Though we might all look forward to Christmas, very few of us can probably say that it is a stress-free time of the year. In principal, the idea of your entire family in the same room for a whole day, swapping unwanted Christmas presents, drinking lots of alcohol and eating all the food you spent […]
Turning eighteen is such a milestone in anyone’s life. When you’re young you just want to get older faster, and when you’re older, you wish you could just go back and learn to enjoy being young. Hindsight can be a wonderful thing. But turning 18 is a milestone in anyone’s life; it brings with it […]
Christmas can be a truly magical time of year, a time for families to get together, a time for good food, and a time for getting some amazing Christmas gifts. It doesn’t seem to matter how old we get, getting presents now is just as much fun as when we were young, though the Christmas […]
For most smokers, the science of taste is like the innards of your cigar lighter - you don’t care how it works as long as it does. Still, it is - along with smell - the critical sense that allows you to enjoy the sensation of smoking, and learning more about how taste works may […]
igars are part of the world of music - or vice versa. After all, a lot of great pop and jazz music has been created by people who cut their teeth playing in ultra-smoky bars, and Cuban folk music features an entire tradition of songs about cigars. Such musicians as Miles Davis and, more recently, […]
Imagine a place where gems are so prolific, they are scattered among the sandy bottoms of smooth-flowing streams. The beautiful and exotic island of Sri Lanka is just such a place. Marco Polo wrote of its jewel-like wonders: “…from its streams comes rubies, sapphires, topazes, amethyst, and garnet.”
Sri Lanka, or “The Jewel Box of Indian […]
While it may seem Greek to some, the grandidierite, majorite or painite are just a few of the world’s rarest gemstones. And while some may be considered costly, others are surprisingly affordable thanks to their general anonymity to the public. However, each of these rare gemstones represents an exclusivity that can only be attributed to […]
Self defense is an act of defending oneself, one’s property or the well being of others from physical harm. It instills discipline and possesses rules to be assessed and followed.
Self defense or defense of others is a positive defense. It gives complete justification when the degree of violence used is equal to the threat faced. […]
A few years ago, in 2006, the Nevada legislature imposed a public smoking ban.
The new rule doesn’t apply - as yet - to the storied casinos of Las Vegas, where smoking is still allowed on gaming floors. And of course Nevada is hardly the only recent state to impose restrictions on public smoking. Indeed, it […]
Cigar smoking is the most social of pleasures. And with bans on public smoking enacted in almost thirty states, covering half the United States population, cigar smokers must be feeling more and more like an embattled minority. So what could make more sense than a gathering aimed at, and intended for, cigar smokers?
How about several?
The […]
Cigar smoking is all about shared pleasure. After all, it swept Victorian England and became a national pastime in part because it gave men something to do with their hands while they talked after dinner. And it took off during the so-called “cigar boom” of the 1990s in part because new publications, online forums, cigar […]
Since our ape-like ancestors first evolved into more-or-less humanoid form, man has had a close relationship with his hair. From ancient times forward, men have grown beards of all lengths, widths and densities, along with curious hairstyles that have ranged from the bangs of Julius Caesar to the sideburns of Elvis and Kookie to the […]
Many of us live, and think, as if “nature” and “culture” were separate things, kept apart by a porous but clear boundary. In fact, it’s usually hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. (Think of the ways most of us encounter nature—we visit “forest preserves” created, and bounded, by an act of […]
Cigars have been with us for thousands of years - far too long for any historian, however dedicated, to trace. Tobacco may have grown on this planet (according to current speculation by paleontologists) for as long as eight thousand years, and archaeological data suggests it’s been smoked for at least four thousand. Ancient pottery unearthed […]
However others may feel about them, there’s no doubt that public-smoking bans, and other restrictions on tobacco use, leave cigar aficionados burning up. Anyone who reads cigar magazines, for example, will know that - however politically unpredictable they may be in other areas - this is one legislative trend all those magazines’ writers seem to […]
PTSD is an acronym for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a dysfunctional condition resulting from on-the-spot contact with an event, or series of events which shock mind or body to the extent that the condition is engendered. The mind is principally affected, but it can affect the subject’s motor system as well. In the extreme, the […]
The first idea that comes to my mind when I think of American culture is uniqueness. Our culture is drastically different from so many others around the globe and those differences (some good and some bad) are what make our unique country what it is.
Culture is defined by The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural […]
By negligently discarding plastic items, especially plastic water bottles, fishing gear and plastic bags, people are unknowingly causing the deaths of millions of mammals, fish, birds and reptiles each and every year. We defile the face of the earth with plastic refuse creating waterway contamination.
Since the invention of plastic earlier this century, it has become […]
Even the most ardent believers that Christmas is a time for giving and not receiving will readily admit that the anticipation of finding a stocking full of goodies whether they be of any practical use or not and no matter how old you are - quite enchanting. Stocking Fillers can be the perfect opportunity to […]
The fantastic social gathering that is the house party changes form depending upon the host’s stage in life. The very first parties are likely to take place during the tender teenage years and might only be possible at the parental home when certain disapproving individuals are away on holiday. Later on, parties can be more […]
