Me, smoke? Well, if smoked salmon counts...

After my (obviously lame) attempt at being sarcastic and funny (haha.) in my last post, tons of questions which implied the same thing poured in from my fans (alright, just three, but three's a ton, right?) :

nwy,do u really meant wat u wrote?! u said u smoke?

hey..i was browsing through ur blog..ermm..u said smt abt smoking.. u smoke?? dun mind me asking??

you smoke one ah???hehheehehehe :P

Well, let me clarify:

I don't smoke.

I never did.

I don't plan to.

Smoking for cool's sake, I believe, only serves to emphasise the un-coolness of a person; highlighting the fact that he doesn't have the courage to decide what's cool for himself and thus follows what has been defined as "cool" by the media (think a couple of cool people chilling on green grassy hills; a cool guy kayaking in the middle of an ocean in the middle of nowhere; some cool guys skiing on snowy mountains, doing cool routines for the camera; some cool cowboys riding horses through rivers in the countryside; a cool guy driving a black Porsche, etc.)

The irony of it all is that 2 Marlboro men (men who starred in advertisements for Marlboro cigarettes) have since died of lung-cancer:

Wayne McLaren, who posed for some promotional photographs on behalf of Marlboro in 1976, succumbed to lung cancer at age 51 on 22 July 1992. McLaren was a former professional rodeo rider who appeared in small parts in various television series and movies (primarily Westerns) throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and he modeled for print advertising between acting jobs in the mid-1970s including a Marlboro campaign in 1976. McLaren, who had a pack-and-a-half a day smoking habit, was diagnosed with lung cancer at age 49. Despite chemotherapy, the removal of one lung, and radiation treatments, the cancer eventually spread to his brain and killed him.

David McLean, who appeared in many Marlboro television and print advertisements starting in the early 1960s, also died of cancer at age 73 on 12 October 1995. McLean starred in the short-lived 1960 television Western Tate, and he played roles in numerous television series and feature films during the 1960s and 1970s. McLean took up smoking at age 12, began to suffer from emphysema in 1985, and had a cancerous tumor removed from his right lung in 1993. Despite the surgery, the cancer remained and spread to his brain and spine, and McLean succumbed in 1995.

**Extracted from Urban Legends Reference Pages**

Really want to be cool?

Get to know Jesus.

Wait, that means I'm cool.