bopuc/weblog

From the Interesting People mailing list:

Recent comments about how we live in dangerous and
chilling times (after 9/11) should be seen in perspective
to 1968, when:

- 25000 American soldiers had been killed in 3 years of the
Vietnam War.

- The leading proponents for change (Martin Luther
King and Robert F. Kennedy) were assassinated.

- The Soviet Union was considered a nuclear threat
that could wipe out the United States in a day.

- Protesters against the war in Chicago during the
Democratic National Convention were stopped with
police-state tactics.

I have posted rare video tape footage of CBS News
on April 4, the day Martin Luther King was assassinated,
and ABC News coverage of the Democratic National
Convention from Aug 28, 1968, the night of the largest
riots, the fight over the Vietnam War plank (whether to
change Democratic party plank to allow Vietnam the
right to determine its own government and stop bombing
the north) and Vice Presidents Humphrey's nomination.

http://www.e-pix.com/1968

I like especially the sequence of five videos covering a "debate" between the intellectual heavy weights of the left and the right of the time, Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr. It only goes to prove how the right is of animalistic tendency, even in it's higher brain functions.

I use the excellent Codetek VirtualDesktop Pro. Without it I think I'd have gone totally insane ages ago.

Some days, however, I think it contributes to my encroaching insanity. Nobody should have this many apps and windows open at one time.

(To clarify: each "desktop" I use for a different task/project. What invariably happens, since much of my work is "real time", I end up waiting for feedback, or I get interrupted from one task to work on another et voila! Ten workspaces open at once... Tasks include actual work, blog entry writing, email & IM, research & reading, etc... )

It is seven PM and I need to "close" each one of these open tasks tonight. Whoohooo! Someone come and take me away, heeheehoohoohaahaaaa...

One night about a week before leaving for the ETech Conference/Digital Democracy Teach-In, and just after having spent some time hanging out with the very cool Dean For America gang, I caught "Field of Dreams" playing on late-night television.

I always liked that movie. Really. Somewhere deep in my subconscious it always struck a chord. "If you build it, they will come, Ray."

Seeing it again, I was reminded of another fantastic quote, delivered by James Earl Jones at the very end of the movie.

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.

This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh people will come, Ray.

People will most definitely come

- Terrence Mann - "Field of Dreams"

This story is not about baseball, Ray. It is about the soul of America, and democracy.

Build it, Ray.

Equal footing of social standing on a level playing field is a pipe dream; one that if you smoke too much from will blind you to the malcreants who will take advantage of your torpor to hoist themselves above you.

This applies equally to the current debacle about the "A-list bloggers" as to the state of "democracy" in the world at large, and everything in between.

The ones "on the top" stand on our shoulders. When they forget that, it is our task to shake them down.

James Duncan Davidson puts it best:

What do you always have with you? Phone. Wallet. Keys. The mobile phone is starting to become a life recorder. It's ubiquitous. The home computer is the trusted log device. And the web provides for universal sharing.

This morning, out of the blue, old buddy Michel IMs me this:

i had a friend who had a cool idea for something that'd be kinda like friendster, but for books, music and dvds and stuff.

so basically a group of friends library. where you have your people on your list that are allowed to borrow. and you have your list of books, etc... and the system would let you know who has what, and what's available from your friends.

Not an hour later, a new buddy, who shall remain nameless, mentions he is consulting a also nameless company to build a "social network" tool that would show "people who friended XXX also bought YYY"...

And now, I stumble across a post by also new buddy Jyri Engström where he makes this prediction.

(And he uses the term Kula... Hmmmm...)

Coïncidink?

Tangentially:
About a year ago I had a vision of the worldwide hurricane of garbage and doodads created by entities such as EBay, whereby literally hundreds of thousands of items were flying around in FedEx and UPS parcels all around the world everyday, at any given moment. A veritable typhoon of physical object exchange, encircling the globe...

It is becoming more and more clear that I may have a bit of a "substance dependance" situation.
Over my two weeks in California, I barely drank alcohol and rarely smoked any cigarettes. While at ETech, and again in San Francisco, I was privy to many highly interesting conversations, meetings, dinners and the like. However, almost every time, I did not feel to be anywhere near my peak intellectual capacity. I felt... diminished somehow, as if my hands were tied behind my back and I couldn't figure out why or how.

An afternoon with Mimi, dinner with Joi, a hike through the hills with Howard... while I managed to keep up the conversation with these new friends for whom I have the highest esteem, I myself felt as if I'd poked a pencil through my brain... positively self lobotomized.

I anxiously questioned myself: "why is it I can have incredible brainstorms in conversations with friends back home and be completely hogtied in most other situations?"

The answer is all too clear. Conversations with friends back home usually take place over a bottle of something or other and a full ashtray.

Today, pacing my winter-sealed apartment, refusing to have coffee and cigarettes, I accomplished little other than basic chores. Until around 9PM when prompted by some deeper thought that needed thinking, i poured myself some wine and lit a cigarette. And so the levy broke. Hyperactive wheels within wheels churning, spewing out prolifically on whatever topic needed its 15 seconds of attention. One glass of wine. No excess.

Is that a kind of addiction? I do not crave alcohol or cigarettes, at all. In fact I intensely dislike both: they make me feel physically ill. But my mind ... oh, my mind reels when they are in my blood...

So many things I wanted to discuss, alas the opportunity now passed. Well, not really, but I could have contributed so much more.

Maybe I'm just to hard on myself? Bah! Ok, end self-pitying rant. Carry on!

Decided to drop in on Friendster for the first time in weeks.
Was greeted by this...

In the next few weeks, we will be introducing changes to the system to improve site performance. If all goes according to plan, Friendster will be faster, the system will scale with the growth of the community, and you will have more choices for setting your privacy levels on Friendster.

At the bottom of this page, you must make two selections. You must select the level of exposure for your profile, and you must select the level for exchanging messages between you and other Friendsters.

These settings will be saved for you until the site improvements are introduced. However, you may change these privacy levels at any time through the Account Settings area of your Home Page. If you do not select these levels, the system will automatically default both settings to your third degree of friends (friends of friends of friends).

We hope that you are as excited about the improvements as we are. If you would like more information, please visit Help.

Thanks to everyone who has shared their feedback with us on these important issues.

Friendster

Sitting down for lunch on the last day of the ETech conference in San Diego, I pull out my mobile to find it is turned off. It's been off for at least two days. Damn. I have a hunch that Soli's been trying to reach me, as he said he'd meet me down here. The plans were vague and not confirmed. Turning it on, I find four messages from him, starting the previous afternoon and getting progressively nastier. The last one was left 30 minutes ago.

Soli had landed in San Diego the previous evening and had already picked up the VW van he had agreed to drive back up to Vancouver. He also had already managed to lose his wallet and have a new Visa card sent to him. I excuse myself to John, my lunch companion and new friend, and call Soli. He's ecstatic. He'll meet me at the hotel shortly.

After saying my goodbyes in the Hotel lobby, Soli and I take off on our journey. If we only knew...

Part One

A quick stop at a pier north of San Diego to catch the sunset, and off we head for Los Angeles. Chris and Raluca, old friends from Montreal, just moved to L.A. and were graciously hosting us for a night. The original directions were to take the 5 North to the 405, then get off at Sunset Boulevard.

Somewhere near county limits we hit a small amount of traffic. Slowly we inch forward until we come to a checkpoint of sorts. One row of cars ahead of us the entire backup is stopped. It is a checkpoint for illegal aliens. At this moment, 2 miles of backed up traffic is entirely held back by two or three Highway Patrolmen. An enormous amount of steel and potential thrust, held at bay by two raised hands. They are packing up for their evening's task. Within moments the way is opened and the column races ahead.

A short time later, we stop for fuel. Pulling into the gas station, I roll up my window and the handle stays in my hand. A sign of things to come? Checking the oil, Soli curses VW engineers for making the dipstick on this model so terribly hard to remove and replace. Attempting to pay with his new Visa, he is told the card is not yet activated. Hilarity ensues with the non-english speaking attendant. I pull out the cash. Done. Already slightly irritated by the dipstick and the attendant, Soli begins to wrestle with the gas cap which despite our best efforts neither of can put back on. We pull out with a wad of paper as a gas cap.

Raluca calls to tell us she and Chris are going to see a friend's band at the Viper room and we should meet them there, we'll be on the guestlist. Bonus! She gives me revised directions: forget the 405. Just stay on the 5 until Sunset, hang a left.

Soli, who is driving, says he thinks something may be wrong... the van doesn't seem to have as much power as it had. The gas cap maybe? A pressure issue of some sort? Hrm. We pull over on the narrow shoulder. I yank out the paper wad as Soli once again fiddles with the gas cap. No dice. Fack it, the Viper room awaits! We drive on.

There's L.A.! We're close now! ... There goes L.A.! We're past it! What the heck? Call to Raluca. They are at the club already, we are past Valencia. Too far, double back, catch the 405 from the north and call back. So we do that.

A little bit after merging to the 405 we hear a "bang!" Hrm... Soli says he thinks he hit something lying on the road. No big deal. Ok. I dial Raluca, to tell her we'll be there in ten minutes. As she reiterates final directions from the 405 to the Viper room, Soli lets out a yelp and pulls over violently, the van shaking and shuddering, almost flipping over itself as we hit the 3 inch deep drainage canal that passes as a shoulder on the 405. "What the hell are you doing!? And what's that smell... Oh... no..."

"Raluca... we just pulled over... one of our tires is shredded... Yeah. I'll call you back."

Formula One style, we whip out and locate everything we need. Wrench under my seat, jack under Soli's, spare under the front of the vehicle. Go go go. Seven minutes and we're back on the road. Viper room here we come!

"Hi Raluca. Yeah tire's fixed we're coming! Oh... Show's over? You'll be at the Red Rock Bar which is next door... ok... yeah... we'll be there in ten... See ya. Click" Daaaamn. Aw well. At least we made it. In one piece.

When we get to the bar, Raluca informs us that had we followed the original directions, we'd have been changing our tire in South Central L.A. I shudder and try not think of it.

A few drinks, some unwinding and a night in our host's living room. Perfect.

Part Two

After breakfast bagel sandwiches, Chris leads us to an area where we find a tire shop. Soli orders four new tires. We leave the van there and head to Venice Beach were we rent two bicycles and putz around for two hours.

Sorted, Soli drops me off at Mimi's for the afternoon and picks me up again around 8pm. Seems sometime in the afternoon one of the fan belts started squeaking. No big deal. We meet Chris and Raluca for dinner, after which they invite us to stay a second night in their apartment, since by now it is late and we haven't made hotel arrangements and they are super cool. Excellent. We drop off the van in their garage and head of to the Chateau Montmartre (?) where two other Blizzarts regulars, Natasha and Jessica, are hanging out. Afterwards, we wander around Mulhulland Drive. Westmount, eat your heart out.

Returning the apartment garage, we notice the van is leaking coolant. Damn. We'll sort it out in the morning when we head off for our journey up the coast.

Part Three

Sure enough, the coolant hose at the front of the van has popped off. The theory is that when the tire guys put the spare back on, they nicked it off. No big deal, Soli fastens it back on. We refill the coolant and hit the 5 North. Ciao L.A.!

Half an hour out, an annoying alarm buzz starts sounding. This should have set off major alarms in our heads but for some reason it didn't (see disclaimer at end). We pull into a gas station and sure enough, that coolant hose popped off again. What the hell. The engine's in the back.. why is this hose even up here? Whatever, Soli fastens it up again, we refill and take off again.

Now, our plan was to hug the coast all the way up, but now, on the 5 North, we find ourselves a hundred miles from the coast. Dammit. I chart us the next road heading due West. An absolutely stunning detour drive along the 166 later we pull into Pismo Beach. That annoying buzz alarm hounded us the whole way but Soli figured out that by revving the engine he could make it go away for extended periods. As we hit town, down shifting into lower gears, the fan belt isn't squeaking anymore, it is outright screaming. Only at lower gears though. We push on. The 1 is ahead and our jouney awaits. On to Monterey!

Still no alarms in our heads. In hindsight, i have to wonder just what the hell WAS in our heads...

Unbeknownst to us, the 1 between San Simeon and Monterey is one of the most insane bits of road in the world. Hairpin turns, steep inclines, solid stone walls to the east, sheer cliff drops to the Pacific to west, with a narrow two lanes to negotiate.

It is dark and foggy and Soli does a valiant job keeping us alive. No shit falling rocks! Had we hit that boulder, there would be no more blog entries...

So, a screaming fan belt and a mysterious buzzing alarm, both coming and going seemingly at will, mysteriously.

At Big Sur, the dashboard lights up. All alert lights have come to life. SUV tailing us, nay, tailgating us. Sweet Jeebus. Soli swerves out into a driveway. The rear of the van is smoking. Not good.

Fan belt is gone. A fat trail of coolant greases the concrete behind us. Big Sur is within a mile... we have to try to get there. There must be a garage of at least a gas station. We make maybe a mile. We come to a stop in the driveway of some Resort/Inn.

Two employees from the resort drive by on their way out for the night. They give us the number to call the Inn. Ten minutes later a young guy shows up. Valet parking attendant. Talking to him he offers me a smoke and the understanding that we are in one of the most expensive and exclusive areas in all of California. The cheapest room at this particular place starts at $550, and even if we could afford it we'd be out of luck since the whole town is booked up due to Valentine's Day. This would be a recurring theme.

Five minutes later two Lexus SUV screech down the driveway. The manager and four other guys pop out. We can't leave the van where it is. It is blocking the sign. They push us ten feet to the side of road, to a non-existing shoulder. Soli has already called triple A. Tow truck is on it's way.

The stars are marvelously clear out here, aren't they Soli? Wow.
We laugh.

Flatbed tow truck arrives with a dolt of an operator. We stop twice to refasten the chains. I actually nod of as Soli, with white knucles, fears for both our lives as this arguably stoned hick barrelasses the rest of the way to Monterey.

Ah Monterey! I have visions of Steinbeck... Cannery Row, Tortilla Flat... The best laid pans Of Mice And Men, indeed!

Instead we find a garage who's lights, at 11:30 at night, are on like a beacon for idiots like ourselves...

"Tony" is quick to help us. Or try to anyways. Looks to be in his mid-forties, balding, hair sorter than mine except for in the back where he wears a salt and pepper ponytail, and some sort of a finely groomed goatee-slash-beard type of thing. Tattoos pick up on his forearms where the grease of being a mechanic trails off. He could have walked right out of Mad Max...

We figure all we need is a new fan belt and a clamp for the coolant hose. No problem. Let's see, ok how does this fan belt hook up to what. Ok this goes with that... but that... hrmph... is seized.. what is that? Must be the water pump. The water pump gear is seized... that's why the belt overheated and snapped. That's why the coolant overheated, expanded and cause the hose to burst off.

Can't get a water pump till morning fellas. Sorry. Let's go find you a motel.

Tony drives us up and down the strip, as well as over to the 400+ room Holiday Inn over in the nicer part of town. Would you believe that every hotel and motel in this dump is booked solid? We tried at least twenty. Valentine's Day. Ohhhh how we hate Valentine's Day now.

Tony's being really nice. A real mensch. Born again Christian style. Soli's being real chummy with him so Tony starts "opening up". Little tidbits, he is reluctant to share too much. Something of a past it seems. Just got off probation, he avoids the cops, driving across town to a second 7-11 when the first one had a patrol car parked in front of it. Nice. Soli asks if he's from here, if he likes it here. Born and raised, though the place has gone to the dogs last few years... Damn african americans (he used the less nice term...) and mexicans. "They come in here, 10 to a house, set up shop... I don't mind so much really except when I go to McDonald's and they don't understand my order." Soli and I probably thought the same thing at that moment: "Oh... crap..." Ask and ye shall receive, Soli. Stories of bitches who used him, buddies who totaled his cars... Ugh.

So, back to the van. Tony runs home and brings us blankets for the night. We lock ourselves in. I sleep. Soli, apparently, not so much.

Interlude

As mentioned, Soli lost his wallet at San Diego Airport. All he has is his passport, a Gold Visa card and his cellphone (aside from his clothes, an IBM notebook, an iPod, a digital camera, a case of beer and a bottle of vodka). I am traveling with a wad of Benjamin Franklins and all my gear.

We are camped out behind a garage in what it turns out is the slums of Monterey. It is a wonder nothing happened...

Part Four

After feasting on Jack-In-The-Box breakfast McMuffins, Soli decides to go do laundry at the laundromat around the corner, while I wait for Tony to show up. I start reading Cory's new book.

Soli comes back half an hour later quite agitated. Seems there was some weirdness at the laundromat which culminated with Soli's cellphone falling into a full washing machine. No more cellphone for you, Soli. On the walk back he got yelled at by some scary looking dude in spanish.

Tony shows up with some bad news. No water pump until tomorrow. "Take us to the airport Tony", I say, "we're gonna rent a car. We'll leave the van here for a few days."

The rest of the journey to San Francisco goes smoothly, as we relax into the boat-like luxury of the Ford Taurus. The coast north of Santa Cruz is beautiful. Driving into San Francisco we hook up with Joi, Peter and Jonas at the Café de la Presse before checking into a Holiday Inn on North Van Ness.

Post-script

Soli and I spent 2 nights (a day and a half) in San Francisco before I, honestly, rudely told him to take a hike. I had things to do and he really should get back to the van. Soli, my apologies, but it had to be done. ;)

In subsequent phone calls and comments left in previous entries here, Soli recounts how the rental car got a flat in Monterey before he could return it. How, never mind the water pump, the master cylinder was blown and he now had to rent a U-Haul to tow the van back down to San Diego (he was supposed to go back there anyways since the engine in the van was actually a new one and the mechanic had told him to drive 700 miles and bring it back for a final tweak...) How once there, he jumped on a bus to hit the beach one more time only for the bus to be hit by a car and having to wait 2 hours for the cops to make sure no one would sue. How he finally jumped on a plane to visit his sister in Arizona, which was also part of his original itinerary.

Soli, it was a blast, and I hope, no I pray, your bad luck has run out for a looong time.

Disclaimer
Soli and I are NOT normally this stupid. We know cars well enough, and know better than to ignore alarms and loud noises. What happened to us was, bad luck aside, very much the fault of two overly excited boys, exulted by the scenery and the California dream. I also suspect Soli was somehow under the impression that I was in a mad rush to get to San Francisco, which I wasn't really. But he knows me well enough, and I him, that this misunderstanding is totally plausible, since by precedent he was not entirely wrong in thinking I may be.

Sometimes, when you are deep in shit, you don't smell it.

Grey Tuesday

It's time for music fans to stand up and demand change from the music industry's copyright cartel.

Tuesday, February 24 will be a day of coordinated civil disobedience: websites will post Danger Mouse's Grey Album on their site for 24 hours in protest of EMI's attempts to censor this work.

First upload to my gallery of California trip pictures. Will do more when i get back home.

Stage two of the road trip (Los Angeles to San Francisco) involved almost plunging into the Pacific off of Highway 1 numerous times, busted fan belt and empty coolant stall in Big Sur, tow truck ride to Monterey, night spent in the van behind a garage, rental car to San Francisco.

San Diego to Los Angeles Adventure. Too tired to explain but here are some keywords to tide us over:

Soli, VW van, flat tire, blocked credit cards, Sunset Strip, Gouge and Reluca's appartment.

We laughed, we cried.

(See previous entry's picture.)
An extremely strong urge when surrounded by laptops is to look over at your neighbor's Desktops and read their notes, emails, IMs...

California ballroom sprinkled by a light spring rain.
The tap tap tap of a hundred keyboards typing.

Sunny, warm. Nice. :)

Free Wi-Fi in the Dorval Airport.. I mean "Pierre Elliott Trudeau" Airport...

Tomorrow, all members of my immediate family will be airborne.
My mother back home to Tampa, from Caracas.
My sister and nephew to meet her in Tampa.
And of course me to San Diego.

Weird.

I'm sitting here trying to plan which panels and sessions I'm thinking of attending at ETech next week and it is a huge pain in the ass.

Not the "choosing what to attend" part. The planning part.

Sure there's a nice "At-a-Glance" calendar up, but that's only useful for reference. I want to have a copy in my calendar so I can mark which ones I'm interested in, those I am not, etc.

I just emailed Rael asking him if perchance there is a vCal format available of the schedule. Beyond that, I think a "My Conference Planner" web-app would be rocking for this. Should be simple enough. ;)

Sign-up for an account and as you browse the list/schedule of sessions/panels/whathaveyou you can click "Add to my schedule". Voila. From there you can export as vCal, print a PDF or just bookmark your personalized schedule.

As it is, I'm going to have to recreate the schedule in my calendar app and copy and paste each event. Yuck.

Building a web-service module like this would be useful for film-festival sites and the like as well. Hint hint. ;)

UPDATE: mere seconds after finding the link buried in the ETech Wiki, Rael replied with the URL to the iCal version of the schedule. Yay!

It seems to me that the prizefight between mass media and "weblogs" has now begun in ernest.

Some have been debating the "weblogs versus journalism" conundrum, and the use of weblogs and "social software" in political campaigning has garnered much coverage from all sides. Also, there have been a few cases where weblogs have "outed" stories the mass outlets dropped, not to mention provided more in-depth coverage of things the big boys can't or won't touch... But it I believe the really interesting bout heard its starting bell this past week.

The admission by ABC news and others that it's footage of the now infamous "Dean Scream" not only misrepresented the reality of the situation, and that it's widespread use was - "perhaps" they say - an effort to show Dean in a negative light, was one of those chance moments when the World Champion heavyweight lets down his guard for just a moment, giving the unproven newcomer a chance at a really juicy right hook to the head.

This isn't about Howard Dean or "Social Software". It isn't about "journalism". It is about manufactured and manipulated reality sold to an unsuspecting populace.

One of the beauties of many-to-may communication, weblogs being the first step towards a widely accessible and aggregatable implementation of such, is it's ability to de-isolate individuals, and more importantly, to bring them together in a non-regulated way. This is key in any democratic discussion. (Insert everything from power-laws, the trickle-up effect, social networks to "grass-roots movements".)

Slowly but surely the new heavyweight is finding his bearings, refining his technique, learning to dance and gaining in strength. Can a swarm float like a butterfly and sting like a bee? I sure think it can.

The bell rung and the first punch thrown:

Over the last couple of weeks a process that was formerly hidden became visible, as the powers of television, radio and print decide which candidate they want to run against George Bush in the fall.
/.../
The last half of the 20th Century was an excessive monoculture, centralized thinking system, where we think, as Citizen Kane snapped"What I tell them to think!" The American news executives who deleted the Dean candidacy through misinformation should do as the leadership of the BBC did -- resign and make way for an overdue reformation of journalism, and as a result the American political system. It's time. As Lydon tells us, the corruption isn't new. What's new is that it's visible now that we can inform each other without relying on them.

The "process that was formerly hidden" is propaganda institutionalized as (most) journalism, marketing and entertainment: cultural fascism, exploiting irrational fears and base desires.

Are you ready to rumble?

I was gonna write an entry today about how bored i am but Phillip Torrone has given me something to be excited about again. That's twice now... I think I'm gonna owe him!

the portable geek gym...
i was told that i should "get outside" by a coworker since i live in a great area and jog, as opposed to jog on my treadmill. good point i thought, but i still want to be able to view my email, irc, rss feeds. so i started a new project--i have a lightweight pair of glasses with a small lcd screen, connected to a pocket pc (with video out) which is also connected to my phone via bluetooth. i'm adding a bluetooth gps this weekend, so as i jog near certain areas it will play content, for example my application will play a short video with audio about the space needle as i get close to it. obviously i don't think joggers will use this, but there are tons and tons of applications. more photos soon of the entire set up.

portable geek gym, more details, photos and video!
here is the portable geek gym. tiny bluetooth gps velcro'd to my shirt, it talks to a pocket pc, which has a video feed to my sunglasses with lcd screen. also attached, a heart rate monitor, a pedometer, all fed to a health watch via rf, and also a spot watch- to check up on the news and instant messages. optional- my phone, which is used to check email via bluetooth and fed to the glasses which is usually playing the gps feed (maps) or a video. based on my location. it's all really light too- so jogging is still fine.
click here for the video (quicktime version).

i can see what the aibo (robot dog can see)...
i'm playing around with using the sony aibo ers-7 as my eyes for limited periods of time- it's pretty interesting to be downstairs and being able to see what the aibo is seeing. while it is no mars explorer, it's quite a bit of fun.

What's exciting about this is that it demonstrates that the goal of discreet wearable mobile connected computing is getting closer every day. Also it is great to see that others than just Steve Mann and his students are actively pursuing these goals, outside of military and corporate research programs.

The aibo thing is just computer-mediated reality/consciousness throwing fun. ;)