Interviews Archives - Page 19 of 25

Vaping Diaries #140: Dr. Mike’s Rad Vapors Interview (Vapetoberfest 2013)

It was awesome catching up with the Dr. Mike’s Rad Vapors crew at Vapetoberfest 2013. I had a fun interview with CEO Strek Gauthier and COO Dr. Mike Gauthier at ECC 2013. This time around, Dr. Mike’s Rad Vapors mixologist Ricky Medina joined the chat. The crew talked up its two new flavors — Delight and Bliss. Delight is a unique pear e-liquid that uses five ingredients to approximate the taste of a juicy pear, including the skin and core. Bliss is a blend of peach, watermelon, and tea that’s only available once a year.

Check out the clip above to learn more about these e-liquids, hear about Dr. Mike’s Rad Vapors next flavor (dragon fruit and mangosteen!), and learn what vaping gear the crew uses.

Vaping Diaries #139: Mad Scientist Vapor Eric Becker Interview (Vapetoberfest 2013)

Mad Scientist Vapor is a Southern California e-liquid company with a culinary background. The owner, Eric Becker, ran a highly successfully bakery and transitioned into the e-liquid business. With its unique background, Mad Scientist Vapor does some unique things with its juices. Unlike most of its competitors, the company uses a specific PG/VG ratio for each of its juices in order to give each one an appropriate texture. With FDA regulation looming, the company is well prepared since its lab has high standards of cleanliness. Check out the video above to learn more about the company, hear a description of its flavor lineup, and hear about upcoming flavors.

On a side note, any company that name’s a juice Katy Perry’s Cherry is totally cool with me. Well done, Mad Scientist Vapor. Well done.

Vaping Diaries #138: Vape Los Angeles Oni Mod Interview (Vapetoberfest 2013)

Vape Los Angeles is a new company that has been getting a lot of buzz for its Oni mod. At Vapetoberfest 2013, I caught up with company representative Harry Cometa. He told me about the company’s start and went over the features of the Oni mod. Purported to be made in the USA, the Oni mod is made from 316 stainless steel, comes with two firing pins (gold-plated brass and silver-plated copper), and has a magnetic switch. The first — and presumably only — run of the mod was limited to 500 pieces and each one comes with an authentication code that can be registered on the Vape Los Angeles web site.

Check out the video above to learn all about the Oni mod and stay tuned for my interview with model Claudia Alan, pictured below.

Special thanks to Activape for providing an Oni mod for filming.

Vaping Diaries #137: Marie Alvarez Round II (Vapetoberfest 2013)

My favorite interview of Vapetoberfest 2013 was with my buddy Marie Alvarez. She’s done a bunch of modeling for vaping companies and is adored in the SoCal vaping community. Lots of people (I’m guessing dudes) enjoyed my Marie Alvarez interview from ECC 2013. For our second ~~fight~~ interview, we fought about Japanese Pumpkin Pudding Kit Kats, did some catching up, and talked about her new hairstyle.

Oh yeah, she was working at the Surefire Vapor booth at the show, where the company unveiled the new diamond-knurled version of its popular King Mod. (To be fair, I completely forgot we were at the Surefire booth during the interview, because…you know, Marie Alvarez.)

Check out the video below to see what’s new with Marie Alvarez and Surefire Vapor. When you’re done with that, be sure to follow her Facebook and Instagram pages. She’s a lovely young lady that absolutely deserves to have Japanese Pumpkin Pudding Kit Kats.

Photo by Ari Cox

Vaping Diaries #136: Envision Vapor Interview (Vapetoberfest 2013)

Envision Vapor is a San Diego company that makes gorgeous handblown glass drip tips and tanks. Out of all the interviews I filmed (technically, RPadholic N8R was filming) at Vapetoberfest 2013, this one was the most important to me. You see, Envision Vapor was started by my buddy Rob and his longtime friend Jason. Rob and I know each from the natural tobacco e-liquids thread on Electronic Cigarette Forum (ECF). He wanted to find a way to break into the vaping business, but wasn’t sure which direction to take. Another tobacco fan, the excellent ECF Mr. Mann, suggested the idea of handblown glass drip tips. Jason is an experienced glassblower, so the two got together and formed ~~Voltron~~ Envision Vapor.

It has been lots of fun for me to watch Envision Vapor boom. As Rob’s friend, of course I want him to succeed. As a vaper, I’ve always been big on glass drip tips. To me, they offer the best combination of mouthfeel and heat dissipation; they feel much better in your mouth than plastic tips and don’t retain heat like steel or aluminum tips do. While it would be easy to accuse me of bias, I can honestly say that Envision Vapor glass tips are some of the best I’ve ever used. They offer everything I love about glass drip tips, they’re sturdier than the competition’s offerings, and the designs are lovely.

The video above is longer than my other interviews from Vapetoberfest 2013, but I think it’s a fun watch. The origins of Envision Vapor are cool, you’ll get to learn what makes the company’s glass tips superior, you’ll see get to see the company’s relatively new tanks, and you’ll get to hear what’s coming next.

After you check out the video, please be sure to drop Envision Vapor a line and tell them how badly you want an RPad.TV-branded glass tank…or better yet, one with my face on it.

Vaping Diaries #135: Jet Fuel E-Liquid Interview (Vapetoberfest 2013)

Jet Fuel E-Liquid is a family owned and operated business out of California. Yes, as a Filipino-owned vaping company in California, I’m predisposed to liking these guys. In Los Angeles vape shops, I often hear people raving about the company’s Papi Churro and Watermelon Sundae juices. At Vapetoberfest 2013, I met up with Jet Fuel E-Liquid vice president Jet Santomin. He told me how the company got its start, talked about some of Jet Fuel’s most popular flavors, and described the Kaptain Amerika juice the company released at the show.

Check out the interview above to hear the Jet Fuel E-Liquid story. When you’re done with that, be sure to hit up the company on Facebook and Instagram.

Vaping Diaries #134: Bay City Vapor Interview (Vapetoberfest 2013)

At Vapetoberfest 2013, I had the pleasure of meeting Bay City Vapor founder James Livingston. He told me about the company’s upcoming mechanical mods, which are designed and made right here in California. James’ background is in manufacturing, so he’s particular about craftsmanship and conductivity. Bay City Vapor mods aim to offer high performance and an elegantly understated style. I was particularly enamored with the XXIX, which is a gorgeous copper mech. If copper isn’t your thing, Bay City Vapor has the SurfRider series, which is available in brass and steel. These mods feature a unique pinless design, which is one of the more novel features I’ve seen in a mechanical mod this year.

Be sure to check out the video above to see prototypes of the first round of Bay City Vapor mechanical mods, as well as to learn more about the company’s pinless design and the upcoming 26650 model. Also, Bay City Vapor has no affiliation with the Bay City Rollers.

Plastic Piranha Jason Brice Talks Rekoil

Watch Plastic Piranha president & CEO Jason Brice talk about his upcoming game Rekoil. This first-person shooter for Windows PC and Xbox 360 emphasizes skill and balanced gameplay. In the interview, Brice talks about Rekoil’s various modes and different weapons, as well as what makes the game stand out from the competition. While I enjoyed several deathmatch rounds of the game, one of the things that charmed me about Rekoil was the little details. For example, it has a capture-the-briefcase mode instead of a capture-the-flag mode and it has black barrels that explode instead of those deadly red ones we all fear. Those flourishes aside, a lot of hardcore shooter fans have been high on Rekoil. While Brice agrees that it’s a “pure shooter,” he also explains why it’s great for casual fans of first-person shooters.

For more information on Rekoil be sure to check out this excellent preview on PaulSemel.com.

Plastic Piranha Jason Brice Interview

Here’s a short interview with Plastic Piranha president and CEO Jason Brice. For those of you not familiar with the company, it’s the developer of the upcoming first-person shooter Rekoil. Going from movie marketing to creating a hardcore first-person shooter sounds like an odd career path, but that’s the one Jason Brice has followed. Listen to him talk about his coworkers recreating a Call of Duty level in the office to creating CoD maps to creating Battlefield 2142 maps to starting his own development studio. Due to his atypical and unique background, Jason Brice is particularly passionate about giving gamers powerful and robust mod tools for Rekoil.

Vaping Diaries #122: Grand Vapor Gab Villapana Interview

As a Filipino-American, I was thrilled that Grand Vapor owner Gabriel “Gab” Villapana came all the way from the Philippines to attend ECC 2013. I’m a big fan of Grand Vapor mods and atomizers (currently rocking a red Sentinel 3.5 and a gold-plated Trident). Gab had several goods on display at the show — the Prometheus Genesis-style atomizer, the Trident 2 dripping atomizer (ECC debut!), the limited edition gold-plated Sentinel, the limited edition sand-blasted Sentinel, the Sentinel v4, and more. Gab talks about the products he had on display, upcoming products, and the hot-button topic of Chinese clones in this ECC 2013 video interview.