The battery thing was my own confusion, and nobody else's. At least, I assume it was, after doing a whole bunch of online research. But that's fine. Now I've got two short and two long. It...still works out nicely, in that weird, even sort of way. And, while the short ones don't last quite as long, they do fit into pockets more easily.

I got a second charger and a spare atomiser in that order, too. I'm using this dual USB/wall adapter thingie [that I got with an iPod charging kit from newegg] instead of the wall adapter that came with the original kit. That thing's now charging my iPod quite nicely.

As for the liquids....

Vanilla, as usual, isn't quite up to my standards. That's not their fault, though. I'm just entirely too picky about vanilla. Cotton Candy is...not quite cottoncandyish, but it does taste...sorta like...I'm not sure, actually. But it's interesting. The RY4 is good. The 'mystery bottle' is, I assume, the Power Puff, which is a more...tobaccoey version of the RY4, as far as I can tell.

The menthol is...surprisingly good. And I love the mint. It's just...incredible. And, fortunately, it's one of the few flavours LiteCigUSA sells in 50ml bottles. I may have to get some more, at some point.

I was a little disappointed to find that the battery...might not be the 402 battery I'd ordered. Unless I'm confused -- it's shorter than the other batteries. The Dragon battery I have is supposed to be a 401, but it's the longer battery. So...yeah, I'm confused. I guess I'll have to figure out which battery is which length, and order accordingly from now on.

Pleasant surprise, though: an extra bottle of liquid. I'm not entirely sure what flavour it is. It's just got a plain sticker on it that says PP-MED.

More about this later, when I've got everything figured out.

Yeah, I know. You're probably all familiar with my history of experiences with customer service, and how bad it usually is, so any good customer service could be considered to be 'unexpected'. But I do know the difference between 'appropriate levels of customer service' and 'above and beyond'.

I just had one of those experiences that, while maybe not 'above and beyond', is at least living across the street from it.

Last week, after ordering and trying some 'tasters' from NuVape, I decided that the only flavour I really liked enough to order a bunch of was Cola. Because I like e-smokeytreats' Vanilla more. And I can't fault them for that -- vanilla's hard. And neither of them quite got the chocolate I was looking for [JohnsonCreek did that]. I did like their Grape, but I don't think I could stand much of it. So: cola. Because it tastes like a coke icee from Hills.

There was a problem, though. They ran out of PG Cola, and only had non-PG. They offered a substitution, which I accepted, but not without expressing a concern that it might not taste as good.

And, to me, it doesn't. But that's not the only problem.

The bottle leaked during shipping. There was an oily, Cola-smelling residue all over the inside of the packaging. Which sucked. So, I emailed Nuvape to tell them about it.

They got back to me today. With a tracking number. They're sending me the PG Cola I originally ordered. All they asked was that I send a picture of the bottle, if I could. Not necessary, really. It'd just be a good way to encourage the people filling the bottles to seal them properly.

So, I took a picture of it, showing the oddly faded, kinda messy Nuvape/Cola branding label, and the smeary, almost-unreadable nicotine level sticker [which, oddly enough, becomes almost readable when the flash goes off]. And I thanked them.

Because I never actually expected anything out of them. Because, for me, normal customer service really does border on being ignored....

Good on you, NuVape. You've earned yourself a repeat customer. And maybe some referrals.

Now, as a technical 'nonsmoker', this post might not be as useful to people who do smoke. I'll leave things like 'does this effectively replace smoking' shit to Gremlin.

This is most of my 'kit'. My 'digital smoking paraphernalia'. I use the single week Pill 'reminder' device to sort my cartridges -- I can fit nine in each slot, and each slot will be devoted to a different flavour, with one for blanks, and one for carts that need washing.

The strange [computer] mouse-shaped thing above it is the battery recharger for the 510. Next to that is one of the batteries. The shiny thing with the lights is the 'PCC' for the 510 [in silver], and, next to that, almost out of the picture, is the 510 PassThrough. It's purple because, well, black wasn't in stock.

This is the 510, broken down to its component parts. The battery [the longest], the atomiser [in the middle] and the cartridge -- or 'cart' -- with a cap on it.

The battery is manually operated, obviously. And you use it the way you use a regular cigarette -- you just have to either buy prefilled carts, or buy blank carts, and bottles of nicotine liquid [e-liquid, nicquid, it's got lots of names].

This is what mine looks like when you push the button. Bright blue LED on the end. Gremlin's got red. The red, I suppose, is to make it more realistic to the user. The blue is meant to make it less likely that others will confuse what you're smoking with a real cigarette, so they won't get all uppity at you.

This is the passthrough, freshly out of its wrappings, and unassembled. The little battery goes into the box in the line, for use away from the computer, if you have to. It's meant to be used plugged into a USB port, though, so you're not draining one of your other batteries needlessly.

The PCC [Personal Charging Case] next to the passthrough, with atomiser and cartridge attached to the passthrough. It kindasorta gives you an idea of the size, but not really, since you don't have an exact reference for either. And...I'm not going to give you one. So there.

The green light at the bottom means that the pack is done charging. The red light at the top means that the battery I have inserted in the pack [for recharging] isn't done charging.

If you can ignore the glare, this is a shot of the inside of the pack. It's got three holes for cartridges [or two for cartridges, and one for an extra atomiser], and one hole for recharging a battery.

There's a slight...issue with the PCCs for the 510. The contact that allows for recharging is made through pressure, instead of screwing it in like you'd do with the wall charger. And the manual batteries aren't quite long enough for it to work in the usual way. An easy workaround is to put the cap from one of the cartridges loosely on the end of the battery you intend to charge, and then close the pack. The added height will cause the battery to be pressed down just enough for the necessary contacts to be made.

Unfortunately, I got kinda stupid here. I forgot to unwrap the bottles of liquid before taking a picture of them -- possibly because I was just so impressed by how well wrapped they were. these are two [glass!] bottles of liquid from JohnsonCreek -- I'm a little hazy on the URL right now, so I won't be linking to them. They do pack impressively, though.

The bottles came with those medicinal caps on them -- the 'press down' type childproof caps, and a glass eyedropper, and two tiny little bottles that are meant to be used with syringes. Luckily, I just happened to have gotten some good syringes from Nuvape....

These are the tiny little bottles, which were empty, but are now full of liquid from each bottle from JC. JohnsonCreek's liquids come Some Assembly Required.

But both the almond chocolate and mint chocolate seem quite tasty. so far.

...and, wow, was that annoying. Apparently, something about WPG3 doesn't quite get along with the new version of wordpress. My post got all jumbled, and half of my images disappeared. I had to copypaste everything into word and rewrite it over there to get it into the proper order, and get all the images included....

Anyway, your basic 510 starter kit is around $50. and comes with two complete e-cigarettes [two batteries, two atomisers]. Usually, they also come with five prefilled cartridges of varying strengths. A PCC will run you about $25. Same with a passthrough. Neither is strictly necessary, but they might improve your e-smoking experience. The initial expense is well worth it, though. Once you find a flavour and nicotine level you're comfortable with, you won't need to buy regular [analogue, organic, whatever you want to call them] cigarettes again. Just about everyone I've met since starting this experiment has the same story -- bought an e-cig, quit smoking regular cigarettes the same day. Some of them don't even like regular cigarettes anymore.

Even with all this stuff, we've still saved a couple hundred dollars this month. That's...really all you need to know, isn't it? There's significant savings involved. Even over other, more approved methods of quitting.