i quit smoking one year ago. sort of, anyways. i've bought a handful of packs over the last year, either when i had set aside all nighters for drinking or i was going through my biyearly headclear. that's certainly a lot less than 350+ packs.

350*8 = $2800. $2800/12 = $233.33/month. so, $200+/month. where did it go? the answer is that i went to more concerts, and went to more expensive concerts. i also bought some new hardware. and, i bought a lot of cigarettes for $0.50 or $1.00 a piece.

but, after a year of social smoking, i'm taking the plunge. i made this choice at the detroit bus station in october, on the way to lansing to see touche amore: i'm going zero nicotine on jan 13th, 2017.

well, i've been smoke-free since the end of the headclear, which was on dec 26th this year. so, i'm already cold turkey over the last two weeks. this has been the norm for me for the last year: zero cigarettes for several weeks, then a binge for a night or maybe two, then zero for another several weeks, etc. so, nothing changes today or this week or probably even this month.

it will be in the spring that i'll have to face going to my first concert smoke-free.

but, this is it. it was a good year for me; i made a lot of progress in breaking habits. now, i need to spend the year finishing the job.

this is the second part of pulling the soundcloud site down. it's gone, now. these tracks may or may not end up here, but will moved to singles if they aren't.

most of my songs begin as conventional guitar songs before they get ripped apart and demented into various abstract concoctions. that means that a lot of my pieces have two different versions. i've always deferred the raw guitar versions to eventual live performances, but i'm at a space in life where i realize that these live performances are not likely to ever materialize. so, i'm going to compile the live/guitar versions of my larger pieces here.
 
it's unclear to me at this point where i will space this in my discography, but it will probably be around 2008.