This is for the people who are ready to quit or are currently quitting dipping. The simplest and cheapest imitation snuff that I have found is this homemade recipe. I’ll give you that it’s not the same as Copenhagen or any other snuff, but once you get used to it (just like if you changed brands), it will work as a good substitute and help you get over your cravings.
The recipe is simple – decaf tea and salt. Soak your teabags for about 3-5 minutes and then dump them into a bowl (squeeze them out before dumping to minimize the water level), add salt – about 1-2 teaspoons per teabag – and mix well. Put this into an empty snuff can (don’t wash it if you want to impart some of the flavor). It will feel rough for the first couple days, but once the water starts to soften the tea leaves it will feel like real snuff. The taste is the only obstacle – nothing can really compare to the straight stuff flavor – but if you go into this expecting the flavor change, it can work for you.
Make sure you use decaf tea – caffeinated tea will give you a super-duper-make-you-throw-up caffeine overdose. You can also add some flavors – use herbal mint tea, for instance (though I suggest a base of regular decaf tea). Your snuff can will build up some salt around the outside lip, depending on the amount of salt and water you use.
Use this recipe in conjunction with other quitting aids – Nicorette patches/gum, chocolate, or some other stop-smoking aid. I recommend that you quit cold turkey – throw out or finish up your existing stock on a planned date and wake up the next morning nicotine free. A bet with high stakes (mine is 12 raw oysters) helps. Involve as many people as you can – they will keep you honest and support you, helping you to be successful.
That’s all I’ve got, hope this helps!

My son got me the other day. I sit down at my computer and wiggle the mouse, screen stays black. Press a key on the keyboard – nothing. Press every button on the front of the montitor – no dice. Hit the reset button on the PC – nada. Make sure all the cables are plugged in – check. “Well crap,” I think, “my nice 19-inch monitor died, now my cheap backup has died. Time to bite the bullet and buy a new flat screen.”
I find one that I want and am one click away from the actual purchase when my son walks in and says “Oh, are you buying a new monitor?” and then reaches over and presses the power button on the “broken” monitor. I heard my geek cred flushing down the toilet as it came on. And, of course, my wife was a witness to this event.
In my defense, the power button on the monitor was very well camouflaged.

So I work with one of my brothers-in-law, and he rubbed in the fact that he was going on vacation last week. He calls me up the Wednesday before and says, “Hey man, you gonna be here Monday? Well I’m not, I’m gonna be in the mountains!” Then later he calls me and says, “So, if you need anything from me next week… don’t call me – ’cause I’ll be in the mountains!”
Turns out he did the same thing to the guys who work for him as well. We’re not ones to take that type of thing lightly, so while Daniel was in the mountains, we decided that Santa should welcome him back…

Here’s the view of his desk from the front:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Here’s the better side view:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The stuff in the back corner:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
His telephone, headset, headphones, and a bunch of pens:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
His monitor, docking station, troll doll, pens and some “presents”:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sorry about the blurriness here, not used to this camera:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
We wish you a merry July-mas, we wish you a merry July-mas…

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
We also replaced all of his pictures with random images from teh intertoobs (there’s many more, but I still haven’t figured out that camera):


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
We also wrapped his troll doll, but we did give him a breathing hole. We’re not that cruel.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Obligatory keyboard and mouse wrappings:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
His in-box festively festooned with lights:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Got his hoodie as well:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
One last shot:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Now, Daniel, don’t rub that vacation in next time…

Sorry for missing the post on Monday, my grandmother passed away Monday morning. We’ll return to our previously scheduled frivolity next week.

Back when my son was probably 12 months old or so I encountered Krusty the Killer Klown. My wife was working nights at the time and so I was alone with my son (daughter was spending the night somewhere). I put him in his crib and went to bed and was soon dreaming of sugar plums or something. Then the little brat wakes up screaming. I roll out of bed and start stumbling to his room, barely able to see, bouncing off of the door frames, cursing as I step on little toys. I walk into his room and see him standing at the side of his crib just screaming his fool head off. I walk up to him and say, in an exasperated voice, “what’s the matter son?”

He just looks over my shoulder into the closet behind me and screams bloody murder. Now, at this point I just knew that Krusty the Killer Klown was behind me, stepping out of said closet, wielding something sharp and pointy and that he wanted to introduce me to said sharp and pointy thing. So I did what any overweight geek would do when confronted by a crazy homicidal clown while wearing only boxers (I, not the clown, was wearing the boxers – the underwear choice of homicidal clowns is beyond the scope of this story) – I spun around with my hand clutching my heart, as if I was trying to squeeze it back into beating, and screamed a manly warning to the clown (have you ever noticed that manly warnings aimed at crazy clowns tend to sound just like the noise a little girl makes when you drop a spider down her back?). I never saw Krusty. He was apparently so very frightened by my boxer-clad, manly, girl-squealing self that he just disappeared.

The little brat slept with me that night. He only woke up one more time – to scream right in my ear.

(I have submitted this to the Shark Tank, we’ll see if it gets posted)

I don’t normally tell stories about work here, I try to keep the two separate, but this was just too good to keep from the world.

Recently our email server nearly ground to a halt due to the reply-to-all virus. It all started with an email from support to the entire company telling us about a problem with our virus scanner. Then came the first reply-to-all (R2A) with a question. Followed by a “Me too”, followed by an “I think I was copied on this email in error” – that was, of course, sent to everyone in the company. That spawned it’s own series of “Me too” replies. An hour later, 20 people have asked questions or said they got it in error, all using R2A.

Now someone gets angry and, using R2A, asks everyone to “quit replying to all!!!11!” which starts it’s own chain, in addition to the question chain and the “I shouldn’t have received this” chain. The question chain got a boost when somebody told us that it worked fine for her, but that was quickly beaten by the picture of the original email with the R2A button marked out and labeled “Bad” and the Reply button circled and labeled “Good.”

Things are getting into full swing now, as folks thank the person who started the “Quit replying to all” chain, and this starts the “please remove me from your list chain”. Some folks try to diffuse the situation by explaining why you shouldn’t R2A on company-wide emails by, of course, using R2A. This brings us to the “Please remove us all” email which finally brings out the jokers. Now we see “Don’t remove me! I like getting email”, , and my favorite, “This is amazing. Worse than a well written virus.”

Some folks got introspective: “Its like when you’re driving on the highway, and there’s a wreck on the side of the road and people ahead of you are driving really slow to watch and you’re thinking “gosh people just GO, nothing to SEE here” but when you see the accident, you slow down to watch too.”

Some took the opportunity to ask for things, “I need [baseball team name] tickets.” (That was my personal favorite)

The virus finally died with this one: “Yeah, no more Reply to all…… ooops.” That was 6 hours after the whole thing started. I’m archiving this thread for posterity.

I don’t like tuna. In fact, I’m not a very fishy person at all. Soon after I got married, I tried to fix dinner. Being relatively poor (and in the Army) the kitchen was almost empty, except for a can of tuna. I mixed everything into it that I could to make it taste better. I added A-1, ketchup, mustard, you name it. And then I served it to my wife. She took a couple of bites and then told me she wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t hungry. I looked at her and said “well, I don’t feel good either, ’cause this tastes like crap.”

That was the first honest communication we had.

I managed to convince my wife not to let me do the laundry. It only took one load of clothes…

When I was in the Army, I sorted my dirty clothes as follows: whites, army stuff, civilian stuff. Everything ended up brown anyway.

I married into a big family. I still haven’t figured out who all I’m now related to… Anyway, I ended up with three brother-in-laws who have recounted some pretty funny stories (I was an only child – my only playmate was Harold – an invisible six-foot tall bunny rabbit). One of them was about their trampoline. They had a basketball hoop on the side of the house and they would jump on the trampoline and slam dunk. Then they got the idea of jumping off the peak of the roof, onto the trampoline, then dunk the ball on the way back down. One of them missed once, sent his foot through the spring. Tore the toenail right off.

My children are prohibited from moving the trampoline.

I quit dipping Copenhagen about 18 months ago (I’m not keeping track – honest!) and I still have dreams of a taking big fat dip. I know in my dream that I’m screwed, but I just can’t help it. Last night I had one of those dreams, and in it I walked up to my wife to talk to her (the background in the dream was reminiscent of the mine level in the Indiana Jones video game). She reached out her hand and started pushing on my lip, making the dip move out of it’s pocket. The whole time she had this pissed off look on her face. She asked me if I was dipping. I lied and said no.

I’ll be glad when those dreams go away.