Hooli G. An versus the robot
December 10, 2010
And so, the robot quickly spat on the green book. It experienced only a moment of remorse. “I don’t suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it!” it monotoned in a metallic voice. “However, that doesn’t mean that things are going as planned.”
The robot shuffled off. It was winter, so it moved more slowly. This meant Hooli G. An had to wait. The stress was enough to give her a nosebleed. Her one goal was to get to the green book before the acid from the robot’s saliva disintegrated it. Time was of the essence. Up until this point, the plan had seemed well-choreographed, but now she was beginning to conclude it was an irreversible misunderstanding between all parties involved. And really, it might not be just the robot who was insane.
As various scenarios ran through the hooligan’s thoughts, she realized she was having trouble breathing. “I’ve come too far for it to end in asphyxiation,” she opined, ‘but I’m a little unsure … “ and things went black.
When Hooli regained consciousness, her first thought was, a happy pair they made, so beauteously laid beneath the gay illuminations all along the promenade. As lucidity set in, she realized that didn’t make any sense. If she were going to complete the mission and depict herself with anything approaching credibility, she had to shake the cobwebs off fast and get back to the business of saving the green book. Dithering about would not do. The time for jocularity was past. She had to get serious.
Hooli sat up and surveyed her surroundings. Wherever she had been taken, the place was definitely in disrepair. And at least her captors hadn’t tied her up or put her in a straightjacket, she thought thankfully. It was just then that her robot adversary entered the space. Hooli didn’t hesitate to give it a piece of her mind.
“I will not let some two-bit, tin-can robot—who might be insane despite the logic of your programming—cost me this mission,” she ranted. “This whole situation”—she gestured vaguely around the room—”is, I have to admit, somewhat unanticipated. But it is not insurmountable.” The robot meeped non-commitally. Hooli went on. “My whole life, I have been self-supporting. Retrieving the green book is supposed to be my last mission and I’m not going to let you spoil it.”
The lime-green lasers of the robot’s eyes shone into Hooli’s. It appeared to be unfazed by her declarations. It stood there calmly, maddeningly. She didn’t actually know what to do. Hooli furrowed her brows and considered options as quickly as she could, given her puny human brain. When this was over, she’d need therapy for sure.
The rules of her employers were restrictive, that much was certain. But with each passing minute, she believed the guidelines were less and less relevant. Then she saw the hutch against the side wall of the room and, more importantly, spied the green book on the far end. She glanced up to the single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Insects orbited it like planets around a sun. An idea began to take shape.
Earlier in the day for lunch, Hooli had eaten some Chinese take-out. The fortune cookie had advised, “Don’t eat any Chinese food today or you’ll be very sick!” Robots, of course, didn’t eat food, but they still needed additives in order to maintain their functionality. It was winter and the robot looked stiff. Hooli took her one, her last, chance.
“You haven’t gotten your winter weight robot oil yet, have you?” she wondered with what was, she hoped, an air of nonchalance. “Your joints must be rubbing like a molar on a canker sore.” Once again, the robot meeped non-commitally. “I had a sneaking suspicion,” she said.
Hooli drew in a deep breath. This was her best chance to destroy the robot. “It’s your lucky day, robot, because for some mysterious reason, I happen to have winter weight robot oil with me. It’s right here in this glitzy canister.” She pulled a rhinestone-encrusted object from her bag. She shook it so that the motion caused the myriad of facets to catch and reflect the light from that single lightbulb. The robot was bedazzled. To add to the confusion, she made a finger moustache.
The robot, who had initially looked rather roguish when it had been spitting acid on the green book, now had the air of a crumpled soda can. It was powerless to defy the sparkles coming from Hooli’s blinged-up reusable water bottle.
“Sorry, robot, but you’re going to have to take a rain check on world domination. I know that as a machine, you’re used to dealing with exactitudes, but that’s where I have the upper hand. I am not logical. This is not a tug of war. I’m taking the book. You may not admit to being insane, but I am a lunatic!”
The robot waved its arms rather lamely as Hooli continued to waggle her rhinestone bottle in the light. She grabbed the green book and was pleased to see that the aqueous coating on the cover had slowed the effects of the robot’s acid. She exited via the wrought iron fire escape ladder and gave a satisfied nod of her head once she was clear of the building. Hooli G. An was back in control.
Credits: Phrases and words in bold came from random generators. I went where they took me, for better and for worse. The initial sentence came from here. Subsequent words (other than the “Hooli G. An” name, which was inspired by a friend’s comment elsewhere) were generated here. Alien poster from here. All in all, a fun creative writing exercise.
One thin line
December 8, 2010
This already isn’t going well, because when I was first inspired to write tonight’s entry I had a clear vision of how at least the first one hundred words would go, but then I had to pause to feed the cats (who are always very anxious but hardly ever satisfied) and when I came back to write I couldn’t quite remember anything,
so I sat here for a few minutes trying to recall, but then I finished my glass of crappy Pinot Noir (it was on sale for US$9 minus one additional dollar via a Facebook coupon, so I tried it because I have learned not to discriminate against wine based solely on price, as one of my very favorites is Pepperwood Grove Old Vine Zinfandel which sells for about US$8 per bottle) and decided to switch to Flying Dog Doggie Style Pale Ale which turned out to be lovely indeed even though it didn’t restore my memory—
and really, if anything, at this point in the evening contributed to just the opposite and distracted me even further, which I find to be a slight bit more of an issue as I age, especially the later the drinking goes on—aging sucks—but it did put me in a slightly better frame of mind for writing something, anything, even if I still couldn’t remember what that something was originally going to be, you know, just half an hour earlier,
which is perturbing, because I usually have a really good memory for the details of what has gone on, which any of my friends who have been annoyed by my recollection of facts can tell you, even if such remembering is in conjunction with consuming tasty beverages such as Summit Extra Pale Ale at bowling, karaoke or some such thing, but tonight I sort of lost the plan so I’m thankful that, even after I fed the cats, something jogged my memory a little bit every few minutes so that I could get this far—sort of—
and now have I just realized that I seem to have unintentionally drawn myself as Janeane Garofalo in that superhero movie (with a little bit of Amy Winehouse thrown in for good measure), and I think that’s a good place to stop.
Watch this
December 6, 2010
I only just recently watched the video for “Walk Like a Panther” for the first time, even though I’ve loved the song since the first time I heard it on London’s XFM. I’m trying to figure out why I love the video so much. I think there are three reasons.
Tony Christie. The main one might be the guest vocalist. I knew that All Seeing I makes use of guest vocalists and for some reason, I thought the main voice on the “Pickled Eggs & Sherbert” album was Jarvis Cocker of Pulp. I guess he did a version of the song with All See I, too, but the radio and album version turned out to be Tony Christie, as I learned from the video. I think I’m charmed that he’s an old guy, relatively speaking. It would be kind of like Tony Bennet singing with Gorillaz or something. And he’s being such a good sport with the acting that he has to do for it, even though, here and there, he looks just a trifle exasperated.
Hand gestures. When I watched this video for the second time, I realized that what I first thought was an homage to the zombie dance in Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video was really customized gestures to go along with the chorus lyrics of “Walk Like a Panther”: fly like an eagle, prowl like a lion, leap like a salmon, keep up with me, and walk like a panther. Video actors one and all, young and old, move in weirdo almost-synchronization.
Sci-fi style. What makes it all come together is what I think of as the science-fiction style of videography. It’s shot through a robot-eye-shaped frame in the herky-jerky style, the frames go forward and backward to make that fake in-time-with-the-music impression, and it has wonderful 1970s faded photograph colors. Top that off with the location which to me seems like some anonymous Underground station complex in London.
It all just works.
Nighty night
December 4, 2010
Sleep more.
It sounds simple enough, but I have not been sleeping well this week. Monday night I woke up at about 4 a.m. and then laid there until about 7:30. Wednesday night I went to bed and laid there until about 2:30 a.m. Last night I stayed out for karaoke after bowling, stayed up to publish the results, and heard the 3am cuckoo before I fell asleep. Oops.
Since I last wrote about sleeping six months ago, I think I have only gotten more irresponsible with my bedtime. The point of that entry was that, because my weeknight bedtime had been creeping later and later, I tend to play catch-up on Fridays nights and will often then sleep until some crazy time like noon on Saturdays. That part is slightly better since I had to switch Curves locations and now, more often than not, work out on Saturday mornings. That means I have to get up around 10:00.
It’s frustrating when I’ve had an insomniac time like I’ve had this week. Under normal circumstances, I fall asleep pretty much instantly when I turn off my light, and if I have to get up for the bathroom in the middle of the night, well, I’ve caught myself nodding off while I was sitting up, if you catch my drift. Falling asleep is hardly ever an issue. But occasionally it is, for two main reasons.
Factor number one is out of my control. I know I’m genuinely stressed out about something to a higher degree when I can’t sleep. Usually it’s just garden variety Sunday Night Insomnia, but if I have pressure (from a big project at work, for example), that manifests itself with the middle-of-the-night can’t-get-back-to-sleep after I’ve gotten up mid-night. Very irksome but what am I going to do? That was largely the case Monday night, though factor number two was also in play to some extent, and entirely the case Wednesday night when I was anxious about some revisions that I had to make and a looming deadline.
Factor number two is, I guess, a little embarrassing to admit because it is entirely within my power to mitigate. It took some time, but I finally figured out that even though drinking puts me to sleep, a few hours later it wakes me back up when the alcohol leaves me behind. Based on my schedule of bowling, beers, and staying out afterwards, that usually happens around 4 or 5 a.m. If I’m lucky, I only lay there for twenty or thirty minutes, long enough to hear the cuckoo on the next half hour. If I’m unlucky, I lay there for an hour or two or more in an “extreme case.”
None of it bodes well for the next day at work. My bosses are great and ask that we arrive only by 9:30. That allows me to still get a few hours of sleep on fitful nights, but as I noted in the other post, I don’t do well with less than about seven hours of sleep.
So this week I had three bad nights. Monday and Wednesday as described above, and last night when, despite already being tired, I stayed out for karaoke after bowling against my better judgement. Well, we got the owner of the bar to sponsor our bowling team and we finally got our shirts yesterday, and wanted to go show them off and say thank you. I was only going to have grapefruit juice and sing one song, but I was well chuffed with how that one song went and ended up staying for two more songs until the end at 1 a.m. It takes about twenty minutes to get home, then I was eager to share the recordings with you all, and the next thing I knew it was after 2. Then when I turned my light off, I was still so wound up from the excitement of rocking the singing (as amateur, casual, karaoke singing goes) that I was quivering as I lay there. So I drew on previous experience and went back to doing one of my fall-asleep activities—reading, crossword puzzle or, in recent weeks, playing Scramble CE on my iPhone, lying down with the light out—hoping that I’d calm down enough to fall asleep. I remember hearing the 3:00 cuckoo.
So today from the moment I woke up I was looking forward to going to bed tonight. I even had visions of falling into bed the moment I arrived home. But did anybody really think I’d go to bed that early? I usually manage to stay up to watch “EastEnders” at 11:00 regardless of how “tired” I’ve been all day. And now here it is, midnight:30. I predict I’ll finally go to sleep at 1:30.
Tired? I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Gone to the Swan
December 2, 2010
I spent almost all of my time in London, but there was one side trip. Dan thought it would be fun to combine an outing to the country with tracking down one of the honorees on a top pubs list by the Guardian. That was Swan on the Green in West Peckham, Kent.
We took the train from London to Wateringbury. The Wateringbury station house was a charming old building with lots of interesting shapes and angles.
From there we had an about four mile walk to West Peckham and the Swan.
The town of Wateringbury seemed pretty typical. I noticed a few of these World War II plaques on walls along the road. Other than Ground Zero in New York City, we don’t really have physical battlefields on the continental United States from recent times, so I thought they were pretty interesting. Most of my knowledge of the war comes from television programs like “Foyle’s War.” It was a little eerie in a way seeing these markers of people’s pride in their war effort, and definitely humbling to see firsthand evidence of something I only know through Hollywood representations.
We walked on. This was pretty typical of my view—Dan and Casper way ahead. I thought I was a fast walker, but Dan walks really fast. I didn’t always bother to holler that I was stopping to look at something and take pictures, like when, being the Midwestern girl that I am, I got a kick out of hey, they grow corn here, too!
Along the way, we thought we’d stop at Mereworth Castle and have a look around. As we approached the “castle,” which was really just a large manor, a woman came running out and inquired, rather suspiciously and in a thick Slavic accent, what we were doing there. We learned that it was a private residence not open to the public and beat a hasty retreat back to the main road. Instead, I settled for taking what turned out to be my favorite photo that I’ve taken so far on my iPhone 4 of roses in the yard of the church in the town of Mereworth. I love the colors and the blown-out exposure of the background.
Mereworth is also where we crossed a street named, appropriately enough, The Street. That tickled my funnybone.
We continued to walk without incident, except for Casper’s alarming tendency to occasionally drift out into the road, until we reached West Peckham. We triumphantly strode up to the Swan on the Green, ready for a tasty beverage to refresh us after our walk, only to find that they were closed until suppertime. Anticlimax.
Casper set up watch and we endeavored to kill over an hour, which included playing backgammon and exploring the neighboring church yard.
Casper talked us into a few ball sessions on the eponymous green across from the pub until, at last, it was once again open for business.
We were excited because we knew they made their own beer. I always enjoy sampling new and local brews when I go places. By that time we were also famished and enjoyed a nice meal.
It was soon time to go, though Dan determined that we were a little too late to catch the last train back to London from Wateringbury, so when we got back as far as Mereworth (approximately), we went to The Queen’s Head Pub (StreetView), whose sign we had seen on the main road, and called a cab to take us somewhere else—to Tonbridge, I think (correct me if I’m wrong)—to catch the train from there. We had just enough time for one more thirst quencher while we waited for our ride.
It was almost a disaster—the cab driver informed us that dogs were not allowed, but we didn’t have to work too hard to convince him otherwise. It seemed like the car ride to Tonbridge took as long as the whole train ride down had earlier in the day, but at last we were speeding toward home. We were all quite pleased when we arrived back at the house.
My career as a rock star
December 1, 2010
When I was an early teen, I wanted to be John Deacon—not the man, but the bass player in a rock band.
I don’t recall any career aspirations from small childhood. I was always drawing pictures, or writing little things, or playing with invisible Harlem Globetrotters in the giant box from our new washer. But none of that transmogrified into a life path. It wasn’t until I was about twelve or thirteen my inner bass player began to make herself known.
Now, I never took bass lessons, electric or otherwise. Every now and then I’d pick up my dad’s old Gibson archtop guitar and relearn the same three or four chords. But that was as far as any learning of a stringed instrument went. But still, I fantasized about being a rock and roll bass player. I remember that it manifested itself mainly at Saturday morning bowling when we’d play “New Kid in Town” (Eagles) and “Slow Ride” (Foghat) on the jukebox and I’d really get into the last chorus.
I started taking piano lessons when I was seven and that became the more practical skill in my rock musician efforts. When I was in high school, I was invited to play a monophonic synthesizer in my boyfriend’s friends’ basement band. We got together pretty regularly for a couple of years. I often didn’t have much to do, as it’s hard to contribute much monophonically in songs like “Cinnamon Girl” (Neil Young) or “Hold on Loosely” (38 Special).
At each practice, I bided my time until we got to the songs during which I could really make that synthesizer hum—“Too Much Time on My Hands” (Styx) and my pièce de résistance, “Never Been Any Reason” (Head East) with that kick-ass synth solo in the middle.
We only ever played in public twice—two summers in a row at the church camp where the mother of two of the band members was a counsellor. At the end of one performance, one little girl breathlessly asked me if I was Joan Jett. I let her down easy.
The other thing thing that I did in high school that I suppose could have been a career path was work at a couple of local radio stations, though I don’t remember ever thinking of it that way while I was doing it.
My high school had an in-house, closed circuit student radio station. I got involved, and that led to the opportunity of filling in at the university radio station one Christmas break. I started out reading the news but soon had a weekly, three-hour shift. One of the highlights off my time there was meeting the members of Head East, who were in town for a show and who swung by for an interview. I didn’t conduct it, but I was present and snapped lots of photos (see below). I must have told them that I used to rock their song.
From the campus radio station, I then had a job at the AM (medium wave) country station in town. My main task was to play various prerecorded programs on Sunday mornings, but in the summer when there was longer daylight, I also got the last couple of hours of the day before it got dark and the station ceased broadcasting for the day. This is where I acquired my surprising-to-some-people knowledge of country music.
Such was the extent of my music-related activities. When I graduated with my commercial art degree, my parents gave me a digital piano. I took that over to a friend’s house a few times where I joined him and his friend. They played acoustic guitar and Dobro. The one song that we tried to work up was “You Really Got a Hold on Me.”
Maybe all of this is why I love to sing karaoke so much.
Photo of John Deacon, top, taken at the “New of the World” concert that I attended.
Last tango for my eyesight
October 16, 2010
Maybe I’m extremely nearsighted because when I was nine years old, I spent too much time looking at the photo included with Time Magazine’s review of “Last Tango in Paris.” That’s not actually the truth, because I’ve worn glasses since I was six-and-a-half or seven. But I remember spending a lot of time looking at that photo.
I don’t remember what incidence of somebody realizing that I couldn’t quite make it out led to my first visit to the eye doctor. I just remember that it was part of the way through first grade or in the beginning of second grade when I got my first pair of glasses. And being the early 1970s, the frames were plastic and dark. And because at that time, my fashion sense was determined by my mother (who also was still sewing us matching outfits), my early frames always had multiple straight sides. My mom loved hexagons and octagons.
Here are some early school pictures of myself wearing glasses. I think we have ages seven, eight, and nine. I’m sure the right-hand photo is age nine, because I’m wearing a retainer (also, please note the Winnie-the-Pooh turtleneck). That was a result of the dentist/orthodontist determining that I had small jaws and would need braces, and that all my adult teeth wouldn’t fit. Therefore, four of my permanent molars were pulled, I had black thread stitches in my gums, and I got a lot of mileage out of grossing out other kids with those very stitches.
Age nine was also about the time I would have been going cross-eyed from that “Last Tango in Paris” still in Time, which I usually checked out in the bathroom. Well, that’s where “reading material” ended up. As a girl, however, the previous sentence doesn’t have quite the same connotation as if I had been a boy. Also, my mother was squarely into hexagonal frames by that time.
The photo was of a woman on the left and a man on the right sitting, facing each other, with their knees up and legs intertwined. As I child, I was all atwitter because I perceived that there were breasts exposed.
My eyesight continued to worsen for thirty years. Then the distance vision leveled off but I hit forty, so now I have bifocals. That totally sucks. I’m on my second bifocal prescription and can quite tell that it needs to be updated again. Health insurance only pays for one pair of glasses per year. I have four months to go.
So tonight, because I’m once again way behind on my Comcast bill (cable tv and inernet) and am once again pretending that I’m about to stick it to the man and cancel it all and just watch what I can using city wireless internet (two year city wireless only about $40 dollars more than two months Comcast cable tv and internet) and what’s free on the internet or with a couple of relatively inexpensive subscriptions, I brought home some sushi and a really tasty Argentinean Malbeca, and tuned in to Hulu for a movie and a Comcastless test drive of a movie on the internet.
“Last Tango in Paris” was the first title that came up that wasn’t zombie, slutty, or sci-fi slutty. I remembered that Time Magazine write-up and settled in, thirty-eight years later, to watch the movie that left an impression nine-year-old me.
It was alright (except for the part where free Hulu didn’t show me the last twenty minutes as it asked if I’d like to buy the DVD, erm, no), but nothing earthshattering, other than I got to practice listening to some French.
I know a lot of men just love “The Godfather,” but to be perfectly honest, I don’t see what all the fuss is about Marlon Brando. He has a funny voice, he’s a little bit pudgy, and a lot of it in this movie is done with camera work. However, I will give the ’70s a lot of credit for being less uptight about sex, sexuality, and nudity. What changed?
And, although there was plenty of nudity in the movie elsewhere, what I remember from that photo in Time ended up being one or two feminine curves with nothing much really showing, and four strategically placed knees.
What a letdown!
(Compared to the well-defined actual breasts shown in the movie, the ambiguously smoothed curves in the photo at top are just as my nine-year-old-self remembers them.)
A rose by any other name ???
October 14, 2010
… would, in my case, not be the same. If you ever happen to become my suitor, take note. Roses will not impress me. They smell good, sure, but I love carnations and marigolds best. Of course, marigolds don’t get cut for bouquets, but carnations do. Bring me mini-carnations.
I suppose my love of marigolds goes back to childhood. My mom always planted petunias in the planter around our streetlight at the front of the yard. And I got to sow marigold seeds in the planter between the front porch and yard. That planter is also where we buried our first rabbit, Rabbit C (whose security question answer name I still won’t reveal). I remember my excitement when the first sprouts would appear. They were completely my responsibility. The marigolds and mowing the grass.
Carnations I came to love later. Though I haven’t done for a few years, I went through a phase of grabbing a bouquet of flowers during my visit to the grocery store. I learned that the mini-carnations were among the longest lasting, and then I realized that I just plain liked them. I like the big ones, too.
As far as fragrance goes, I think it would be hard to argue against lilacs. Before I moved into my current place, my old bike commute took me past a half block of old, giant lilac bushes. It was such a delight to pass by them in the spring. Refreshing in the morning, and stress-releasing in the evening. Then, when I bought my condo, I inherited a Japanese lilac bush right outside my front window. It is just unbelievably wonderful to have the scent of lilac wafting into your home. Lilacs, why do you not bloom forever?
But I also like the milky, mild smell of carnations. And call me odd (here’s another reason) but I also truly like the pungent odor of marigolds.
As for other flowers, some of you will remember that just twenty-four hours ago, I was coveting Lacey Schwimmer’s (what I called) pink peony dress. I love Dancing with the Stars and I think that dress is in at least my top five favorites (I’ve been watching since the beginning, ten seasons ago). I happen to have pink peonies in my little condo garden, though two have never quite recovered from being transplanted and not enough sun hits any of the three of them, so they’re not very big.
Musically, who doesn’t love Tschaikovky’s Nutcracker Suite? Well, I do. So I’ll leave you with the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies.”
Buy the Nutcracker Suite here.
Laser cat
September 29, 2010
Have you ever done something you wished you hadn’t? I thought so. There are a number of things in my past that make me cringe when I think about them. Lasing someone with my eyes is not one of them. My (perceived) laser wit sometimes is.
Some things I must chalk up to youth. MC, I so wanted to jump in in support and say me, too, when you were railing against that one guy who got us all riled up a few times. But even now, and maybe because I’m a generation older, I can’t even say more than that. On the other hand, you make decisions that are appropriate for you at the time. I don’t regret that.
More simply, I am the one who, in a noisy room, inevitably, is the one trying to get a point across about someone else present when it suddenly goes quiet and I’m left shouting the inappropriate comment.
Also, due to how I was raised, which was by the philosophy “it doesn’t hurt to ask,” I have sometimes gotten burned. But if you don’t put yourself out there, you’ll gain nothing. About half the time, you’ll feel foolish. But at least you tried.
Sometimes, you’re simply using humor as a foil. Whether you’re playing the straight man or attempting a joke which falls flatter than a pancake, you attempt to save face by saying, “What? That’s what I meant.”
Sure it is. Just like you meant to slice that thing in half with your laser eyes.
Original photo by sarastarrr. Calleigh sounds a little like Kelly. Adapted by me.
Me, right now
September 18, 2010
Take a photo of yourself right now! Even though I looked pretty rough, I regret that I censored (and deleted) my very first “right now” this morning. But I was embarrassed by the result of too much beer and too little sleep last night.
Instead you get my second, third, and fourth right nows. I came back to the camera after I had had my shower this morning and was feeling clean, if not a little fresher than half an hour earlier. I tried to get my cat CJ to join me but she was too busy buttering me up for her breakfast to pose nicely.
During the day, some people posted followup photos to their first ones, and in the seventh inning of the Minnesota Twins baseball game at Target Field tonight, I decided that would be the perfect scene for another shot. You can see that I and 40,000 of my closest friends are enjoying ourselves, despite the Twins’ subsequent loss to the Oakland A’s.
The weather was iffy today, and if there’s a chance it will rain, I park my bike at a nearby building under its overhang for shelter. (My office and Target Field are within a few blocks of each other so I just leave my bike where it is when I go to a game.) I guess because it’s a utility company they have good security, including a camera that monitors the front where the bike rack is. And something in its software motion detects and draws a red box around the mover. That’s me! I find it a little creepy that it can do that, but at the same time, sometimes I dance around a little just to see how the square changes size. I had snapped this picture to share my thoughts about it elsewhere, then couldn’t resist also sharing it with the other right nowers.
And now to bed so that I won’t have to be embarrassed two mornings in a row.
Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog 