Excellent review! I just got mine last week, and this thing is friggin awsome. The only suck part is that damn jewel cap but so far my batteries last long enough to keep it from being too much of a pain.
I proudly take my pipe out in public and haven't had any scoffers so far. You know why? The general public isn't as hostile towards pipe smokers as they are towards cigarette smokers. People will lend you credibility and respectability on a subconscious level they're not even aware of themselves. Your body language changes when you smoke a pipe. You achieve a position of "presumed authority" in the eyes of others. You can feel this, and respond accordingly. You feel smarter, more sophisticated, wise. It happens all the time with all kinds of other social cues. It's our cultural conditioning. Why else do you think cops, judges and clergy wear black? How seriously would you take a Highway Patrolman if his uniform was lavender and teal? The bullets in his gun are just as lethal, but no one dressed like that could even think of shooting you, right?
There was a buddy of mine who used this quirk to pull a little mind-frag when he was in the Army. He didn't smoke at all before entering the service, but he took up a pipe just to screw with his officers' heads. Enlisted were allowed limited smoke breaks, but there was no regulation specifically stating it had to be a cigarette. Whenever he fired up that pipe, it would make them very uncomfortable. Something wasn't right about it, but there was nothing saying that he couldn't do it. By smoking a pipe he was assuming the social role of an intellectual superior. He was no longer a subordinate within the unspoken social dynamic he was now an equal or better.
There's been a decades long crusade demonizing smokers. But more specifically targeting Cigarette Smokers. The new "smokers are scum" culture hasn't caught up with the pipe yet.
Columbo smoked cigarettes, HellBoy and Clint Eastwood smoke cigars, Sherlock Holmes smokes a pipe.{-----In all the old movies that is, in the books, he was actually a ....... fiend i.e. the 7% solution, that's Hollywood for you.}
Damn it man, do forgive me if my 601 brings out the lecture hall in me. I think I shall retire to the study, carry on my good man, carry on.
Power and the Pipe
I proudly take my pipe out in public and haven't had any scoffers so far. You know why? The general public isn't as hostile towards pipe smokers as they are towards cigarette smokers. People will lend you credibility and respectability on a subconscious level they're not even aware of themselves. Your body language changes when you smoke a pipe. You achieve a position of "presumed authority" in the eyes of others. You can feel this, and respond accordingly. You feel smarter, more sophisticated, wise. It happens all the time with all kinds of other social cues. It's our cultural conditioning. Why else do you think cops, judges and clergy wear black? How seriously would you take a Highway Patrolman if his uniform was lavender and teal? The bullets in his gun are just as lethal, but no one dressed like that could even think of shooting you, right?
There was a buddy of mine who used this quirk to pull a little mind-frag when he was in the Army. He didn't smoke at all before entering the service, but he took up a pipe just to screw with his officers' heads. Enlisted were allowed limited smoke breaks, but there was no regulation specifically stating it had to be a cigarette. Whenever he fired up that pipe, it would make them very uncomfortable. Something wasn't right about it, but there was nothing saying that he couldn't do it. By smoking a pipe he was assuming the social role of an intellectual superior. He was no longer a subordinate within the unspoken social dynamic he was now an equal or better.
There's been a decades long crusade demonizing smokers. But more specifically targeting Cigarette Smokers. The new "smokers are scum" culture hasn't caught up with the pipe yet.
Columbo smoked cigarettes, HellBoy and Clint Eastwood smoke cigars, Sherlock Holmes smokes a pipe.{-----In all the old movies that is, in the books, he was actually a ....... fiend i.e. the 7% solution, that's Hollywood for you.}
Damn it man, do forgive me if my 601 brings out the lecture hall in me. I think I shall retire to the study, carry on my good man, carry on.
