...one of those mornings...

So, interesting weekend. I beat my daughters at a six-hour Monopoly game. It took forever, as we each had one of each color group. Except me, I had all the yellows. So I had hotels on there, after which point my daughters decided to trade between themselves to try to mount a united front of some sort. Anyway, the 6-year-old didn't last long after that. Eventually, I got it so that I had hotels on Mediterranean, Baltic, Oriental, Vermont, Connecticut, Atlantic, Ventnor, Marven Gardens, Pacific, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. My 8-year-old only had the reds covered with hotels, but had like $5,000 in cash. Of course, I had NO cash, or "operating capital", you might say. And sure enough, I kept hitting the reds and she kept missing mine. I'd pass go, and either hit Income Tax, or land on Reading (she owned all 4 railroads, too). Everything else I had was mortgaged. Luckily, I'm well-versed in the Law of Large Numbers....the more rolls, the more likely she'd start hitting mine. Eventually she started having to pay up....and then I accepted her two oranges in lieu of the $1150 rent on a yellow. There weren't any more hotels, so I loaded those up with 4 houses each right away. Finally, she landed on one of them, the rent was $700. She had already sold off her hotels/houses the time before, so she mortgaged her properties, counted up her cash....$699. Oh, sorry, thanks for playing!! :)

Then it was off to my mom's for birthday presents! $50 from home depot so we can buy stones to finish our front walkway....when we last left off in May there was no crabgrass all over the place, however. Also some audio CDs on the history of baseball, a Red Sox - emblem set of serving platter and bowl (why? why? why? really? to serve turkey and mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving?) Also, a bag of Popnots brand popping corn, which will deliberately only half-pop so it's extra crunchy. (I highly recommend these things to popcorn fans.) Dinner was steak, potatoes, corn on the cob, and Italian bread. Fantastic! Completely made up for the store cake....plus the hideous vanilla ice cream that Hood thought would be good to color with annatto -- the same orangish dye that makes cheese look stupidly orange, now makes vanilla ice cream look peachy.

Anyways, the "one of those mornings" parts. I was assigned to take Erika's car in for a tune-up so we can drive it on the dirt roads in Maine. She needs to pass emissions testing for the state of Connecticut, and her "check engine light" needs to be fixed, too, as that was part of why she failed the testing a couple of months ago. So I was ready to go, and suddenly the corn and bud light I had last night decided to give nature a call, if ya know what I mean. The funny part there is that we use Charmin toilet paper in our house...and the wrapper mentioned that it was a 6-pack of MEGA rolls, which are 4 times the size of "regular rolls", apparently. Then, the button on my pants for work fell off, the threads were a bit worn, so I had to rummage around upstairs for my sewing kit to put THAT back on...have I mentioned how lousy I am at threading a needle? Luckily, Erika had some pretty good-sized needleholes. Next, I forget Erika's car keys in the house after setting the alarm, so I have to go back in. THEN, I can't start her car.....and in attempting to find the phone number where she worked, my phone found me a business with the exact same name, only instead of Monroe, CT, it was Monroe, NC. No help. Anyways, apparently you have to really slam the clutch pedal all the way down to the floor, and I wasn't pushing it in far enough. So she's asking me if I'm pushing the clutch pedal in, which sounds kinda obvious and patronizing, and sure enough it starts right up. GRRRrrrr....and to top it off, an old lady cuts me off up hill, pulling out of her driveway and failing to notice the traffic moving at 40-45 mph.

A couple of quick "random hits"....

Carly Simon's "Anticipation" song was used in Heinz Ketchup ads years ago....but really, no constipation remedy thought of using it? If "Anticipation" is "making me wait" according to the original lyrics, then really......

Also, please remember that as a present, cash is always good. I have sorta trademarked this phrase: "It's like a gift certificate, redeemable ANYWHERE!"

What would happen if.... (7/25 edition)

...if I gave in to Down Under David's request for before and after pictures of my haircut. (Sorry, I still haven't put the knee-high socks back on for a picture yet.)

I'm working with an accountant on a common client whose initials are KJY. I simply HOPE that the J does not stand for Jelly.

So, yeah, I got the haircut last night. Is "barbress" a word? I want to say that I tipped the barbress five dollars. I could say stylist, but really, does it LOOK like my hair was done by a stylist???

My wife was born in Virginia and moved to Staten Island when she was like eight. So while most of the drawl is gone, she still will say she waits "on line" (the NYC way) instead of "in line" when she is queued up at the Department of Motor Vehicles. (Or as it's known in Connecticut, Vehicals.) Just one of those weird regionalisms that freaks me out when I hear it. Waiting on line, to me, is what you do when your Internet connection is freaking slow.

I wonder if HBO would try to sue, if the Emmy awards restricted their categories to over-the-air broadcast channels only. It seems odd that cable shows go up for the same awards. I haven't had HBO for 20 years, I have no idea if their shows are any good.

I enjoy taking a Friday off, and then coming back on Monday and finding an overnight-express envelope (like FedEx) in my mailbox. Gee, I hope that wasn't a RUSH job that I wasn't around to act upon last week....

I'm not a big fan of poker games with "community cards". I would like the World Series of Poker to feature Dealer's Choice rounds. If someone wants "day baseball with rainouts", then that's what gets played. (By the way, I'd like an informal poll of which readers know how that game is played.) Then the next guy wants 5-card draw, jacks-or-better, progressive....spice it up a bit, huh?

I've ordered my Maroon 5 tickets for October. Apparently, though, the trick is not to be first logging into Ticketmaster right at 10 am when seats go on sale, but to be late by a couple of minutes, as earlier people's seats become available after their Internet connection screws up, or they botch the word verification. (you know, after waiting online....)

I would like Dan Mega to host a version of ESPN's "Who's Now?" competition among our fellow bloggers. Because he is just SO Now.

Roasted pistachios are awesome. It's a close race between them and roasted almonds, except almonds come already out of their shells, whereas sometimes pistachios are hard to open. I've been known to slam my stapler on my desk here to try to pry one or two open.

(I knew I used up my best thoughts yesterday.....)

Next week I'll be in Maine Wednesday to Sunday...so no list next week.

Random hits....

So, I have poison ivy forming on my right leg, right at the top of where my knee-high socks reached just below my kneecap.

I have two screws in my left kneecap, a bad accident trying to learn to ride an ATV. Some day....the full story.

My boss took me to lunch today. Check it out. I had a dog with chili and cheese, and another with bacon and cheese. Only 25 cents for bacon....the same amount the deli next door adds to a sandwich for a dollar.

Tonight, I should be getting my hair cut. They said they had just closed up early yesterday afternoon when I asked how long the line was. Perhaps some before-and-after pictures? I did take a before shot this morning, just in case.

I heard on the radio that Michael Vick's attorney's name is Billy Martin, which obviously is an ESPN cross-promotion for The Bronx Is Burning mini-series they're showing on Tuesday nights.

I never fancied myself an animal person, but even I know better than to treat dogs like that. Sheesh.

Would it be wrong of me to solicit tips from our clients? We prepare government forms for them, signature-ready, among our various roles as third-party administrators. Too bad they don't come to our office....I could put a tip jar directly on my cubicle.

College football is nothing but minor-league football. And yet it's shoved down our throats like it's just as good as the NFL. Phooey.

I think Family Guy should do a Hong Kong Phooey parody. Peter as the chief, Lois as the secretary, Brian and Stewie as Phooey and that cat.....

Uh oh, better save some for tomorrow....

The poison ivy tree!

So, we went attacking the oriental bittersweet again....

We have some small trees that aren't alive, having been dwarfed now by taller trees between the street and our front yard (makes for good privacy). But they give the bittersweet something to climb up to get to the live stuff up there.

We were cutting and pruning evil growth today, Erika in long pants (despite the 85 degree weather), and me with knee-high white socks to cover my legs. Groovy, eh?

So I see a hairy poison ivy root scaling one of the dead trees....I also see some leaves and berries on the tree, but they don't match the type of tree, and sure enough I see that they are GIANT poison ivy leaves. I swear, I thought they were elm tree leaves. The giant root has actually branched off the dead tree trunk, and put out its leaves just like a tree would. I almost got hit in the face with them, they were at eye level and higher.

We'll know at the end of the week whether or not we've contracted urushiol-induced contact dermatitis....if ya know what I mean.

We will have to sacrifice some privacy once the trees are taken out. My cousin's husband does that stuff for money, so he's welcome to come and grind it all up. At first I was like, hmmm....mulch made out of poison ivy. That can't be good. But really, who's going to be walking barefoot on it? Or throwing mulch at other people? Mulching up the poison ivy probably will be okay....maybe the urushiol washes away after enough rain, who knows?

What would happen if.... (7/18 edition)

...fans of baseball who gripe about the designated hitter were instead treated to this: the person put in the lineup to hit for the pitcher, also had to stand right behind the mound and FIELD for the pitcher, too? That way, the pitcher doesn't have to worry about covering first base or backing up behind home -- this new fielder would stand right behind the pitcher and take on ALL fielding duties as soon as the pitch as thrown. That also stops old lousy fielders from playing "half the game", as DHs are accused of.

On my way in to work today, one of Connecticut's Department of Transportation's portable electronic signs on the side of Route 8 in the Shelton area warned of Slow Moving Vehicals. WHAT?!!!!! You see, my web browser even underlines Vehicals as a misspelled word. Good grief!

When I was a kid, the only non-peanut butter sandwich type I would eat was: American cheese with ketchup. I was mocked often by older cousins. Looking back, it's like a burger without the ground beef in it, though. And yet, I have no interest in eating such a sandwich any more, and it's probably been 25 years since my last one.

I work in a building with offices on floors 2 to 5, and parking on the ground floor and basement. I work on the top floor. I will take the elevator when it's resting on G when I walk in....but really, to walk up 4 flights of stairs, is quicker than waiting for the elevator to come to my floo

DAMN! I'm mid-Webex and the presenter keeps taking her window to the front of my screen!

As I was saying, why wait for the elevator to come to G, and then ride it up to 5? Or worse, sharing the elevator to stop at 3 and then 5. Walking is faster for that few a number of floors to travel along. The worst is when I got on alone, someone doing maintenance called for the elevator at 3, rode it to 4. At that point *I* got off because it's faster to walk the last floor than wait for the doors to close and ride up to 5. There's a "door close" button inside, but it never makes the doors close quicker. It's a tease!

When my brother was a kid, he used to ask for chewing tobacco on his list to Santa. Carlton Fisk of the Red Sox used to do Copenhagen ads. Needless to say, Santa didn't come through. (Yes, Dan Mega, Fisk played for the Red Sox long, long, ago....)

During this WebEx, the presenter is displaying her Internet Explorer window, and her Yahoo! Toolbar says she's got one new email. Should I bug her to remind her to check her email? :)

Nerf Herder was a band who did a song called "Van Halen", a cute little ditty about how they went to hell with all their infighting. I think Van Halen should do a song and call it Nerf Herder...maybe tell them to mind their own business! Actually, I've BEEN waiting for Madonna to do a song called "Lady Beatle". See what I'm going for? Not like rap feuds, but more amusing ditties.

I had to post this...

I left this as a comment on my last entry, but I want it more prominently displayed, because I feel kinda smart for asking it. It's a take-off on an old George Carlin bit, and he probably didn't invent the original question either....

Anyways....

Can God create a kidney stone so big that even He can't pass it?



Thanks, and remember to tip your server generously. I'll be here all week, followed by two nights at Chuckles in St. Louis next month.

Busy schedule this week!

4 games this week. 3 for the hideous "Team formerly known as SCRUBS". And then one for my good team on Thursday. Last Friday my arm hurt throwing, so I played first base. No errors....one miscommunication, though. A ball was hit in the hole between first and second, I couldn't get it, but the second baseman could. The pitcher yelled about who was supposed to cover first. Um....ball hit to the right side, that would be YOU, pitcher! Actually, we lost when our manager got thrown out at the plate with what would have been the tying run. It was his 2nd time in the game getting tagged out at home. Doesn't matter, though....we only had 6 people show up and borrowed some extras from the other team. I'm sure we'd have had to forfeit if we'd actually outscored them. 4 for 5 with two dingers, though. I like that!

I was scheduled to play some tennis last night with my friend Rob. We went over to the courts at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, CT, where he lives. It's a ritzy prviate school, apparently where JFK went to high school before Harvard. The storms were threatening, and in the first set (me, up 6-5) the rain started. I thought, hey, here's an idea, plunk the serve over the net by about 2 feet to make him scurry on the wet pavement. It worked for a couple of points, but then the next point he got there faster and suddenly I was stuck unable to react on the wet ground. I did close out the set, and then we stopped playing. We eventually left, after about 20 minutes of waiting, and as we were driving back we noticed it wasn't wet as we'd driven about a mile down the road to a different part of town. So we went to a park and it was, indeed, dry. After warming back up with slightly damp balls, we started the second set. Got to deuce, I believe, when it started to pour at THIS court, too.

(One funny thing happened before the rain -- I hit a return that hit some crabgrass growing in a crack in the asphalt, and barely bounced up. If you think the half clay, half grass court was weird for Federer-Nadal a few weeks ago....they shoulda tried something like that! Different surfaces within the same side of the court!)

Okay, so tennis was over, we went to dinner, and as we looked outside it had dried up once again....we were too full to play again, but God made sure we didn't change our minds, by having it start pouring AGAIN as we walked through the parking lot back to the car.

another reason to love wikipedia...

So, I was listening to some VH on my iTunes here at work, and went to check on rumors that the reunion tour with Dave is back on.

That started at the wikipedia page for VH, which then led me to click on the article on Eddie's "Brown Sound", the way old VH guitar parts sounded.

At the top of that article, it had some disambiguity language --
"For the defecation-inducing sound, see Brown note"

So OF COURSE I had to look....and now, so must you....

Here comes the weekend again...

Nothing makes me look forward to a Friday than when late on Thursday afternoon the boss mentions he won't be in the next day...

My co-ed softball team won again last night, so we're 7-0. I actually drew a base on balls during the game. That's pretty tough to do, because I like to hit and I'm not too fussy about where the pitches are. But if you can't reach the pitches, you do what ya gotta do. The weird thing in our league is that if a guy walks, and there's a woman next in the lineup, she gets a free walk, too -- to avoid the idea of intentionally walking men to try to pitch to the easier-to-get-out women.

Maroon 5 tickets go on sale soon. I found that there's a show at Mohegan Sun on October 12. It was weird, the Ticketmaster list of shows didn't mention it, only New York on the 10th and Boston on the 15th. But amidst the pre-sale special offers, there was mention of one promotion that applies to only four shows, one of them being in the budding metropolis of Uncasville, CT. (I think Uncasville is actually part of Montville....but the point is, it's where the Mohegan Sun casino is.) My wife is a big Maroon 5 nut, so maybe I can get some early Christmas shopping done!

WFAN in New York just had its 20th anniversary, so they were doing a retrospective a couple of weeks ago -- they started playing songs from July 1987. One of them was the underrated "Jammin' Me" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. And sure enough, not only did I know most of the lyrics, I sang the same WRONG lyrics I sang as a teenager. There's a line about "take back Joe Piscopo" and I always would sing it as "take back your basketball"...and sure enough, I screwed it up again 20 years later.

I was supposed to have my bloodwork drawn for my regular diabetes checkup, and I forgot that they wanted me to do it "fasting" -- don't eat breakfast! Of course, two things. My blood glucose level was on the low side when I woke up, and I didn't read the paperwork for the lab specifically indicating not to eat....so it wasn't too long before it was too late -- a hideous frozen bagel from a bag of them that my wife bought but rejected....followed by the last slice of homemade poundcake made with strawberry yogurt instead of sour cream -- Erika had made it for strawberry shortcake last weekend.

What would happen if.... (7/11 edition)

...the UFC (ultimate fighting championship) people decided to stage tag-team matches? Now, I'm pretty sure boxing as tag-team would be stupid, but maybe the octagon would have some interesting matches. Or would it carry the stigma of pro wrestling, and detract from the legitimacy of the sport?

Most parents of small kids, and perhaps bored college students, know the song "We just figured out Blue's Clues.....etc." from the TV show on Nickelodeon. I think it's very easy to substitute "Booze Cruise" for "Blue's Clues" and make your own lyrics. (I thought of this BEFORE hearing of Jenny's tale on the boat this week....)

With the summer humidity, my piano isn't sounding great....it always seems a bit muffled in the dense damp air, perhaps. I've been converting guitar music on the fly to play such silly stuff as "Smoke on the Water" on the piano. I did a paper in college about music chords, the wave equation, and harmonics, that sorta explains why songs like that SUCK on the piano. I'll spare you the details, I'm sure anyone can imagine the lameness involved.

Some people complained about the 4th of July being celebrated on a Wednesday, because, oh boo hoo, it doesn't lend itself to a three-day weekend. That annoys me to no end. If it's that big a problem, don't celebrate it. I feel there's too much of a sense of entitlement for some folks. Just you wait, everyone....somebody will try to make Christmas a "Monday" holiday....move it to the 27th instead of Saturday the 25th, so that you don't lose a free day off from work. And by "somebody", I think I mean George W. Bush.

Why are cable channels called networks? Aren't networks supposed to be different stations linked together? Like NBC, there's a couple of hundred channels all showing the same shows around the country. That's a network. CNN is one channel. What's being networked? The Cable News Network is really the Cable News Channel.

I also hate when people refer to stations by their cable number. They'll say the game's on channel 6....when it's really channel 61 over-the-air, and the cable company just happened to assign their number 6 to that channel.

There's a sign on my street advertising the college students who are painting a neighbor's house. However, the house itself is set back from the street and the driveway runs down hill a couple of hundred feet. I've never actually seen the house from the road. So although I appreciate the idea of the contractors advertising what they do, they certainly don't have the opportunity to show off whether or not they're doing a good job.

At my church Sunday, they asked to congratulate "Gene and Fran" for being named Eucharistic ministers. Or perhaps it was "Jean and Fran". No indication who was who. It was an old married couple in their sixties. I thought for sure that they were going to get to debut by handing out some Jesus during Mass....but they weren't even utilized. Seems to me if they're going to make a point of calling them out, then they ought to put these new skills to use.

One last thing, I guess. I was a big fan of the old Hartford Whalers. Their logo was pretty lame at the time, but now I kinda think it's got some erotic lendings to it. Maybe not to the extent of Joe Camel's nose looking phallic....but certainly either some cleavage or butt crack.

And on that note....back to work :)

Oriental bittersweet

Anyone know this stuff? It's a woody, vining plant that will take over the vegetation in the area. Our yard has this stuff. I went to search the internet for it once, and the very first hit off of Yahoo was a page sponsored by the Town of Newtown, CT. That's less than 5 miles from Oxford, so it's most likely a local phenomenon.

Of course, if you ever want to see it in action, travel down I-84 between Waterbury and Danbury, and then hit I-684 in New York down to the city itself through Westchester County. The bittersweet sends out new growth in pairs, the 2 shoots intertwine themselves for support, and go up, up, up the nearest trees, and then spread over to more trees up at the top. Then the vines choke those trees to death, and move on. Last fall along both of those highways we saw what looks like giant nests of the bittersweet vines all at the top of the trees. Small trees have no chance.

In fact, last summer we first noticed the bittersweet crawling up our house onto our deck (elevated off the kitchen, above the garage in the back), and taking over a young 12-foot tree. We had to pull all the vines down, and then noticed this stuff was responsible for a lot of young trees being fallen over in the immediate periphery of the wooded area between our house and the neighbors'. So it's been an ongoing fight. Part of the problem is that the bittersweet gets buddy-buddy with poison ivy. In fact, we misidentified large poison ivy roots as bittersweet, and Erika had to go on prednisone late last fall.

This year, the bittersweet is much less, and we do enjoy seeing new growth turn brown as we identify the roots on the ground that it's sprouting out of, and both cut it, and then spray it with concentrated poison ivy killer (what is that, triclopyr?) However, the dead vines from last year are twisted around trees and accumulated about 30 feet off the ground, so it's not always possible to pull them all down. We may need to rent a cherry-picker or hire a tree service. If we didn't have poison ivy, it would be easy to just ask them to mulch it all and spread it around the back yard, but really, who wants mulch that makes you break out in an itchy rash, huh?

What would happen if.... (7/5 edition)

... somebody named Bob worked at my client, the Juran Institute? Oh wait, one does. When I get an email from him, I am inevitably haunted in my head with the chorus of "Bob, Bob, Bob...Bob Bob - Juran". (Think Beach Boys, and the melody should come to you.)

Shea Hillenbrand used to play for the Red Sox, and whenever he'd hit a homer, I wanted the announcers to say "Shea ralphs one over the seats in left," because that would pay homage to Shea Ralph, who played women's hoops for UConn back around the turn of the century.

The Spanish words for "wet floor" are "piso mojado", and I often see a bilingual sign in the aisle of a supermarket where there's been a spill. The funniest thing to do here is start singing Janis Joplin -- "Take it! Take another little piso mojado, baby! You know you got it, and it makes you feel good!" (Really, I'm only 35 -- it's just that car trips with my parents subjected me to a healthy dose of music from the 1960s.)

Blog reader Jenny had an interesting post about the Shocker. This made me think of two things. One was the way my wife makes the symbol whenever the song "Shock the Monkey" comes on.

The second thought has to do with animals like birds which have a cloaca. Having a veterinarian for a wife teaches you all sorts of stuff....like how some animals have a cloaca, one all-purpose hole for both reproductive and excretory functions. This, of course, makes the Shocker an interesting undertaking....of course, those animals don't have opposable thumbs anyway.

This is prime nectarine season now, and nectarines are my favorite fruit when they're ripe and in-season and juicy. None of the dry ones that I take a flyer on in the winter -- those are awful. Anyway, about 15 years ago I was having one as a snack at work, and the pit was freestone and partially opened. So I didn't have to crack it open to see that there was a small nut inside for the seed. It looked just like an almond after you crack one of those open, so I gave it a small taste. And sure enough, it actually tasted like almond flavoring. You know, like Amaretto or "toasted almond" flavored stuff. Eating almonds themselves NEVER taste like "almond flavor." But this nectarine seed tasted just like Amaretto. I mention this to my dad, and he says that nectarine seeds are a natural source of cyanide. Yikes! (I've since read up that there is cyanide in there, but generally not at fatal levels. Nevertheless, I've never had another nectarine seed again.)

What's the probability that a pitcher will pitch well on any particular day? I mention this as a student of mathematics and probability. Let's say that 85% of the time, a pitcher will do well. Well, if you're a manager and you make 4 pitching changes, then the probability that all 5 pitchers do well would be 0.85 to the 5th power, or 44%. My point is this: The more pitchers you bring in, the more likely one of them is going to suck that day. (I think most major league pitchers should be able to get most hitters out, and leave it at that.)

If we were at war with China, would the US Government discourage fireworks, having been a Chinese INVENTION (whoops, not invasion)? Would we call firecrackers "freedom crackers" or something like that? (I just get annoyed by clowns in the neighborhood setting off stupid loud noises.) Like, too bad they weren't invented in France -- that would cut down on the racket! :)

540 rubles

So, Erika hooked me up to this Russian website which hosts a bunch of MP3s. Cheap, too. They used to bill my credit card in American money, like $20 or $30 at a time, and then you could buy songs for like 10 cents. The price per song has jumped to 15, and now 19 cents each, but that's still pretty good.

Actually, now they're not in cents, but rather these "c.u." which may or may not stand for "customer units". But whatever. The thing is, the prices are now being dictated in Russian money. I went with the lowest re-load amount they offered, which was "20 c.u." for 540 rubles. Unknowingly I just went ahead and clicked for that choice. Then it hit me, what's the exchange rate? Yikes! Well, it turned out that 540 rubles was $20.97, and then I had a 21-cent (one percent) fee for the international transaction.

Let's just call it "coulda been worse...."

As for the MP3s? I still have about 25 out of my 250 audio tapes that haven't been re-done as MP3s. At first, I used to run a wire from my tape player into my Mac, and made mp3s that way. The quality wasn't always the best, depending on how worn the tape was. All of my Beatles stuff sounds great that way....one reason I did that is because I was raised on the American albums -- so to hear the original British CDs is weird, because my mind cues up the next American song in my head, only to have it be something different playing next on the disc. (Each side of an album ends up being a 15-minute "song", rather than me splicing apart the 6 songs into separate files -- that's why it's important to keep the as-in-my-head order.)

So I did a Tesla album from '91....filled in missing songs from Def Leppard's Hysteria, and then took some greatest hits from Eddie Money and George Thorogood and put them on one CD. (Neither of these guys have enough famous songs to really issue an album completely of hits, anyways -- songs on the original tapes that weren't famous to begin with, and not worthy of being included.)

One last weekend bit....our on-demand is working again from Comcast, so we bought Stranger Than Fiction last night -- Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman. I give it a B- to a B, but no higher than that.