lovehatethings

After, so recently, having any remaining faith in television programming executives quashed with Fox's Japanese rehash of Hole in the Wall, I do have to admit that perhaps my second favorite season is the new network television season that, while becoming more staggered in it's tenure over the past decade, usually spirals out of Labor Day with great aplomb. Sure, the parameters of the network season were blown wide open with cable and access to some of the great programming on the BBC that often run more like epic mini-series than seasons, but there is no comparable storefront of the magnificent to the craptastic as one can get when the big US four crank out the pablum every fall.

The BitTorrent movement has created the ultimate time-shifting for me. There will be entire seasons I download that I will not watch until the following summer. Bruce Springsteen once sang of 500 channels and nothing on. There's plenty of stuff on; it's just that the viewing public used to only have to wade through 13 channels to find a good show. The time it takes to sift through the 500 channel sandbox means there's now a good chance the good stuff remains buried.

Incredibly, last season I managed to follow, through the torrent time-shift or otherwise, a roster of shows that was way too great in numbers for the average viewer, including some I'm loathe to having to admit watching. This fall I'm looking forward to a major network roster that includes The Big Bang Theory, Chuck, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, How I Met Your Mother, Heroes, Boston Legal, Fringe, Bones, Pushing Daisies, Sons of Anarchy, Dirty Sexy Money, Smallville, My Name is Earl, The Office, Supernatural, Grey's Anatomy, 30 Rock, Eleventh Hour, Life on Mars (although the BBC version of this show will NEVER be outdone by this already tweaked US attempt), Ghost Whisperer, Sanctuary, Numb3rs, The Simpsons, Dexter, True Blood, Family Guy, American Dad, The Unit, Californication (strangely, both not about porn), and Entourage.

Of course this is in addition to whenever they show new episodes of 24, Battlestar Galactica, Eureka, Doctor Who, Torchwood, Bonekickers, The Sarah Jane Adventures, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and South Park.

Some of these shows are guaranteed for the season, but some may die off, which is good because now that football season is well in swing and my favorite season (hockey) is on its way... I'm going to have to schedule to time on my Google Calendar to work on my cloning project.

While I'm happy to count on reality TV providing hours' worth programming I will never watch, I really need to find a way to pair down some of these shows, but when the winter storms roll in on weekends and I have a new 67" HDTV with a hard drive full of commercial-free programming... I'll be a happy man. Strap on your crap waders people. TV season is upon us. Build your hopes, clear your schedules, oil your recliner and tell people that being the media connoiseur you are, you have the ability to watch television on a macro-level that far exceeds their "idiot box" criticisms... it's better than Rabbit Season and Duck Season combined.

Are you kidding me!?!

I thought I could spend a nice relaxing day watching some football with friends. This outside of the fact that I thought the new HD box I'd picked up from my cable provider would work... and then I found myself watching standard def. football all day. But sometime around the middle of the afternoon things took a turn.

While I'm generally okay with internet memes that flash for one brief shining moment like an old Kodak photocube bulb, the concept of "here and gone" rarely applies to television as they seem to descend to ever deeper levels until, I believe, the groundwater will eventually seep in and drown us all.

I can live with the fact that "I can has cheezburger" exists and that a year from now it will be as dead as "All your base are belong to us". I can live with Rickrolling and any other thing the web throws at me because I know the shelf life is limited at best.

I have always hated reality television. While I appreciate the economic attractiveness on behalf of the networks and slapstick or soap opera qualities that draw in the the audience looking to forget about their daily troubles by entrenching themselves in soma-induced splendour. While I've always hoped for the death of reality TV before it had drawn down the collective mindset of society to an unrecoverable level, I will now pronounce that the genre has bottomed out.

Fox TV (shock me, shock me, shock me) has announced the Series Premiere (and I hope Finale) of Hole in The Wall where, from all accounts people try to skillfully twist and contort their bodies through... wait for it... holes in walls.

I remember when I first saw the film trailer for Stomp the Yard that I was convinced it was a joke, a parody, a satire... anything but a real film. I was shocked when the trailer of Tommy Lee Jones' Man of the House turned out to be an actual theatrical release.

I've always thought that committees or boards have the distinct ability to take great ideas and water them down to where the original concept is all but unrecognizable. While we may have to suffer this aspect of the collective mindset, there should be a positive reason for them to exist - Hole in The Wall is this reason. That not only one person, but an entire programming group thought this worthy of television is a damning indictment of what TV execs think of us.

I'm posting this before watching Hole in the Wall. I know I'm being harsh in assuming this may very well be the worst show of all-time. And I'm cursing the Fox TV decision makers for letting Japan's gameshow idiocy to make it this far. Shows that are silly - fine. Shows that are goofy - okay. Shows that insult my intelligence by concept alone... all in all we are all just holes in the wall.

(edit: not to be one to criticize without at least an attempt to watch this show, I did sit through four minutes last night... the doctor says my eyesight should return within 48 hours.)

I don't think it's just the nostalgia in me that remembers a time when an artist or band wrote a song and performed it... on their own!

Is it really necessary that fourteen out of the top fifty hits on the Billboard Top 100 are songs that could not be performed by artists on their own but needed someone else to pump the sales? I have to blame the trend squarely on the Rap genre, because when you jump to the Rap Top Ten a full 70% of the list contains featured add-ons. You see, it's not that I don't enjoy rap, hip-hop or however many different sub-genres one wants to break it down into. I'm being a stickler on language here and I realize it. It's strictly a semantic issue for me because my formative years were spent listening to music where an ampersand accompanied any collaboration between musicians and, in such cases, there was an assumed equity between them instead of the inevitable leeching quality that most feat. formations currently have. I suppose one can trace the problem back to the historic Run DMC featuring Steve Tyler and Joe Perry rendition of Walk This Way. While the walk seemed to be slow at first, now it seems rap labels and producers (I'm not blaming the artists here) are afraid to let any performer walk alone.

Let's at least acknowledge the fact, for the most part, the "feat." tag is used in one of two ways. First, largely unknown artist uses very well-known artist to pump their song by letting them spit out thirty seconds worth of bridge verbage. Of course the established artist is invariably producing the neophyte's CD or owes the producer something. Second, well-established artist throws a bone to a young up-and-comer (which he or she is invariably producing). In either case the concept of "buy-in" to an artist's performance suffers largely when every minute I'm wondering "who the hell is that guy?" Three to four years ago the answer, without fail, was L'il Jon. Two years ago the answer, again without fail, was Timbaland. Last year I was too disgusted after watching Jay-Z's thirty second introductory pimp job of Rihanna's "Umbrella" to keep track. This year Lil Wayne seems to want to cash in on every second of cross promotion available.

I'll be the first to admit, I don't keep up on all of the current names and faces in rap. The gangsta movement, quite frankly, bored me to tears soon after NWA called it quits. It's no surprise then that other than their infamous Oscar win, I'm not really familiar with Three 6 Mafia. And while I'm sure they're a bunch of well-intentioned artists with no more or less integrity than any other group slogging away at making a living in a brutal business, was it really necessary for DJ Paul and Juicy J to include a roster of accompanyists on their current single that's larger that the Three 6 Mafia itself? Do I need really need the talents of Project Pat, Young D & Superpower to deliver a socially-conscious message like:

They call me the juice when I'm at the strip club uh uh uh uh
I front, then I hundred on dub uh uh uh uh
In the mack, to a player I'mma stun uh uh uh
Cause when I leave the club, I'mma **** uh uh uh

Later in the track they do throw a shout out to Barack Obama though... major pundit props there!

In fact, thirteen of the twenty songs on their latest CD feature someone else or, in many cases, an entire roster of relative unknowns (rap afficanados, don't get your shorts in a knot because the world doesn't know the artistic output of UGK's Bun B and the late Pimp C - although it's a shame, because if Pimp C had stuck around I'm sure we could've got F'n A and Vitamin D to hook up with B and C to form the AlphaBitz Cru). My favorite roster includes the Three 6 duo (feat. Project Pat, Spanish Fly, Al Kapone, Eightball & MJG) on First 48.

Is it any wonder I've lost my step in keeping up with the genre. Keith Urban obviously doesn't need any help on the Country charts when waxing poetic with "You Look Good in My Shirt". The Pussycat Dolls certainly don't need help on "When I Grow Up" on the Pop charts, but, then again, it's hard to find an artist that will do the gig without a body condom. And Slipknot just plain weirded the shit out of any potential collaborator on the Rock chart.

I'm not saying don't collaborate. I love the concept of artistic collaboration. Musically, there's nothing cooler than being at a show and having a surprise guest come out to join the band that you love. I remember loving the fact Snow came out during a Ben Folds Five show I was at. I hadn't heard of Snow in a decade and yet there he was kickin' out "Informer" with Ben and the boys. I thought the Anthrax/Public Enemy mashup was a great pairing. Hell, I even dug Ray Charles and Billy Joel chillin' during My Baby Grand. But these moments are special because they're unexpected and unique. I get the feeling rap has become the Boggle of the music industry - give it a shake and see what line-up we can put together. If you're going to work with someone, then truly work with them. I'm sick and tired of seeing performers parachuted in for their own version of the song's commercial break. Producers, cut young artists some slack and let them fly solo.

Hell, what does this say about the ever-expanding ourobouros of podcasters who feature each other endlessly... well, I'll find someone else to add their 50 cents in another time.

As I was cruising my way through elementary education, my school, as most, had a monthly "book club" whereby a flyer was given to each student to take home and parents would then be pressured to buy a book or two for their child. Let's preclude an incoming argument by immediately saying that it's never a bad thing for a parent to buy books for their kids, but what I didn't realize, until long after, was the manipulation going on. The school was taking a cut on the backs of every book ordered and, to make it worse, the sales force behind pushing students to buy at least a book a month. It begs a larger question about fundraising for public education which I don't want to get into now, but, simply, for a school board to advertise and sell books to students to better their bottom line is disgraceful. Moral issues aside, perhaps the most anticipated publication that my friends and I scoured the order forms for, year after year, was the Book of Lists.

For some reason, there was a small group of us at least that loved to digest compartmentalized information under a simple heading and then debate, argue, and add our two cents worth. The Book of Lists contained relatively generic pop culture minutae like "Top Ten Bands with Two or More Guitarists" or "Top Science Fiction Films". All innocuous, but engrossing enough for a budding media cynic like myself to sink my teeth into. Many years later I find that not much has changed in terms of the attraction of lists. I do, however, with a much more critical (and cynical) eye examine not only the context of many lists, but often the motivation for the list itself.

Let's face it, lists are value statements, and the more generic the title at the top of the list, the more contentious and swirling the banter around the "accuracy" or "efficacy" of the contents. But I've, of course, left out the best part. The contention does not arise, for the most part, from unranked lists. [On the flipside the more specific the title, the less widespread contention, but likely the more intense debate among topic afficionados. If I put out a list called "Top Ten Debian Distros", 99.99% of the world won't give a damn, but the people who do will fight bitterly.]  If, back in January 2008, I published an unranked list titled "Candidates for President of the United States", and listed John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney, not many people would have said much other than, "Congratulations! you watched CNN for five minutes." I could really stir up several people, however, if I reworked the list to say:

"Best Candidates for President of the United States"

1) John McCain
2) Mitt Romney
3) Hillary Clinton
4) Barack Obama

But where does the antagonism come from? A great deal of it certainly comes from disagreement, but that feeling gets intensified when a level of trust or respect is given to author of the list. If TIME magazine puts out a list that you disagree with, and you're a devoted reader of the publication, odds are you'

ll be far more upset that their values aren't reflected in yours. Much of the impact, however, comes from the surprise. No one bats an eye if someone on Fox News claims a Republican candidate would make the best president, but if they ever advanced the reverse position, sparks would fly.

The web is rife with lists of all kinds and it's often semantics that will turn a passing read of interest into a halting thought of "are you kidding?" If I put the word "my" before any list I publish, some people will read with interest, all will disagree with some aspect, and all will move on their marry way to the next thing. If I remove that subjective qualifier, things take a turn.

Consider the following titles for lists and think about which ones you'll be most ready to argue over with a friend or anonymous author:

My Favorite Bands
The Best Bands in the World
The Best Musicians in the World
Most Over-Rated Bands
Bands that Suck

If I'm pumping out any of these lists, no one's really going to care too much except maybe start to think of me as a more pompous than they do already. If a journalist for Rolling Stone, Spin, or Vibe puts out this list, more people start to react and take offense (let's face it, we're generally very defensive about our music preferences). If one of your favorite artists puts out a list that slams other artists you like, you notice. If an artist you've never liked before all of the sudden has a list that's almost identical to yours, you sit up and notice as well.

It almost always comes down to authority, and how much of it you grant the author. There are some times when I can genuinely say that I'm proud to have disagreed with a list completely. If Paris Hilton put out a list of "Bands That Suck", I think I would find some solace in my favorite bands occupying every spot.

And the value judgement that is implicit in a favorite band is no different than for a writer, a politician or a religion. Our lives are made up of choices based on subjective opinion that can often be maddeningly justified, or, even more infuriating, not justified at all. How many of us have had this discussion with a friend or family member?

"What could you like about this song?"

"I don't know. I just like it."

"I mean, don't you find the lyrics disturbing?"

"Oh, I don't listen to the lyrics. I just like the beat."

Our lives are based on lists. We itemize, rationalize, prioritize not only based on what we like, but sometimes even on what we think we should like. Lists can be halting and infuriating but they have an intrinsic value that is palpable. They are the quickest way to allow us to re-examine our values and beliefs. Such is the vanguard of learning. How many of us have gained through a friend's recommendation or even suggestions from online streaming music providers: "You said you liked this - you might like this too!" As much as differing forms of the list are often the greatest cause of conflict in society (try shouting out that my religion or politics are "better" than yours) we could not live without them. So while I often hate the results that come from lists, I love the lists themselves.

I believe that people are too loud.
I believe we are loathe to admit weakness.
I believe that all problems can be solved.
I believe that communication can change the world.

I believe mustard is the best hot dog condiment.
I believe cheese makes everything better.
I believe that if lettuce tasted like pizza, I'd be much healthier.

I believe that anyone who thinks Robert Downey Jr. is just finding his stride should go watch Chaplin.
I believe that the 1970's was the Golden Age of Hollywood films.
I believe Spielberg will never be Kubrick.

I believe the White Stripes are over-rated.
I believe Oasis should have disbanded five years ago.
I believe Dave Grohl was the most talented member of Nirvana.
I believe Madonna is playing us all for fools.
I believe popular music has no farther to sink.
I believe rap begins and ends with Chuck D.
I believe time has run out on Flav.
I believe Gil Scott-Heron knew how to speak to power.
I believe Tom Waits speaks in tongues.
I believe Jeff Buckley was John the Baptist.
I believe Bill Hicks died for our sins.
I believe that Jacques Derrida's epitaph is morphing to WTF?
I believe McLuhan parsed the divine.

I believe Reality TV and reality are coming closer together, and it's not the shows that are changing.
I believe we create myths and monsters so that we can think of ourselves as heroes.
I believe too much good television gets cancelled because of its originality.

I believe there is nothing heroic about wielding a plastic guitar.
I believe that platform gaming is built on very few archetypes that got stale fifteen years ago.
I believe that within two years major podcasts will be purchased, re-packaged and subsequently destroyed through tinkering by major media networks.
I believe that social networks negatively impact society.
I believe we are staying home more often.

I believe art is giving way to craft.
I believe craft is giving way mass production.
I believe mass production is being bought and sold through the toil of Chinese factory workers earning $50 a month.

I believe that no matter how much leaders preach about the good of humanity, the good of the individual will always come first.
I believe that altruism and self-interest often get packaged as good and evil.
I believe that democracy is a noble illusion.

I believe that most of the untapped mystery on earth lies within humanity.
I believe even our most insignificant creations speak volumes about us.
I believe almost all of the world's problems are caused by self-esteem issues.
I believe unencumbered creativity is growing cobwebs.
I believe that love and hate are borne on tempestuous waters.

I believe we can find comfort in the smallest things.
I believe that everything is everything.
I believe that life has rhythm.
I believe we should listen harder.

There's an old insult that still get thrown at people who are either clumsy or obsessive: you couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. As the world turns more wired and media streams at us from all angles, I'm starting to wonder if the insult will soon be turned around to say "you can't just walk" anymore. After all, how many people when walking aren't a) en route, b) plugged in (earbuds or otherwise), or c) waiting to pick up their dog's stool sample?

When I sit in front of the computer, I almost always have the TV on. Sometimes the TV is on (muted) while I'm streaming web radio. Last night I caught myself blogging while watching a podcast in the corner of the screen while the TV was muted and I was involved in two games of online poker. I can multitask with the best of them... I don't know that I can monotask anymore.

While going to sleep, I always have a podcast, music, or TV playing in the background. While walkin' down the street I always queue up my "walkin' 'round" playlist on my Nano, and I wish I could say I was just walkin' 'round to walk 'round, but I'm usually going somewhere instead of just walkin'.

It's the reason I can't live with a browser that doesn't have tabs. A hotel I recently stayed at was still running IE6 and I kept wondering why my clickthroughs weren't showing up in my active window. It's the same reason I have at least two dozen add-ons running in Firefox; I must know as much as possible in the smallest amount of screen real estate possible.

I feel lucky that I'm old enough to still sit through a film without restlessly twitching around. I feel sorry for the 16 year old that compulsively texts during films and then feels it's necessary to discuss the conversations with her friends during the part where Bruce Willis takes out a helicopter with a police car!

I am thrilled that, while enjoying a concert, I don't have to be viewing it through a two-inch digital camera or cell phone screen. That I don't need to shuffle through 50 yards of death march-like meandering for overpriced beer in order to enjoy listening to live music.

I suppose that what Windows was all about though, the burgeoning dawn of multitasking. We've moved into an age of snippet efficiency where the majority of us don't only find it tempting to allow our minds to hop, skip and jump from job to job and back again, we will soon be to the point where we can't do anything but.

I remember, through university, sitting down in front of an archaic PC where the concept of doing anything while typing up an essay was just as impossible as it was impractical - after all, it took hours to download even a few songs from an FTP server on a 28.8 or 56.6 modem as long as the three other people in my house didn't get a phone call. There was certainly no way you were going to be listening to streaming web radio... because, quite simply, there wasn't web radio. And if I tried to burn a CD, I'd was better to even move the mouse around for fear of causing a buffer underrun error.

Technology has allowed us to centralize our multitasking, because, let's face it, ask any parent who's been a primary caregiver and they can tell you all about the history of multitasking, but they put a crapload of miles on every day. My PC's sedentary interface allows me to communicate in real time (and by mail), listen to music, watch video, and then turn around to record and produce my own content. I read, critique, mashup, digg, stumbleupon. I can buy and sell anything while negotiating a home mortgage and investing in an RSP at tax time. I can research any topic and aggregate information, catalogue, hyperlink and blog to my heart's content. And I can do this ALL at the same time while sitting in a chair.

So am I doing more or less? From the micro perspective, there's a lot of stuff going on. From the macro perspective, I'm sitting at a computer, occasionally clicking or keying and really embodying what an outsider would call monotasking. I've become the living metaphor for Jamiroquai's "Travelling Without Moving".

I just wish I could fall asleep without aural and visual wallpaper.

Why can't we just enjoy chewing gum for its own sake?

Ethnologue.com's bold tagline claims that it catalogues 6912 of the world's living languages. While the claim is surely impressive, it makes one wonder at the freak happenstances of history that have allowed us to become so messed up as a species that we couldn't unify some of our communication. Even body language is radically different between adjacent regions.

Let's face it, if there remain 7000 different interpretations of words as common as "water", we are always going to have destructive global conflicts around the world. I know this sounds like quite a leap, but when a mesh-backed cap wearer in Mississippi will turn around and crack someone over the skull with a beer bottle because he misheard someone complimenting him as a "flag lover", the variations of language have proven their destructive powers. In the meantime I'm going to enjoy a tall cool glass of wasser,  agua, uma, su, wossa, ondou, ji, akvo, banyu or H2O.

While the Esperanto experience was noble in its conception, and small groups have adopted the constructed language to varying degrees, it certainly was never the over-riding success that would change the face of world communication. That said, technology has radically changed the ability to communicate across borders, continents and oceans. While trying to propagate a language through print would be cumbersome at best, involving drawn out exchanges by letter on usage, failures and successes, the current state of connectivity allows for everything from a text file dictionary e-mail attachment to live video-on-demand tutorials. There are, however, problems that would tax any attempt to resurrect Esperanto or some other existing or constructed language.

The sociological impact of a newly-learned language distributed throughout humanity sounds tempting, but consider the risk. As knowledge is power, so is language. While certain countries may endorse, adopt, perhaps even legislate the language's education to its populace, those falling behind would not only put themselves at a disadvantage with regard to simple understanding but, moreso, on the precipice of an economic sinkhole. Clear language is essential in business and is the reason so many MBA sycophants pick up Japanese or Chinese as a second language; there's always a job for someone that can bridge the verbal and written gap between world languages.

Those who, for any reason, could not maintain the pace of the language's growth would start to suffer implicit economic sanctions as trade would become scarce. Third world countries would hardly stand a chance as the technology that would allow for ease of assimilation is beyond them.

I suppose that half of the problem could be alleviated by eliminating the written language altogether. If books become e-books, letters remain e-mail, and business can be validated digitally, does an a/v language become the standard of correspondence? I'd wager that ascii emoticons reach cross-culturally far more effectively than the words "smile" or "wink".  Will broadband lead the way for the constructed language of the future? Maybe the tight head shot of a webcam will prompt a serious re-examination of strictly face language instead of body language. A new business crops up of web notaries that will witness and certify verbal contracts completed via Skype. All chat, journalism, blogging, becomes aural or visual. All poetry, short stories and novels become spoken word recordings. The death of the written word - as Sanskrit became increasingly divorced from a verbal component, the new "Visaural" language would evolve without a written component.

I know it sounds far-fetched, but could we at least start with proper names? I think we need to evolve to the point where we can respect the language of the place that spawned the name of the place. Would it really be that difficult for us to pronounce Rome as Roma or Paris as "Pa-ree"? Couldn't we say Espana for Spain or Deutschland for Germany? It really wouldn't be that hard, because while I honestly don't see a way to avoid history's diverse explosion of languages, I really hate it.

Sitting in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel and Convention Centre in Richmond Hill, Ontario for four days of conference and training, I awoke at 4am and could not get back to sleep even after listening to a full CD's worth of 80's progressive rock and begrudgingly watching some Olympic coverage because my only other choice was an infomercial about an exercise machine that doesn't look nearly as fun as some of the well-toned automatons seem to indicate.

Normally, at such events, I'm loathe to be startled by a wake-up call that rattles through my skull like the demented cross between the bells of St. Mary's and a Nine Inch Nails B-side. On this morning at least, I was not subjected to such an ordeal.

Being lucky enough to have found employment in a career that affords me a long summer vacation (and being a nighthawk by nature) I usually find myself, by the second week of July, waking no earlier than the crack of noon and often getting to sleep after dawn's break. While this morning, as I occasionally glance up past the horizon that is the top of the monitor at the early-risers in their caffeine-induced wanderlust, I am content to live with novelty of having become conscious at a time where, for the past six weeks, I had often remained up to see. In the summer I'm wont to ask friends, "you mean there's a 10am?"

Morning is just wrong in so many ways.

I drift around in a semi-conscious haze and am annoyed by people that are way too happy and energetic for their own good. I would much rather see the stragglers from an all-night run at a club come staggering through the lobby - at least they look how I feel. They've done their best to try and make me comfortable in the Hilton lobby. They've provided me with a complimentary PC to bang away my thoughts (although using IE6 again is a painful experience). They've gone through great pains to create this crazy open feng shui environment that runs an unbroken stretch incorporating the front desk, TV lounge, internet stations, bar, coffee shop and restaurant. But for the restaurant it kind of looks like an upscale Barnes & Noble. I feel so damn cosmopolitan I might just throw up. If I see one more light fixture that looks like it belongs at the MOMA or one piece of smoked glass I may just need a bucket.

If you awake early in the mornings while travelling, it can never be a good thing. It usually means you have stuff you HAVE to do (and nobody wants to HAVE to do anything), or you evidently didn't try hard enough to have fun the night before.

And as the TV in the lounge shows sports highlights and the overhead cascade of piped-in music plays Aerosmith's "Dream On" (and oh, I so wish I could have dreamed on from 4-8am) , and a Peewee baseball team from Whoknowswheresville tramps in to kill time in front of the TV until they're allowed to check in (it's 7:30 am!), and I frame my vision with a print of a elephant with the title "Kenya" behind the coffee stand barrista, and the lamp beside my monitor screams to be reunited with its Ikea brethren, and most people are dressed WAY better than I am with my "I'm what Willis was talkin' 'bout" tee, I take some solace in looking at the gentleman two PCs over, who, by his body language, seems to get it.