I thank you for kind words, and also for kind comments you wrote at SP.
Interview With JimInks At Smoking Pipes
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Folks, I greatly appreciate all the compliments about me and the article. It means a great deal to me to know my reviews have helped you. It can be hard at times to get them right. I do my best to be thorough (maybe too thorough at times) so they can be as objective a guide of my experience as I am able to relate. It's worth the work to know you and others who read them find them useful. Thank you.
Do you find the smoke less enjoyable due to over-analyzing when reviewing blends?
I have give deep attention to analyze what is in my bowl as I write review notes. That is not always relaxing because I'm dead serious and clinical about what I am doing. Sometimes in the middle of reviewing, I just have a bowl, and don't write down any notes to help me gauge the overall smoking quality for the sake of rating the blend. It just depends on how complex the blend is. The more complex it is, the more I have to work at figuring it out. That would distract me from the over all smoking quality of the mixture and the enjoyment at times, though not to any high degree. Sometimes, I feel no distraction at all.
Once I have written a review, I almost always find just relaxing with a blend I have become familiar with is a more pleasing, comfortable experience. The pressure of being accurate is gone. But, if I feel I nailed what I had been smoking, that, too, is a pleasing experience for me.
I always look for the Jiminks reviews first mainly because I am not sure there is a better comparative measure of tobaccos for me as a guy who has only smoked through maybe 150 blends in 6 years. I do not care much about the moisture left in the bowl or grassy notes, so much as the overall star rating because there are a ton of blends out there and that is the best way I can navigate through them all efficiently.
I do find sometimes I think the rating may be off a star and I read more, but, hey, what the heck do I know. Woodbridge is a good example where I thought the star rating was off. But, the main lesson for me was to understand why I think it is a 3.8 star blend to begin with and get to know my tastes versus someone who has gone through 100,000 bowls.
The body of work is just a tremendous resources for the hobby as a whole and likely a couple generations to follow and that is some big kudos for sure. It is a baseline database of incredible magnitude. So, salute to you, Jim.
I do find sometimes I think the rating may be off a star and I read more, but, hey, what the heck do I know. Woodbridge is a good example where I thought the star rating was off. But, the main lesson for me was to understand why I think it is a 3.8 star blend to begin with and get to know my tastes versus someone who has gone through 100,000 bowls.
The body of work is just a tremendous resources for the hobby as a whole and likely a couple generations to follow and that is some big kudos for sure. It is a baseline database of incredible magnitude. So, salute to you, Jim.
I'll say this, though. In my mind's eye, there's still no less than 2 pounds of tobacco and 3 packed pipes in every room in his house. And in the prime of his working hours as he's in the zone working his artistic wizardry, in his studio, you can't see past 5'8" from the floor due to the haze of smoke. And even if you tell me otherwise Jim, I'll know you're talking about Jim Amash, not JimInks.
My ratings reflect how a blend stacks up against other blends in the same or similar genre. They have nothing to do with my personal taste. If I was doing subjective ratings to my preferences, a lot of those ratings would be different than they are.
I have tobacco durn near every where in this house. The pipes are three different rooms. Smoke is everywhere, which my long suffering lady is brave enough to withstand it all.
Wait. You believe your reviews somehow transcend personal taste?
I wouldn't put it that way. I try to write reviews as objectively as I can. I try to rate them as objectively as I can. I prefer to keep my opinions out of my reviews.
Great article about you Jim! Well deserved!
Long before i signed up here I was familiar with his legendary reviews. JimInks, you're the man. Love your comic work, too.
Thank you. And I'm very happy to connect with you on Facebook, too. Long live Jack Kirby!
Amen Jim. And Steve Ditko, Wally Wood, Jim Steranko, John Romita and other heroic pencilers of Marvel's Silver Age.
As a newbie I had no idea we were in the presence of greatness. Besides offering expert tobacco analysis and critique, to learn Jim also has drawn some of my favorite characters...
Cheers, sir!
Cheers, sir!
Great article, I like reading your reviews, even though sometimes you lose me with your exhaustive analysis. Not because I can't believe that someone is able to discern so many nuances but because I can't 
Actually, I think you could. It takes a lot of time and hard work to understand tobaccos, and even if you don't have a sensitive palate (which is a curse and a blessing), you can educate yourself enough to pick out things you currently don't think you can. It took me many years to understand what I currently know, and I still have more to learn. It's an ongoing process, but the journey is worth it if you make it a goal you want to achieve.Great article, I like reading your reviews, even though sometimes you lose me with your exhaustive analysis. Not because I can't believe that someone is able to discern so many nuances but because I can't