My feelings were mixed when I heard that Mike Buzzetti was revamping his venerable Buzz, putting his variable-voltage flagship out to pasture and introducing the Buzz Pro in its stead.
Long ago and far away, when a 7-month itch was threatening the stable-but-boring marriage I'd consummated with my Infernoa cheaply attractive, eGo-type seductress who'd wooed me away from my salt-of-the-earth 510I was ogling high-priced mods.
Among the ladies winking at me from street corners was the Buzz.
She wasn't pretty. She had knurled bands about her waist that looked like stretch marks from too many deliveries of child, a quietly desperate waif plucked from between the covers of The Grapes of Wrath.
At that moment in time, she had a feature that stood her apart from all her more alluring colleagues: her mood could be altered at will by the simple turn of a screwdriver; although interesting, that seemed inessential to me when when weighed against far more consequential factors, such as looks, looks and looks.
I'm a guy, people; that's a matter outside my control and I make only limited apologies for it.
Ultimately, several salacious affairs with prettier, albeit fixed-personality sirens left me colder but wiser: no amount of flowers, candy or LR attys will thaw a frigid, fixed-voltage PV into producing anything other than the capabilities allotted to them at birth.
Hence it was that I was driven through a winter of discontent into the Buzz's plain but variable arms.
Once there, I discovered and gained an appreciation for a strength she'd developed, presumably while surviving her hardscrabble exodus from the Oklahoma dust bowl (please pardon my habit of stupid literary allusions): she was indestructible, reliable, faithful to the end. I've dropped her onto carpet, asphalt and concrete: on every occasion, she's dusted herself off, then filled my mouth and lungs with the same warm vape she had pre-impact.
As to her looks, they grew on meor perhaps I grew up. I can't explain why she morphed before my eyes from Roseanne Barr into Sally Field; Gidget isn't beautiful, but she's smart, practical and very, very cute. I could imagine waking next to her for the rest of my life (although I'd still draw the line at Roseanne Barr; I may never mature to that degree).
Imagine my discomfort whenhaving at last settled down with the right PVI was encouraged to ditch her in favor of a newer, younger model.
As an inducement to do exactly that, NotCigs was offering three essential improvements in the Buzz Pro: first, she'd be easier on the eyes. Gone would be the tacky knurled bands, the end caps would be retooled, and the paint would have a sandblasted come-hitherness.
Notable, if less significant, the Exterior LED would be moved to the interior (still easily visible), where a probing finger would no longer mistake it for the fire button. Additionally, the bottom cap would act as a master switch, a quarter-turn cutting the power (a red LED means the power is on; blue means the fire button is engaged, and all is well; red with the button engaged means a direct short).
Secondarily, a more efficient regulator type would be employed that promised much-improved battery life.
Lastlyand arguably the most significant, insofar as the screwdriver voltage adjustment has always been the most strident of criticisms leveled at the Buzzscrewdrivers would go away in favor of the same thumbwheel adjuster as was introduced in the Infinity model, permitting a 3.3V to 5.5V range of mood changes.
Yet I hesitated; I was ok with Gidget's appearance. I didn't mind shirt-pocketing a fresh set of batteries to satisfy the once-daily refueling. Improvements are nice, but both were fixes to problems I didn't consider to be problematic.
But Mike had me on the screwdriver thing. More times than I could hope to recalllet alone countI've known that a particular stripe of menthol I was switching to would vape like a flamethrower at 5.2V, but making the downward adjustment either exceeded my inconvenience threshold or the circumstanceslike driving a motor vehicleprohibited the idea altogether.
I caved. The Buzz Pro I affectionately refer to as Big Blue (at present, the color offerings are blue, purple, black and "clear," AKA "natural") came in the mail last Friday, 7-22-11. And she is, as promised, quite the looker.
Big Blue can attend dances alongside any skin-deep-beautiful device without fear of becoming a wallflower. The key is that although her appearance is decidedly improved, it's not overstated. Cosmetics is a dangerous business; it's difficult for a designer far too close to his or her object to recognize the moment in time when enough has become enough, far easier to run the stop sign you're driving too fast to see, pushing pretty into loud, then into hideous.
Although Mike dabbled in a past life with stock-car racing, he knew when to apply the brakes with this one.
Having examined Improvement #1 and found it to my liking, I loaded a new, freshly-charged set of UltraFire 880mAh 16340s (unchanged from the original Buzz); it was Friday, July 22, 5pm. I then vaped in a manner consistent with my nominal, 3ml+ per day habits until the UltraFires died on Sunday, July 24, 9am.
There's been some discussion in the NotCigs forum regarding the meaninglessness of any single individual's battery-life reportage. The variables in behavior from one vaper to the next are as singular as are fingerprintsnot unlike tastes in e-liquidsand one man's 12 hours may well prove to be another's 6. The only objective offering I can give is that Gidget required that I leave the house with replacement batteries on my person, else I'd be stopping at a 7-11 for a pack of Marlboros.
The game is early, but to wit, Big Blue is far more forgiving, on the order of 50% moreand I've struck spare 16340s from my before-I-leave-the-house checklist.
I'd be remiss if I didn't interject here that in the physical world, gaining something somewhere means losing something somewhere else--and the expanded battery life came at the cost of tolerance to light loads, i.e., LR attys and all-the-rage dual-coil cartomizers.
That left the thumbwheel voltage adjuster, one of which there is, of course. It's not the same frictionless, smooth-as-silk model as featured on the Darwinwhich turns out, on balance, to be a good thing.
It's a simple knurled wheelnothing fancywith three hand-painted index marks (red, yellow & green. On Big Blue's, the red mark indicates the 5.0VDC vicinity. Your vicinity may vary, but what won't change of its own volitionunlike on the Darwinis your setting; although very easy to adjust by deliberate act, I've not known it to do so on its own initiative, or by my own carelessness.
As potentiometers go, it's a Joe Sixpack model: It simply worksno frills, nor apology for their lack--and it works very well. Despite all my fondness and frivolous nostalgia for Gidget, her screwdriver is one aspect of her charm I can bear to part with.
I couldn't bear to part with Gidget, mind you. Don't look for her on the Classifieds, because she'll be with me as long as a gentle press on her button releases her pent-up inner energy. Not unlike the post wild-oats woman in your life that taught you the true, enduring meaning of the word "love," Gidget will forever smile back at me when I wake in the morning.
Long ago and far away, when a 7-month itch was threatening the stable-but-boring marriage I'd consummated with my Infernoa cheaply attractive, eGo-type seductress who'd wooed me away from my salt-of-the-earth 510I was ogling high-priced mods.
Among the ladies winking at me from street corners was the Buzz.
She wasn't pretty. She had knurled bands about her waist that looked like stretch marks from too many deliveries of child, a quietly desperate waif plucked from between the covers of The Grapes of Wrath.
At that moment in time, she had a feature that stood her apart from all her more alluring colleagues: her mood could be altered at will by the simple turn of a screwdriver; although interesting, that seemed inessential to me when when weighed against far more consequential factors, such as looks, looks and looks.
I'm a guy, people; that's a matter outside my control and I make only limited apologies for it.
Ultimately, several salacious affairs with prettier, albeit fixed-personality sirens left me colder but wiser: no amount of flowers, candy or LR attys will thaw a frigid, fixed-voltage PV into producing anything other than the capabilities allotted to them at birth.
Hence it was that I was driven through a winter of discontent into the Buzz's plain but variable arms.
Once there, I discovered and gained an appreciation for a strength she'd developed, presumably while surviving her hardscrabble exodus from the Oklahoma dust bowl (please pardon my habit of stupid literary allusions): she was indestructible, reliable, faithful to the end. I've dropped her onto carpet, asphalt and concrete: on every occasion, she's dusted herself off, then filled my mouth and lungs with the same warm vape she had pre-impact.
As to her looks, they grew on meor perhaps I grew up. I can't explain why she morphed before my eyes from Roseanne Barr into Sally Field; Gidget isn't beautiful, but she's smart, practical and very, very cute. I could imagine waking next to her for the rest of my life (although I'd still draw the line at Roseanne Barr; I may never mature to that degree).
Imagine my discomfort whenhaving at last settled down with the right PVI was encouraged to ditch her in favor of a newer, younger model.
As an inducement to do exactly that, NotCigs was offering three essential improvements in the Buzz Pro: first, she'd be easier on the eyes. Gone would be the tacky knurled bands, the end caps would be retooled, and the paint would have a sandblasted come-hitherness.
Notable, if less significant, the Exterior LED would be moved to the interior (still easily visible), where a probing finger would no longer mistake it for the fire button. Additionally, the bottom cap would act as a master switch, a quarter-turn cutting the power (a red LED means the power is on; blue means the fire button is engaged, and all is well; red with the button engaged means a direct short).
Secondarily, a more efficient regulator type would be employed that promised much-improved battery life.
Lastlyand arguably the most significant, insofar as the screwdriver voltage adjustment has always been the most strident of criticisms leveled at the Buzzscrewdrivers would go away in favor of the same thumbwheel adjuster as was introduced in the Infinity model, permitting a 3.3V to 5.5V range of mood changes.
Yet I hesitated; I was ok with Gidget's appearance. I didn't mind shirt-pocketing a fresh set of batteries to satisfy the once-daily refueling. Improvements are nice, but both were fixes to problems I didn't consider to be problematic.
But Mike had me on the screwdriver thing. More times than I could hope to recalllet alone countI've known that a particular stripe of menthol I was switching to would vape like a flamethrower at 5.2V, but making the downward adjustment either exceeded my inconvenience threshold or the circumstanceslike driving a motor vehicleprohibited the idea altogether.
I caved. The Buzz Pro I affectionately refer to as Big Blue (at present, the color offerings are blue, purple, black and "clear," AKA "natural") came in the mail last Friday, 7-22-11. And she is, as promised, quite the looker.
Big Blue can attend dances alongside any skin-deep-beautiful device without fear of becoming a wallflower. The key is that although her appearance is decidedly improved, it's not overstated. Cosmetics is a dangerous business; it's difficult for a designer far too close to his or her object to recognize the moment in time when enough has become enough, far easier to run the stop sign you're driving too fast to see, pushing pretty into loud, then into hideous.
Although Mike dabbled in a past life with stock-car racing, he knew when to apply the brakes with this one.
Having examined Improvement #1 and found it to my liking, I loaded a new, freshly-charged set of UltraFire 880mAh 16340s (unchanged from the original Buzz); it was Friday, July 22, 5pm. I then vaped in a manner consistent with my nominal, 3ml+ per day habits until the UltraFires died on Sunday, July 24, 9am.
There's been some discussion in the NotCigs forum regarding the meaninglessness of any single individual's battery-life reportage. The variables in behavior from one vaper to the next are as singular as are fingerprintsnot unlike tastes in e-liquidsand one man's 12 hours may well prove to be another's 6. The only objective offering I can give is that Gidget required that I leave the house with replacement batteries on my person, else I'd be stopping at a 7-11 for a pack of Marlboros.
The game is early, but to wit, Big Blue is far more forgiving, on the order of 50% moreand I've struck spare 16340s from my before-I-leave-the-house checklist.
I'd be remiss if I didn't interject here that in the physical world, gaining something somewhere means losing something somewhere else--and the expanded battery life came at the cost of tolerance to light loads, i.e., LR attys and all-the-rage dual-coil cartomizers.
That left the thumbwheel voltage adjuster, one of which there is, of course. It's not the same frictionless, smooth-as-silk model as featured on the Darwinwhich turns out, on balance, to be a good thing.
It's a simple knurled wheelnothing fancywith three hand-painted index marks (red, yellow & green. On Big Blue's, the red mark indicates the 5.0VDC vicinity. Your vicinity may vary, but what won't change of its own volitionunlike on the Darwinis your setting; although very easy to adjust by deliberate act, I've not known it to do so on its own initiative, or by my own carelessness.
As potentiometers go, it's a Joe Sixpack model: It simply worksno frills, nor apology for their lack--and it works very well. Despite all my fondness and frivolous nostalgia for Gidget, her screwdriver is one aspect of her charm I can bear to part with.
I couldn't bear to part with Gidget, mind you. Don't look for her on the Classifieds, because she'll be with me as long as a gentle press on her button releases her pent-up inner energy. Not unlike the post wild-oats woman in your life that taught you the true, enduring meaning of the word "love," Gidget will forever smile back at me when I wake in the morning.
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