About the only thing harder than quitting smoking is blogging about trying to quit smoking.

So it’s been 14 days since my last cigarette. I wish I could say how wonderful I feel, but really, I still just want to beat someone’s face in with the nearest available blunt object.

But that impulse is getting weaker and weaker. It was strongest in the first 3 days after my last, but it’s still present in small doses.

Incidentally, one of the things I considered in the time immediately preceding my quitting was about how great it would be able to smell again, but damn, the world smells awful. So that’s not really a great trade-off.

To be honest, it was just the stopping that was the problem. The first 24 hours are the worst. The cravings get to be overwhelming, to the point where you can’t see. Literally. Your vision becomes hazy, you don’t know what to do with your hands, and you find yourself stopping in mid-sente ... ... ...

Anyway. I still have cravings, sure, but after the first day or so, I became convinced that I could beat it, especially after spending a short amount of time with my mom on Saturday. My mother smokes like someone set her afire, and the fact that I got through my visit with her without so much as sneaking a puff testifies to my renewed willpower, my singular focus on dropping this habit once again.

But how am I doing it? Have I become a health nut? Have I at long last changed the basic DNA of my modus operandi and stopped being selfish long enough to want to be around my wife and my son for decades to come?

Do I finally give a damn about my general well-being?

Uhhhhh ... yeah, but no.

It’s because I want a TV.

Let me explain.

A few weeks ago, I went to my in-laws’ house, and sitting on top of their old console TV was a new HDTV with crystal clear digital reception of local broadcast channels. As someone who has to hold the rabbit ears “just so” in order to get clear reception of sporting events like Indianapolis Colts games on CBS – Mylar balloons are quite useful to that end, by the way - let me just say I was intrigued by this new knowledge.

Yes, I’m aware that I can call the government and get a $40 coupon for a converter box for use in the coming months when analog signals go dark, and I’d get exactly the same result, but that would mean I’d still be watching the same old TV.

And a new HDTV, for about the cost of 35 cartons of cigarettes, would be a new TV. Which is important.

And that’s how I quit smoking.