Playing in the Shambles

Since I’ve referenced this post at SnusOn several times now, I thought I’d like to keep it around for easy access. Plus, for the first time, I’ve tried it today, with a Thunder Frosted portion. So far, so good.

By the way, Snus Hog, thank you for this tip, and also for allowing me to reproduce your post in full.

Update: I’m not quite sure why I find this a little fascinating, but reading back over it I remembered something kind of related. Mom used to tear sticks of chewing gum in half. As far as I know, she still does, but sticks of gum ain’t what they used to be. But I remember seeing these half-sticks of Wrigley’s Spearmint or Doublemint in the “junk drawer”, where they’d pick up bits of dirt and lint on the torn end, so they’d never get used, or so I thought. For all I know, Mom tore off the dirty end and chewed the rest, but as far as I can recall they just stayed in there and got hard and stale and eventually thrown away, as part of that mysterious process where the junk drawer somehow got fuller and messier all the time without ever actually overflowing.

Snus Hog
Joined: 09 Nov 2009
Posts: 8
Location: UK

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 9:51 am
I’m a bit of a lightweight when it comes to snus, I prefer minis most of the time but don’t like paying double for the privilege, I get past this by simply rolling a standard portion between thumb and index finger in the middle of the portion, back and forth along the length, this compresses the two halves into nice equal mini portions, a quick tear and then in it goes, the other half stays together even when alone in a tin and being shaken around. I do this pretty much all the time, takes literally a few seconds, no mess and you get a nice pouch to hold it in (as opposed to using los which I’m not keen on, prefer no mess). Obviously it takes a bit of practice, the key is the direction you roll, along the length not the width. Also good for a more discreet standard dose as you can create two compressed halves and pop one in each side. Works great with long portions like 01 too.

Well, since through yesterday makes two weeks of me mostly faithfully tracking my snus, I have done this little update, wherein I have accounted for 193 pieces of snus. That puts me a little under 14 a day, although once you consider there’s probably been 3-5 pieces that didn’t get noted, it might be a little over that. Plus I’ve had about two cigarettes a day and a bit of snuff here and there.

My Top 12 Snus for Jan. 3-17, 2010:

I was going to do a top ten, but decided the Gots Gul and Grov deserved listing, too. As it happens, these are all the kinds I’ve had at least five pieces of since the 3rd of January.

I’m about to be buried in Taboca, apparently, which does sound better than being buried in, say, tapioca pudding. Because I bought Taboca snus from BuySnus.com at the right time, I unwittingly entered myself into a drawing. I did not win the top prize, but I did win five rolls of Taboca Portion snus. I am enjoying one of those right now, and I truly can say I could have done worse. As I write this, I flash on fifty cans of General Dry Mint Mini and I get that little sick feeling of relief from having dodged a bullet.

The thing is, I was pretty well-stocked up on Taboca anyway. Once this bounty comes in, I will have 72 cans of Taboca portions, plus 26 cans of the loose and 25 cans of the strong minis. (I love this Taboca stuff, man.) I love it, but 72 cans? I wonder if the ppl at SnusOn might be into trading for some Taboca. I should ask. Ah, but then I have to deal with it. And I haven’t even got the snus yet.

Okay, I really geeked out and kept track of every day of snusing since the 3rd. Through the 12th that’s 10 days–yes it is, count it on your fingers (I did). I counted every pris, portion, sterk or ekstra-sterk portion, mini (there were none) as once “piece”. I counted 141 pieces over these ten days. Admittedly, I let a few slip by, probably 3-5. So we’ll just handwavingly say 145 pieces over 10 days, or 14.5 pieces a day. Not as bad as I thought, since I started day one (the 3rd) doing 19 pieces.

I have a lovely spreadsheet with lots of tabs for tracking this–it’s getting seriously sad. I even saved it as an html file and tweaked it a bit in Quanta. I may upload it–why the heck not–but in the meantime, here’s the most fascinating bit, if there is one:

Top ten snus I snused over ten days of snusin’:

…

A couple of notes: There were 36 total varieties on the list. Also, it might be worth mentioning that I opened the General OP just the evening before the last day. If there’s a sequel to the list it will look somewhat different, but for that matter a month’s list would be much more interesting. Ten days is a pretty small snapshot.

…if only to say that yerba mate has come back into my life, quite unexpectedly, even as I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m glad.

It was a snus connection, too. These are two things I like: one new but well-established, one from the past but in a way new again.

I do have reasons to be grateful, and I don’t mean just consumables like snus and yerba mate.

Everything they make, I like:black, white, original portion, the awesome lös, even the minis. LD rocks. I feel you, LD.

My carefully-tallied spreadsheet says I have now consumed eighty cans of tasty, wonderful snus. Some of it has been especially wonderful, and some of it I would more say “interesting”.

This does not account for sampler packs, partially-eaten traded cans, or the partly-full can of General Whites I dumped accidentally that one time.

Still, 80 is a good, round number. And here’s a little thing I did right before I noticed I’d reached this sort-of milestone:

Mah Snus Top 11 by usage:
General lös, 6
General portion, 5
Ettan portion, 4
General white portion, 4
Claq Qui sterk portion, 3
General Ekstra Sterk lös, 3
General Ekstra Sterk portion, 3
Grov lös, 3
Grov portion, 3
Kronan lös, 3
Röda Lacket white portion, 3

Eleven because I’ve seven tied for fifth (and two tied for third). It’s been less than five months, so it could shake out some. This is the closest I’ve been able to get to a Top Five.