Clothes are hella tricky, that's for sure. They have to be fun, fit right and match your style to be good. I have gotten some good and bad gifts in the area. I've gotten some good sports jerseys and dress shirts that were out of my normal budget that I appreciated over the years, but I've also gotten shit I wouldn't be caught dead in.
Same. I liked this sweater that one of my friends wore once (it was colorful and sparkly so I thought it was cute, albeit a little tacky) and so she got it for me for Christmas. Or my mom gets me clothes SHE wants to see me in. Like for example, she'll buy me something yellow when yellow's my least favorite color. T-shirts in bright colors and comfortable pants. That's my style. LOL.
True. Though I think the recent (is it recent? I know it's been within the last 10 years) creation of tacky Christmas sweater parties is a very cute idea.
I'm trying to psych myself up to go to the New England Synth Festival in Waltham today. I'd forgotten about it until last night. It sounds fun and its the first event of its type since I took the plunge into modular synths. I don't have a lot of money to throw around but I do need a new mini MIDI controller to bring with me to Portugal. But the event is 45 minutes down 495 and 495 never not sucks. Dangerous, heavy traffic suckitute. And I don't know Waltham very well. There's good food there, though, so I'm thinking of parking downtown, eating a good lunch, and walking a half mile to the event. That way I don't need to worry about their event parking and driving around the semi-industrial area where it is. I'm almost out of coffee, so I guess I'm gonna have to leave the house anyway. I'll give myself another hour to fuck around.
I hope he gets to celebrate his next birthday with an extra helping of Nutraloaf with a candle stuck in it. Maybe Roger Stone can have the cell next door.
Mainstream media in 'Murica takes a lot of heat at this mommy blog. Some people say that it is well deserved. But I will always say that whatever criticism that WaPo, NYT, NPR, NBC have flung at them is NOT NEARLY CLOSE TO ENOUGH TO BEING ENOUGH!
Case in point: It has been over a whole day and the lazy-as-fuck mainstream media has failed to investigate and find whoever released the penis shaped balloons at the courthouse in Manhattan! Try harder mainstream media!
Am I being unfair to the mainstream media? Of course I am! DUH! That's what I do. The universe needs balance and whenever I am unfair to lazy-as-fuck NYT or WaPo I am balancing the universe.
It's a tough job and a grandiose responsibility. But, like the Titan Atlas holding up the world on his mighty shoulders, here I am doing that job day in and day out. Which is way more than indolent mainstream media weak sister NYT or puny-fuck WaPo are doing!
Get on the stick you lazy shits! Get to the bottom of the penis shaped balloon caper!
I kinda think the penis-shaped balloons is too trivial to waste inches/bandwidth ( let alone investigating, considering cutbacks in newsrooms ) on at a major mainstream media platform. Let the bloggers and podcasters do it
There is a side of it which is not trivial and the releaser should be at least publicly humiliated for it if not criminally charged.
Releasing balloons of any shape is bad. They will end up in waterways where animals that are not that smart mistake them for food and eat them resulting in a blockage in. their intestines which can kill the animal.
Do you think there's an ordinance that could be used to criminally charge this person?
As far as I know, releasing balloons is probably no better or worse for wildlife than plastic single-use grocery bags - but NYS ( including NYC ) has a ban on those - but there's only a civil penalty for that.
Idk, if I have to see weird obscure gossip stories about both celebrities and regular people on my feed, the Great Penis Balloon Caper can have an inch or two. At least it’s amusing.
Controversial Staten Island artist and activist Scott Lobaido released 100 pink, penis-shaped balloons featuring the faces of Donald Trump foes like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Thursday outside the courthouse where the ex-president’s hush money trial is taking place.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch had an article today called "What Mo. Legislature accomplished - and didn't" and here's the list. It's a sad list. I'd post a link but they have a paywall.
𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱, 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗼𝗿
1) expand education voucher program to pay for private schools (BOO!)
2) Bars state Medicaid dollars from being used to reimburse Planned Parenthood for health care (BOO!)
3) Funding Mo. National Guard and Highway Patrol to assist with US-Mexico border control (BOO!)
𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱, 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗼𝗿
1) Prohibit local governments from imposing eviction moratoriums (BOO!)
2) Raising the age that minors can be charged as adults (BOO!)
𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱
1) Raising the threshold of votes required to amend the state constitution via ballot initiative (YAY! Failed to pass!! YAY!)
2) Protect Bayer from cancer lawsuits (Yay!)
3) Expand child care tax credits (BOO! Didn't pass!! BOO!)
4) Prohibit cities from requiring landlords to accept Section 8 housing vouchers (YAY!)
5) Require health insurers to cover a full year's supply of birth control (BOO!)
"... Prohibit cities from requiring landlords to accept Section 8 housing vouchers (YAY!)"
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Section 8 housing vouchers meant to get low-income people into homes? Why would you cheer a law that would allow landlords to refuse these people?
It took me a minute to parse too. The law would have prevented cities from requiring landlords to accept the vouchers. So by failing, cities can require landlords to accept the vouchers. Hence the "YAY!"
"There's a suspicion that approaching the speed of light results in time distortion, but in Illinois, just going the speed limit south can result in traveling backwards in time, right at the Missouri border."
Crap and more crap. The Nuggets keep getting blown up by the T-wolves, the Avs are done for the year and the fucking Rockies have had a long winning streak. There's no way they're going to lose 130 now.
Well, a good chunk of that streak came against the Rangers, who have forgotten how to hit. About once every week or two, they'll drop 15 on someone, but then they're back to one or two runs. Hell, they only scored six runs total in a three-game series in Coors Field.
I saw a clip of some Faux News program where the host was claiming she spoke to Alito by phone, and Alito said their neighbor had profane signs in his yard and called Alito's spouse a c-word in ol' Sam's presence. Some old dude was on the set as well, and he remarked that the neighbor is lucky Alito didn't punch him out.
Setting aside the fact that Alito couldn't punch out soft tofu (he'd straight up break his fist on firm tofu), flying a stop-the-steal flag is a strange reaction to a neighbor being a shithead. Predictably, Alito is lying about all this.
"In the 1930s, Hitler didn't just seize power, it was handed to him by the wealthy, by the powerful, by a compliant elite, by people who thought the were above the angry masses, and violent anti-Semites."
Why do Democrats have all the talent except when it comes to political messaging? It makes me kinda upset that former Republicans have the most effective ads to combat their own bullshittery
Cheesus Crust. I can not see a reply comment without doing a refresh. Used to be that the reply comments would automatically show, but now they do not.
This is effing stupid. Come on Substack coders fix this bug. OR IS IT NOW A FEATURE?
It seems to come and go, but sometimes there are delays. Since one of the good features of substack was the nearly real-time editing of comments, I suspect this is a bug - someone tried to fix something else and screwed up one of the things that actually worked.
I've found that if you scroll down, and then back up, sometimes your comment will appear without refreshing. Otherwise, I just have to trust it, since in a busy thread, refreshing means having to find it after scrolling through 100 new comments.
My irritation now is that I can't Like anything. Click = nothing.
Montage of 30 clips from the last two Trump rallies where he slurred and mispronounced words and names, rambled incoherently, and repeatedly got confused.
I. AM. A. TAD. FUCKING. SICK. OF. BELONGING. TO. THE. SAME. SPECIES. AS. REPUBLICANS.
Congressman David Trone just lost the Democratic MD Senate primary to Angela Alsobrooks. He and his brother are apparently billionaires. Each brother owns one liquor megastore in central Maryland. And he's working to overturn the Maryland law allowing each person to own no more than one Class A liquor license (allowing liquor sales to carry away). Claiming that the restriction violates the 21st Amendment? And, just before the primary, his brother sent a memo to all their employees, urging them to vote in the primary ... just skirting election violations, I can safely assume.
Dodged *that* bullet. Now we just have to dodge the double threat of Republican/real estate mogul Larry Hogan in the general election. And yes, there's apparently good evidence that Hogan, as governor, tried to benefit his business by holding up and modifying a needed, major commuter spur in the north DC suburbs. The delay and changes may have only cost Marylanders a billion or so.
The Intercept - The Monopolist In The House: Rep. David Trone's Wine Company Seeks To Overturn a Constitutional Amendment — Open Markets Institute
Trone was running for the Democratic nomination for Senator. He may be a closet Republican, but...
Also, I'm not sure what you're referring to with "a needed, major commuter spur in the north DC suburbs.". Could you be speaking of the "Purple Line" Metro expansion? That has been being fought over since before I moved out of Maryland.
I'm tired of most the press treating their obvious corrupt ambitions as the exact same as Democrats wanting to let people marry who they want to marry or feed hungry people.
I just saw the segment on Beau of The Fifth Column about Roodles getting served at his birthday party. LMAOO
Happy Birthday indeed
Right? I thought socks were the worst gift.
Clothes generally in my opinion are.
Give me a good book or a movie or TV show on DVD any day.
Clothes are hella tricky, that's for sure. They have to be fun, fit right and match your style to be good. I have gotten some good and bad gifts in the area. I've gotten some good sports jerseys and dress shirts that were out of my normal budget that I appreciated over the years, but I've also gotten shit I wouldn't be caught dead in.
Same. I liked this sweater that one of my friends wore once (it was colorful and sparkly so I thought it was cute, albeit a little tacky) and so she got it for me for Christmas. Or my mom gets me clothes SHE wants to see me in. Like for example, she'll buy me something yellow when yellow's my least favorite color. T-shirts in bright colors and comfortable pants. That's my style. LOL.
Sweaters, in particular, seem to invite tackiness.
True. Though I think the recent (is it recent? I know it's been within the last 10 years) creation of tacky Christmas sweater parties is a very cute idea.
Is that the southern boarder I have heard so much about?
THE STROM IS STARTING!!!!111
That’s what Mister Nine Lebben gets for hiding from the people trying to serve him like a coward then advertising his big birthday shindig
Conservative hubris....tale as old as time.
It also reminds me of people that commit crimes, brag about them on social media and then have the nerve to act surprised when they're arrested. LOL
I'm trying to psych myself up to go to the New England Synth Festival in Waltham today. I'd forgotten about it until last night. It sounds fun and its the first event of its type since I took the plunge into modular synths. I don't have a lot of money to throw around but I do need a new mini MIDI controller to bring with me to Portugal. But the event is 45 minutes down 495 and 495 never not sucks. Dangerous, heavy traffic suckitute. And I don't know Waltham very well. There's good food there, though, so I'm thinking of parking downtown, eating a good lunch, and walking a half mile to the event. That way I don't need to worry about their event parking and driving around the semi-industrial area where it is. I'm almost out of coffee, so I guess I'm gonna have to leave the house anyway. I'll give myself another hour to fuck around.
Sounds like a blast. Petting zoo? Oh yeah!
This made my weekend:
https://www.rawstory.com/partygoers-started-screaming-giuliani-served-with-indictment-during-his-birthday-party-2668307572/
Ha ha!
I hope he gets to celebrate his next birthday with an extra helping of Nutraloaf with a candle stuck in it. Maybe Roger Stone can have the cell next door.
On Broadway the Hard Way Zappa referred to it as "confinement loaf" and that's stuck with me.
Ditto!
Mainstream media in 'Murica takes a lot of heat at this mommy blog. Some people say that it is well deserved. But I will always say that whatever criticism that WaPo, NYT, NPR, NBC have flung at them is NOT NEARLY CLOSE TO ENOUGH TO BEING ENOUGH!
Case in point: It has been over a whole day and the lazy-as-fuck mainstream media has failed to investigate and find whoever released the penis shaped balloons at the courthouse in Manhattan! Try harder mainstream media!
Am I being unfair to the mainstream media? Of course I am! DUH! That's what I do. The universe needs balance and whenever I am unfair to lazy-as-fuck NYT or WaPo I am balancing the universe.
It's a tough job and a grandiose responsibility. But, like the Titan Atlas holding up the world on his mighty shoulders, here I am doing that job day in and day out. Which is way more than indolent mainstream media weak sister NYT or puny-fuck WaPo are doing!
Get on the stick you lazy shits! Get to the bottom of the penis shaped balloon caper!
Believe it or not, the NY Post got the scoop (it is a trump supporter "artist"):
https://nypost.com/2024/05/16/us-news/pro-trump-artist-releases-penis-shaped-balloons-with-alvin-bragg-judge-merchans-faces-on-them/
Tell me you released penis shaped balloons without saying you released penis shaped balloons.
Unfortunately, I am always too busy being critical of mainstream media to also instigate one of this years most important performance art pieces.
I kinda think the penis-shaped balloons is too trivial to waste inches/bandwidth ( let alone investigating, considering cutbacks in newsrooms ) on at a major mainstream media platform. Let the bloggers and podcasters do it
There is a side of it which is not trivial and the releaser should be at least publicly humiliated for it if not criminally charged.
Releasing balloons of any shape is bad. They will end up in waterways where animals that are not that smart mistake them for food and eat them resulting in a blockage in. their intestines which can kill the animal.
For MAGA "animals...eat them resulting in a blockage in their intestines which can kill the animal." is a feature and not a glitch.
Do you think there's an ordinance that could be used to criminally charge this person?
As far as I know, releasing balloons is probably no better or worse for wildlife than plastic single-use grocery bags - but NYS ( including NYC ) has a ban on those - but there's only a civil penalty for that.
Idk, if I have to see weird obscure gossip stories about both celebrities and regular people on my feed, the Great Penis Balloon Caper can have an inch or two. At least it’s amusing.
Well, the tabloids certainly carry that stuff ( see Mr. Minky's post ).
ISWYDT!
I'll see your 'inch or two' and raise you six more.
NY Pest:
Controversial Staten Island artist and activist Scott Lobaido released 100 pink, penis-shaped balloons featuring the faces of Donald Trump foes like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Thursday outside the courthouse where the ex-president’s hush money trial is taking place.
I think I see your problem.
Scooped by the POST?!?!?
SHAME! Be ashamed to exist when you are scooped by the POST! Hang your heads, grovel in mud, beg forgiveness forever to be outdone by the POST!
Atlas shrugs and bids the day goodbye
Lying in bed musing if there’s such a thing as a sexual un-awakening.
Happened to my husband, so...
Did you hit the Sexual Snooze button?
I don’t think the alarm ever went off to begin with?
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch had an article today called "What Mo. Legislature accomplished - and didn't" and here's the list. It's a sad list. I'd post a link but they have a paywall.
𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱, 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗼𝗿
1) expand education voucher program to pay for private schools (BOO!)
2) Bars state Medicaid dollars from being used to reimburse Planned Parenthood for health care (BOO!)
3) Funding Mo. National Guard and Highway Patrol to assist with US-Mexico border control (BOO!)
𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱, 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗼𝗿
1) Prohibit local governments from imposing eviction moratoriums (BOO!)
2) Raising the age that minors can be charged as adults (BOO!)
𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱
1) Raising the threshold of votes required to amend the state constitution via ballot initiative (YAY! Failed to pass!! YAY!)
2) Protect Bayer from cancer lawsuits (Yay!)
3) Expand child care tax credits (BOO! Didn't pass!! BOO!)
4) Prohibit cities from requiring landlords to accept Section 8 housing vouchers (YAY!)
5) Require health insurers to cover a full year's supply of birth control (BOO!)
6) Bar child marriage (BOO!)
"... Prohibit cities from requiring landlords to accept Section 8 housing vouchers (YAY!)"
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Section 8 housing vouchers meant to get low-income people into homes? Why would you cheer a law that would allow landlords to refuse these people?
I'm glad that it didn't pass.
She’s cheering that law failing if I’m reading correctly.
Love your handle.
Thank you!
Because it didn't pass.
It took me a minute to parse too. The law would have prevented cities from requiring landlords to accept the vouchers. So by failing, cities can require landlords to accept the vouchers. Hence the "YAY!"
To all the above - Thanks for the corrections. I guess I rolled over that line too fast
"There's a suspicion that approaching the speed of light results in time distortion, but in Illinois, just going the speed limit south can result in traveling backwards in time, right at the Missouri border."
You nailed it. After I'm acquitted I want to move to Illinois.
Do you mean lowering the age minors can be charged as adults?
Yes. They're already ignoring the age laws whenever they feel like it, but this makes it legal.
That Bayer one is very important.
Yep. They're Rethuglicans, that's what they do. Always and in every possible way.
This is the current Republican platform in a nutshell.
It’s all performance art, not legislating
'K, Hubby is bathed and dressed, so we're off to do errands and chores.
And since we were talking about mockingbirbs, pro and con, earlier...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAU1402eX4M
Crap and more crap. The Nuggets keep getting blown up by the T-wolves, the Avs are done for the year and the fucking Rockies have had a long winning streak. There's no way they're going to lose 130 now.
Well, a good chunk of that streak came against the Rangers, who have forgotten how to hit. About once every week or two, they'll drop 15 on someone, but then they're back to one or two runs. Hell, they only scored six runs total in a three-game series in Coors Field.
Nuggets/Wolves series, tied 3-3, is not being blown up.
𝘚𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬ing of summer coming, 78 backyard degrees and 76 official, already!
Shaping up to a Chacos and cocktails kind of day...
Planting out tomatoes and peppers starts today. I used to have to wait until after June 1.
I have tons of green tomatoes out there and I can't wait until they ripen. Peaches, squash and cukes, too.
Mine have been in the ground 3 weeks and are gaining about 3-4 inches a day, can't wait until they fill out and stop looking like middle school kids.
I just put away the wind protector that we run along the bottom of our sliding glass door.
Signs of Spring!
Here's a new Substack wrinkle: I refreshed the home page and
Error 1101 Ray ID: 885c7332485f7498 • 2024-05-18 14:13:49 UTC
Worker threw exception
That's not Substack's error, so it's their content delivery network's gerbils that fell off the wheel.
Gerbil libelz!
I heard that if you slip some sunflower seeds to the chinchillas, they smooth out some of the bumps...
So it's all YOUR fault
No. That's the gerbils. This is what happens when Fukui wanders off to Canada.
As one does.
As usual.
It's DC, so, Alito: "Bitch set me up!"
I saw a clip of some Faux News program where the host was claiming she spoke to Alito by phone, and Alito said their neighbor had profane signs in his yard and called Alito's spouse a c-word in ol' Sam's presence. Some old dude was on the set as well, and he remarked that the neighbor is lucky Alito didn't punch him out.
Setting aside the fact that Alito couldn't punch out soft tofu (he'd straight up break his fist on firm tofu), flying a stop-the-steal flag is a strange reaction to a neighbor being a shithead. Predictably, Alito is lying about all this.
I'm trying to recall profane Biden signs and I'm drawing a blank.
Alito lies more than my entryway runner.
(I stole the essence of that joke from Col. Potter)
Interesting that they had a Stop the Steal flag handy for this occasion
"...flying a stop-the-steal flag is a strange reaction to a neighbor being a shithead"
My thought exactly - and throwing one's spouse under the bus is a dick move. He should've taken the blame for it out of loyalty to his wife
Nothing says dignity like two old men rolling around the yard "fighting".
One of them a Justice on "The Highest Court in the Land"? Oh boy!
Aqua-Buddha's neighbor is on line one.
These guys are all Chuck Norris in their heads but you could knock them out with a stiff breeze.
There's nothing more reassuring than a member of the highest judiciary in the land flat out lying.
New anti-Turmp ad:
"In the 1930s, Hitler didn't just seize power, it was handed to him by the wealthy, by the powerful, by a compliant elite, by people who thought the were above the angry masses, and violent anti-Semites."
𝗜𝘁 𝗖𝗮𝗻'𝘁 𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAU1402eX4M
They thought they could control Hitler. Error.
As do Koch, Murdoch, Thiel, et al, today...
Why do Democrats have all the talent except when it comes to political messaging? It makes me kinda upset that former Republicans have the most effective ads to combat their own bullshittery
That has occurred to me many times. It's not like the GOP isn't bending over backwards to make it easy for Dems to crucify them.
We're hobbled by ethics, intellectual curiosity, good faith, and ability to see opposing viewpoints.
All characteristics opposed to political advertising
They don’t let black women and gays do the messaging. They really should let us.
Amen and very properly so. WE are the good guys.
But you don't fight fire with marshmallows...
Cheesus Crust. I can not see a reply comment without doing a refresh. Used to be that the reply comments would automatically show, but now they do not.
This is effing stupid. Come on Substack coders fix this bug. OR IS IT NOW A FEATURE?
Upvote non-comments or replies. Collapse the thread by clicking on the line on the left. Click “Expand comment replies” and everything will be there!
Edits, too.
It seems to come and go, but sometimes there are delays. Since one of the good features of substack was the nearly real-time editing of comments, I suspect this is a bug - someone tried to fix something else and screwed up one of the things that actually worked.
I've found that if you scroll down, and then back up, sometimes your comment will appear without refreshing. Otherwise, I just have to trust it, since in a busy thread, refreshing means having to find it after scrolling through 100 new comments.
My irritation now is that I can't Like anything. Click = nothing.
I was having that yesterday but it is working today.
Was another cache refreshing real time thingy thing problem I think. The likes show up eventually XD
Give it a minute (actually less) and it will show.
They do eventually, for me anyway. I think their real time cache refreshing thingy thing is borked.
But hey, likes work again!
Not for me.
At least now we can like. The chinchillas are back on their chinny-chin-chin-cherie jobs.
I think I know what we need to make Donald Trump easier to deal with.
Meth. Give him lots and lots of meth.
Montage of 30 clips from the last two Trump rallies where he slurred and mispronounced words and names, rambled incoherently, and repeatedly got confused.
https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1766816849696567430?mx=2
My weird prediction is that he’s going to have a weird moment in the debate where his illness becomes apparent.
A la Captain Queeg.
"Bring me my finest umbrella and salad tongs. It's time to get to work!"
"And MOAR COVFEFE!!1!"
"Where's my African Americano?"
I. AM. A. TAD. FUCKING. SICK. OF. BELONGING. TO. THE. SAME. SPECIES. AS. REPUBLICANS.
Congressman David Trone just lost the Democratic MD Senate primary to Angela Alsobrooks. He and his brother are apparently billionaires. Each brother owns one liquor megastore in central Maryland. And he's working to overturn the Maryland law allowing each person to own no more than one Class A liquor license (allowing liquor sales to carry away). Claiming that the restriction violates the 21st Amendment? And, just before the primary, his brother sent a memo to all their employees, urging them to vote in the primary ... just skirting election violations, I can safely assume.
Dodged *that* bullet. Now we just have to dodge the double threat of Republican/real estate mogul Larry Hogan in the general election. And yes, there's apparently good evidence that Hogan, as governor, tried to benefit his business by holding up and modifying a needed, major commuter spur in the north DC suburbs. The delay and changes may have only cost Marylanders a billion or so.
The Intercept - The Monopolist In The House: Rep. David Trone's Wine Company Seeks To Overturn a Constitutional Amendment — Open Markets Institute
https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/publications/intercept-monopolist-house-rep-david-trones-wine-company-seeks-overturn-constitutional-amendment
Trone was running for the Democratic nomination for Senator. He may be a closet Republican, but...
Also, I'm not sure what you're referring to with "a needed, major commuter spur in the north DC suburbs.". Could you be speaking of the "Purple Line" Metro expansion? That has been being fought over since before I moved out of Maryland.
I'm tired of most the press treating their obvious corrupt ambitions as the exact same as Democrats wanting to let people marry who they want to marry or feed hungry people.
Wow. I'm surprised. Maryland never ever has issues with their governors being crooks.
*laughs in Agnew*
Giggles in "Bag Man"
I recently relistened to Bag Man on a long drive. Easily one of my favorite podcasts ever!