Travelling again!

Well I’ve neglected this for a while now… mostly due to being mildly fuming regarding my visit to Sweden and not having enough self control to bite my tongue while writing!! However, time has passed and although being still minus trainers AND money owed, I can at least refrain from wanting to get on a plane and strangle my sister. I don’t like being used. I don’t like being treated like shit, but I guess even from the day I landed there I knew it was only going to end badly. One day I will trust my instincts over my sense of loyalty, although last time I did that a mate ended up with a mangled nose. 

So what’s new? Well, I’m flying again, this time over to Crewe and then Wolves for a few days. It’s a pain to be such a distance from people but on the other hand it is good that the facility to just get on a plane is available. Quite how Esther puts up with me I don’t know! My last trip being Sweden, I have to hope that this one turns out more positive. I don’t mind the travel but the fall out and cost of Sweden can not be allowed to be repeated. However, some things require a friend to appear. Wolves will also be fun. The Giffard is always a good chuckle, and a return to the Shed could prove entertaining too. Booked a hotel with two single beds, so may manage to lure Mr Myers out of Crewe for a beer. If not… I’ll push the beds together and spread out! lol

Other than that… Download is booked. We’re going camping! Metallica and Black Sabbath and Prodigy, oh yes! Should be a giggle. 5 days in a field. Danny will be there too… so that just adds to chuckle that will ensue. No vegas for us next year.. but looking on including Ireland as a starting point before Download, and maybe heading north (or south) afterwards. All ways round it’ll be cheeper than Vegas lol… and with the expenses of the year just gone, who knows… Vegas at xmas 2012? lol 

Right.. woman on bus home.. so I should tidy!

Travelling again

So, it seems I am off to Sweden to go see Su in her new abode. Be nice to break in the passport on a swift 2 hour flight! Still seems crazy that it’s that simple to hop over a few countries. Am not in need of a break from Holland at the mo, but I’ll take it anyway! 

Helped young sir Mike shift some stuff as he goes off galavanting again and realised it was the first time since I’ve been over here that I actually spent 8 hours in someone’s company without it being in a pub! ha a good laugh actually, though the stress of seeing wing mirrors twisted and contorted did make me a little jumpy for a while lmao!

It’s funny really. I came to realise over the last few weeks that one of the reasons that my friends over here are probably still nothing like the people I knew in the Uk in terms of closeness because as lives go, we have very little in common. I used to work all the hours god sent, and have no one to report back to about where I am, what money I’ve spent etc etc etc. None of the people I know here who I spend any time with are married. The concept of having to consider how their actions might impact their wife, doesn’t exist, and in truth that was exactly how I was in the Uk. I worked and bonked all the hours I had the chance to, often managing to at least tenuously establish a link between the two, (albeit the lady involved was a variable), and spent accordingly!  Now I don’t work, rarely spend without first thinking “is this ok”, and restrict the rodgering to milady!

It’s different! I’d write more… but the washing’s done! lol

We live in interesting times

So, it’s riots’r'us in the Uk . The series of events seem to be this :

1: A black man who was armed is shot in a taxi by police. Reports claim there was a shoot out. One officer has a lucky escape from being killed by the armed suspect, saved by a radio, into which a bullet lodged.

2: A peaceful protest occurred as members of the dead man’s family say all the information isn’t available to them as to the circumstances of his death.

3: Disillusioned youths attach themselves to this protest and stones are thrown at the police. Via twitter a story circulates that police knock a 16 year old girl down and assault her, and a video is posted on youtube purporting to be of the incident.

4: Reports come in saying the bullet, allegedly fired by the dead suspect, is actually a police issue bullet. More riots the next night.

5: The gun the man  had, again according to reports but not confirmed, is actually a replica, incapable of firing and is concealed in a sock (IE not drawn).

6: More riots, spreading to different cities. Tuesday morning arrives with the story that, the bullet lodged in the radio, is most likely a police issue, and that it had probably passed clean through the dead guy as the police came at him from both sides. Gun is now reported as a blank firing one converted to fire live rounds…. no mention as to if  it was loaded though. 

All in all, none of this holds any positives. On the one hand you have the rioters, which, for myself, I would imagine 50% of these people initially somehow believed they had a genuine grudge, (especially as it was another none white guy killed by police, and the recent court case alleging that a black person is 9 times more likely to be stopped by police than a white person), and 50% opportunists, hijacking the point being made and detracting from it so much that now, the “cause” has been lost within the violence. This has then been seized upon as an OK for people across England to repeat the rioting, purely for the hell of it. And  then, on the other hand, you have the police and the media, one of which appears to have gone out and shot and killed a man who was neither actually armed, nor waving about a perceived weapon (if it was in his sock when it was found, it seems unlikely he put it there after having brandished it), and the other, claiming that this man had shot at a police.

We all know about the sensationalist rubbish the papers come out with as headlines. The Norway killer was “Al Qaeda” according to the Sun initially, Osama hid behind his wife, etc etc. All bollocks! Surely it’s about time that something was done to make sure that, what is published, and therefore absorbed into the national psyche, is at least vetted for something in the way of truth. But, the issue with the police is something which needs to be addressed too. This makes scary reading, “Deaths in police custody since 1998: 333; officers convicted: none “. Remeber Jean Charles de Menezes?  His body was described as “unrecognisable” due to the amount of shots he received to the head. How many officers convicted of anything? Oh, that would be none! Accountability is something that needs to be applied to the police as well as people who go round smashing windows / looting.

I cannot excuse what’s gone on, but I suppose I can understand the frustration of the initial people involved. What has happened from then I would speculate is a warped sense of camaraderie. “You have been wronged by the police and the system”, can be easily migrated down through the people to the unemployed/low paid who also feel they too are being maltreated in a world where austerity is biting, money is short, and the people perceived to be “on your side”, be it police, or politicians (the two words have the same etymological root), are actually being seen to be taking, rather than giving, to the community. And, as the dominoes start to fall, so does the rational way of addressing these issues because, it appears, they afford no actual solutions. A desperate person has nothing to lose, and when you can see no way out from a situation, desperation is a natural byproduct. The area of London where all this started has a 50+ people to 1 job listed ratio. These people, easily dismissed as “dole scum” by many, simply have no way to advance themselves out of situations they probably had no say in when they found themselves there. And so, when opportunity arises, they take it. That doesn’t make it right, but it goes some way to explain the actions of a group of  the public which, had circumstances dealt us a different deck, we too would be part of.

And so you get to the reactions of the public to all this. There is outrage, there is despair, and there is condemnation. Condemn.. nation, damn you etymology! Sorry, I digress. You have people shouting, “Send them all to Afghanistan / Iraq / wherever our boys are fighting”, not bothering to think about the fact that, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya, all “our boys” are basically doing is trashing and looting these sovereign countries for oil with their  illegal presence. The only difference is… it’s paid for by the government. I can’t help but think that, all the money poured into the missiles that kill kids in Afghanistan etc, would be better spent helping create jobs at home, clearing national debt, and changing the environment that makes this kind of backlash all too likely to happen again tomorrow, both in London, and in cities around the UK.

It’s 66 years ago today since about 140,000 people directly/indirectly were wiped out from just one bomb in Japan. Surely there is no better example of how we need to, as a people, sort ourselves out. What we do to ourselves, what we do to each other, defines who and what we are. Accountability starts at the top, and the rewards of that should be felt at the bottom… and it needs to start soon before it’s too late. Rioting isn’t the answer to the UK, and the world’s problems, but, I’m just not certain active discrimination and dissolving agencies, (such as the police and the government, of responsibility for the knock on effect of their actions), is either.

What we’re seeing on the streets are symptoms of a sickness within the society, that has remained dormant for a while, festering quietly perhaps, but remaining harmless to the whole. Until now. I can’t help but think that, to fully cure/be rid of this, this time, not only the symptom needs to be treated, but the diet society feeds upon needs to be changed so that society its self adjusts. Redistribution of wealth. More jobs. Less foreign wars. More understanding.  However, while the general public, (being mostly white and working), are happy to believe this is a “dole scum” issue, and that these people should be sent off to fight our good and just wars in other countries, I suspect nothing really will change. There will be a clamp down, a calm down, and placation of the situation, and it will go back to as it was, for a while. But as unemployment rises, personal debts increase, education becomes increasingly un-affordable, this situation will occur again. Unless society changes.

More Language shinnanigans

“If you don’t speak English you can’t belong in Britain”

That is the headline from the Daily Telegraph today from an article which goes on to read the riot act about people moving to the UK (although England seems to be the main subject!) The article can be found here. This, for want of better words annoyed me. Enough for me to post on Facebook a link to the site and a wee rant which said :

The idea of any country stating language as an entry requirement is frankly nuts. If you don’t speak someones language and they don’t speak yours, how can you have a disagreement? You can merely formulate an opinion of what you think they are like based on your own personal discrimination (for negatives AND positives). 

It appears to me that places which think like this, are attempting to use languages as barriers, because as countries borders have become more passable, they need something else to be able to separate themselves and give them their own identity. 

So who is the more self absorbed… the one who doesn’t learn the new language because in their world / social scope it is not needed, or the one who feels so threatened by someone else’s presence, even though they know nothing of them, that they have to impose parameters / restrictions in order for them to frequent the same geographical location as themselves?

Get a grip. Language doesn’t dictate ones culture/personality. Personality does! It’s a separate entity. Language is merely a tool in expressing it to others. But much like an artist who only draws for his friends, that neither reflects on Art as a whole, nor the beauty of the work produced, reguardless of its limited audience! 

That said, I think I want to add more.  There is so much wrong with the article and the portrayal of people as a whole. Take this : “Language is central because we can only search for the common good through face-to-face discussion and public debate via the mass media. The simple fact is that if you can’t speak the language, you can’t take part. You can’t belong.” I think this is outrageous! “The common good”?? Excuse me?? That implies a predisposition to judge another negatively from the outset, and then you have to quest for some form of point within them so that you can say “Oh yes, this bit I understand, so therefore there is good in him/her”, because with understanding comes familiarity, or rather, with understanding, comes the loss of fear of the unknown.

I live in a country where I don’t speak the language. I walk past hundreds of people in town whom I have no understanding of, and if I were to speak with a hippopotomonstosesquipedalian part of my vernacular, the same ignorance would be afforded to my good self, and I feel neither judged nor that I am judging them. The simple fact is, until you speak to someone, they speak only the language of Schrodinger’s Cat, their language might be yours (alive… (I know I know… that’s a tad to positively orientated to be impartial!)), or dead, (a different language). This affects neither how I view them, nor how I react with them in my proximity, because, although we occupy the same geographical location at the time of passing, we have no concern as to who or what we both are like, nor anything to do with our lives after this passing encounter. I do not ponder if there is good in him/her. Oddly enough my preconception of people is that everyone has good in them, and that as a species, the desire to do things considered by our conscience to be “ok”, will mostly over-ride “not ok”. I have no requirement to walk up to someone, and demand they communicate with me. I am not negatively decimated by the passer by’s complete apathy to my even existing.

The truth is, in all honesty, I embrace the idea that people can walk by others, and formulate no opinion whatsoever! That should be the world in which we live in. It should be how we take everything, with an open mind which is only coaxed into directions when pertinent information is given relevant to  the judgement call required of a situation. “He doesn’t speak English”, should have absolutely no effect on the judgement call of, “Is he a good member of his social circle”.

And there is where things start to get interesting again. Social circles. Because we as humans forget that our roots used to see differing social circles as a threat, to our available land, our women/menfolk for breeding, etc etc. And any encroachment… would be met by violence! Possessiveness. “This is mine! Stay out!”. Territorial animal instincts take over and the fear of losing something to someone else because they are different, manifests. Paranoia sets in too. “They’re all talking in a different language…. what if they’re talking about me? Maybe they are? That one looked at me! He’s smiling to his friends now. Bastard!!”

And so, to me it boils down to this. You have a choice. You can see the differences between who you are, and who other people are, as one of two things.

1. A barrier / border to separate and segregate yourself from the others, and to keep you walled up within you and yours, safe in your own womb, (although wombs are not always safe.. just ask Jack’s brother/sister.. oh wait… you can’t),  and stay insular in your ideas as to what is right for you = right for everyone within an environment which you frequent, or 
2. A trait to be celebrated as  measure of the diversity which exists throughout our species, and even if we do not understand the person stood next to us, that is not a negative, it is merely an indication of where they grew up/where they were born. Which incidentally, they had no say in whatsoever.

Culture is something which evolved from environmental issues within an area / populous at a given time. As time changes so do cultures and populations. We have reached a point in our evolution as a species where borders and segregation are becoming things no longer required. Our cultures can adapt to this with nothing to lose and everything to gain because, if the society/social environment is THAT important to you as a person, isn’t about time all aspects of that society are acknowledged?

Are we really that insecure in ourselves that we think we might lose our own identity, just because there are people around us who don’t understand how we speak? If so, then maybe our grip on who we are is a touch too fragile and perhaps we might need to look to a different culture for help in that. Maybe one which, perhaps, would allow us to go live in an environment where although WE are the alien, we feel neither threatened or excluded from that which is happening around us, and still ok to eat Haggis / Bacon / whatever, and such quirks are acknowledged as interesting idiosyncrasies, rather than “different = bad”

I am reminded of the first few lines of an Ani Difranco song… which i will post to finish..

 

when I was four years old
they tried to test my I.Q.
they showed me a picture
of 3 oranges and a pear
they said,
which one is different?
it does not belong
they taught me different is wrong 

With faith you don’t need proof, but with proof you don’t need faith.

Back from my exploits in the Uk, albeit lacking the passport stuff that I wanted to get done, but actually quite pleased at the events over there. Reconnecting with Mr Myers was great, shared a few beers and a good laugh, but it was a shame the Cat Reunion was something of a washout. However, time there was spent with Jackie and Claire, and it mean’t we actually got to talk, which was good! Crewe was uninspiring as a town, nothing new there, but I suppose I still feel more comfortable there than here when plodding around the town, but that could just be because in Crewe you can nip for a beer and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg. Wolves and the Giff were fun. 

Some lass called Amy Winehouse seems to have died, who I know nothing of but i all over the news and then of course there are the events in Norway, the killings, where initially it was a case of “Blame it on the Muslims”, which of course then fell apart, but the initial perception was ingrained again by then. As it turned out, the guy in question is a Christian. And an ardent one at that! Specifying that this was to be the start of a Christian uprising against the Islamisation of Europe and the western world, the basis of his ideology was/is centered around the Christian Crusades. He’s a freemason too, and is pictured in his regalia in some reports, but, this and his staunch Christian stand are being mostly ignored. Had this guy been a Muslim, every story in the news would be starting with “Muslim Extremist”, or “Islamic Fundamentalist”, and yet mysteriously “Christian Extremist” / “Christian Fundamentalist” rarely appear, instead the media are going with he’s a neo nazi, which, as far as I can see, even if he is, has nothing to do with what has happened. This is Faith v Faith much like a few hundred years ago but, you can’t possibly portray this guy in the same way as the media does Muslim extremists, because, a vast majority of people consider themselves Christians, but also a vast majority have been convinced by the media that because of the Muslim extremists, all Muslims = Bad, and if suddenly they are confronted with someone of their own faith committing atrocities, that must by the same reasoning mean, all Christians = Bad = I/we/us! As that would be considered wrong, it would then inevitably mean questioning the preconceptions of Muslims, and that doesn’t suit an agenda based media. 

Anders Behring Breivik has a lot to answer for, but so does the media, and indeed Christianity.
Me, well, my thoughts on an all powerful god are reasonably well documented. It’s just another control mechanism, playing on superstitions from thousands of years ago, which have been contrived to manipulate people into doing what they’re told. All sides of the same coin. And so as I was about to update my Facebook dohicky, a saying came to me and i googled it to make sure it is original.

“With faith you don’t need proof, but with proof you don’t need faith.”

I like it! It has a ring to it!

Late entries.

I fear I’ve been neglecting this again. The much promised pics from Vegas have not happened, and there have been no updates of any shape or form. Bad me. In truth although I suppose there has not been massive amounts to add. I’ve gotten annoyed about stuff over here, walked out of Brothers of Beer and Vi-Kings only to decide to go back to Vi-Kings and keep Brothers soundly knocked on the head. I guess it’s the lesser of two evils. Actually had some good fun in The Duke of Oz on a couple of occasions and am about to head back to Crewe for a few days in an attempt to sort out my passport. I’m not sure it will do as it’s supposed but we shall see. 

42nd street

Dads birthday today. Always makes me raise an eyebrow, if not a glass. Not one for being emotional it generally passes without incident, which is nice. Without incident doesn’t mean unnoticed though.

Purchased weights and bench. Hoping this should get me back in the right direction! Put on 7lbs since returning from Vegas! Hope it’s muscle!

Es in Circus Circus

Hmm.. seems I am due to hit the shop, so this blog… is cut short, and sweet. just time to throw in a couple of pics from Vegas that have been toyed with for FB and so should fit here ok! Enjoy!

A swift rundown of our 3rd Vegas trip!

It’s been a month now since we went to Vegas again, and I still haven’t managed to post a quick rundown as to what we got up to. It will appear here in time, as will some pics, but for now, here is a swift copy of what I wrote out for the Trip Advisor site

Ah, I’m back and toasted! All was brilliant. So.. a brief summary.

We arrive, and there is a serious queue to check in! Took us about 40 mins, which was spent chatting to various people in the line. It’s a queue, I’m British, it’s something we do well! Upgraded our room to the West Tower, and got to the room simply enough as the lift is next to the check in desk.

The room was great, with a decent view, not of the strip but of the mountains. Remember I live in Holland now with my dutch wife who thinks mountains are something that happen to other people! It was clean, tidy, had a bath, and we did not stick to the floor. Oh, and I had the best nights sleep I’d had in months! There was no noise from kids or adults.

Location note…. not once did we have a trouble getting aDeuce / Express bus when leaving Circus Circus before 10am. Simple, easy, and allowed us to interact with people on the bus. All day (24hours)for $7?? Again.. I just can’t understand why people moan!

The hotel, though busy, wasn’t TOO busy! To be honest, it was all we wanted from a hotel, and even the pool was fine for what we required. Quite why people complain about the place is beyond me.

Trip highlights : a meal in the steak house at Binions, (a great steak for me, and king crab legs for milady), several drinks at the Queen Vic in Riviera and a couple of good meals too, a visit to both Yard House pubs for the various beers, and the 777 brew pub / Main Street Station with more beer and a big bucket of prawns (shrimp). Two trips top the outlets picking a couple of 100euro jeans ($140usd) for 28euros ($30), saving us half the airfare for one person in one fell swoop, and a trip out to Red Rock with friends which again impressed milady (see above mention of being Dutch! lol)

Town Square was definitely worth a look, not least for the Whole Foods Market breakfast we picked up, which we ate sat outside on chairs provided for just that reason, and Borders, a book store which gave me two Douglas Hofstadter books, (inc Godel Escher Bach). Yard house no.1 is there and the barman was knowledgeable and personable about their products)

Lows : Monte Carlo Brew pub had neither the atmosphere or prices I remember from before, (and also had beers labeled wrongly) and Oceans One, had really bad service (asked for food without sauce, got food with sauce, sent it back much to their annoyance) and also steak there was really fatty! Will not go there again!

In truth most of our time was spent wandering between hotel and hotel and drinking in all the various bars which went with that! Enjoyed every second of it.

Flights were fine on Delta, although we did have to land in Newark on the way home as JFK had tech issues)

A couple of pics (70.. lol) are at the link below, although there are a lot of NYC which are not relevant to this. Enjoy!

www.facebook.com/media/set/…

 

Vi-Kings Sports bar and Brothers of Beer Leiden

I seem to have neglected to mention on here that Leiden has a cool heavy metal bar, or as google might like it, rock bar / rock pub.

Brothers of Beer in Leiden carries the name Hard Rock cafe and in truth it fits the bill quite nicely. Situated near Leiden town centre and in between Vi-Kings sports bar and The Duke of Oz closer to the shopping street, it does a mean set of metal, with a mix in of local and international bands passing through. Dutch is not essential but is always welcomed, not least as anyone pronouncing a dutch “G” who’s not used to it will give everyone a good chuckle! Ed and Remy, the two owners, are both great guys, and do what they can to make the atmosphere just like a metal bar should be.

I had removed this post due to a couple of issues but decided to repost. 

Where did April go?

Ah it’s been one of those months. Things have built up inside me it managed to make me nearly go off pop. Tis interesting though that I’ve not written about it earlier. Maybe that’s why it nearly came to an almighty head? My usual outlet wasn’t utilised. I guess that bears investigation. 

It’s been a mix of things winding me up, some involving what is just basic frustrations, be it at some of the stories about Esther’s work (which I insist should be simpler in working process than she portrays it), the way her family seem to only want her when she can provide something, but also some of my interactions with people here, and issues with the language, and the way people behave.

I think I need the holiday! It is amazing how people react when you provide them with a different viewpoint to one they are used to. Or if you point out that something they have believed in, is wrong. I actually want to post the issues here, but can’t be bothered, because when you look back at it the issues themselves were tedious and not worth the energy, but my reactions were strong enough for me to be really angry. Normally I just forget it, but this time it got to me. That bothers me. I have no urge to “go off pop” again. It’s been a while and my temper has been curbed for a reason! 

Living here I think takes it out of me. The language is bonkers, and learning it seems reasonably impossible given the tools available. I quote from a tutor, and people can’t understand it. A friend replies in Dutch, and neither I or Es can understand it. It’s written down ffs… it’s not like it’s affected by accent etc… and you’re all using the same language. And when I ask “Why”, all I get is “I don’t know”. How is that going to teach me anything. I’ve had enough to be honest, so need the break. It feels like everyone is being ripped off, everything is more complicated than it should be, and the people here are just happy to sit back and accept that they are having the piss taken out of them. 

I did a little spreadsheet comparing the price of going out over here to in the Uk. 10 drinks here (5 each), came to OVER 3000 euro MORE per year, than drinking the same amount in the Uk (which is actually about 8 and a half drinks in the UK as 500ml “pints” are a lot short of  REAL pints. So realistically, as we’d always drink more than 5 drinks (and certainly more than 4 n n arf in the uk) it costs closer to 5grand a year.. for one night out. I used to go out 2 or 3 times a week!! that’s an 8-10 grand discrepancy, and that’s not including the actual price.. that’s just the over and above price of the drink!

And then I came to thinking…. when I am asked about what’s better over here, i always say you don’t need to be looking over your shoulder in case you get mugged. But.. that’s not a positive. It’s just an absence of a negative. That is how life should be. To claim that, what should be normal, is actually normal, and then attempt to use that as a positive is just stupid. 

And now you get the whole Osama being dead thing. The stupidity of people is beyond me sometime… and it makes me want to get people and shake them! The photo, emblazoned across every front page yesterday morning of Osama having been shot in the face, turned out to be a fake. However, it was also a fake that predated yesterdays events by 2 years. Get that? The photo is 2 years old! Yet, Osama was shot in the head yesterday… and still people WILL NOT accept that the photo is fake. Even though you can show them that the photo predates the event by two years. The fact that it is a fake photo is superfluous, because unless the guy who published it had a time machine, traveled to where yesterdays  events took place, snapped it, then traveled back in time, and published it 2 years ago… then it doesn’t take a genius to see it is falsified information being fed us by the media.

And yet…. I’ve not seen one question… (asides from my own) asking how this image, used as proof of the event, was not at least slightly researched. The demonstrable impact the image had, is obvious because, even when shown that the image predates the event by two years, rational people, with iq’s of 100+ will still attempt to make up an excuse, and say .. oh well… it “might” not be real, allowing for the possibility, but not accepting it, purely because they have been given this information from a source which they trust, believe in, and have therefore placed in a position of power over them, so much so that they will rationalise the irrational. That is mind control and manipulation beyond anything I’ve ever seen before. But surely… once shown how they have been sucked in… there must be questions asked? I doubt it. If people can’t get past the fact they’ve been scammed so obviously, I can’t see them then wanting to ask questions about why this happened, because to do so, might endanger their system of how they view their lives, and they’re just too fragile to have that happen.

Medion Akoya e2203 d Review

There seems to be no mention of this PC even existing and, oddly enough, the Medion website appears to be down! Akoya e2203 generates laptop reviews but the number is different. Anyone stumbling across one… feel free to drop me a link, and it will be interesting to see if you guys come up with something before Medion pull their finger out and get their website up and running again!

So.. why the sudden new PC? Well.. after an excellent night out, we come home to find the PC was deceased, or more accurately the graphics chip. Had it been a card instead, replacing it would’ve been so much easier, and far less costly, but, such is life. So, off we trundled, with me pondering exactly how to get the data out of the old pc. Turns out the pc place had a box that you can just dump the drive into and it works the same as an external drive. Coolashaker! All the stuff is available and all is right with the world!

So…. now I have to sit and fight with a new OS…. Windows 7… but… it’s in English! Yey!