Tag Archives: A DPB Tag

Media, The Squacklecast

Squacklecast Episode 3 – “Live at Roscoe’s!!!”

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This entry is part 3 of 38 in the series The Squacklecast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles is the host of the Squacklecast this week!  Well, not really, but we did just eat there before we recorded the podcast.  We would have went to MoLAA (Museum of Los Angeles Assholes) but we had a podcast to record!

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I hate Instagr.am — it does NUTH HING.  Our shitty phones have all the shitty effects Instagram applies to your shitty pictures already.

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I want to see Houseguest re-released in theaters.

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Sinbad was in Good Burger…

and First Kid.

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Brock Pierce?  He’s gotta be a porn actor now…

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The shitty trailer for LOL:

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Are We There Canceled Yet?

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James Spader was in a couple of space movies, like Supernova, Stargate, and Speaking of Sex.

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The Ice Pirates is one of my favorite movies of all time.

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The Strange Saga of Hiroshi the Freeloading Sex Machine is a “pink erotica” film from Japan full of medium-core sex, cucumbers shoved in asses, public nudity, lesbian sex in a graveyard, and people jerking it on top of fire escape ladders.

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Saving Silverman > Jersey Girl

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American Reunion – another tragedy loosely based off the actual actor’s lives?

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Bad Taste is one of Peter Jackson’s movies that he made before Lord of the Rings.

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Boiler Room is Ben Affleck’s best movie, because he wasn’t the main character.

It was much better than Daredevil, obviously.

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SHUT UP ALREADY!

See you guys next week.

Media, The Squacklecast

Squacklecast Episode 2 – “We Planned This Out”

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This entry is part 2 of 38 in the series The Squacklecast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Hello again, faithful Squacklers!  This week we talk about more random movies with the second episode of the Squacklecast — “We Planned This Out.”  Davepoobond and Solid Billy take on the pressing questions of our times, like “Why does Jean Claude Van Damme play the same character in Kickboxer and Bloodsport?” and realizing that Sean Bean is actually a lazy actor because he dies in practically all his movies so he doesn’t have to act anymore!

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The Schticky Commercial:

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Vince Offer was arrested for an altercation with a prostitute.

And here’s his mugshot!

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Vince Offer should just get a lavalier mic.  But he insists on using his stupid headset.

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The Shamwow Spanish commercial:

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The SlapChop!

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The Better Marriage Blanket

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American Reunion is coming out.

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American Pie: The Naked Mile was pretty dumb.

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Shannon Elizabeth could carry a movie by herself as a stereotypical foreigner.

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End of Days is probably better than Collateral Damage.

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John Leguizamo’s List of Victims

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There was a lot of innuendo in Home Alone 2.

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Training Day is a lot more like Home Alone 2 than you might care to realize…

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Home Alone 3 was also a travesty.

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There were only two black guys in Glory, a movie about a black-american regiment in the Civil War.

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Dr. Who should reunite all the James Bonds in a “reunion” movie.

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Little Man should be re-released in 3D.

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Song of the South should be released in 3D, too.  But its in the Disney Vault’s Secret Chamber, never to be seen again.

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Bloodsport vs. Kickboxer – more like red haired guy vs. black guy with a machine gun!

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Sean Bean dies in all the movies he’s in:

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Someone getting hurt or killed during a robbery should be a given, shouldn’t it?

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Ca$h is the movie where Sean Bean dies twice.

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Thanks for tuning in!  Next time we’ll be live at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles.

Media, The Squacklecast

Squacklecast Episode 1 – “Episode 468”

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This entry is part 1 of 38 in the series The Squacklecast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Hello everyone!  This is the first episode of the Squacklecast, named “Episode 468,” with your hosts davepoobond and Solid Billy.  If you aren’t aware, you can click the “play” button above to start the podcast.  You can also play it in a popup window or even download it.

This post is meant to supplement the Squacklecast so that you can easily refer to all the things that we are talking about.

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Katy Perry – Part of Me music video

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Taxi Driver is a movie with Robert De Niro and Cybill Shepherd.

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That Justin Bieber magazine cover I was talking about:

He looks like a girl.
He looks like a girl.

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Lesbians That Look Like Justin Bieber on Tumblr.com

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Sarah Jessica Parker Looks Like a Horse.com

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This movie that I hate called The Blind Side.

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Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

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Sandra Bullock is good in Crash because she’s good at being a racist.

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But her best movie is really Demolition Man.

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The necessarily annoying foil to Keanu Reeves in Speed.

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That He-man recut of that LMFAO song.

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Bridesmaids was bad.

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Ninja Vixens on Google Image Search

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Surf Nazis Must Die

And here’s a Youtube trailer.

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Netflix doesn’t have Hard to Kill

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But they have Ernest Goes to Camp.

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Ernest Goes to Camp is 4.99 at Best Buy but you have to get 2 other movies too…

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Solid Billy is still waiting for Steel, the blacksmith empowerment film, on Netflix!  Get on it, Reed Hastings!

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Fresyes?  More like Fresno, since they rolled it out everywhere recently – Doritos Tacos Locos at Taco Bell.

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A tribute to 3D chips.

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Samuel L. Jackson dies in Deep Blue Sea.  Or was it the Abyss?  I don’t even fuckin know what movie I’m watching.

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The Abyss is about aliens in the water.

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I swear I saw Avatar.

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Avatar is a total rip off of the following movies:

Fantastic Planet

Thumbelina – The Love Story in Avatar is pretty much this movie.

Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest – I swear this is pretty much the trailer for Avatar.

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WE NEED A SPORTS GUY

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I might have talked to her once on the phone…

So hawt.
Davepoobond talked to her on the phone once, maybe.

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How to Make a Better Podcast

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Until next time, folks!

Games

Hardware vs. Software Backwards Compatibility

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There is a lot of debate currently over if the next generation of hardware from Sony (and maybe even Microsoft?) will support backwards compatibility.

In a word, yes, they most certainly will.  As I am favorable to the Sony line of video game consoles, I am obviously more educated on their practices and the user experience I have with them, not to mention the long-term investment of my gaming collection in the PlayStation brand.

But, “in what form?” is the question that should be asked about backwards compatibility — not whether or not it will be around… Backwards compatibility comes in two fashions, looking forward:

1. Disc-based (hardware) backwards compatibility.
2. Software (storefront/online/digital) backwards compatibility.

Disc-based BC is less appealing to Sony as they can’t continue to make profits off discs after the fact, besides downloadable content, and that, at best, is probably not as profitable as we might think for most games.

By making consumers’ libraries of disc-based libraries incompatible with a potential PlayStation 4, it has the following potential benefits for Sony:

1a. Consumers will repurchase games they have.

This is obviously very attractive to all the businesses involved. The repurchasing of games that are “re-mastered” via disc, and also “re-mastered” (aka “made compatible”) with the current generation of hardware. People get to rebuy the 30 dollar/50 dollar/60 dollar games they bought in the past for varying amounts of money and benefit from software BC, which is explored below.  This will also get them “new” sales from consumers who only bought games used to begin with.

1b. Consumers will “switch to Xbox” if their current libraries are cut off from them.

This is the counterweight to 1a. However, this is not the only option presented to gamers who are suddenly cut from their existing libraries. A portion of them will obviously become floaters, but they may also come back later in the generation when the hardware is cheap.

There are some that will undoubtedly choose the next Xbox (or Wii U?) as their “main console” for this reason alone, but whether or not Sony actually cares about this depends on how much focus grouping they can do and whether or not disc-based backwards compatibility actually IS a factor to keeping existing consumers who own a PlayStation 3.

I personally would assume that 1a > the losses from 1b in the long-run plus the costs of accommodating disc-based backwards compatibility (which may or may not include actual extra hardware in the box).

The result and purpose of the loss of disc-based backwards compatibility is decreasing/eliminating the confidence in optical media severely due to its resulting loss of one of its greatest benefits — longevity of ownership (aka the selling of games back as used games and resold to a new consumer), and giving more confidence to online media.

Now, exploring online-only backwards compatibility, we can almost be 100% sure that anything bought online will be made to work with whatever future PlayStation 4 is available, whether they have to update all the games with a new build or software-based solution. The benefits that come from this are (assuming all the points I brought up above are true):

2a. Customers repurchasing games online — aka “more control.”

Customers “rebuy” games that cost little to nothing to create and service. Not to mention they are cutting out the middle man — the retail store. Sony and the 3rd party get a second income from this and at a greater rate due to less hands in the pot.  This also obviously eliminates used games.  You can’t sell a used digital game.  That makes no sense!

2b. Confidence increasing in Online purchases vs. Retail Purchases

Customers will be less apt to buy disc-based games at a retail store due to the fact that their disc may or may not be backwards compatible in the future. This probably only affects about 30 to 50% of the gaming community that actually enjoys playing old games on a new system. I’m sure that most of the people who buy games sell all of the games they buy once they’re done playing them.

The result of supporting Software BC is BENEFICIAL for the following reasons:

1. Boost confidence in online purchases, which leads to:

  • 1a. elimination of retail new games
  • 1b. elimination of used game sales

2. More long-term profits by having an increasingly larger selection of games available online at a more favorable cost to profit ratio.  There is never a “lack” of games to buy and play, even when a new console is launched.

The most clean example of what is happening is the transition from PSP -> PSVita.  People are buying PSP games to play on their PSVita, and all of the UMD games that consumers may have bought have become unusable on the new system, yet everything that was available/purchased online works on PSVita for the most part or will be patched to be able to.  Anyone who has a UMD game that they want to play on the PSVita will have to repurchase it, no exceptions.

We all know video games are going to online distribution systems exclusively within the next 10 years. Sony’s 10 year plans include outlooks like this, I’m sure.  PS4, coming out in 2014, sticking around until at least 2024 as an actively-developed-for platform. I’m sure every single game that is ever released on the PS4 will be mandated to be released online as well.  If it gets to the point of games being streamed from some server somewhere, you won’t even have a copy of the data you buy anymore. Poopoo on us if those servers go down one day, or the rights to stream those games disappear and you no longer have the right to that software once it happens, even if you did pay for it.

The super long-term plan for Sony is to eliminate disc-based backwards compatibility.  It is simply unfavorable to the industry as a whole to keep it around. It is a wholly consumer-positive practice and during this transitional period we are making into Online-only purchases (and soon cloud gaming) there will be growing pains for consumers who think they own something when they buy it.

The loss of disc-based/hardware backwards compatibility is bad for the consumer.  To promote or not care for the loss of disc-based backwards compatibility is to be anti-consumer.

Poetry and Songs, (C) Song Parodies

Hokemon Theme Song

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Parody of Pokemon Theme Song.

Fun Fact: The “Hokemon” are a group of fucked up animals that I made to parody Pokemon.  They can be found on SquackleWiki.

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Today is the day, to be blown away

Like no one ever had…

I will get them on my balls, and be their masters till they die…

The Hokemon have to understand, the power that I put inside them…

Hokemon…!  Gotta fuck ’em all!!

It’s you and me Hokemon…

I know it’s our destiny!

Hokemon…Oh…you’re my best weapon,

in a battle we must wiiiiiin…

Hokemon…!  Gotta fuck ’em all!!

A fart so true — our courage will jerk me off!

You teach me and I’ll give you a gun!

Hokemon!

Gotta Fuck ‘Em All!

Gotta get ‘Em All!

HO-GAY-MONNNNNNNNN!

Stories, Fairy Tales

The Prefect Candy Bar

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Alone in an alley, the mayor of Candybarrio in Foodland, Cassius Candybar was strolling through.  It wasn’t exactly the safest of places to take a brisk walk, considering the last five high profile homicides had taken place here, in which all of the victims were mutilated to the point of being called a different food.  No one knew what a Tomato Chocolate Smoothie was until last week when Clive Tomato and Sandy Chocandy were murdered and blended together.

“What kind of murderous, Foodlandish person would be able to exist?” the local news stations explored that question to no avail and received higher ratings than ever before.  Conspiracy theorists even started to believe the news stations themselves were propagating this uptake in mutilation-type violence — or even hiring people to commit them so there would be more news coverage!

The sad truth of the matter was, that it was not that simple… Cassius knew more than he had let on in his myriad of interviews.  To cut the mystery short, it was Cassius who had murdered the the five Foodlandish in the alley.  He was using the publicity of the murders to propel himself to the forefront of the minds of Foodlandish in the upcoming elections.

And his plan was working.

That was, until a copycat murderer decided to open his killing spree with a high-profile target.  Banana-Face the Orange had trained with his knife skills for like three hours before he came to the alley behind Roger and Jefferson’s Waffle House and Croissant Bakery.

It didn’t take too much effort to slice the ligaments in Cassisus’ legs… and before Cassius could do anything, a six-inch fruit peeler was jutted into his back.  Banana-Face twisted the fruit peeler slowly as the caramel began to ooze out of Cassius.  In his screams came more and more pain.  The nougat began to ooze out along with the caramel and Banana-Face’s Relentless Fruit Peeler began to dig at Cassius’ peanuts.  Once the hole was big enough, Banana-Face thrust his hand into Cassius and grabbed a peanut, ripping it from his nougaty center.

Cassius did everything he could to crawl away but it was to no avail.  Banana-Face enraged and began to rapidly stab Cassius in his back.  He began to bash Cassius’ head with his own peanut and caramel began to ooze from the back of his head.  Cassius’ last ditch effort was to get his Battery-Powered Blender Knife from his right pocket.  He reached for it and turned it on.

Banana-Face was in the middle of another Stab-and-Twist when Cassius flipped over, causing him to lose his balance.   Cassius raised the whirring Blender Knife into the air and came into Banana-Face’s lower extremities.  Banana-Face screamed louder than Cassius had, and orange juice sprayed onto Cassius’ face as he laughed maniacally, exacting his painful revenge on the orange.  Orange pulp began to spray, as the knife got closer to Banana-Face’s core.

Cassius removed the Blending Knife and readied his thrust again.  In that instant, Banana-Face reached and grabbed the fruit peeler in Cassius’ back and used it as a handle to get closer to Cassius before his next thrust.  Cassius screamed in pain, but that didn’t do much to offset his balance as the blending knife came from the right and into Banana-Face’s side.  They both screamed at the top of their lungs in their weird hug-like stance.

The alley was full of orange caramel juice.  It flowed like a miniature river as it ended up into a grate on the floor.  Banana-Face’s life force drained away and he eventually fell limp.  Cassius fell to the ground as well, but in victory.  He was relieved he had survived the ordeal, but little did he know, a new threat loomed beneath the alley — a fire-breathing Drah-Gun!

Shunookle the Drah-Gun was on a vacation from Nikpan and thought the sewer system in Foodland would provide for a nice respite from the hustle and bustle of Dragon Town.  Unfortunately for her, this was the sixth extremely loud murder to occur within the last week, and it was pissing her off!  She burst out of the alley’s asphalt and flew into the air, throwing asphalt all over the place and flying away.

Cassius Candybar was ultimately known for killing all tourism in Candybarrio once Shunookle the Drah-Gun posted on BizarroBook, the world’s most popular social network that Candybarrio was a very loud and unsafe place to visit.

Moral of the story: Considering the consequences of your actions is prudent in matters of politics.

Stories, Fairy Tales

The Wise Tennis Ball

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Tenny the Tennis Ball has been stuck in the same fence for 15 years.  Oh, the stories he could tell you about Rochestor Elementary School.  Tenny wasn’t always in a fence, though.  At one point, he was used as a tool for mass infliction of pain!

But, ever since he was thrown into the very top rung of the fence, Tenny observed the school and all of the events that transpired below.

Unbeknownst to anyone, Tenny is a romantic.  He longed for the days when he was trapped between two other tennis balls to whom he could have constant contact with in the metal tube he came from.  He is into the multi-racial thing, too, as one was green and the other was orange.

It isn’t easy being stuck in a fence at a lowly school in Missouri.  No one ever says, “Hi,” to him and when the seasons change, he weathers the weather without so much as a glimpse from a 5th grader.

There Tenny stayed stuck in a fence, never minded upon, simply unnoticed, always observing.

That is, until an electrical storm forced an alien spaceship into the atmosphere!  They were planning an attack on a K-Mart building that had gained sentience and was threatening to collect on the layaways the aliens had at the store.  The Layawaliens’ plans were foiled when the K-Mart Building #1335 created an electrical storm to foil them.

The immense radiation blast that came from the Layawaliens’ ship was focused solely at Tenny the Tennis Ball.  His simple existence of being stuck in a fence had instantly become something more… and as the Layawaliens tried to restabalize and exit the atmosphere, a second large burst of radiation hit Tenny and he sprouted legs, and arms, and a brain, and a head, and a kidney… two even!  He had become what he only knew… and elementary school kid.  A 5th grader, to be exact.

But he was still stuck in a fence, body organs hanging out every which way because there was no room for him to grow “naturally.”  There he groaned and lamented in pain as his tennis-ball-fur-covered organs hung and bounced around as he tried to free himself to no avail.

How he longed even more for the days of being a normal tennis ball!  This being a half-human-half-tennis-ball thing got old after about ten minutes of having two swinging kidneys.

There he stayed over the weekend until the children went out to recess.  It’s sort of hard to not notice this weird human hybrid monster thing hanging at the top of the fence.  Some children started to throw rocks and insults at Tenny for no reason.  He hated being “human” and hated humans, too!

Just then, the K-Mart Building #1335 developed space flight capability and empathically felt Tenny’s pain.  If K-Mart Building #1335 wanted a life-hating space captain, Tenny was it.

As the K-Mart building lifted off it made a tractor beam shoot out and rip off the piece of the fence that Tenny was stuck in and levitated it into its roll-up doors and exited the atmosphere.  Tenny the Tennis Ball was given a chair that fit the contours of his new body perfectly.  Even though he was still stuck in afence, he was able to integrate his thoughts with the space-bound building.

First order of business, was a volley of phasers and rockets and contact solution as well as several types of canned goods at Rochester Elementary.  There were tons of screaming children as they were splashed with exploding cases of contact solution and pelted with canned cucumbers and peaches.  The phasers targeted the handball and four-square courts to the children would never get to play at recess again.  This would lead to diabetes in 3/4 of the children and they wouldn’t be able to eat any fun food for the rest of their lives.

The K-Mart building communicated to Tenny that it was going to follow the damaged Layawalien ship back to its home planet and collect on its layaways in full, even if that means taking over their planet.

The Layawaliens ship finally made its way back to its home planet of Layaway Planet, where everything on the planet took a decade to pay for, so it was all old-looking shit.  The defensive capabilities of the planet were no match for K-Mart Building #1335, and soon it landed on the planet, creating a fortress around itself and infecting the population with a derivative of salmonella from its sliced Turkey products that the Layawaliens foolishly took it out on layaway from the store.

Three weeks after the fortress had been completed and 90% of the Layawalien population had food poisoning and stomachaches, Tenny declared Layaway Planet the property of K-Mart Building #1335.  The Layawaliens were forced to sign a treaty agreeing to this fact, so that they would be able to get antacids and cures for the salmonella poisoning that threatened their race.

Tenny thought back to his simpler days of being stuck in a fence as a normal tennis ball.  Look how far he had come, in such a short time.

Moral:  When your life is changed drastically, think of the consequences it has on others as well.

Poetry and Songs, (C) Funny Poem

The Rotting Bowl of Carrots

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I wanna fly into the air!

I wanna take over the skies!

With my rotting bowl of carrots in hand!

I’ll shit all over the masses and fuck them over!

I have a ton of fucking carrots in my fucking bowl!

Remember when I used to swim through ranch dressing in a two-piece bikini?

Let me take them carrots and put them in my mouth, chew them up, and spit them on your face!

Screwed Up Chronicles, Internet

“‘An Explanation and Some Reflections’ – by Reed Hastings” Breakdown

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This entry is part 8 of 13 in the series Dave's Breakdown

Netflix has been making some profound missteps in recent months.  It definitely shows up in their stock price… it’s not every company’s intentions to drop 50% in three months due to the lame moves you are making.  This past week’s lame misstep comes in the form of a separation of businesses, and a really dumb “apology letter.”

Now, not everyone seems to read things the same way that I do.  In this edition of Dave’s Breakdown, I will go in and explain Mr. Reed Hasting’s apology letter for all to truly understand, along with some of my own reflections to top it off.  To preface this, at the moment I have been a Netflix customer for about five years.

The original article is located here.

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“I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming, and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. I’ll try to explain how this happened.”

What this really means is “I’m sorry you guys didn’t like the price adjustment, but oh guess what, here’s something coming up that is universally more inconveniencing for everyone that we forgot to mention when we separated our services…”

What he’s really sorry for is that their stock price fell by 40% when they raised prices and split services.

“For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business. Eventually these companies realize their error of not focusing enough on the new thing, and then the company fights desperately and hopelessly to recover. Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.”

Rarely dying from something doesn’t mean it’s not possible.  Netflix may just be another case study in the “rare” category.  Not to mention, how does something that COMPLIMENTS what you are going to be focusing more on in the future TAKE AWAY from it?  For example, AOL had dial-up.  What the hell else were they going to do once dial-up connections were not state-of-the-art?  They had to defend dial-up connections, there was no point in providing their services for Broadband connections on account they don’t even provide the service for it.  AOL could have probably done stuff a little smarter, but they’ve transformed into a web conglomerate.  What happened to EarthLink, another dial-up provider?  They’re still in business, apparently, doing what they’ve been doing.  The “real” AOL is essentially Time Warner.  Time Warner just shat out what was left of the AOL brand and company that they didn’t want anymore and the “new” AOL is like today’s AT&T — not the same, but not new either.

Borders bookstore was a retail store that sells books, and they offered no electronic versions of books.  Ok, except the reason they failed is because the Print industry, the Music industry, and the lack of them creating a service to take advantage of the new evolutions of those industries into account.  They also operated as retail stores and leases are expensive when you have thousands of stores.  Now, you have the polar opposite of Borders (a failed retail bookstore chain) with Barnes & Nobles (a still-successful bookstore) that is selling electronic books and music IN ADDITION TO having their brick and mortar stores.  Hey, wow!  Barnes & Nobles didn’t close all their retail stores or spin off all their retail bookstores into some weird half-breed retail company, did they?  No.  They kept them all under the same guise, and guess what they sell EVERYTHING, not just one thing.

“When Netflix is evolving rapidly, however, I need to be extra-communicative. This is the key thing I got wrong.

In hindsight, I slid into arrogance based upon past success. We have done very well for a long time by steadily improving our service, without doing much CEO communication. Inside Netflix I say, “Actions speak louder than words,” and we should just keep improving our service.”

What this really means is: “Before we started to worry about our stock price losing value and in-turn any investment opportunities we may have needed, I didn’t have to write anything to our customers in hopes to stop our free-falling stock prices before they hit the flushing toilet.”

“But now I see that given the huge changes we have been recently making, I should have personally given a full justification to our members of why we are separating DVD and streaming, and charging for both. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.”

“I just thought that you guys would accept whatever business decisions I wanted to do because you guys love Netflix, and by association, MEEEE!”

“So here is what we are doing and why:

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD, plus lots of TV series. We want to advertise the breadth of our incredible DVD offering so that as many people as possible know it still exists, and it is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection on DVD. DVD by mail may not last forever, but we want it to last as long as possible.”

Yes, yes, we love DVDs!

“I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We feel we need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolve, without having to maintain compatibility with our DVD by mail service.”

Wait… so what you’re saying is…

“So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently. It’s hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to ‘Qwikster’.”

AW MY GAWD WHAT THE FUCK IS A QWIK.  It’s hard for you to write that you’re renaming a service.  Ok, so what, you’re renaming the service.  That means you can market it and yaddayaddayadda and I can still do what I’ve been doing for the past three years, right?

“We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name ‘Netflix’ for streaming.

Oh, ok, well that’s acceptable.

“Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to.”

Sweet, sounds good.

“It is just a new name,”

Ok, I get it.

“and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies.”

Wait, what?

“One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, and now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. “

Wait, don’t try to change the subject here.  What the hell are you talking about, a different web site?  You just said it was the same site!

“Other improvements will follow. Another advantage of separate websites is simplicity for our members.”

HEY!  YOU ARE A FUCKING ASSHOLE.  LOOK AT WHAT YOU JUST SAID IN THE LAST PARAGRAPH:

“Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to.”

What the FUCK are you talking about?  You just said Qwikster will be the same web site, and then you’re saying they’re SEPARATE web sites.  Are you talking about it being on the same web host?  No one cares that you’re on the same computer as another web site.  I’m sure that my web site is on the same server as some other famously popular web site, but I’m not going around saying I’m the same web site as some random popular web site.

“Each website will be focused on just one thing (DVDs or streaming) and will be even easier to use.”

Easier than… what?  What your web site is now?  I guess that the most logical way of making this easier is to make both web sites work with each other, right?

“A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated. So if you subscribe to both services, and if you need to change your credit card or email address, you would need to do it in two places. Similarly, if you rate or review a movie on Qwikster, it doesn’t show up on Netflix, and vice-versa.”

HOOOOLLYYY SHIT, and there’s the killer.  What in the FUCK just happened.  It’s like your boyfriend saying he’d use a condom and then taking it off right before he inserted.  Or, it’s like your girlfriend taking off her pants and there’s a penis hanging off what you thought was going to be a vagina, but is really just testicles.  This is the most asinine shot in the head I have ever read, save The Joy Luck Club.  Holy.  Shit.

“There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). Members who subscribe to both services will have two entries on their credit card statements, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as the current charges.”

I’m still numb from the last paragraph…

“Andy Rendich, who has been working on our DVD service for 12 years, and leading it for the last 4 years, will be the CEO of Qwikster.”

“We’re sending Andy off to die.  See ya later, Rendich!  Don’t forget to write!”

“Andy and I made a short welcome video. (You’ll probably say we should avoid going into movie making after watching it.)”

This video is a great reason why you shouldn’t make your corporate strategy into a video.  It is not interesting.  Also, what the fuck is with the sole red envelope there?  Just so they can wipe their ass with it after the video is over?  What’s with the sunglasses and the laptop?  Were you doing some leisurely work (wearing sunglasses and using your laptop in the sun, even!) discovering what hue of red the Netflix envelope truly was and decided “Hey I’ve got a few minutes, let’s get Nathan down here with a camera while I’m typing up my ultra-cool apology letter that will totally fix all of our problems and make our stock go back up to 300 points and re-iterate what I’m saying to the populace of people who don’t care to read.  We’re Netflix, after all!”

“We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready. It is merely a renamed version of the Netflix DVD website, but with the addition of video games. You won’t have to do anything special if you subscribe to our DVD by mail service.”

Wait so if it is so easily renamed and its actually just the same fucking thing, why can’t you just have the fucking web site be the same fucking web site!

“For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy.”

That’s because it means money to you.

“The new envelope is still that distinctive red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be the same for many of you.”

I think the least of our worries the color of the envelope and the way it looks.  The experience has ALWAYS BEEN with the web site and the ease of using it, you sentimental tree murderer!

“We’ll also return to marketing our DVD by mail service, with its amazing selection, now with the Qwikster brand.”

Herein lies the only legitimate reason for them renaming their DVD by Mail service.  Yes, you should have a different brand to promote your DVDs again if that’s what you wanted to do.  However, Netflix DVD would have sufficed.  Netflix Video Games would have sufficed to.  I’ve heard weirder mismatches for companies in the past, not that I can remember any off the top of my head at the moment, but no one would have said “I don’t understand why Netflix has video games.  They have ‘flix’ in their name, for crying out loud!  I am totally canceling my account with Netflix because they have video games now, and it has nothing to do with streaming or television or movies or anything and it’s totally not optional oh em gee.”

What happens if Netflix wants to go into video game streaming, such as new services like OnLive have been doing?  Is Qwikster going to separate out their DVD and disc-based video game services into some tertiary company?  Where does it end!  They only want to focus on one thing at a time in each business, yet they’re launching video games, which is arguably a different expenditure all together, and they’re doing omigosh, TWO THINGS AT THE SAME TIME!  Call the board, let’s get another company split up in here!

Also, the reason why people were clamoring for video games in the first place was because it would have been from THE SAME WEB SITE FROM THE SAME COMPANY, WITH ONE BILL, AND ONE PAYMENT SYSTEM!  If people wanted a gaming rental service separate from Netflix, they would have had GameFly already!!  Focus groups would help you out to learn that!

“Some members will likely feel that we shouldn’t split the businesses, and that we shouldn’t rename our DVD by mail service. Our viewis with this split of the businesses, we will be better at streaming, and we will be better at DVD by mail.”

Why?  You’re not EXPLAINING why you think it would be.  What barriers are involved that make this necessary?  You haven’t said anything that convinces me of any sort of argument that makes it seem like this is a good move.  You say you want to focus on things one at a time, and you want to make another business.  How does splitting out the WEB SITE or even your business do anything more for you?  Whether it’s called Qwikster or Netflix, you guys are still in the same fucking buildings, aren’t you?  Maybe you should reorganize your company and make a streaming division and a DVD/video game division underneath Netflix instead of spending money and creating a new shell company to send your neglected business model off to die.

“It is possible we are moving too fast – it is hard to say. But going forward, Qwikster will continue to run the best DVD by mail service ever, throughout the United States. Netflix will offer the best streaming service for TV shows and movies, hopefully on a global basis. The additional streaming content we have coming in the next few months is substantial, and we are always working to improve our service further.”

Moving too fast?  How?  You’re not moving at all.  You’re taking your company in two different directions and, dare I say, setting up your tried-and-true business model up for sale when Netflix really decide to focus on one thing and one thing only — streaming.

“I want to acknowledge and thank our many members that stuck with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.

Respectfully yours,

-Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix”

You know, I would have thought that a co-founder and CEO of this company would have thought, maybe just maybe, throwing out their original business model which started their company and made their success would be something more… unsettling than he may have originally thought the process to be.  Starbucks wouldn’t spin off their coffee business into another retail store if their muffins became the hot new item at their stores.  Hell, even if their muffins started pulling trillions of dollars in, they wouldn’t split that out into a new muffin chain.  It doesn’t make sense!

Now what I think Netflix will see when this happens is a large drop off of subscribers to their new Qwikster service simply because founding a new web site and brand name is quite obviously an uphill battle, and forcing people to accept it is quite another entirely.

Netflix has a fanbase, Qwikster does not.  I certainly say that I have no loyalty to something called Qwikster, but I do to Netflix. I can see why they would need to have a “different” brand because of the video games options coming about and for marketing purposes, but instead of being a completely separate web site, it should be a “portal” or “skin” to the main Netflix web site. Let’s say I go to Netflix, and then there’s a tab for Qwikster DVDs and Qwikster Games. Or if I go to Qwikster, I see an extra tab for Netflix Streaming Video.

As long as there is the same sort of integration for what we currently see, I don’t see why separating web sites benefits anyone — Netflix loses subscribers, I lose DVDs from Netflix, and we have to be mindful of another service with its own payment system, with its own customer service communication (if needed) etc etc.

It’s a hassle, especially when you consider you had it all in the same place before.

In one of the blog comments, Reed Hastings said that they don’t see Qwikster as being “that far away” from Netflix — as its only just “a link away” from each other… but so is MySpace to Facebook, and MSN to Google. There is a REASON people use Facebook or Google instead of all the other hullabaloo of assholery out there.

The Netflix web site is fine as it is.

If the excuse for this is their business is what needs to improve, how is separating web sites going to improve that considerably? If you need a different brand name, then make one. But don’t separate the services for the convenience of saying “that’s a different company, they’re doing their own thing, and we don’t care about it anymore.”  You are still responsible, as a parent company, to make sure customers who are with your new company LIKE your new company, and you’re not just sending it off to die.

What it really comes down to is that Netflix is definitely interested in killing off the DVD portion — the only reason they’re even keeping it anymore is because streaming is going to see very high increases in cost, and they’re not sure if DVDs will end up having more business when the hammer comes down after their streaming licenses expire.

Associating the DVDs into the streaming plans only makes that amount charged for streaming go higher than it actually perceptibly is. It is a pre-emptive attack on what is bound to come.  There are also rumors about how some companies force them to supply DVDs for some unrelated movies to have the license for a streaming version available, but how does spinning a company out into a subsidiary solve that?  Netflix still owns Qwikster!  For the time being, at least.

Maybe Netflix have to split it out to survive, after all. It still doesn’t change my opinion about having some sort of integration of services that make it easier for customers of both.  But I’m not a business manager/CEO type person, so what the fuck ever, I guess Netflix is just smarter than their customers!

–

Update Oct 10, 2011

Rejoice!  It appears that Netflix has reverted their prior decision to rename their DVD by Mail service into something stupid and crappy.

It appears that Netflix doesn’t want to spend money on focus groups or hire actual people to do research for them, instead they have opted to have their customers be exposed to flip-flopping decision-making and putting absolutely zero confidence in the way the company is thinking.  If they stuck by their laurels, at least they wouldn’t have seemed like a bunch of pushovers.

However, apologizing for an apology seems to be a pretty funny concept, and in the end, I can at least be thankful that this stupid business decision wasn’t put through.  The only good thing to come of the whole thing was Video Game rentals… and that seems to be put out to pasture as there is no mention of it anywhere.  Do we really need to tell Netflix how to run their company well enough to not run it into the ground?

Stories, Fairy Tales

Who Found the Staplers’ Hats?

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A conspiracy was afoot.

In The Pencil Box, a coup was forming.  The Staplers, a sect of the Stationeries, have been the prevalent political party and their merciful political power is regulated only by their hats.  Without their hats, they are naked — exposed.

The Staplers use a valuable resource known as staples.  In the staple mines of Swingline Town, the ever-important node of the staple commodity, a nuclear bomb was set off by a renegade faction of pens called the Terrorist Pens.  This had effectively wiped out 34% of the total staple industry in The Pencil Box, resulting in a diminished power in the Staplers.  A staple drought was declared as Staplers went through the dredges of the Office Desk Canyons of The Pencil Box trying to find new suitable mines to replace what had been lost.

It was during this strategic opportunity in which the Stapler population was spread thin that the Terrorist Pens struck again — this time with a large wind burst that blew off all of the Stapler’s hats.  The Stapler’s hats is the prominent difference that Staplers have from one another.  Now they are all the same, and equal.  But that’s not how society works, so in one fell swoop the Staplers started to kill each other for no reason other than the fact that they all looked the same and it freaked each other out.

One spiritual Stapler by the name of John Stapler found himself in lonely cave, away from the ones he loved.  He yearned back for the days (sometime last week) where there was order in The Pencil Box, and it hadn’t been shaken up due to terrible design of its compartments.  It was then that John Stapler had realized he was not actually in a lonely cave, but the holiest and most important of locations to the Staplers in all of The Pencil Box, rediscovered only by John Stapler in a time of need.  John Stapler went deeper into the cave and found a monument that had the following words inscribed:

“In a time of need

You shall see

Not what is important, such as individuality

But what isn’t important, such as unique hats that set a fashion trend no one cares about”

The words meant something, I’m not exactly sure what since I’m not a Stapler, to John Stapler.  As he read the inscription on the monument, it began to glow, and time was reset to before the nuclear bomb in Swingline Town.

John Stapler had been given a chance to set things right before they go wrong!  Not only that, but he had a cool new hat that made him ultra-powerful.  Don’t ask me how, but Swingline Town was saved!  The Terrorist Pens had their nuclear bomb blow up in their faces, if you can call them faces, and the Terrorist Pens were no more, as their base of operations, a chemical plant in the Ink Hills, turned into a crater.

Anarchy would avoid The Pencil Box…

at least for now.

Stories, Fairy Tales

The Triumphant Lion and the Arrogant Jy-Raffs

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Once there was a rap group in the Sahara Desert called the Jy-Raffs.  It was a group of giraffes that loved to sing and rap.  They sang about eating leaves off trees and making sexual innuendos about those sexy giraffe bitches drinking from the watering holes.

One day an exuberantly manly lion named ReggIster Stupenstein published his first reggae/rap album.  He sang songs about legitimate love with his lioness pride without any baby killing beforehand.  He sang of lounging in the shade and eating yesterday’s zebra carcass with no hassle form the vulture community.

In essence, it was everything the Jy-Raffs were not and all the random lifeforms living in the Sahara Desert raved about the album.  This made the Jy-Raffs so jealous because deep down inside they were depressed that they were forced to sing about partying and smoking trees and looking at giraffe buttholes all day.  Most of them didn’t even like buttholes — they were mostly all about that tongue-action.

The Jy-Raffs decided to kill ReggIster Stupenstein because there was only enough room in the “politically correct reggae rap” niche for one successful artist.

Little did they know, this would be their demise.  As they were plotting their revenge in the cramped corridors of a secret underground cave, a genie’s lamp accidentally fell out of an encased tomb of sap that could only be unlocked by uttering the words “lion,” “reggae,” “kill,” “masturbate,” and “grind his liver between three calculus books” in the predicate of a 356-word-long run-on sentence with no correct punctuation.  They were rappers, after all…!

Anyhow, the genie, named Jardan Maura, didn’t come out of his lamp and grant the giraffes three wishes like you would expect.

Instead, the genie was a rebel genie who banished his victims to do irregular to insane monotonous tasks in a sweat shop in China that he owns.

The Jy-Raffs were fucked.  Instead of having to decide four different jobs for the giraffes to do, he combined them into one super giraffe — a four-headed, 16-legged monstrosity of a giraffe, doomed to forever lick closed 0% APR credit card applications sent to random people for the rest of their unnatural lives.

Moral of the story:  Appreciate the hard work that goes into mass-produced junk mail!

Games, Game Reviews

BAN (PC) Review

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Overview

The game BAN has a strange title for so many reasons. One I can think of is that this game should have a BAN slapped on it for being completely crap. All you do is play a crap drawing of a person and shoot what looks like a monster by frantically pushing CTRL. You then die and think hmmmmmm that was fun and then you think how did I get that score.  The gameplay is so minimal but then again what do you expect from PG Games.

Graphics

A stick with a head and a head for a monster well okay long story short there a pile of shit the was no effort in this area.

Sounds

Nothing but a crappy sound track, which is very annoying and is probably why the game is so dam big. I would personally prefer hearing someone straining when having a crap.

Gameplay

It’s all down to button bashing and is well very boring, it is so boring this can be called a medical breakthrough, a fast and effective sleeping drug with no side effects.

Crappiest Part

Well all you really have to do is read the review but I would have to say the graphics they look like a 3 year old drew them.

Overall

Am I allowed to give 0? If not then I will have to give it a 1/10 just for the fact it has no good features.

If I ever find the download for this game, I will post it.

Screwed Up Chronicles, World

ViSalus Sciences: How Being A Scam Is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

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This entry is part 7 of 13 in the series Dave's Breakdown

Recently I was introduced to a… unique company.  I don’t want to say “pyramid scheme,” but it really is a legal version of it — known as multi-level or referral marketing.  Wikipedia will give you a big insight into what these terms mean and how they are related to each other.

ViSalus Sciences is a company that is in the business of weight loss.  Excuse me — I should rephrase that.

They are in the business of MARKETING weight loss products, and having you do most of the leg work for them.  That’s what multi-level or referral marketing is.  It’s a marketing tactic that markets to people, either in-person or through someone you know, rather than traditional means such as television.  They have representatives from their company come by to talk to you after you are invited to a “Challenge ‘Party'” (notice the double quotes) or some sort of get together by a friend or acquaintance under the guise that the product that they are selling is healthy for you.

It may very well be healthy for you.  It may even help you lose weight.  But when a company talks about how their product is good for you for about fifteen minutes, and then spends the next hour or so explaining how you can MAKE MONEY while using it and becoming an “Independent Distributor” (read: selling the product to your friends, and then they sell it to their friends, and you get a cut of that), you have to question the intentions of this company.

Right?

… Or are you allowed to?

There’s no question that obesity is a problem in the United States.  The underhandedness of it all comes from playing off the emotion that if you reject the product for any reason (since they say anyone can benefit from losing weight or becoming more lean) then you are seen as someone who doesn’t give a shit about their body and scrutinized for it.  Of course, it’s totally not because you don’t agree with what you are presented with, and question why it was presented to you in such a manner!  They tell you you are going to die if you don’t change the way you live.  And that may very well be true.  But what they mostly want you to do is to buy into their marketing plan.

ViSalus Sciences doesn’t care if you lose weight or not.  What they really want you to do is to market their products to the next guy, and have them market it to the next guy.  Yes, I understand that businesses exist for the sole purpose of making money.  But there is a reason why certain business ethics are in place and why business models like a “pyramid scheme” are outlawed, and others like “multi-level marketing” or “referral marketing” are walking the fine line.  The reason why these are so controversial and not legitimate business models is because they are UNSUSTAINABLE.  What happens when there are no more people to sell your product to and make money off of?  In this case, what happens when everybody is skinny?  The whole system falls apart, and only the people at the top are left with any money.

The oddities don’t stop there, of course.

When you dig deeper into (or, rather, get poured on with) the details of their referral program, it starts with you getting your ViSalus powder meal replacement substance for free when you refer three of your friends into buying one of their kits — the most expensive being a $250 “Transformation Kit.”  That’s probably a tough sell, but its the “most rewarding” from ViSalus’ standpoint when they’re trying to sell you into selling their stuff.  What’s more, is if you keep selling to people and then THEY sell to other people, and so on, you start getting checks cut to you in terms of percentages of what they buy and keep buying.  Pretty sweet, right?  And eventually you’ll get to a point where they’ll actually pay you for the lease of a BLACK BMW at 600 bucks a month!!!!  Oh, did you read the part where it has to be black?  That’s okay, if you don’t want black, they’ll give you 300 a month for something that isn’t black.

So, wait.  Did you read that right?  What the fuck does the color black have to do with any god damned thing?  I’d probably just chalk it up to the CEO of the company wanting his minions to look like a fleet of stealth fighters driving into the parking lots when they have any stupid meetings or expos for their marketing clients.  Maybe it’s an inside joke and he actually hates black BMW’s.  I don’t know what the fuck they’re trying to get at.  Besides, what happens when you repaint your black BMW into a red one?  Do they still give you 600 dollars?  It’s still technically black on the pink slip if you don’t change it, right?  Are they going to send someone to your house to inspect your car’s color?  Who knows, maybe they send a person to your house to gain intelligence on other matters, like when you take a shit or beat off.  And it doesn’t stop there… you could potentially be making millions of dollars with this marketing plan.  Hooray!  And you’re not even an actual employee of their company, yet you’re bringing in 10% of their gross income!  Makes a lot of sense.  Toss in a bunch of other random shit like a magazine subscription to the aptly named “Success” and you’ve got yourself some fireplace-burning material in addition to pumping weird chemical powder into your body and all the other benefits that come with it.

I think what irks me the most about the company, other than its obviously questionable business model is that on the first page of a Google search there are literally two to three results asking if the company and its referral marketing business model is a scam.  That is a red flag in itself.  You should not see that for any legitimate company.  You don’t search Target and see “is Target a scam?” as the second result, right?  I’m sure if you dug deep enough you’ll see some randoms on the Internet gloating about how they may have scammed Target or how some idiot doesn’t understand how a credit card transaction works.

Not only that, I have a sneaking suspicion that ViSalus themselves are actually putting these “Is it a scam?” articles up on these random web sites.  ViSalus is owned by a huge marketing company known as Blyth, and they have probably flooded the internet with articles of this nature to bury any real “evidence” of any legitimate complaints about the company.  Nearly all the articles you can find about ViSalus asking if it is a scam talk about the dicey things they may do, but end up praising them and saying how good the products are… topping it all off with a referral link to their own referral page to have you buy their shit.  If these articles were actually by individual writers, then they have no knowledge of journalistic ethics (what’s that?) since there is a HUGE conflict of interest apparent and no way to actually tell if they are saying what they’re saying just to get you to buy into it all.  This is what makes the company possibly being a scam a self-fulfilling prophecy.  They apparently say that it is a scam… only to conclude that it isn’t.  But by flooding the internet with these types of articles, it makes you question what they’re really up to.

To conclude, I’m not saying that the products they sell don’t work.  I’m not saying either that there isn’t money to be made by falling into their weird referral marketing program.  I just know that I want to stay the hell away from this company, and if anyone wants my suggestion, it would be to do the same — and make sure you skip on giving them any of your personal details.

–

Here’s a few extra reference materials from Yahoo-related web sites (so you know that it isn’t some fucker posing as a legit consumer):

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/From-gang-member-millionaire-forbeswp-3869850001.html?x=0&cmtnav=/mwphucmtgetnojspage/headcontent/main/3869850001//date/desc/11/s101325

Same article as above with a different name:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2011/08/08/entrepreneurship-nothing-to-lose-and-everything-to-gain/

http://news.yahoo.com/blyth-increases-stake-visalus-sciences-20110415-153430-696.html

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110605130954AAGG2va

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070701165240AALx2cL

–

Update 9/12/11:

And it keeps getting worse.  Not only do they have your friends selling you this shit, they have five-year-olds explaining it to you like they know everything.  BUT HEY!  Don’t forget about how you can REFER YOUR FRIENDS!  Yes, even a five-year-old knows how multi-level marketing works — its that simple!  Here’s one video that pretty much shows how bad this company wants you to get sucked into its ploy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U091N-ZrXYk

The comments are nothing short of hilarious.  Especially the one that says:

“So many of these responses amaze me. I would be willing to bet most of these people know nothing about these shakes, eat at McDonalds or Burger King every week and talk about eating properly. I have had these shakes as my breakfast for 2 years and would drink them for the rest of my life. They have more quality nutrition packed into each one than I can get from just about any breakfast. I exercise daily, which we encourage, and eat fruits, veggies, fish, daily. No need for such negativity.”

By some guy named “TheViGuy.”  Well, that isn’t some viral marketer employed by ViSalus, right?  Wrong.  It is.

It looks like there’s even more five-year-olds-explaining-multi-level-marketing videos on YouTube, too.  Enjoy.

Stories, Fairy Tales

The Unloved Manatees vs. The Child Molester Penguins

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In the North Pole, there were two rival gangs.  The Unloved Manatees “ruled the seas” and the Child Molester Penguins “ruled the ice.”

In reality, all this takes place on a little iceberg island independent of Santa Claus’ tyrannical reign called The Peninsula of the Eye.  It wasn’t even a peninsula and nothing about its geological or geographical features suggested it was an eye.

Gang war after gang war was fought and many-a-manatee’s blood soiled the seas, and many-a-child-molester-penguin soiled the ice.

What these warring factions didn’t know was there was a horror trapped beneath The Peninsula of the Eye that needed just the right amount of manatee blood, penguin blood, ice, sea water, and eel droppings to regain its ultimate power.

It was Santa Claus’ secret weapon, the Electrosucker!  Except he wanted to keep it a secret and didn’t think that the right concoction of ingredients would ever unintentionally be in the vicinity of the weapon.

So, it created a lot of explosions.  The Peninsula of the Eye sunk into the sea.  The Peninsula of the Eye was the entrance to this secret weapon and it would be really inconvenient to get into without it.

So, Santa Claus’ electricity bills went up really high and Santa Claus was really pissed off that he was stupid enough to hook up his secret energy draining machine into his own power grid.

Moral of the story:  Buy energy-saving secret doomsday weapons.