OMG, Free Stuff!

So, we LOVE free stuff. And there are certain people who like to give bloggers free stuff. Well, we recently had our very first experience with this. A (presumably) nice woman from www.V4L.com emailed us offering to send us e-cigarettes to try and then review on the blog. Well, there was one problem: neither of us smokes. But that didn't stop us for accepting for two reasons:

1. We have friends who smoke and we were hoping that we could get them to at least switch to the (presumably) safer* e-cigarettes if they could try them for free. We've heard a lot of people complain about the start-up cost as being very high for something that might not work. We love our friends and don't want them to die young; so, we hoped this would be the perfect pairing.
2. Did I mention we love free stuff?

*Everything we read states that there is no clear research as to whether or not e-cigarettes are actually safer than the genuine article, but, as they eliminate most of the chemicals in a real cigarette, it is commonly assumed that they are safer.

So we received the e-cigarettes in the mail and took them to the bar with us. It didn't go so well. Our friend was hesitant to even try them. We had heard arguments before about them looking stupid and that ended up being a major issue. We finally persuaded our friend to try it, but when she took her first puff, she screamed. See, the end of the "battery" lights up when you inhale. This is supposed to simulate the burning end of a cigarette and is also an indicator during charging and such. Well, the light is VERY bright. Especially in a dark bar. Our friend said something like, "I'll only use this if I'm being raped! It'll blind my attacker and alert the authorities all at once." She then proceeded to go outside, alone, without even her phone as entertainment to smoke the real McCoy. We tried?

That said, Kayla took them to work for people to try and got a few people interested in them. Though it was daylight so maybe the blinding nature of the glowing end wasn't evident?

Oh and we tried to get you guys a discount but the company decided to pass. We considered writing this post without ever mentioning the company's name to spite them, but we're not jerks. At least one of us isn't. We'll let you decide which one of us. (<--rhetorical)