The Amazing Insights of the Incredible Halloweeny

In today's paper ...

2007-02-02T10:30:00.000-08:00

TG called me from work today, to tell me to go pick up a newspaper because there was a spectacular photo on the front page. It's true, the front-page photo on the LFP today is spectacular.

Two other things caught my eye in the first few seconds, as well.

First, former VP Al Gore has been nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. That's right, the guy who won the popular vote in the 1998 US Presidential election, but lost because of pointless electoral college garbage, could conceivably become a Nobel laureate. Funny thing is, while he undoubtedly deserves the nomination (and possibly the prize) for his environmental work, had he been elected in 1998, the U.S. administration would probably not have gone to war in Iraq, tens of thousands of people would still be around, and he probably would not have received the nomination. Kudos, Al.

Second .... Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows will be out at midnight, July 21st. I'm torn. On the one hand, I'm such a fan of the series that I can't wait to read more. On the other hand, this is the last one. Once this one is released, that's it - no more new Harry Potter to read, and, assuming it's half as good as the previous novels, I know I'm going to want to read more, and more, and more. Have you pre-ordered yours yet?

Oh, and one last thing. I got fired on Jan 6. No warning, and, as far as I can tell, no specific cause that isn't immediately contradicted by my sales record (which I conveniently happened to print out before I left). It's been a month, and I've only had one call, from a company I'm not sure I'd want to work for, doing something I'm not sure I'd want to do, and that I didn't even apply for in the first place. Weird.

Cherub Beach Diet

2006-12-07T04:23:00.000-08:00

Dec. 6, 2006, on the CBC Radio Two program "Disk Drive," the host, Jurgen Gothe, observed that someone looking for a money-making scheme might think about writing a diet book for cherubs, since they always seem to be depicted as more than slightly overweight.

There is a noticeable trend in booksellers' establishments, advice columns in newspapers and magazines, and "reality" TV programming - much material has of late been dedicated to diet and/or obesity. There is an obvious weight problem in much of the western world, and for the first time in history, more people are suffering from health problems resulting from obesity than from starvation. On the other hand, every decade seems to have some kind of "personal improvement issue" that we see reflected in the media: the 80's had get-rich-quick advice columns and books; the 90's had pseudo-scientific self-help/power-of-positive-thinking type things; now, we have diet & nutrition. Even Dr. Phil, who is in no way qualified to tell anyone anything about diet or nutrition (that fat know-it-all jerk is NOT a nutritionist or dietician), has published at least one volume on diet. Any, indeed ALL of these trends in the personal-improvement corner of media sales have depended on people's apparent inability to just take care of themselves and be happy with who they are.

So Jurgen has a point. If someone wanted to make a lot of money on little-to-no effort, then this is the decade to do it with a diet book, no matter how preposterous the concept or how ill-equipped the author might be to discuss the topic with anything even resembling intelligence.

In fact, I'm thinking of doing it myself. A diet book for cherubs may seem silly, but how many "experts" on this unique species of fictional entity could there really be? Getting information on their metabolic rates, caloric consumption, and dietary habits might be difficult due to the lack of objective medical and behavioural data, but, by the same token, critics would have very little, if any, contradictory material with which to refute any theories I may come up with - and that would certainly mean I'd be uncontested in this niche of the diet-book market.

Maybe I could do a whole series - a book for cherubs (hint: take the marshmallows out of your ambrosia salad, they're just empty calories), one for leprechauns (who really should stop smoking and have just a little less pork), one for banshees (the anorexics of the mythical world), etc. Then maybe I'll do a series on diet for mythical beasts. The Sphinx in Egypt clearly was not hydrating properly, and so obviously turned into a giant kidney stone. Maybe dragons would spend less time sleeping on their hoards of treasure, and more time enjoying it, if they had some starch once in a while (instead of eating that potato farmer, why not eat some potatoes?).

Some food for thought, anyway. (Get it? FOOD for thought? Diet books? Come on, that's funny!)

Der Trip

2006-09-25T05:44:00.000-07:00

So, for the week of Sept 10, St. Mongo (The Girlfriend) and I took a trip to Florida. Briefly, here's what we did ...

Sunday, Sept 10: Got in car, drove. 401 in Canada to I-75. Stopped for gas a bunch - since the gas gauge doesn't work all the time, I had to guess by our mileage whether we needed gas or not. Turns out, whether I stopped at 350 km or 550 km, the car needed 10 gallons. Odd. 15 minutes of blindingly heavy rain in the southern bit of Kentucky. Stopped for dinner at a Cracker Barrel in Tennessee, and stopped for the night about an hour later.

Monday: Got up, got in car, drove. I-75 to another interstate. Stopped in Chattanooga to see Ruby Falls. I've made the SW Ontario-to-Florida via I-75 trip with the whole fambly many, many times, and, though the freeway was almost literally littered with billboard ads featuring Ruby Falls, Rock City, etc., we'd never, ever stopped. This time, even though the billboard signage is significantly reduced from what I remember, I just had to go to "See Historic Ruby Falls." I had NO idea it was underground! $15ish gets you a 1-hour tour, and between 5 or 10 minutes at the falls itself. $15 seems like a lot, maybe, to walk around for an hour, but for me, even after 20-some years of wondering what the big deal was, it was really rather nifty. After a couple of hours, and two and a half rolls of film between us, on Lookout Mountain, we got back in the car and drove. And drove, and drove, and drove. Georgia, if you're passing through, and have just come through such a visually amazing state as Tennessee, is the most terribly long and boring 4 or 5 hours you'll ever have to deal with. Okay, the fact that the clay is red in some places is kinda neat, but you get over that. The traffic in Atlanta (seriously, take the bypass if you can) will certainly wake you up, but there's a lot more Georgia to go after that, and every other single mile of it is terribly anticlimactic.

Crossed the state line into Florida around 7 pm, stopped at the "Welcome Center," only to discover that it closed at 6. Aargh!! Had dinner a couple of miles down the road at a Burger King (which, and this seemed odd to us, was attached to a gas station/fireworks/souvenir/gift shop - dining room open to the store), and continued on our way. From here we followed the directions printed out from MapQuest mostly. We had to detour at one point, from I-75 to another north/south highway (441, I think), and back. Following the MapQuest directions, once we were back on I-75, we headed for Ocala & the Turnpike. Turnpike in an easterly direction, to the appropriate exit near/in Orlando, to a couple of other little turns, to SR 17/92, and just two more turns in Casselberry to our destination, where we arrived at about 11:45.

Sadly, Valerie (my step-grandmother, though we've always just called her by name) had already gone to bed when we got there, so we spent the night on the porch (screened-in, with a fold-out couch).

Tuesday: In the morning, we settled in a bit better, had ourselves a shower, and headed out to start our vacation-type activities. First stop was for gas, and then, following Valerie's advice, avoided I-4 to get to "the gateway to Disney," AKA Vine St., AKA 192. We got lost twice, and spent some 3 hours on Orange Blossom Trail (AKA 17/92). Went to "Old Town" to have a look around. In some ways, it's improved since the last time I was there. There used to be just one ride - a ferris wheel - and the street lined with shops. Now there are more rides, mostly of the relatively inexpensive "thrill ride" variety, but none of them were open/operating. I guess mid-day, mid-week in mid-September there just isn't enough business to justify running them. Of the shops, some that I remembered were still there, some were not, and some just shouldn't have been. There's a magic shop that memory told me should have been just wonderful - it's not much more than a gag/junk shop now. I suppose it might have always been that way, and my younger self was impressed by it in ways that don't work for me now, but regardless, it was a letdown. Also, the salesperson was kinda pushy. I understand that if a potential customer's interest is obviously waning, you want your salespeople to have something to offer that will keep that customer in the store for just a little longer, but the "floating dollar trick" (it's a wire buttoned into the shirt) and that powder that solidifies liquids are the same tricks a much better salesperson showed me nearly 20 years ago. Time for some new material, I think.

Also of interest in Old Town were the addition of a wax museum and a haunted house attraction, but frankly, a wax museum is kinda dull, and, though I love a good haunted house, there's no way I'd spend $10 to get into one that I'd never heard anything about. It might be a good one, it might even be a very good one, but $10 is too much to ask to get a passer-by in the door. If it were $5, I wouldn't have questioned it. $7 or $8, and I would probably still have gone in. Double digits for a walk-through dealie that takes only 20 minutes is too much.

And, of course, we found the (apparently) prerequisite alligator heads. Real alligator heads. Yes, I understand that they're farmed animals, and that they're raised for reasons other than their heads, and I understand that there's a market for them, or they wouldn't be there, but ... Look at it this way: we (people as a society I mean, not St. Mongo & I specifically) farm other animals for their meat and skins as well, but we don't sell their heads as souvenirs.

When we felt we'd exhausted all the Old Town had to show us that day (it would have been nice if the Ferris Wheel had been running) we drove up and down Vine St., to see what else (aside from Disney World and Celebration) there was to see, and also to stop & pick up souvenirs for a few people who'd requested something stupid and touristy. We stopped at a souvenir shop that has a giant fibreglass wizard on the roof (if you've been on Vine in the last 15 years, you've seen it, and remember it), where we were slightly disappointed by the selection, and further disturbed by the larger display of alligator heads. Why does it seem that souvenir//gift shops are focussing more and more on clothing? The souvenir T-shirts, ball caps, and beach wraps will, of course, always have their place. That is, I think, appropriate - it is novelty clothing that nobody takes seriously, and can be worn again for that reason. It was the other clothing that bothered me, because it was designed to be, or to mimic, the "hip" clothing that the kids are wearing to the clubs these days. It doesn't make sense, because it's novelty clothing that tries to look fashionable, and so fails on boths counts. My advice to souvenir/gift shop operators everywhere: Novelty clothing is novelty clothing - anything that appears to be designed to look or function like anything beyond casual or sports wear is largely going to end up returned at the end of the season. Make better use of your floorspace.

The Girlfriend ended up getting a T-shirt for one of her friends.

We had dinner at an IHOP just down the road, and got back to Valerie's at around midnight.

Wednesday: We went to the Atlantic coast. Arrived at Kennedy Space Center just before noon, and stayed until four or five. Admission was a bit more than I expected, but the rocket garden, museums, and bus tour are pretty well worth it. Since it was kind of off-season, it was a pretty quiet place. One item of note is the Apollo launch simulation (part of the bus tour), which I must say made me feel more than a little sad for the little boy in me who wanted to be an astronaut. Stopped at the gift shop at the far end of the bus tour and bought a "Rocket Scientist" mug for our friend who took care of our other two cats while we were gone. There were two other possible stops for the KSC experience - astronaut hall of fame and another thingy - but they required their own admission price (or an additional charge to the KSC entry fee) and honestly, pretty much everything I wanted to see was at KSC. Took lots of photos.

After KSC, we drove a little way down the road to Cocoa Beach. The Girlfriend had never seen the ocean before, and I'm pretty sure she thought it was swell. It was a little windy, and not too sunny, but it was warm & we had lots of time to splash around and then look for shells and such before it got dark. It's not much of a tale to tell, but it was lots of fun. Some photos, but there really isn't a whole lot to shoot on a day like that. Of course, you can't go to Cocoa Beach without stopping at that famous surf shop. I got a logo-printed towel, and TG got a blue sweatshirt.

Had dinner at the nearest Waffle House. Made fun of the other patrons (the type who give "Deep South" and "redneck" the worst of their stereotypes) after we left and were out of earshot.

Thursday: Got up, got gas, went to Sea World. VERY expensive. We'd chosen it over Disney World for this trip because we'd been told it was cheaper (it's not), and also because we just love animals. Again, being off-season, it was very quiet. Fed dolphins, pet stingrays, watched one of the shows (we ran out of time & didn't get to see Shamu). Also got to see the arctic animal enclosures - beluga, walrus, and polar bear. I love bears - they're just amazing animals and, unfortunately, are among the least understood by the average person. When we got to the polar bear's enclosure, she was sleeping. It made me kinda sad - partly because I love bears and didn't get to see her while she was active, partly because I felt guilty about feeling bad that she wasn't active. Not sure if that made sense. Got a lot of pictures, not all of them good, but none of them bad. One complaint to make about Sea World - since we went during an off-season, the park was operating on reduced hours. I understand that this is to save on operational expenses during a lower-income time of year, and it makes perfect business sense. However, though our visit to the park was reduced by several hours due to the early, non-peak-season closing time, our admission price did not, as far as we could tell, reflect that, and that was kind of upsetting.

Dinner at the IHOP again.

Friday: Got up, got packed, got showered and dressed, and got going. Took the turnpike to I-75, and headed north. Just after we got onto I-75, a tractor-trailer blew a tire right in front of us. Rubber & steel belting was all over the road, and we felt VERY lucky that we didn't hit any of it. They were big chunks, and could have crippled the car if we'd hit any of them. Had dinner in the late evening at a Cracker Barrel in Tennessee, and stopped about an hour later for the night.

Saturday: Got up, and drove. Still on I-75 north, but at a junction somewhere in Kentucky we lost the freeway, and ended up on another interstate, headed west. It was 30 miles before we realized that we should have already crossed into Ohio, and another 10 before we could exit & turn around. Kind of wasted an hour and a half, but it was kind of a pretty drive. Around 9 pm we crossed back into Canada (no trouble at all at Customs) and picked up Beast (who seemed to enjoy his little vacation too) around 10, and home by 11.

After we looked at the receipts from the trip, we found that we'd spent quite a bit less than we'd anticipated. Part of that was the price of gas, part of it was lower sales tax rates, and part of it was that we'd plain forgotten that most things were a few dollars less there than they are at home.

So, the tale having been told, the moral of the story is ... we had fun, and we'll do it again.

2006-09-06T15:37:00.000-07:00

So, a couple of noteworthy things have happened in the last little while.

First, and shortest, is I actually had a semi-famous person in the store last week. Not quite Russell Peters famous, but just as Canadian. He was very tolerant and gracious when all I could remember was his face and a punchline from one of his bits I'd seen on the comedy channel. Anyway, if you're flipping through the entertainment section in the local paper and see the name Ron Josol, go see the show. Funny guy.

The second noteworthy item just makes me want to cry, or spit, or both. I was on the way to work one morning, about to stop for gas, when I spotted what from behind looked like a big white bag in the road. It was impossible to miss, being big and white, and sitting in a freshly-paved (and therefore very black) road. As I pulled around the corner, I could see that it was actually a big seagull sitting in the road with his (or her) wings stretched out. Since they don't really do that normally, I figured he was probably hurt, and decided to stop the car in the parking lot and move him out of harm's way before I got my gas. I lost sight of the bird behind the gas station for all of about 30 seconds when I pulled to the side, but when I got back, someone had run him over. Half of him was missing. It was pre-morning-rush time, and there were so few cars on the road at the time, and the bird was so visible, that the only possible explanation is that it was intentional. The kind of cruelty that guides such an action is incomprehensible to me. We're not talking about the curiosity that leads children to experiment with magnifying glasses and anthills or to pull the wings off a fly. After passing written tests, eye exams, and road tests, after buying or leasing a car, after paying for insurance and fuel and maintenance, this person decided that crushing the life out of an injured bird was the best use of all that time and expense.

I'm not sure there's a moral here. In terms of an animal social structure, establishing dominance can sometimes appear cruel, and can frequently be fatal, but it always serves a definite purpose to the healthy function of that animal society. And it's never done when nobody's looking. So there isn't even that excuse - whoever killed that bird wasn't acting in some dumb attempt at establishing Alpha behaviour. He was being cowardly, picking on a much smaller, wounded animal, and doing it in secret. I'm ashamed and disgusted that we, as a species, could be raising people to think that such cowardice and pointless cruelty is acceptable behaviour. Why can't we do better?

The third event happened at Starbuck's earlier in the week, in the evening. Tuesday, I think, and one of those Starbuck's that's located inside a big-box book store. The Girlfriend and I needed something desserty, so we went and got some frappes and cookies. An older (early to mid 60's) woman had come in about five minutes behind us and fluttered around a bit before getting in line. When our drinks were ready, we headed to the only empty table in the place. There was a set of keys and a datebook on one of the chairs, but no food or drink, no books or computer, or anyone around who seemed to be attached to them, so The Girlfriend put them to the side, on one of the wooden chairs, so she could sit in the comfy chair. Of course, once we had sat down, the woman came up to us and started talking to The Girlfriend about how the keys and junk were hers, and how she'd put them there to hold the chair, and some other such crap, while collecting her belongings from the other chair. Well, The Girlfriend stood up to talk to this woman, and she (the woman) put her keys and stuff back on the comfy chair, saying something like, "Don't touch these things, this is my chair." Sensing it was pointless to argue with the woman, TG (after flipping the woman's belongings on the floor for having been rude) and I walked around the bookstore trying to find someplace even remotely comfortable to sit, and ultimately ended up rather near the cafe seating anyway. We could, in fact, see that the woman who'd laid claim to our seats was occupying a table for four or five by herself. We stewed about it for a bit longer. Eventually I made the excuse of throwing out some trash, so I could walk past the woman and maybe make her feel a little uneasy, knowing as she should have that she'd been both in the wrong and rude.

A year ago, that would have been all that I would have done: walked by and glared, and hoped that her sense of superiority might have withered just a little (and perhaps later thought of things it would have been extremely satisfying, but likely rather unwise, to have done instead - like steal her keys or something). It's not what I did this time, though. We had been there first - we'd beat her to the cafe by five minutes or so. It was our table. That woman had spoiled our evening, and damned if I was going to let that happen without showing her exactly how I felt about it. As I passed her (pardon me, our) table, I paused, looked her in the eye, and told her in what I believe was a matter-of-fact inflection and expression: "You know, we were here first, you rude bitch." And I walked away. It felt GREAT.

The moral of this story: None. I'm sick and tired of being nickel-and-dimed by people who think they're entitled to something simply because they want it, and because they can complain louder than the person beside or in front of them. I'm done with people's crap. That's all.

Customers suck ... customer service sucksier

2006-08-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

I'm realizing (again) why so many of my customers are the grouchy, bitchy, whiny cry-babies they are. Many are, of course, just grouchybitchywhinycry-babies to begin with, but there are a few who are okay some days, but suffer from severe entitlement issues other days. It's probably because they have just had an experience like I had last night at one of the electronics/appliances big box stores (the red & white Canadian sister store of the blue & yellow U.S. chain).

To start at the beginning, the car stereo died. I had been to a few places, looking for a simple replacement, not terribly loud (but also not crappy, and there was the challenge), and I found one. Sadly, the retailer didn't have a wiring harness to fit the car, but the salesperson suggested a few places to check. The other retailers didn't have it either, but since the first salesperson had been relatively helpful, I went back to order it. This different salesperson was a complete idiot, and apparently thought that because I was asking for assistance, I must be at least equally stupid. I say this because he tried three times to sell me a part that was absolutely wrong, insisting that because the guy "in the back" says it's the right part, and the parts list says it's the right part, it must be the right part. The first time he tried to sell me the wrong part, it was an off-the-shelf unit that didn't even bear the correct auto manufacturer's name, or remotely match the correct model-year range. The second time, he brought out a part from the back, which I had seen the previous week, and I tried to explain how I knew it was the wrong part (wrong size, wrong number of pins). He took off for the back room for a few minutes to hide before coming back with the same story - that according to his list, it must be the right part (the auto maker had used two different stereos for the same model # vehicle - one for the sedan, one for the wagon - and so used two different wiring harnesses). The third time he tried to sell me the wrong part, I told him: "You have never seen behind my car's dashboard, Dustin has never seen behind my car's dashboard, and whoever wrote this parts list has never seen behind my car's dashboard. I have seen behind the dashboard, and this part you insist is right, is incompatible with the wiring in my car. I'm not blind, I'm not stupid, I'm trying to order the part that will fit, but I can't because you just won't shut up and let me finish a sentence." Of course, that's not what I actually got to say, because he cut me off somewhere around "Dustin has never seen ..." to insist that he had the right part. So I walked out.

It's unbelieveably infuriating to be treated like a special-needs kid by someone just a hair over half my age ... and I suspect that kind of retail experience may be why some of my customers who are mostly okay half the time are complete turds the other half of the time. If that's the case, then I completely understand that frustration, but that doesn't make it okay to transfer that anger onto me or whoever else. Be angry with people, fine. But don't be angry with someone who has done nothing to deserve it.

The Cellular Phone Deal

2006-08-09T04:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had to go out & replace the cellular phone - the hardware had decided it was time to die after just a year. The previous cellphone survived for maybe two. I know people who have been through three phones in as many years (and these are people who take care of them). There are a couple things that bother me about this.

The first is that when you go into a retailer to replace your phone, there isn't a single price posted that tells you what you will actually pay for that phone. The big, bold (lowest) price listed is the price that a new customer setting up a new account will pay for that phone ($39.99 with a 2-year contract, say). In many places the price list stops there. In other places, they may also list the "full retail price" of the phone (hardware only, no activation), except the price they list includes a $50 or $100 mail-in rebate, so that the phone you thought was $150 is actually $250. You get your $100 back in coupons for eyebrow waxing next December. And don't forget the $35 administration fee.

The second is how fast these things wear out. This is the third phone in five years for me, and they've all been taken care of reasonably well. I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to expect a $200-$500 piece of technology to last just a touch longer than that.

Your cellular carrier gets to bone you three ways. They sell you unreliable hardware (the first bone), while locking you into a long-term contract. Cancel that contract early, and expect to pay a premium, in some cases as high as $200 (the second bone). When your first unreliable phone suffers a sudden and catastrophic end well before you can cancel a service contract without paying through the nose, their staff will offer you a "hardware upgrade credit" (or something similar), which will shave about $100 off the full retail price of the phone, but to qualify, you'll have to extend your service contract for another two or three years, thus extending the life of that cancellation premium again beyond the likely life of the hardware.

As a seller of wares and whatnots, I understand extending a deal on a price to attract a new customer. However, as a seller of wares and whatnots, I also understand that to successfully maintain a customer base, your current customers must never feel like they're being screwed, or you will lose them. I suppose making it more expensive to change cellular companies than to stay with the current one does maintain one's customer base after a fashion, but it makes more sense to me if the current customer, who has already spent $500 per year in services, gets the better deal in hardware. He or she will be happy to stay, rather than feeling strongarmed into it. Who deserves the better deal - the customer who has never given you a dime, or the customer whose loyalty is vital to the survival of your business?

Any why must the hardware be purchased from the cellular service provider? If there's enough room on a phone's SIM card for 300 phone numbers, plus all the necessary information to identify itself to the network, is there any reason (aside from blatant profiteering) for any network information to be loaded into a cellphone's firmware? That information will fit on a SIM card, so it makes sense that it would be there.

If your "regular" phone dies, you go out to Wal-Mart or Canadian Tire or somewhere and buy a new phone. You bring it home, you take it out of the packaging, and you plug it in. Aside from programming all your emergency numbers in (don't forget the Chinese Take-Out on the corner), you're done. Wouldn't it make sense if, when your cellular phone died, you could go out to Wal-Mart or Canadian Tire or wherever, buy a new phone, and plug in the SIM card?

Maybe that's just too sensible?

August 26, update: I received the bill for this little adventure on, I think, Thursday, and opened it this morning on the way to the bank. The total ... $520!!!! Because my cellular provider processes the next bill before the due date of the previous one, the previous payment ($120) didn't appear on this bill. Also included were this month's regular charges ($75). With the hardware upgrade "deal," the phone itself came to $180 (taxes in). That still leaves $145 in various unexplained-at-the-time-of-purchase "administrative fees." Un-FUCKING-believeable. After taxes & fees, that $160 phone cost $325. Had I known, or been given any hint that the charges would spike so unbelieveably high, I would have skipped the hardware upgrade "deal" entirely, and bought a new phone at regular retail. Of course it would still had to have been purchased from the cellular provider for all the "pre-loaded firmware needs," but without the contract/upgrade "deal," the same phone would have cost $265 - $60 less than the "deal." Un-FUCKING-believeable.

It's blog, blog, it's big, it's heavy, it's wood

2006-08-05T22:01:00.000-07:00

So, here it is, my very first blog log. Yes, you heard me, I said "blog log," and it's because I think that sometimes, when you contract two words (or in this case, one word) into something shorter, you can end up with something that sounds rather silly, especially if you actually say it aloud. For example, I overheard a couple of pre-teens in some retail establishment (the name of which eludes me at the moment, but is unnecessary in any case) a few weeks ago who said "Oh-Em-Gee," as in "OMG." I suppose, since my complaint here is the mangling of language, that I should have said "weblog entry" instead of "blog log," but it just doesn't sound as fun (don't I be just the contradictoriest thing?), and if I'm not having any fun, I'll never keep this blog log thing going. I might not anyway, I might just do a crossword instead, or maybe watch some TV or go see that new movie with that guy that everyone is talking about. But not THAT one. The other one. I hate THAT one.