In the thread linked above which I created, I have complete blockchain files you can just drop into the data directory and start using Bitcoin (if you trust me to not have altered them some way so clever others haven't detected it - you will get identical datadir files if you do a full import with verification). I also have links to two different torrents, the complete Luke-Jr torrent (linked in that thread under blk0001.dat) is also immediately useable (it has a minimal/stripped index file where all spent transactions have been removed), however 1.5GB of blocks since July 11 2012 will still need to download.
The more "official" 193000-block torrent (linky) does need to use the slower import feature, which takes similar CPU time and system resources as normal initialization, but you remove inefficient networking from the equation. Notably though, the current version of Bitcoin has a bug and will only import up to block 189205 of that torrent unless you do some tricks.
"How do I torrent the blockchain?" Download one of these torrents, and leave it seeding for others after you are done.