12-09-2006, 09:05 PM
well, i finally got a chance to go out in the real world and use all my hard-earned knowledge (thank you, wise elders of s.c.!) and browse acres of fake cubanos. the examples i've posted here are the best ones i found... and i wish i could say i bought them to take one for the team and create this lovely little exposition.
hear that? it's the sound of me sucking in my pride...
there is one giant aspect to avoiding fakies about which i've seen next to nothing written. you may have all the knowledge, all the background, but you've still got your own brain to deal with. big trouble.
after i'd been to two shops in panama city which housed loads of some of the most hilarious fakes i could ever want to see (rat tail robusto extras!), i was feeling mighty proud and high on myself as i purchased some real cubanos at the official casa del habanos store. as for that shop, the sticks were real, but the shop was run down and the cigars not just opened had been dried and abused. basically, a competing mall had just been built next door and all the stores in this mall were going out of business, hence the delapidation. thankfully i still managed to get a stick or two out of boxes that had just been opened. anyways, back to the crux...
two weeks later i'm in david, western panama, and i go into a little stogie shop my cousin and brother had thought was great. nice people, meet the owner, correct prices (mostly) and the sticks look and smell good. i take my time, touching, smelling, feeling (the cigars, not the employees), and feeling bulletproof, i buy a few sticks (no boxes, thank the gods).
when i get home, i open my little baggie, and my jaw drops into my sinking stomach. "who put fakes in my bag?!!!"
they looked, smelled, and smoked (sour grass! hurl!) like classic counterfeit cubans. all the red flags were there. so you, my dear reader, are now thinking... "what the f*** were you thinking?!!"
i wasn't.
i'll try to explain...
so happens, at the time i was reading a book on the human brain which shed light on my ineptitude, specifically with respect to how your emotions (primal stuff) compete with your logic (frontal cortex stuff) to shape your behavior. turns out i fell for a classic emotional trap.
in short, emotions are a survival mechanism to get us out of jams fast. if we thought logically, we'd still be there considering the trees and grass while the sabre-toothed tiger made us his afternoon happy meal. emotions are crucial shortcuts to thinking, usually in a good way. sometimes not.
i thought i'd beat the system and was lord of all fake cigar spotters. i walked into that shop wanting the merchandise to be good, for a variety of reasons. i felt relaxed and loose after two weeks in the tropics, my guard was down, nice people were looking at me, and my brain said, "these are great! or close enough, anyways."
i'll console myself a little with the fact that these were pretty good fakes, some even having real bands (though, i turns out, glued badly). so please learn from my forehead moment. i know i learned more from this episode than six months worth of reading tips on the net (i know, keep reading anyway).
the money i lost i consider tuition.
witness the bloody carnage...
this pic is my favorite. you can just make out the off-kilter embossing in the cohiba letters. a classic red flag, which if i'd just held the stick a little closer to my eyes, would've been plain as day.
once you've finished laughing your butts off at me, consider none of us are above our own heads. f-18 fighter pilots fly into the sterns of aircraft carriers for precisely the same reasons i bought these dog rockets. hence the importance of copious training sessions. i shall continue to train, as we all should, to keep those criminals from invading our humis. in the meantime...
i blame my brain! [doh][doh][doh]
hear that? it's the sound of me sucking in my pride...
there is one giant aspect to avoiding fakies about which i've seen next to nothing written. you may have all the knowledge, all the background, but you've still got your own brain to deal with. big trouble.
after i'd been to two shops in panama city which housed loads of some of the most hilarious fakes i could ever want to see (rat tail robusto extras!), i was feeling mighty proud and high on myself as i purchased some real cubanos at the official casa del habanos store. as for that shop, the sticks were real, but the shop was run down and the cigars not just opened had been dried and abused. basically, a competing mall had just been built next door and all the stores in this mall were going out of business, hence the delapidation. thankfully i still managed to get a stick or two out of boxes that had just been opened. anyways, back to the crux...
two weeks later i'm in david, western panama, and i go into a little stogie shop my cousin and brother had thought was great. nice people, meet the owner, correct prices (mostly) and the sticks look and smell good. i take my time, touching, smelling, feeling (the cigars, not the employees), and feeling bulletproof, i buy a few sticks (no boxes, thank the gods).
when i get home, i open my little baggie, and my jaw drops into my sinking stomach. "who put fakes in my bag?!!!"
they looked, smelled, and smoked (sour grass! hurl!) like classic counterfeit cubans. all the red flags were there. so you, my dear reader, are now thinking... "what the f*** were you thinking?!!"
i wasn't.
i'll try to explain...
so happens, at the time i was reading a book on the human brain which shed light on my ineptitude, specifically with respect to how your emotions (primal stuff) compete with your logic (frontal cortex stuff) to shape your behavior. turns out i fell for a classic emotional trap.
in short, emotions are a survival mechanism to get us out of jams fast. if we thought logically, we'd still be there considering the trees and grass while the sabre-toothed tiger made us his afternoon happy meal. emotions are crucial shortcuts to thinking, usually in a good way. sometimes not.
i thought i'd beat the system and was lord of all fake cigar spotters. i walked into that shop wanting the merchandise to be good, for a variety of reasons. i felt relaxed and loose after two weeks in the tropics, my guard was down, nice people were looking at me, and my brain said, "these are great! or close enough, anyways."
i'll console myself a little with the fact that these were pretty good fakes, some even having real bands (though, i turns out, glued badly). so please learn from my forehead moment. i know i learned more from this episode than six months worth of reading tips on the net (i know, keep reading anyway).
the money i lost i consider tuition.
witness the bloody carnage...
this pic is my favorite. you can just make out the off-kilter embossing in the cohiba letters. a classic red flag, which if i'd just held the stick a little closer to my eyes, would've been plain as day.
once you've finished laughing your butts off at me, consider none of us are above our own heads. f-18 fighter pilots fly into the sterns of aircraft carriers for precisely the same reasons i bought these dog rockets. hence the importance of copious training sessions. i shall continue to train, as we all should, to keep those criminals from invading our humis. in the meantime...
i blame my brain! [doh][doh][doh]