something not about the scott pilgrim anime.

first written 01.24.25 0113est. edited 04.08.25 1323est.
    short preface: like most of my posts here, this is steeped in accounts of my past. the post itself is about scott pilgrim's little life and how it affected my dead end life. but it is about me foremost. which is to warn any readers seeking a more firm analysis about the comic that this is more of a vague meandering about my life as a dirt bag middle-schooler.

    In my second year of middle-school when we were first issued MacBooks and I got that Game Grumps wallpaper is when I first read Scott Pilgrim. The comic had a lot of cultural access points into my mind. so I was familiar with many of the internet's screenshots of it, and I was aware that there was a movie the fans were then so-so about. Some people who would later say shit like "Bazinga" ironically would say it betrayed the original comic's vision. But all the same it was spoken as though it was something made for us teenager scum bags on the net. Because of that I imagined Scott to be a talent-less neet a la Watamote's Tomoko, which I had watched by that point on my Pikachu 3DS XL which I had earned for achieving the honor roll in my first year of middle school. I liked Scott's hair and his girlfriend's hair. I really wanted to wear my hair long for all my life until I turned 21. But my parent's perfectly normal hair cut schedule for dirt bag youth didn't permit me to grow it any longer than  past my ears really.

fuck i didn't do it right.

    There wasn't quite a fandom like there is now. Which isn't a comment about scope but more about the existing infrastructure. I am sure on 4channel's /co/ or some forum unknown to me there was discussion and community. But to my eyes Scott Pilgrim was just a thing casually mentioned in web comics and Youtube videos. A covert way to signal: you too were uncomfortable with women.

    I sought out the fist volume on an aptly named website promoting free manga you could read in your damn browser. I read it on my dad's computer in his office. He wouldn't get home until 6:30pm -ish and I wouldn't get home from school until 3pm-ish, leaving me a cool 3 hours to use his computer. I had my own computer and even a laptop. But his computer played games better than either of mine. The irony is that most of my time spent on the device was just web browsing; something my laptop was perfectly capable of. When I finished that last page of volume I didn't really get it. I think I was more relieved to just say I had actually read it.

    I was confronted with this kind skewed semi ironic tone of Canada. A place which I was familiar with only on a very surface level because I told my middle-school peers that I was born in Toronto. Basically my only friend at the time besides the girl I loved, was this kid named Mason. He was a liar. Like me. We both knew it, and we indulged each other, I'm not sure why. He made an auto biographical YouTube video for his channel that would be called Mason the Talented (though what it was called then is lost to me) in the video he discussed also being born and raised in Toronto. We talked extensively via the Wii U video chat app about how much we liked Toronto and also how much we wanted to make an RPG together. A cute dance where we would dip and catch each other if either of  us dared to make a statement that could be retorted with any scrutiny.

    Which is to say that Canada to me was not different from Scott Pilgrim's depiction; the non existing contrast put me on heels. Basically I could smell my own shit. I stuck with the comic because of  its' cultural legacy alone. I read until the 2nd volume where after completing it my attention was sooner caught by Smash Brothers Melee. Some time later I watched the movie as an oh yeah something i read before kinda. I felt strangely ambivalent about it. It felt like something different, it felt like it wasn't for me. It felt like it was for guys who played guitar. Which maybe a more astute middle-schooler of the time would of correctly identified was also very true about the comic.

    Sometime later, which I cannot say with high certainty but in this moment I feel like that time later was after I had given up that the girl would ever love me, is when I read scott pilgrim in its' entirety. Which I sourced from a blogspot blog in the form of a FTP download for a PDF of each volume. I read through it in chunks each night, but never at school to my memory even though I had that MacBook with me. When I read it, I read it in my then bed. Which was setup out of a closet. The closet was out of the strange contraption that was my bed, desk, closet thing. I had a normal mattress bed that had just been moved into my room a few weeks before but I chose to sleep in that closet. I am not sure specifically why I did. Basically it's because I wanted to feel like the shape of unloved and relegated to a closet like Harry Potter, or it could of been some other compulsion to be sealed in. But in that closet with my LEGO blanket (its' consisting of bricks that were blue, yellow, red, and green) and plastic blue lamp that projected a blue tint to everything in that closet, I opened myself up to Scott Pilgrim's sad little life.

     I was captured. I am not sure if it was because I was finally more familiar with rejection or if more so being captured by the fear of rejection but It had finally lodged itself into me. The MacBook was held up by a pedestal of two books at the end of that closet and I would lay on my stomach with my elbows on the floor and my hands were a rest for my chin. It was rough on my elbows because the closet part wasn't sanded and was littered with uneven spikes of wood sticking out.

    After I read it in middle-school I cannot recall reading Scott Pilgrim again. Though I did really enjoy the demo for the Xbox Live Arcade game. I did play through that demo 7 times. I credit Scott Pilgrim (the comic) with helping me get over the fact that she didn't love me. I am not sure why it helped me, it wasn't really an escape. I think maybe it was just like Scott had Romana: this girl who was sooooo cool but he also had that killer ass ex played by Bri Larson in the movie and I guess it just gave me perspective, and maybe even the confidence to believe I could love someone more than I loved this girl in middle school.

    We often look down at how small our conflicts were in our childhood. But some perspective that can be lost on us now is that when we experienced loss as kids, that was often the most loss we have had ever felt at that point in our lives. Something as silly as a girl not liking you was maybe literally the worst thing that had happened to you yet.     

bb

headaches.

first written 01.23.25 19:13est

     I frequently experience something I describe to people as migraines. What I experience are not migraines. My mom frequently experiences migraines, she has for most of my life. She takes prescription pain relievers maybe every 3 days. In between she takes Advil. For all of my life she has carried around a little Advil bottle that I would be summoned to fetch out of her purse. I hated digging in her purse, there was always so many dividers. I could suffer through the clutter of the bag, but the dividers pushed me over the edge. Something explicitly designed to inhibit my navigation through the bag.

    I don't really feel that guilty about lying about migraines. I explain it to myself as a form of short hand. They aren't quite headaches, as they inhibit my senses; my vision goes blurry, infrequently I hallucinate, but each time I have an oppressive pain on my forehead. I have come to understand that when people evoke the term migraine it basically means you're incapacitated, my mom often experiences migraines like that. She has to lay in a completely silent and dark room until her body can evict the Migraine out of her. I like to imagine it comes out through sweat. Those little migraine droplets collect into the sheets and pillow and get absorbed through the skin again for later migraine purposes.

    Migraines to my knowledge while being influenced by multiple genes are not explicitly hereditary. But all the same I have surrendered myself to the idea that just over some hill lies the world of laying down for hours and being angry all the time at everyone who comes into your bedroom just to fuck with you even though just fucking thinking hurts you. I compulsively ruminated, and I have tricked myself into believing a lot of things like that. After a lot of regimented thinking I have been able to unlearn a lot of those things.

from The Social Network (2010) Eduardo Saverin's New York dark apartment moments before being assaulted by his then girlfriend.

    People feeling bad for my self described migraines makes me feel better. A writer I really covet and envy is Max Karson; mrgirl. He takes a very stoic disposition towards pity, something I think maybe granted to him by a dismissal of all things out side of his control. For a few years in my life I sought to adopt that kind of disposition, but I have found myself returning to the comfort of pity and vanity regularly. Sometimes when I am too comfortable; too incognizant, and often when I am my wit's end; when I am laying face down into my pillow in a dark room and when I yell at anyone trying to ask me a good faith question. I think it's reductive to label that kind of disposition (one of forfeiting other's people burdens) as stoic. Sincere selfishness is something too quickly stigmatized. Take any confident guy off the street who speaks without caution, he doesn't care about himself. If he did he would employ more discretion with his words, maybe endorse figures and ideas only when he's familiar with them. In that way he is foolishly trusting.

    Drink more water is such an annoying phrase. It's very judgemental, it carries with the assumption not just that you don't already drink enough water it is a judgement of your ability to even live inside your body. As if I can't know when my body isn't hydrated; as if I'm not responsible enough to walk around inside my fucking skin.

    i don't have a migraine

 

 

bb

on computer peripherals

  first written: 11.10.24 2001est

    I often browse threads on 4channel's /g/ containing people's "battle stations". the term is a fossil of a time of sincere bliss among enthusiasts which stands in contrast to the age of cynicism we have adopted. Immersed in the theme of cynicism I am equal part conditioned and just naturally cynical I will mock to my friends the images posted partially in earnest by the users.

    Buying gewgaws has been quite a burdensome thing for me. Not because I am naturally a conservative buyer, but because my self hate uses the vehicle of shame to scrutinize all of my purchasing decisions. While self-hate undeniably isn't a healthy long term tool, but for here and now it has imparted on me  a strong sense of prejudice upon computer peripherals. So I feel like after having bought many things off eBay and selling back the chaff I have developed maybe what some would call a "good taste" in computer widgets.

     I actually  maintain a large markdown document containing all of the gadgets I have bought and a blurb of why or why not to buy any given trinket. I won't labor you with the full extent of the document. Instead of creating a shopping list with an accompanying amazon affiliate link, I would like to create some criteria which I think makes for good computer peripherals.

 

My Filco Majestouch 2 with Mx Blues and my HHKB pro 2.

to be ergonomic

     I have never had hand fatigue or hand pains from extended use of a keyboard for a mouse. I do however frequently have bad pain from prolonged use of my dip pen and most pencils. Regardless though I have stayed vigilant on the ergonomics of the tools I use daily. It is a challenge because before is a battlefield polluted with traps: buzzwords, terrestrial mines, inappropriate graphs, and payed actors. Upfront I must confess that I don't have any tools for you to sort through these besides anecdotes that you trust.

    There are a lot of mechanics involved in ergonomics. To a degree such that I don't have the confidence to impart any information on the mechanics. In fact I will be intentionally not be linking to any external articles about ergonomics. Not because you shouldn't read about it, but because I have simply believed so many wrong things about ergonomics I refuse to lead you down an almost certainly wrong path. There's a good chance your discretion is better than mine, but I do warn that you will probably make mistakes and that's ok because literally the world is against you. trying to sell crap you don't need to you with ads filtered through the world history's sum of ad algorithms fueled with a concerning degree of details about the time you spend on your computer.

    But there is one important lesson I have partially learned through experience and also imparted on me by discussion of user's more cynical than I. Almost all peripherals can be appropriately ergonomic with proper posture. When using a non keyboard try to keep your elbows low; not rolled forward and your arms straight as reasonable. You don't want to have to strain your wrist because your arms are splayed wide as they have to center in on the keyboard. This may feel like a reductive lesson to take away, but its' important nonetheless. It is so important because it is something that's in our control (excluding the physically disabled :P ).

    Posture while important can still only take you so far. For most peripherals that aren't offensively lacking in ergonomics posture will probably take you to the finish line. So I find the pursuit of ergonomic baubles noble.

    Keyboards exist on a spectrum of ergonomics. I find that small keyboards work for me as long as I make adjustments to match my posture. But undeniably they are not designed with ergonomics in mind. I have use compact keyboards for the bulk of my life and have grown quite accustomed to them. Which im embarassed to say  has definitely lead me to be more narrow minded about other form factors.

    The next point in this spectrum are elevated keyboards. These are popular in office spaces and I remember seeing them littered around ECU's labs when I was a child. These are also the preferred form factor of my dad so whenever I have use his computer I get a quick taste of how it feels on the other side. From the sum of my experiences in libraries and campuses where I have used these I think they're a kind of comfortable medium. I would recommend them if you want to try something new coming from the standard keyboard form factor, try it and see if this is something you care about.

A Microsoft Natural keboard from 1994. Photo: PCStuff/Wikimedia Commons

    I won't speak much on split keyboards as I think they're pretty much only for people who'd rather post pictures of they're devices rather than actually use them. Ergonomically it is sound to have two separate adjustable pieces for you arms to use at a natural extension. But I just find that they're still so confined to the keyboard form factor and are outclassed by the truly enthusiast class of devices. Which could be excusable if they weren't asking for $300 for these devices (doom shotgun sound). I think the best advantage the split keyboards have is that they don't take up as much room as the big shell ergonomic keyboards and they allow for minute micro adjustments to match your shifting posture.

    Lastly are the devices so eccentric they're identifiable from silhouette and their form so embarrassing just a profile image could be used as a reaction image. The class of keyboards so enthusiasts that they don't really have a well defined name for their form factor. The most identifiable is the The Kinesis Advantage 2 QD. Boasting a MSRP of $350 and the build quality to match. I have never layed eyes on the beast, and I envy those who have and lived to tell the tale. I'm a little hesitant to have brought it up, because my input is so shallow, but you have to know of the depths man will go.

    On the subject of mice I have a lot of experience. Partially because mice are cheaper than enthusiast keyboards. But inspite of the double digit amount of mice I have tried I have basically no wisdom to pass onto you. Basically all mice are bastards, and the less you use your mouse the better off you are lol. The whole concept of a pointer that doesn't use the god given pointer ABOVE YOUR BELT is ungrateful. Also don't give any bullshit about trackballs because I have tried them and if you're the guy who brings them up in every thread you should lay your BALLS on the TRAIN TRACKS (doom shotgun sound).

    I do find myself quite partial to vertical mice. Besides the ergonomics I also find myself to be much more precise with them. No file is safe from my double click with a Ali express "Healthy Mouse". That one mouse I bought for $6 lasted me 4 years. Ever since that button broke I have been chasing that high. 

 Not the vertical mouse I owned, but like look at it. How could you not literally LOL at this, like what?

    In the tail end of Covid era I invested $99 in 2022 on a Logictech MX Vertical mouse, which I resented through its' life. I gave up on before I could even experience mechanical failure (though I have heard they're prone to a litany of mechanical failures). I tossed it because its rubber finished had grown a stickiness that could not be cleaned. Some warm water and soap could quench the problem but for no more than a day.

    I currently use a Logitech MX Master 3s. I do not recommend any Logitech product. Their products seem to all be prone to false positives and most of them have this rubber surface keen on absorbing as much hand oil as a possible. Having returned to a normal mouse form factor in contrast to the previous two vertical mice has been hard. I think I have mostly adapted, but I do notice when playing my favorite 'puter game Hopoo Game's Risk of Rain 2 that sometimes I can't quite hit enemies with the same accuracy before.

to be with you until death do us part. 

     We exist in a very unique time. A time of unseen posterity, the likes not seen before in history. But even in the best of times it is prudent of us to not act frivolous. Thingamabobs as much as I resent them, simply do make my life better. So when I open myself up to a new one I want it to be with me for a long time. At time of writing I do not have a job. I do have a bit of money saved up and my expenses are basically zero. But in the face of having no income I have to make purchases count, and coming out of this recession I think this scrutiny is shared by most people.

    The only tool to find a tool, that will be there when you're at your lowest is scrutiny. It has been hard for me because I think I have a lot of prejudice; I find a little comfy hole and it is hard for me to go out of that hole. I try to integrate this conservative disposition into my personality more and more in age. I am still very discontent with my life, so I want to admit to you that these ramblings are from a perspective who's ends are not great.

to be you.

    Behind every dumb terminal is a capable user. Gizmos are how we interface with our magical black boxes and we grow intimate with these peripherals. we grow cynical of our inhibitions too, personal or mechanical. People have told me since I was young that computers (and I imagine for young kids now: cellphones) have become extensions of our body. Like arms, the appendages are how we interface with our world. This co-dependence has been the subject of endless scrutiny and mockery for as long as I have been alive.

     The internet as it has settled deeper into its niche as a store front it has been hard to find information about products that aren't thinly veiled product endorsements. Amazon sponsor links often conveniently included. But putting the goods in our face is only half the battle, the other half is subversively convincing you that your life could be so much better if you could only have one more gadget. I am not trying to look down on those who have been caught in this trap, as I am regularly the victim to the same desires.

    Cynicism towards needless consumerism has been the default disposition among internet preachers since amazon sold more than book. While I do think that disposition isn't unneeded, I do think we should at the same time make room for comfort plastic do nothings give us. As a completely arbitrary ratio I would say that only 1 in 40 of my plastic things do genuinely make me more content with my life. Our lives can't sustainably be built on consumerism, but surely the even minded shouldn't dismiss our possessions as just frivolous. 

to be what is yours.

    I just want you to be ok. Things are bad, a lot of the time, and that is ok. Your Windows PC sucks, but Linux is just as bad. The grass is greener on the otherside. But your side; your world; your desk, its' your domain. Our computers for as much as sometimes it's hard to see, they are some of the only things we have direct control over. A new keyboard may fix it, it may not. For me I think my keyboard, headset, not my mouse, and my dock make me content.

christmas never was.

 first written: 12.31.24 0819est

    Four days after Christmas I sat down with my close friend to watch "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence". The only thing I knew about the movie was that it prominently featured a soundtrack by Ryuichi Sakamoto. One of my favorite games is ASCII's L.O.L: Lack of Love. The origin of L.O.L was apparently Sakamoto himself according to Kenichi Nishi the game's director. Beyond the concept Sakamoto contributed sound design that went beyond immersion it was a wave that would completely submerge you. In 2023 Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away from a 9 year battle with multiple cancers. Like most guilty people, I have been making up for lost time in familiarizing every note of Sakamoto's legacy. 

    A track found on multiple CDs and Albums that I had become quite fond of was "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence". An eccentric name for a track, but maybe no more eccentric than "Water is Life" or "World Citizen -- I won't be disappointed". Only after trying to pull up "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" in a internet video call with a friend did I find a curious trailer that suspiciously shared the same name as the song I loved so much.

    I refuse to summarize or recount the movie to you, the following narrative will be  written under the premise that you have watched the movie (without checking your phone). If not because it would be talking down to you then as a gentle nudge to get you to watch a movie I think is very notable.

What would it mean to make an amends?

    I think a less intentional movie would of had Mr. Lawrence tell Hara-san "merry Christmas". A movie with less honest intent in playing both sides; one willing to reduce conflict to just people are bad. Representing it simply as the shoe now on the other foot.

    In someways this movie is constantly setting you up to think that. To reductively symbolize hurt feelings as frivolous. But I think how the two main relationships (Mr. Lawrence with Hara-san and Celliers with Yonoi) end up shows a level of significant asymmetry. A detail I think is often missing when making stories about war is that people hurt each other in different ways, some worse, some better. Tallying each up on a score board is trivial, which authors often understand. But frustratingly authors take that understanding and often create two disparate forces that somehow share the same methods of inflicting misery.

    The movie itself has difficulty parsing ideas of malice through the characters. Most of the evil actors in the story are basically henchmen or reduced to army drones. Think the nameless soldier that tries to kill Cellier. Not putting so much on our main four characters definitely does make it easier to hold these elements in our head. I also think crucially it let's us empathize more easily. In our lives we rarely think of ourselves as malicious, and we find ourselves having to make amends for the rash and cruel actions of others. Which is represented by how Mr. Lawrence has to walk a thin line of advocating for his peers and admitting their fault in often the same breath.

    No one wins from a conflict where neither participant has a goal. To build a rail road; to be the warden of your invaders; to resist your captors, all just to spend time still. spend time until the sense of dread in the losing war is no longer avoidable. 

    What it means to live in dread as all you have known rots is basically what it is like to live in a damn body. but you don't see me taking no damn prisoners. It's easy to be a saint in paradise. The Japanese POW camp was no paradise though. Haunted by men seeking not peace; but justice. Not just the people, even the climate is inhospitable. In stark contrast when Mr. Lawrence visits Hara-san as he is a prisoner, the beach is moderate. What does it say then that Mr. Lawrence can say "You're the victim of men who think they are right. Just as one day you and captain Yonoi believed absolutely you were right. The truth is of course, that nobody is right."? I basically do agree with his disposition, but I mean can a man in good conscious say that as his peer is to be put to death now that you're on the other side of the line.

    I don't think I am right about this movie. But I can feel the presence of will; of intention. I just want to understand. Symmetry is perhaps, unobtainable.

"There are times when victory is very hard to take."

    There was no intention to the violence, and that is why justice was unobtainable. Men died without peace, and their murderers were adorned with medals. All medals are now hung in museums belonging to no one or are underneath the counter of pawn shops across the world. Being unobtainable is what this movie is all about.

though the movie's intentions still evades my grasp all the same.

    What I have not been able to chase down however is if this movie is cynical or if its' just trying to be true to form. it certainly doesn't seem overly critical of its form; but maybe I am just confusing that with a lack of shame. Bowie's character makes a sacrifice that really had no significant effect beyond traumatizing those who bore witness.

    What are we to do with knowing that violence is fruitless? What more could we do that we haven't gleamed during our tenure at recess in youth?

    Hara-san tells them that he is father Christmas. But he isn't. Which like lol true. But to be literally drunk with power and to assume the impossible duty of being Santa. Maybe that is what makes Hara-san the good character, I don't know. Mr. Lawrence only tells Hara-san "Merry Christmas" as a prisoner. Reuniting after everyone Lawrence and Hara-san knew is dead, He doesn't return a "merry Christmas". I don;t know what that means, but certainly I don't feel like Mr. Lawrence came out the other side a fulfilled person.

    Not that I am looking for a redemption of Mr. Lawrence. A redemption isn't necessary. But I have simply returned to where I started: 

I think a less intentional movie would of had Mr. Lawrence tell Hara-san "merry Christmas".

    This essay was mostly composed in a conversation with the friends I first mentioned watching the movie with. I have only added a preface, and elaborated on some more of my questions. I feel guilty for mostly just barraging you with questions never even I could be bothered to fully flesh out. But the nature of it is that I had just watched this movie and if I didn't commit this to word I would of forgotten it. I would of let it go. I could only hope that maybe I helped you get more out of this movie than you could of on your own.

building your own buddy.

 first written 01.01.25 1131est

    I have never made friends in my life. I am in no way saying that I don't have friends. Just that I have never participated in the active process of making friends. The whole breadth of my life I have been gifted friends by circumstance. Not that I am under any impression that people venture deep into the jungle to find friends. I have never made a friend of my own.

    Some friends have been given to me by mutual friends. That is the case with most of my friends. To be given to me doesn't just mean that I meet them and thing kick it off, these people more than not are prompted to be my friend. No matter how many times this ritual occurs, I don't feel guilt even though I should.

    I have tried many times to no success at just meeting someone. It is an embarrassing short coming that I dwell on frequently. I find being shy to not be a quirky trait of mine, but a fundamental short coming. For me I find that this inadequacy is rooted in sociopathy. It is a form of labor to me, to listen to people who I am not already familiar. On the chance I have forced myself into a situation where I am maybe expected to speak, I prefer being silent. I find that I rather stand in the doorway just creeping rather than confronting.

    I don't know if I live conflicted because of this. In the moment I am usually content with my situation, but when I can't take anymore I loathe having no where else to go. But that's maybe less conflict and just resenting the consequences of my lifestyle.

    Relationships because of this are always strained. I have made a show of leaving every one I know out of frustration only to come pathetically crawling back in a month. In that month of exile, I try to make it on my own. To which I am quickly reminded of my complete inability to make new friends. And so it is that since 2016 when I started highschool I have maintained roughly the same friend group.

    How this friend group was given to me was because I had made a discord server for a then fringe manwha called "Suicide Boy" authored by Parkgee. The server was mostly a place to facilitate the translation efforts to which I also contributed but I believe exclusively burdened. Being a server  owner I was introduced to a lot of people, and those people having organized out of a 4chan thread were a very certain kind of character. A kind of terse and entitled character, but one who wants to be understood.

     In no other circumstance would that many people wanted to talk to me. For a long time I felt guilty about that. I felt undeserving of attention, especially when the contributors to the project were right there. Now I don't really feel anything about it. Which I don't know if that's any better. People just kind of organize themselves like that, and the tribe elder will always have some buy in to most community activities.

    That server has long outlived me. Staffed by unfamiliar names, and home to people who aren't familiar with mine. This anonymity has granted me a sense of security. I don't have to feel embarrassed because no one remembers. I have a tendency to dwell on the past; like all men. But to me it is compulsive to a degree that it interrupts my ability to live in the moment. I truly do miss being around all those people. Not just the community fame, but the moments shared in chats, calls listening to music, playing Minecraft in chunks of 48 hours.

    Overtime this friend group has been eroded by the tides of egos, molestation, and drugs. what remains is only a loosely connected web of people who are held together less from cohesion and more from tension. I think that's maybe ok. Its ok to not like your friends. I do, but it is ok when I don't. 

"The minute you let her under your skin
Then you begin to make it better" Hey Jude

     Friends can often outpace us. I think when friends move on from us, they go to heaven and live happily with where our childhood pets go. 

    A lot of media wants to validate us being happy with our friends no matter what. Describing the most trivial of connections as unbreakable bond. But maybe you shouldn't be happy with your friends; and certainly not all the time. When you are mad at your friends it shouldn't be the end either. I have a terrible problem with forgiving people, not because I am selfless, but because I don't care enough about them.