trying to lose.
First of all, the 7 times I failed to quit smoking in the past eventually led to discovering what worked for me, so I don’t regret going through those failed attempts in order to finally find an effective method of stopping.
I first tried cutting down, which was absolute torture, then cutting out cigarettes cold turkey which was a nightmare. It seemed that stress would appear in my life in the first two weeks of trying to quit, however I tried to avoid it. It felt like ants were crawling over my skin every time I tried to quit and sometimes I would just go to bed in a depression, finding nothing in the world particularly enthralling.
I tried Alan Carr’s Easy Way to quit smoking which came closest to helping me quit. However, I found that the first three weeks especially when stopping was almost unbearable.
So I did a search on YouTube and found a drug called Bupropion which even though it helped me, I wouldn’t recommend it as I experienced many side effects. I actually set a date for stopping smoking after 2 weeks with this drug, but I managed to quit after just 1 week. Then I started experiencing the weight gain, but it’s been worth it as I don’t have that black cloud hanging over me anymore like I did when I was smoking, I’ve saved a lot of money and don’t have to worry about people smelling cigarette smoke on me anymore. However, ‘quitting smoking weight gain’ has finally caught up with me.
I found out that eating more often had nothing to do with ‘having the need to do something with my hands’, but had more to do with elevating my mood which was down after quitting as I missed smoking.
In fact, I can now see why some people are aggressively anti-smoking if they have been an ex-smoker, it’s because they are worried about breathing in cigarette smoke passively and getting drawn into the habit again.
Belly fat I discovered is mainly visceral fat instead of subcutaneous fat, where the fat collects around your organs and has the effect of causing swelling too, giving that beer belly shape that is so hated by men especially. Belly fat puts you more at risk of heart disease, back problems, cancer and type 2 diabetes. It also affects your mood.
So I’ve stopped drinking beer at home and having snacks between meals. Funnily enough, I have some part of that feeling – as if ants are crawling over my body – when giving up beer now or snacks and drinking water instead. In the day my diet is very good, but in the evenings I seem to change and desire beer, pizza and snacks. Water, exercise and reading in bed instead sounds healthier, but let’s be honest, it’s not as exciting as beer, a pizza plus some snacks whilst watching a movie on the sofa.
So, regular exercise is on the menu now to combat the ‘quitting smoking weight gain’, and I’m trying to resist beer at home in the evenings and snacks now. It’s not easy though.
- Google & Yahoo offices together in the same building in Haifa. Image author: Ron Spinner.
Google’s free keyword tool search option no longer exists and has changed to a tool called Keyword Planner.
You have to register with Adwords to be able to use it, rather like you have to start a Google+ account to leave a comment on YouTube.
No prizes for guessing exactly why Google are doing this and I don’t blame them, they are using their services to promote their other services. You don’t have start a paid account, you can register for a free account and use it.
I tried using Keyword Planner via Adwords and found it really awkward to use. Firstly, I had to log in to Adwords, then choose from around 4 different options, with each option being centred around the assumption that I am using the keywords to optimise an advert from Adwords. The interface was a little clunky too. I’d rather have a keyword tool that I can use instantly, without wasting time logging in to anything, putting special codes in or extended information. I wanted a keyword tool that I could use instantly, with no messing around.
I’ve got to admit, searching for keywords bores me intensely, the quicker I can get this done and place 2 or 3 keywords in the introduction, main body and conclusion the better. Then I can get on with writing the blog post or article.
Firstly, I liked the look of Freshkey but I found out that you can’t pay by PayPal, only by credit card and the payment page wasn’t totally secure as far as I’m concerned. So I looked for another option.
Screenshot of Soovie search.
Then I came across Soovie which is so simple, and it’s free. You just type in a keyword after going to the website and off you go. The free keyword tool extracts the best keywords for Google, Amazon and Yahoo for example and more. It’s not an in-depth keyword tool, but for me it does the job and it does it fast.
Do you have a favourite keyword search option or free keyword tool that you use as an alternative to Keyword Planner?
Image author: Antonio Litterio
Today I decided to start a blog . . .
I toyed with the idea of starting a blog with a separate URL with a link to this blog, but in the end I decided to start a blog within my own website.
This will be strange for me at first, because I usually post up articles on the site. Writing a blog usually uses an informal writing style which is more relaxed. Just typing away without trying to craft or polish a piece of writing too much. Just getting your thoughts written down.
I’m aware that it’s always better to create a niche blog for SEO purposes if you are serious about turning a blog into a profitable blog, but I’m more interested in just enjoying writing about diverse subjects and things that pop up in my life and in my thoughts, just for fun.
So in a nutshell . . .
It’s always better to set up a niche blog on a particular subject if you want to make money out of a blog in the long run, but if you are blogging for fun then a general blog is fine and arguably more enjoyable to write for.
So what attracted me to start a blog in the first place?
Well, if I post up articles I like to research the subject, or employ a writer to research and write about a subject for this website. This takes time and is different to just typing away and transferring your thoughts into a blog post. Kind of like if you were doing very technical art using detailed drawing techniques and then suddenly switched to freeform painting, just splashing colours everywhere for fun. It sounds like a fun idea to just be able to write your thoughts down freely instead.
So, having decided to start a blog, I’m going to give it a go and post as regularly as I can.
- Space Invaders Arcade Machine. Image author – Billy Hicks.
In 1978 a game was born. This game was one of the most successful games of all time.
Even to this day, itâ??s still one of the most challenging and fun games to play. Many of the adults today who grew up in the 1980’s still get a great sense of nostalgia when they are reminded of this amazingly fun game. This game is called Space Invaders.
Space invaders was created by Tomohiro Nashikado, after being inspired by having a dream about Japanese school children being attacked by invaders from space.
The original arcade version was hugely successful, and when Atari released it on the Atari 2600 console, it quadrupled the sales of the gaming system! The story of the game is exactly what the title indicates. Aliens are invading from outer space! What could be cooler than that? You walk outside one day and look up, and aliens are slowly floating down from the sky! It’s as if alien paratroopers are floating down and shooting down at everyone on the ground as they slowly fall. In addition, there are also space ships flying around up above the aliens. If you can destroy these space ships, you can bag a big bonus to your score. As you destroy more aliens, they begin to move faster after each kill. Eventually you will have one alien left that is blazing cross these screen, back and forth, at a speed that makes it a true challenge to target. You really have to lead your target when shooting the last few aliens!
A feature of this game that provides some exceptional strategy is the shield mechanic. There are shields that you can hide your laser cannon under. While your laser cannon is near these shields it will shoot rapidly. This is because the game is designed where you can only have a few laser blasts on the screen at any given time. Since your laser blast fades quickly, due to the shield stopping it, you can shoot much faster. These shields will eventually be destroyed during game play. One major difference in the Atari 2600 version is that even on the first level the shields are moving from side to side! This makes staying under them even more challenging, and adds a whole new level of difficulty to the shield strategy. Each level speeds up and the colors of the enemy change as you progress to the next level.
The point of Space Invaders is to get your score as high as possible before you lose all your ships. This is one of the games where the goal of getting a high score is implemented in a way which actually makes it fun to pay attention to your score. You will want to blast everything that you can in order to get your score as high as possible.
A quick Google search on virtual Atari 2600 will get you into a true retro experience of the game of Space invaders within a few clicks! There are also a whole host of browser based versions available as well. You can even download many different renditions of this much loved game from Google Play or from the App Store. For the most part, these apps are totally free! There is even a version called Space Invaders Infinity Gene which is being touted as neo-retro version of the game. It starts out identical to the original version of the game, but the more you play, the more the graphics and game play evolves to take advantage of all that modern gaming devices have to offer!
It’s lucky that Tomohiro had such a strange dream, otherwise we would not have had such a giant of a game appear for our entertainment that will never die in popularity.
Article by Jason.
The Empire State Building
Author: Avala / Jiuguang Wang
This is an interesting question. The first thing to consider is why the heck you would be jumping in the first place! There are a lot of other ways to end it all besides jumping off a thousand foot tall building which could just turn you into a cripple, or even worse, a vegetable. Not to mention the mess it would make for the pedestrians below! Let’s take a look at the science behind the fall, and discover the details of that last final jump.
Disclaimer: Before reading this article, please note that jumping off a skyscraper will prove fatal and is not encouraged or recommended by the author or this website, nor is it encouraged as a sport in any way.
There are a whole host of things that come into play when a person jumps off a building. Newtonâ??s law of universal gravitation has a formula (n=mg) to calculate the force of impact between two bodies of different masses. This force is measured in newtons (n). One newton is equal to the force that would give a mass of one kilogram an acceleration of one metre per second. The Earthâ??s gravity (g) alone causes objects to fall at a rate of at least 32 feet per second which is 21.8 miles per hour. Now, considering a jumper’s body mass (m), the speeds can range from 110 mph with arms and legs fully extended. If they are balled up, or in a vertical position then they could be falling at over 180 mph. Since we are considering the speed of a person jumping from a tall skyscraper, we need to determine the actually height, because the distance they will fall is going to affect how much time they have to accelerate before they ‘gently’ touch down on the pavement.
If a person was to jump off of the Empire State building in New York City; they would be falling 1,454 feet. Yikes! It would take anywhere from 8-12 seconds to fall before they would make impact depending on wind drag, friction, and body mass. The average man could reach about 208 miles per hour at the time of impact if they jumped head first, stay vertical the whole fall, and are wearing tight fitting clothing. So if you look up and find yourself directly below a jumper wearing lycra, you need to run out of the way very quickly. The force would be about 1.9 newtons for a person of 115kg. Depending on the heart health of the person, they could actually die from a heart attack on the way down!
Of course, the actual impact is what usually kills a person. The likelihood of death depends primarily on if they are feet first or not. Although off a very high building it wouldn’t really matter which way you landed as you’d end up looking like an omelette anyhow. However, the best way to land is to be feet first, relaxed, with knees slightly bent, and arms in a position to protect the face and head. When the feet make contact, believe it or not, the best way to fall is forward. The person may break all the bones in their body, but if their neck and skull remain mostly intact they could live to see another day. A person that makes impact feet first is more likely to survive a fall from a tall building. Sure, they might survive if the building isn’t extremely tall. Although they might end up being three feet tall, and have to be fed Jell-O through a straw for the rest of their lives!
I’m afraid of heights and sometimes people ask me why. In answer to this question I say that if I got killed by a bomb blast, a shark or gunfire, the run up to the death would be relatively short. Falling from a height on the other hand petrifies me, as I can imagine time slowing down as you are falling. That 10 seconds would feel like 30 seconds for sure and when you are airborne and heading for the ground there’s no way back. Just what are you meant to think about on the way down?
Author: Jason
In this day and age, when you can’t look more than ten feet without seeing some man, woman or child wielding a smartphone, more and more companies throughout a vast spectrum of consumer markets are using this opportunity by implementing apps to appeal to the need for convenient shopping. The automobile industry is no exception, and both in Australia and worldwide the number of people using smartphone applications to research prospective car sales has been steadily increasing over the past few years.
This trend seemed to originate in the United States around 2011, with companies such as Edmunds.com and The Car Connection reporting significant growth in usage of mobile websites and smartphone applications over the 2 year period, with Edmunds in particular reporting a fourteen-fold increase in mobile phone application usage in the two year period from 2011 to 2013, with noticeably more time also spent browsing the websites on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Indeed, many prospective car buyers are clearly sold on the idea for such startling trends in usage increase to emerge, and this is something that did not take too long to arrive on the shores of Australia.
Currently available apps – such as Australian-based Kalamunda Toyota’s mobile app which can be used on Apple’s iOS products – market themselves to the twenty-first century consumer by offering all of the features available at one of their dealerships (service bookings, loan structure planning, test-drive bookings) without any of the hassle involved with physically travelling to the establishment, as they know that, more often than not, if the option is there to be able to get most of the work done from the comfort of their own home using a mobile phone (a device likely to be in frequent use as it is), then that is the option that they will choose to pursue.
In addition to appealing to the innate desire for a more convenient sales research experience, these smartphone apps also tend to offer a much simpler interface. All of the relevant information (special deals, pricing structures, etc.) is often clearly presented in an easy-to-digest manner, and naturally people are going to prefer this approach to, say, having to deal with someone who may not be quite so coherent in their transmission of information, especially when coupled with the fact that these apps (such as the Kalamunda Toyota one) are free, removing the need for fuel expenditure on a potentially needless excursion to the dealership or frustrating phone call. Indeed, user-attested accounts of people who have used mobile apps to research a potential new car purchase (also readable in the previously cited article) are filled with praise, evidencing an ever-increasing trend towards the popularisation of smartphone-based market research.
So there you have it. If the statistical evidence from the past two years is anything to go by, this is a trend that is not going to be bucked any time soon. As more and more potential consumers begin to explore their options with regards to finding out information relating to the purchase of a new automobile, the car companies will begin to discover and subsequently implement more and more effective marketing techniques to bring in even more new business from new and even more tech-savvy generations. It surely will not be long before the only reason you’d have to head down to the dealership is to pick up the keys.
Erin Warbrook is a Perth based freelance writer who enjoys test driving new cars in her spare time. Follow her on Twitter @erinwarbrook
The Atari 5200 Video Console System
Many people say that the award for the worst game in history, from a respected video game company would definitely go to Atari’s infamous ET game. What makes it so bad? Read on to find out . . .
I recently watched an episode of a TV show called Code Monkeys. This show is a silly, raunchy comedy animated in the style of NES console era pixel graphics. This episode portrayed a fictional story of how a certain Atari video game became the worst video game in all history: E.T. The Extra Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 game console. If there is any episode of this ridiculous comedy worth watching, it would be this episode about the E.T. game! The episode is available on Netflix, and it has everything from hangovers, strip clubs, to Steven Spielberg and Neil Diamond! It plays out the story of why the E.T. game sucked so badly. It was because they did not watch the movie when they made it (they went to the strip club instead). Then they made a game based on the E.T. poster image! This E.T. Atari game actually made me cry when I was a kid! No one knew how to play this game, and I was determined to figure it out. Like so many other kids, I gave up trying to figure it out.
After watching this episode, I had to go online and play it again and see for myself how awesome this game is. I did a Google search for “Atari 2600 emulator online” and clicked on the first link. Then clicked the letter “E” for titles that begin with “E” and sure enough, there it was! It took me a second to figure out how to use the Emulator which was awesome because it’s the space bar and arrow keys for controls and that’s it! The Atari only had one button and joystick. You got to love simplicity! After playing for about thirty seconds I began to laugh hysterically at how awful this game is! It was so funny; I literally irritated my throat from coughing because I laughed so hard! It’s so ridiculous!
Spoiler Alert: Before you read any further, if you intend on playing this game go try it before I enlighten you on how to play it. It will be funnier if you have no clue how to play!
Even though the controls are simple, it doesnâ??t help trying to play this game. The spacebar makes E.T. stretch his neck out, and the movement keys move him around. With your neck extended, you can fly. Eventually, you will fall into a pit, but it seems to happen randomly. I guess this is a penalty box because you lose score sometimes like a countdown. Sometimes there are symbols at the top of the screen for some unknown use, but it seems to be totally random. I then decided to dig a little deeper to see if I could find out how to play this game, and there was a YouTube video with programmer that went through the code. He knew how the program worked, and IT ACTUALLY IS RANDOM! He said the whole point of the game was to find three puzzle pieces because in the movie he had to find stuff to phone-home to his alien parents. I guess the reason why he falls in the pit is because in the movie he nearly died in a creek bed.
If you attempt to play this game let me enlighten you as to what I learned. If you get all the puzzle pieces to phone home, the space ship will come, but it wonâ??t land if there are humans around! So thatâ??s it, randomly fall in the pit, over and over, avoid a few people, and try to get all the pieces to phone home, and get in the space ship when it lands without humans around.
The Atari 2600 was capable of printing text on the screen just fine. If they would have coded one or two screens worth of instructions instead of rushing out the game it might have not been so hated. Atariâ??s image may not have been tarnished, and people may not have returned their copies. I know I probably wasn’t the only 7 year old kid that was crying after playing this game for two minutes. Maybe some of us should get our kids to play this game after watching the movie, and see if they cry too!
Author: Jason
Click here to find out more about the history of Atari
The economy is suffering. The prices rise ever more while the salaries stay the same or get even lower. People lose their benefits and work extended hours with no extra pay, while others lose their jobs altogether and even though the picture I’m painting is not even nearly as dire as the situation in the 30s during the Great Depression, the Great Recession of 2007 still haunts our lives and reminds us that it’s here to stay for at least a few more years. Sure, the top 1% have almost fully recuperated from the financial blow, but the rest of us are just now beginning our journey to recovery. We know that the process will be long and painful but the only thing we have left is to just hope for the best and try not to despair.
Strangely enough, help in overcoming these difficult challenges comes from all directions, including app makers. There are apps out there, at any given moment, that can grant you access to everyday services for free. You can also find applications to help you spend your money rationally and save more. In these arduous times we need all the outside assistance we can get. Here are some rather useful apps I’m sure you will enjoy.
Skype
Skype is one of the most famous programs for Internet telephony in the world. Even though it was purchased by Microsoft a few years ago, not much has changed in the system â?? it’s the same old free and useful tool for communication. One of the more interesting things around Skype in recent years is the fact that it was adopted as a native mobile app so now you can talk to your friends and family for free and from anywhere as long as you both have Internet access and the client enabled.
I guess it seems a bit strange that the first app I’m recommending is of the communications variety, but when you think about how much money it saves you in free conversations, it’s really worth it. All you have to do is convince your friends and family to use it and suddenly you can talk for free, cutting your phone bills dramatically.
Skype enables you to call, message and even video chat with your loved ones. There are a few functions that are reserved for the Premium version (Microsoft have to make money, too, right?), like video chatting to more than one person in the same time, but that’s not something essential you really need, when you think about it. You want to save some cash? Skype is your best bet.
RedLaser Barcode Scanner
How many times have you purchased an item just so you could see it 10 bucks cheaper when passing another store on the way home? It’s awful, isn’t it? You almost feel as if you’ve been cheated. You can easily avoid those mishaps when you’re shopping online. You can easily find and compare the prices of different products and make the best choice. But this is impossible in the real world… Isn’t it? Well, it turns out it’s not.
Enter RedLasaer Barcode Scanner! This helpful little app will scan the barcodes of different products and search far and wide for cheaper prices, either online or in your close proximity (although that functions works only in bigger cities). Just scan the barcode and let the program do its thing. You will never regret buying something at a higher price ever again!
MyGas
Gas prices are ghastly right now! Lucky for you, MyGas can locate the nearest and cheapest available offers in just a few swipes on the touchscreen. Whether you need to urgently refuel and you’re in an unknown area, or you think you might find better prices, MyGas is there to help. It will provide with a map to the nearest, cheapest gas it can find. Sure, you won’t save millions, but every dollar counts!
Author Bio: Morgan Johnes loves to write about technologies and business topics. He works as a manager of http://www.perfectcleaning.org.uk/deep-cleaning-mayfair-w1/ and has a lot of experience to share.
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