Perhaps a few of you have noticed I’ve been in quite a bad mood lately. Having to do an oral exam forprogramming with structures, trying to make sense of systems and signals, and seeing my dream of becoming a world famous DJ someday being shattered by sound engineering, could quite possibly be reasons for this. However, none of the above has led me to be so grumpy. My grumpiness is caused by nothing less than a lack of nicotine. Yes indeed, I’m trying to quit smoking.

Now you might ask yourselves ‘Why would we care?’ and indeed it is not your problem. Neither am I trying to make it so. No. What I wanted to talk to you about is the electronic cigarette I’m using to help me to stay away from the real deal. This ingenious small device that is said to fulfill the need of smoking by replacing it with a water pipe-like sensation has astonished me. Not by its affectivity to keep me from smoking. But by the necessity to RECHARGE it, on a DAILY basis. I mean, come on, didn’t I already haveenough chargers feeding from the extension cord next to my bed every night?

It’s time to stop this entangling wire madness! We need to reclaim our bedroom freedom. And since I quit smoking and therefore am bored as shit I decided to go on a journey, a quest to find wireless charging technology. I don’t want to spoil all the fun already but I promise you this adventure almost got me smoking again.

So let me start off by telling you how it started. As usual Google was my best friend and ‘wireless charging miracles’ seems to be a quite popular search. Nevertheless the results that came out (2.880.000 in 0,20 seconds) where organized even worse than the cables next to my bed. How, for god’s sake, was Igoing to make sense of this? I decided to start with the first link and just start reading. Whiskey in one hand, e-cigar in the other, the classic Hollywood detective scene (*cough cough*). Letter after letter, word after word seemed to eat the time away without me noticing. By the time I had arrived at page four, the sun started shining through the shutters above my desk. Sleepless and a little tipsy from all the whiskey I realized I had just thrown away a night’s sleep on practically nothing. Where page one mentioned several solutions, the deeper I went into the Google knowledge cave the darker the horizon. How can five different technologies, all unwilling to adapt to one general standard result in a short-term universal solution? Short answer: can’t. Longer answer: Can not.

Closing my laptop while greeting the neighbor across the street it struck me that the cables next to my bed wouldn’t disappear anytime soon. The horror and stress of this moment made me grab my e-cigar. Which, of course, needed to be recharged. I went downstairs, stole a cigarette from my roommate and lit it up like it would release me from all my problems. Don’t worry – it was disappointing and the taste was awful after not smoking for two weeks so I quickly threw it away. I fell down crying and decided never to start searching Google after 11PM again, nor smoke. Digital or analog.