The mystical powers of the tobacco industry are a wonderful and frightening thing.

Last night I wrote a long rant about a cigarette-addicted, emphysematic neighbor who just had to ahve a smoke despite his open oxygen line and killed himself and burned my family and other neighbors out of house and home.

I was just reviewing it before posting when there was a five-second power outage which did nothing except reboot my computer and of course lose my long screed.

I'm afraid to recall more than the above brief paragraph for fear of where they might call down the lightning this time -- but I will repeat: talk about your second hand smoke.

On a maybe lighter note, when I had first quit smoking myself and become a sterotypical born-again clean lung missionary, I would tell young people that "kissing a girl who smokes is like licking out an unwashed ashtray." I always hoped the mental image might have saved at least one victim from addiction.