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Are you a smoker? How many times have you tried to quit smoking? And yet, you still smoke? With federal and state governments trying to balance their budgets on the backs of smokers, there is even more incentive to quit. The US government is proposing a $1.05 hike on cigarette taxes, and in cash strapped California, legislators have proposed additional cigarette taxes as high as $2.10 per pack! If all these tax increases go through, a pack of cigarettes could cost more than $7.00 in California. More than I paid for a carton, back when I was smoking.

I am a former smoker, who quit cold turkey over 20 years ago. I know how addictive nicotine can be. There are still times when I get a craving for a cigarette, so I have a lot of empathy for people trying to quit smoking. This is why I was really excited to find WhyQuit?

WhyQuit is a site that is devoted to freedom from nicotine.  They are not only a site to help you stop smoking cigarettes, they are a site that will help you become free from nicotine in all its forms.  Including snuff and nicotine patches and pills.  What makes this site exceptional, is that they accept no advertising  or donations for their site.  The editors and writers on the site are not paid for their contributions.  All of the costs of the site are paid straight from the founders wallet.  You can be pretty sure there is not a hidden agenda here.  Just an ex-smoker who wants to help others become smoke free.

The site offers an amazing amount of resources for free, including Video and Audio Quit Smoking Lessons, “Never Take Another Puff”, a free 149 page quit smoking book in PDF format by Joel Spitzer . They have just released a new e-book, Freedom From Nicotine. This free e-book has over 200 pages that will help you quit smoking and become free from nicotine.
If you are ready to quit smoking and to become free from nicotine in all it’s sources, I highley recommend that you visit WhyQuit. I suggest you start with Ten Unusual Quit Smoking Tips and go from there.

I quit smoking cigarettes cold turkey 20 years ago, and have stayed nicotine free ever since. I know you can too.

I just love this picture. I do wonder how they kept the babies still enough to paint on their bums. I think it would tickle! Of course, you can do quite a few things with Photoshop these days!
I hope everyone had a very good Easter, and remembered that the real reason we celebrate has nothing to do with bunnies that lay colorful eggs! Here we had a beautiful sunny day that started with a wonderful church service, and then an afternoon with friends and family. This year we went non-traditional and had enchiladas for Easter supper. Yum!

In case you have been living in a cave somewhere and don’t know. On American Idol this week, Adam Lambert sang Mad World, and got an extremely rare standing ovation from Simon Cowell. People seemed to be going crazy about his performance.  I heard about it on the talk radio show I listen to, people were talking about it at work.  When I looked at Google Trends Adam Lambert and Mad World were HOT! for hours.   Everyo once in awhile I would hear someone say they didn’t think the performance was all that great… but even they were talking about it. American Idol is one of the few shows that you can’t watch for free online, so I usually set my DVR and watch it over the weekend.  However, it looked like this time the plan may have backfired on me. American Idol had run long, and  the DVR  quit recording before Adam Lambert sang.

Not to worry. I knew the folks at Fox would not let me down. I went to the American Idol site and found videos of all the night’s performances. I did miss out on the judges comments, I didn’t get to see Simon Cowell give a standing ovation, but I can live with that.

After watching the video of Adam Lambert singing Mad World I was smitten. Not with Adam, he’s a little young for me, but with the song. I just love the melody. I played it more than a few times, and then like many people, went hunting on YouTube for the original version. I found the 1982 Tears for Fears version sung by Curt Smith. And honestly, I thought Curt Smith did a better job than Adam Lambert.

Then I found the 2003 version done by Gary Jules and Micheal Andrews as a soundtrack for the movie Donnie Darko. (From what I hear the movie is a must see.) All I can say is you need to watch the video, which hopefully is right here in this post. Not only is the singing amazing, but the children in the video are mesmerizing. You’ll just have to watch to see what I mean.

I am still a big fan of Adam Lambert. As far as the American Idol contestants go, he is by far the most creative and entertaining of the group, however, as great as his performance was on Tuesday night, I still think Gary Jules did it better.

See more Mad World Videos .