Youtube stuff

Two totally unrelated things found on Youtube thanks to different folks on a web forum...

Both very cool:
Stop motion animation of Macross using a whole bunch of toys, model kits, and other custom-built miniature sets...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6G7v5Mea-c

And a promo for the upcoming Superman: Doomsday OVA due out this fall. Where were you when Superman died? I was in high-school...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm5aw6esykM
...I see the super-mullet is back too. LOL!

long-winded PC blog

I spent the entire week doing tech-support at my parents' house. The month of April was not a good one for them concerning the PC. It started during the week of Easter while I was home when I tried to get the latest XP update (little known fact, despite the WGA ridiculousness, you can still get updates for Windows if you have your Automatic Updates turned on). Anyway, that week, for whatever reason, the update corrupted the Windows system directory and we were unable to boot into Windows.

This is no surprise and I say "it was only a matter of time." This particular hard-drive was cloned from another drive... from another drive. In fact, if you trace the original clean install far back enough, I think it goes back as far as Win95 (if not, then at least Win98 non-SE version). So a clean install was due anyway.

Enter my smart-ass suggestion to buy a new drive and start from scratch. Which actually went very well. I installed the drive, made my fresh install of XP (with an "argh-chive" naturally). Then moved all the stuff from the old drive to the new one (which by the way was a nice 200Gb Western Digital). And all was right with the world.

About two weeks later, my father thought the drive was being unusually loud so being the curious little monkey that he is, he opened the case and saw that the drive was visibly vibrating... he "held it up with his finger" and the system immediately crashed. Which is strange because of two things. He actually showed me what he did and I'm stunned that Windows was smart enough to attempt to shut down (it did), and I'm also wondering why it also managed to corrupt the system directory (because it wouldn't detect an OS afterwards).

One wonders if the heads banged into the platters and that caused a total failure or if it's just the system files that are corrupt. Perhaps if I'm lucky it's just that and at worst the Master Boot Record is gone similar to that incident with my own drive a couple of years ago. What's absolutely frustrating is that I can only take my parents word on what REALLY happened the night of the crash. My father says the drive was unusually loud, but my mother says it was not. But both agree that the noise it's making when I plug it in now is MUCH louder than before. I mean, did they break it in their foolish attempt to "fix" something they did not understand, or was it a lemon to begin with? I will never know for certain.

By incredible coincidence, the motherboard has had a lemon-fresh-scent for years, a new problem surfaced at the same time as this drive crash. On occasion it would report a RAM failure and I'd reseat the sticks... or pick a different slot. Whatever. We have discovered this time that shutting down the main switch on the power supply somehow will reset the motherboard. Waiting about 20 seconds for those faulty capacitors to recharge and then hitting the Power switch in the front will suddenly allow the machine to boot normally. Of course, it took me all weekend to realize any of this (because I fiddled with the sticks each time and turn off the main power to do so every time; so I would think it worked because I changed sticks, or changed DIMM slots, or remove a particular unreliable sticks)...

Anyway, so as it turns out the motherboard is probably on its last leg. I put back the older drive (which was a very respectable 60Gb Maxtor that hasn't given us any problems). Installed WinXP (again from the "argh-chive) and got them up and running before I left. The only thing that remains unresolved is all the data that may or may not be lost on the crashed drive. I brought it back here with me so I'll see what I can do.

One thing's for sure, I need to recover the data and format the thing before I think about taking it back to Futureshop to complain. Regardless whether it was my father's fault for ignorantly opening up a case that was still powered on, he wouldn't have done that if the drive wasn't making a substantial noise (I lean towards my father's side of the story because quite frankly there've been instances where I think my mother's starting to get a little bit deaf). Anyway, there are family photos and legal documents containing important bank information among the hoards of warez that my brother downloaded but never cleaned up. And on top of that a not-so legal copy of Windows was on that drive so I'm hesitant to allow that bit of trivia out of my hands in the "real" world.

Hmmm... maybe I'll be paying mrbabou a visit sometime soon... :P

B5: Lost Tales is a reality!

Holy crap - how did this slip by a geek like me?

I just stumbled on a post at the Babylon 5 podcast. Yeah, yeah, I ask the same thing, how can you maintain a podcast about a show that's been canceled for like 10 years? Well, today they posted a notice that the first series of the rumoured direct-to-DVD stories has shown up on Amazon's pre-order listings! They even have a box-shot available (which is odd because you'd think a huge e-tailer like Amazon would have it too but they don't).
As an aside, I'm wondering why Amazon.CA doesn't have it listed yet... because I can only assume the Canadian release will be July 31 like it will be Stateside. Anyway, I'll be sure to keep a look out for this because obviously, like that stupid little pilot movie disc that is collecting dust in a box somewhere, sales will likely dictate if more of the "Lost Tales" will ever be produced.

What's in the spam filter

You know, if we were to extrapolate information from my spam filter based on the (wrong) assumption that advertisers know what people want, we could draw the following conclusions:

1) there are a lot of impotent people out there because I've received 10 solicitations for Viagra in the last 24 hours.

2) there are a lot of fat people out there because I've received at least as much spam for miracle diet products.

3) there are a lot of financial risk-takers out there because I've received several messages about get rich quick schemes.

You know what's even weirder is the fact that I realize that in reality, there actually are a lot of impotent fat and financially-strained people... I've seen them. Not coincidentally, I was at Wal-mart just yesterday.

Look back: Ultraman Tiga & Ultraman Dyna

The nice thing about reviewing a foreign film that's almost 10 years old is that I get the likes of Wikipedia at my disposal and an actual professionally sub-titled DVD to look at. So unlike the folks at StompTokyo and badmovieplanet, I come into this fairly well-versed in Ultraman lore. Unfrotunately like those guys 8 years ago, the main hero of Ultraman Dyna remains a frickin' idiot even today.

Ultraman Tiga & Ultraman Dyna takes place some time at the end of the Ultraman Dyna series (the sequel to the Ultraman Tiga series). Dyna plays back-up to our heroes in the "Super GUTS" team: the typical ineffectual group of hi-tech soldiers charged with protecting the world from all manner of monsters and alien threats. In this particular film, Dyna faces a crisis of faith when he's nearly beaten by a giant monster until an experimental battle-cruiser, the Prometheus, saves the day.

But no so fast - for it seems the aliens were behind the development of the Prometheus, all along plotting to hi-jack the super weapon once it was completed. Before we know it, Dyna faces off against Prometheus (which the aliens have reconfigured into the requisite giant humanoid robot) and loses in a spectacular display of pyrotechnics (and a variety visual effects). So Asuka spends the rest of the film wallowing in self-doubt and even tries to hook up with Ultraman Tiga, his predecessor who had been triumphant years before but hasn't been seen since. He does however manage to get some friendly advice from Captain Iruma, the former commander at GUTS during Tiga's run.

The overriding theme in this story is to face one's fears and to "believe in the light within." Unfortunately, the theme comes across rather heavy-handed. Asuka (and Ultraman Dyna by extension) winds up looking kind of like a wimp. But of course all this is essentially rationale to bring on the return of Ultraman Tiga - all of which is accomplished with the tried and true plot device (and very distinctly Japanese concept) of "believe in our heroes and they'll do right by us." So Tiga magically appears to bail out Dyna and proceeds to kick alien butt. Sadly, that's about all you get before he promptly disappears mere minutes after saving Dyna's worthless self. So it's not so much a team-up film as it is a Dyna film with a couple of guest-stars.

Image Entertainment did a fairly good job of the DVD (which was released along side the Ultraman Gaia "team-up" so they were able to recycle menu systems and everything). The bilingual DVD offers a choice of Dolby 5.1 or a downmix to stereo (in both Japanese and English). In fact the only thing I had to complain about is the use of "dub-titles" which seems to be based on the English dub dialogue (bad dialogue at that) rather than accurate Japanese to English translation. It's a heck of a curiosity having come out before the sad failure of the Tiga show on American broadcast. Sadly this little gem has long since gone out of print.

DOM12

Tsuji Nozomi joined Hello!Project way back during the "golden years" period as a member of the 4th generation of headliners Morning Musume... and to be honest, next to the likes of Yossie and Rika-chan, I didn't really take to this precocious child and her partner in crime, Kago Ai. I mean really these two kids were supposed to be idols? Serious?? And she was... what? 12 years old or something?

Well...

...she 19 going on 20 now. And is it just me, or does she still look like a little girl? Thankfully she's gotten pretty tho no matter what standard you hold her to. And she's carved a up a nice solo career for herself (particularly since Kago got herself fired from Hello!Project; let's not go into that). Actually, I'm rather looking forward to what might be coming in the near future for Nono-chan.

Reaction: Civil War (part 1?)

I'm one who wants to experience "the whole thing." With the trend in publishing now that where comics are frequently late (a chronic condition since the days of Image Comics back in the 90s), I find myself more often than not one of those "wait for the trade" types. And so it was with Avengers Disassembled, then it was with House of M, and then with last year's Civil War ...and very likely this year's World War Hulk.

Speaking of WWH, I'm going to kick of my Civil War post by taking a quick detour over to "Road to Civil War." It's important because it ties together a "floating backstory" in Marvel Comics that had been unwritten until very recently: Marvel's version of the Illuminati. In recent years, Marvel has been publishing a lot of retroactive continuity stories which reveal the "dark side" of their ficticious world. For instance, in Deadly Genesis, the second generation X-Men learn that they are actually the third generation X-Men after a failed second team were killed in action. The Illuminati stories likewise tell the untold tales about Marvel's most powerful characters forming a secret cabal who would direct the destiny of humankind from the shadows. And it's quite disturbing where their paths lead them.

Which in turn sets the stage to understand why characters like Mr.Fantastic, IronMan, and Namor (among others) behave in the radical fashion that they do in the pages of Civil War... these are men who've taken it upon themselves to decide the fate of the world because they feel only they are in position to do so... things like banishing the Hulk to another world for instance (a decision that will come back to kick them in the nuts later this year, if you know what I mean).

Back to Civil War: it's about the Marvel Universe taking sides after a catastrophic suburban encounter between a group of desperate third-tier super-criminals and the New Warriors (who've sunk so low they're filming a reality show)... well, things go bad as in "thermonuclear accident" bad. Which turns the human populace on superheroes once and for all. A few patriots like Iron Man side with the government and support a "super-hero registration act." Others like Captain America who claims to value freedom choose to go underground, fugitives from the law, but rallying like-minded vigilantes in a large scale blitz.

Other character caught up in the war are shades of gray. Spider-Man owing much of his recent authority to Tony Stark's employment, publicly sides with Iron Man. Susan Storm fed up with the obsessive behaviour of Reed Richard (and witnessing an accidental death caused by one of his mechanations) follows her brother Johnny to Captain America's fold, effectively breaking up the Fantastic Four. What's really sad is that ultimately our heroes come to blows and it takes a psychopath like the Punisher to make one realize things just aren't the way they were.

When Frank Castle executes two unarmed super-criminals off-hand, Captain America beats him to a bloody pulp while screaming, "fight back, damn you!" To which, the Punisher only replies, "not against you." It's a warped sense of justice and honour, but it's the only kind left in this world. And finally, as the war spills over into mid-town Manhatten... well. It's time for one side to realize they are fighting a pointless battle.

I'm amazed how smoothly the 7-part story read. I think a lot of the bad feelings towards this "event" was due to its horrendous publishing schedule. But I was able to enjoy it within 2 or 3 sittings. I read somewhere that the action was slow in building in the first few issues. This was back during the initial publication and the reviewer speculated that perhaps the story was intended to be read in rapid-fire succession... Lucky me ...even if I had to wait several months for it to be released as such.

Fresh from the box!!

Here it is...
Picked up my new Smart Parts ION paint marker from the post office today. I'll admit I'm feeling a just a tiny bit strange to be talking about a device that resembles and functions so much like a fire-arm in light of what's happened in the States this week. But really, I'm just also a bit excited. I plan to take this over to see Weirdguy on the weekend (who has the same model marker) so that he can show me all the little ins and outs of this sucker.

Initial reactions:

1) Whoa - that's a huge hopper on top. And I'm a little upset that despite all the marketing, the Pulse loader does NOT come with the "optional" 9V battery pack. It's built to accept a possible future product that will allow a pair of 9V batteries but in its stock configuration, only takes SIX (6) AA batteries! Yikes!


2) Yeah, I can see why Weirdguy recommended a quick-release feed-neck. It's insanely difficult to put on the and take off the hopper. I hope I haven't broken anything while trying to remove the Pulse hopper - I think I heard the feed neck "creak" while trying to ease the thing off (might've been the O-rings straining against me though.

3) *sigh* thank you PBL for pleasantly surprising me. Their site listed only a generic air tank but it turns out to be a DXS brand tank worth about a hundred bucks.

Now to visit the local pro-shop to get the tank filled and pick up the correct size batteries (I had stocked up on 9V for nothing it seems; nobody told me the ION itself came with a battery in its box).

Reaction: Blades of Glory

Went to the movie meetup.com group last night with low expectations. You know I'm one of those people who pretends they're more hi-brow than they actually are. I groan at most comedy films these days... but Blades of Glory really delivered.

I have a love-hate relationship with "Stupid." Stupid is when characters do things on screen that are nonsensical and purely made up to draw a laugh from the audience because of its sheer unexplained silliness. The film opens with some Stupid: John Heder's character is performing his figure-skating routine in a "peacock" motif and suddenly starts flapping his arms like a bird in flight (the commentator's call it the "peacock flap" or something as tho it were an actual move in figure skating). It's not particularly funny, it's just "Stupid" - it's a very weak attempt at humour. Luck would have it however that the writers managed to throw in every possible joke relating to sexual innuendo (why not? we're talking about two men pairing up in spandex here) in the world. And not only that, they also managed to cram the film even further with physical slapstick not seen since Top Secret! or Airplane!

In fact, thanks to the clever writing, the film manages to overcome even Will Farrel's innate "Stupid-ness." That's got to earn it a thumbs-up if anything.

On a minor side note: I also wanted to point out that the film handles figure skating the way Zoolander handled the fashion industry. You're not entirely sure if it's a pure spoof or if it is paying tribute to the subject. Cameos from actual figure-skating stars abound (Americans of course). And the finale set in Montreal actually is filmed in Montreal (in several easily recognizeable locales around town).

Battle Report: SW Minis

Here was an impromptu game my brother and I made up on the spot during our Easter weekend at home.

The teams: A squad of Jedi Knights (Republic) against a team of Mandalorians (Ancient Sith). We had enough pieces to make up decent threat-values. And also the big War-Droid pieces look awfully cool. Yes, we played fast-and-loose with continuity: we're talking young Obi-Wan and Anakin versus Sith from 4 millennia in their past.

The map: The sheet came from the Revenge of the Sith "Ultimate Missions" book (I think it's intended to be Mustafar from the movie). I chose it because there's a wide corridor where the "huge" type miniatures could move about easily. In previous games when we chose a map at random, we'd often find they were unsuitable playing fields for the bigger pieces.The Setup: A diplomat is held prisoner. The Jedi must mount a rescue. They must make contact with the diplomat (reach an adjacent square), and lead him(her) to the "turbolift" (and to presumed safety). The diplomat is an idiot so he wanders away while the Mandalore ignore him to meet the Jedi in battle: move him at random using "Warhammer scatter dice" (or devise your own randomizing engine).

Running the scenario: Considering how we made this up by the seat of our pants, I'm amazed how well the game went. The Mandalore did the most obvious thing up front: use their blaster weapons to attack from a distance. The first War-Droid fired at and hit Anakin from opposite ends of the board. The Jedi team split into 2 - 1 squad to tie up the War Droids at the center bridge and 1 squad to attempt forcing their way in on the side. The Mandalore team split into 3 in an effort to cover all 3 entrances. As luck would have it, the opposite resulted in the actual game: the infiltration squad would spend much of their time tied up while the diversionary squad would go on to pummel the War Droids. Kit Fisto, originally assigned to fight the droids wound up being the "runner" who would make contact with the prisoner and bring him to safety. While Anakin would be killed, Obi-Wan would confront the Mandalore who took up positions near the turbolift.

Post game: Both teams made initial mistakes - the game was determined by who recovered best from those mistakes. The Jedi were seeded in the open - hence Anakin's initial wound from the lucky opening shot. The Mandalore team split into too many squads - their coverage of the third entrance amounted to nothing.

The huge War Droids were not fast enough. This playing piece is one of the most dangerous in the entire Minis game. It moves quickly, and has a "strafing" ability to attack anybody near it. It was in one of these attacks that Anakin was killed off. Yet somehow, both Droids found themselves caught in an ambush.The Jedi spent way too much time tied up on the side bridge with a Mandalore Blademaster. Luck played a role in that the hapless victim who was locked in close-combat was Agen Kolar who features a "healing" ability allowing himself to stay in the fight much longer. While he was caught there, the rest of that squad should have called it quits mush sooner (Yoda's team only regrouped after skipping 2 or 3 turns). The tide of battle changed when he brought 2 or 3 of his squad-mates to join up with Obi-Wan.

Both players need to remember the "Command" abilities of their playing pieces better! Obi-Wan has a mobility features that allows his followers to move additional spaces. If we remembered that, Kit Fisto would've been able to retrieve the diplomat sooner.

Weekender: haul list

You'd think I was desperately trying to make up for a week of being in small-town Quebec or something. Here it comes in bullet form.

• Marvel "Civil War": read the first 2 chapters - I don't know what's to hate. But it might be the horrible scheduling job Marvel had going. Heh - I guess I'm good to have it all in a collected edition. Detailed blog when I'm finished.
• Pack of Star Wars Minis "Champions of the Force" set - I have the worst luck. This morning I made a count of the hows and whys I stop collecting a given set and CotF is the set I have the least playing pieces of... because in my first 3 packs I got the same no-name generic character! And then Fate steps in and 2 packs I buy 4 months apart subsequently had Darth Maul in them. Go figure.
• Pack of Star Wars Minis "Starship Battles" - another Imperial Star Destroyer ...not so bad. Can always use more of these babies.
• Revoltech Type J9 Griffon: oh yes - the local shop finally got one of these in. Revoltech doesn't seem to sell very well around here so I'm just happy they get new ones in at all.
• Deck of UFS cards: not a new game but new to me. Hopefully I'll find someone to play with. My deck features Taki from Soul Calibur III... I think I'll grab a Chun Li deck from Street Fighter some time. And or Terry Bogard from King of Fighters. This all depends on whether or not I actually like the game once I get around to learning it and playing it.

And now some random pics of stuff... and you can see, living on my own has quickly transformed my kitchen into an all-purpose workshop.

Today's minis...

The Griffon:

Useless battery

I had a "Oh RainBOWs" moment this morning (South Park fans know what I'm talking about). I picked up an SD card for my digital camera yesterday and to my dismay the thing started acting weird. Seems that the batteries I had just don't have enough juice to power the SD card. I would plug in the USB cable and the camera wouldn't power on. Or I'd flip the switch to review mode and then to shoot mode and it wouldn't power on. And the only explanation I have is that there is an SD in it (because the camera started to behave normally when I'd pull it out).

I now blame the batteries (a set of Energizer NiMH) because obviously an SD card is an SD card, whether it's an expensive one or a cheap one, either it works or it doesn't, but it should crash a camera? Anyhow, when stuck in the freshly charged "batterypack" that came with the camera bundle I bought (Kodak's house brand no less)... surprise, everything seemed to work just fine.

At first I doubted the batteries could be a problem... but I realised upon review today that those Energizers are actually only 1850mAh whereas the usual NiMH batteries today are about 2200MAh (including those battery packs that came in my bundle kit). Which is kind of a sad situation because at one point I recall buying those Energizers thinking "I'll never buy a polluting product like disposable alkaline batteries again." I don't even own anything that takes exactly 4 AAs anymore. Fate must be laughing her ass off at me.

Yogourt Review: Activia Raspberry

Yeah yeah, I know this is way off the wall for content, but it's like a slow news day if you take my meaning. Anybody who doesn't know, I just started the so-called 14-day Activia challenge a couple of days ago. And well, there's not much else to say about it because as far as I know it may as well be a placebo because who's to know for sure if there's anything different between one yogourt culture and the next? So the only thing I really can review is the taste...

Well, what's there to say? It tastes like berry. This was actually my first taste of the Activia brand so I was half expecting perhaps some kind of chemical or artificial taste. Maybe it was because I'd been buying nothing but vanilla flavoured yogourt for the last little while (for putting into the blender to make fruit smoothies), what I didn't expect was to be assaulted by the fruity fragrance. The funny thing was, I wasn't sure what I was smelling.

You know what I miss (and it's really too much to ask in a tiny cup of probiotic stuff), but I miss Yoplait's "fruit on the bottom" gimmick. Do they even still make those? You know, the ones where you had to stir the cup yourself before you ate it because there was a huge concentration of fruity stuff at the bottom. And if you stirred lightly enough you could enjoy lightly flavoured plain yogourt and then go to town with the fruits afterwards. Well, pre-stirred yogourt cup aren't like that. You get what they give you and that's it.

What you get is a light pink substance and the only way you'd think it was raspberry is the fact that you get seeds in there... my least favourite part about eating raspberries. They get stuck in my teeth. So when it comes to flavour, I could come up with a better yogourt experience.

Lament of the T615C

So I'm sitting on the can without an ebook and I remember I haven't followed up on my T615C happenings mentioned in a previous post this week. Actually, come to think of it, there are several things left dangling since the beginning of the year like my write-up about the Ultraman Dyna movie DVD or the beautiful hardbound volume of Marvel's Annihilation I picked up over a month ago.

A few years ago Sony was in the PDA market in North America. They are still in it elsewhere but not here; which is kind of sad because they're specs were superior to Palm (not unlike Beta video tapes or Mini-Discs; another bites the dust). The T615C claim to fame was a gorgeous TFT full-colour LCD screen and that it was the thinnest device available... in fact it remains one of the prettiest, I think given today's convergence of technology what with Blackberry phones, etc. Too bad it's tech level didn't actually scale forward (it was outdated almost as soon as it came out - trapping me in a PalmOS4 world, no MP3, no memory-stick pro expansions, etc.).

Anyway, back to the topic at hand - my battery has been acting up. Besides being slave to the weather (when it gets REAL cold, the Clie thinks the charge is low). This week the battery completely died taking the internal RAM with it. Which means my ebook software got "uninstalled" and I've lost my address book among other things. However it does seem to be working okay on boot. I guess I could be thankful that the thing has been losing its purpose in life lately. This somewhat softens the blow. The address book and all related "Outlook" data hasn't been synched in an eternity (I never did find a sync conduit for Thunderbird). Instead I use ReminderFox at home and a bunch of Post-It notes like everyone else. So much for the paperless office.

I just need to find out where my CD-ROM full of Honor Harrington ebooks have gone to. But first I need to reinstall the Mobi ebook reader (which thankfully was also something I archived because it was "acquired through alternative means.") One thing that does retain its function is a legit Documents to Go that was originally bundled with this PDA. And now that I've given up using pirated MS Word in favour of OpenOffice Writer, I can do my writing on the go with a clear conscience. Not that I do a lot of writing outside of blogging anymore.

What a funny road it's been with my T615C.

Tuesday afternoon list

Out from the tubes: my Amazon from late February had some funny stuff happen to it. For whatever reason, Amazon decided that it'd be "faster" to send me whatever they had in stock first. Not that it made any difference: it still took a month and both packages arrived while I was out of town anyway.

I also learned that the mail carrier has access to the super-box even if they've already put something in it and left me the key (makes sense; why I didn't think it before?). So on 2 separate days, the carrier figured out that I had 2 packages and they both fit into the same box. Alright then.

I've changed my mind AGAIN and I think I'll hold off buying my own paintball marker. I've collected a few more opinions and although I haven't actually narrowed down my choices (it's always been a Tippman (an A5 or a 98) or a Smart Parts ION)... I'm now resigned to the fact that either way I'll wind up spending money on upgrades. So it's all about budgeting for something I'll feel comfortable with.

I'm being non-committal about tonight's movie meetup. The group is seeing "The Hoax" and it's downtown (quite out of my way). But I'm feeling kinda tired on my first day back. I need my afternoon naps.

On a completely unrelated note: Civil War is finally out as a collected edition this week so after months of waiting I'll finally be able to sit down and read this monumental storyline all in one go (as far as I don't need to stop to eat, sleep, work, etc).

Oh, I think my T615C finally died. I can't be sure until I plug it into the cradle to see if the battery will charge. But I just don't know. I'll be sorry to see it go especially as I'd hate to go about searching for a replacement PDA (I've learned it's one gadget I can do without, actually).

I got rid of the Kodak Easyshare software. I've since discovered that if I just plug in the camera to a plain vanilla WinXP machine, the OS will detect the camera and allow me to access the camera's internal memory. It's been the Kodak software that was preventing this. This is one of many things I learned while rebuilding my parents' computer with a fresh install. See? Wasn't such a waste of my time after all.