Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Gaaa!

Deb’s been out of town for a couple of days so it’s just been E’, myself and that bunch of pets hanging around the humble hut. Mable the wonder dog managed to escape for a while and led E’ on a merry chase around the ‘hood.”

Summer is here! I just wanted to point that out! It was in the sticky – high 80s yesterday and it’s supposed to be like this for a few days.

I’m amazed at all of the gluten free stuff I’m finding now. It used to be that GF product were rare and hard to come by. Nowadays the local grocery has an entire isle of GF products. Mmmmm!

Oh and for those of you who came by via Ms  MBs Facebook page.  Be welcome!  Sit down and take a load off. I always like visitors and you would be amazed at the people who come by here!

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Christmas trip.

Well, I don’t know when I’m going to be able to post this. My Internet connection has been reduced to a 2.4 Mps pipe. We took ‘E and one of his cousins to the great-white north or close enough to count.  Both of them are Florida boys so seeing snow is always a treat.

First we had to fight traffic and lousy weather . We drove straight through after a long stopover at the step-mom’s family spread (this is where we picked up E’s cuz.) Then we drove and drove, it started raining by the time we reached VA and didn’t get out of it until we reached the In-law’s place. We rested up Sunday, the boys ran around in the snow for a while, most of it has melted off, but we might get a couple of inches Monday.

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Going back to my roots.

OK, so the first time I went to a Science Fiction convention was around 1976. As I recall there were long lines and a small huckster room, but lots of people who shared my only guilty pleasure at the time. Wow, there were other people just like me!

We stood outside the film room and listened to the last reel of the 1933 film King Kong.  Then we were went  inside to a packed room and watched the Douglas Trumbull film Silent Running. I was enchanted. I’d of course seen lots of Science Fiction by then (mostly in the old “book” form) but Silent Running was the first “hard SF” film I had seen in a long time. Silent Running is a freaking BEEEEE! Movie, I am well aware of that. So what, I liked it anyway. I went to a lot of cons after that. Most some of my very dear friends at them (ans SCA too but the cons were first.)

One was the Stone Hill launch #1 which was in some seedy church in Tampa. St9one Hill was a budding Science Fiction fan club that was just starting up.

I think George Takei was a this thing but I can’t be sure. (Memory is the second thing to go!) I went to a number of others and served in various capacities on staff. After I left the service I rejoined Stonehill and actively went to meetings for a few years. After I got involved with the SCA and other such things I more or less abandoned the Stone-hillers. I still went the cons from time to time – they simply were not a main focus anymore (getting married and setting up a household was.) I have fond memories of those times though.

I went to Stonehill’s Necornomicon(link) this weekend. It was being held in Downtown Saint Petersburg which was already busy with the Times Reading Festival and the monthly street market. The turnout was only so-so and I expect that they will me moving to a new venue next year. I heard there was some sabotage too, someone is pointedly damaging hotel property during the cons and apparently this has been going on for a few years.

We took E’ Saturday , he didn’t want to go but we “made him” He didn’t know what to make of all the people in the silly costumes. But he soon warmed up to the filmrooms and especially the lan gaming. We say several people that we had not seen for many years (hey Sid!) I got into a couple of deep conversations with folks about writing-and-publishing (and computers.) I watched a couple of films with E’.

We hung out a the con suite for a while and goggled at “Inappropriate-chick in her Red Sonja getup (there is always one Inappropriate chick at every convention, its in the bylaws somewhere.) We watched the costume contest, this was the year of Batman Villains and Zombies for some reason. The troupe of Zombie Girl Scouts won the show. A couple of our friends were doing a Stampunk thing and got honorable mention.

I had a fun moment, I’d wandered by one of the film rooms, they were showing Wall-E, a freaking great movie. Someone was talking about geology “the moon has no Earthquakes” he said, “there is no atmosphere on the moon and that’s what causes quakes.” He was saying al lot more absurd stuff, I finally looked at him and said “cool story bro!” which in some places on the Internet is kind of an insult. Apparently he got it because he shut up and watched.

We enjoyed it, neec to go to more, nuff said!

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So Pennsic

Well, once again we loaded up the family jalopy and headed out to the Pennsic War.  Deb, E’ and I got on the road at about 3:00PM on Sunday, July 26th 2009. After about 23 hours of driving and several Starbucks’ stops we arrived at Cooper’s Lake PA which is located in the rolling hills of Butler County.

(Monday)

We got unpacked and set up by around 4PM, then we went into town for a shopping run.

(Tuesday)

Some of my campmates found some baby rabbits. E’ is enchanted and (of course) wants to bring one home.

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More March.

I don’t know what it is about late February- Early March but this time of year makes me feel crummy! This has been going on for a few years now and each time is a little better than the last. This year I upped my Vitamin B complex by about 1/3 and that seemed to even things out.

Still; I have bad dreams this time of year. Sometimes I have nightmares about eating Wheat Thins. (I have Celiac so eating Wheat Thins is a bit like chewing on ground glass.) Last night I had a very vivid one about atomic war. We saw the flash of nearby cities going up, and then a missile struck our home town, everything went white and suddenly I found myself a survivor in a brave new world after the holocaust. Then I realized that I was being crushed by debris and the survivor stuff was just my expiring mind’s swan song.
Funny thing is, I sleep extremely well when I have these dreams, it’s like my mind is getting rid of a bunch of ugly clutter, spring cleaning as it were.

I went to see Watchmen with a friend a couple of weeks ago. It was well worth the four bucks (I’m cheap, we went to the matinee.)  I saw Watchmen back in the 1980s and liked it, I loved the complex interplay and rich background material. Superheroes who behave like assholes, who would have thunk it?
The movie is about as close an adaptation to graphic novel as possible. They changed a few things, improved on the storyline a bit. (I thought) The ending is still weak but not as weak as the comic. The cast was spot-on. The dialog was drawn verbatim from the source; the look and feel was very close. I was impressed! (Which reminds me, not to drop name but I know someone who is on the graphic novel’s credits.  I need to get my two copies of Watchmen autographed and mail one to somebody.)
Galactica ended last week and I’m a bit bummed. I liked it. It was the only television program I watched religiously. Ok I watched “Sarah Connor” for the first season but got sidetracked and never came back. Galactica was in a class by itself though. The writing was uniformly good for the entire run. The blow-off neatly tied the loose ends and finished somewhat deeper than I expected. Not too deep mind-you. “Our Heroes” I’m sure get eaten by lions or more likely struck down by disease or childbirth.

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I know what you did last Saturday!

I know this is going to totally add to my DA pack over at OSA HQ CIC or whatever stupid name they call it Now why would a church have a Combat Information Center Anyway?

Well, a few weeks ago I was in Washington DC to attend the inauguration of our new President. On Saturday, January 10th I bugged out for a short time, and went to the DC Anon protest over at the so-called founding church of Scientology.

It was a smallish protest, only about nine or so people. I introduced myself and told them where I was from. (referring to my notes) It was cold, in the teens and a fitful wind was blowing. I didn’t attempt to hide my identity or any of that stuff. I figured if Scientology was paranoid enough to even care that I was talking to protesters, so be it.

And I chatted, with most of them. They were much like the folks in Clearwater. Very young, rather idealistic a bit geeky. They were very curious about the conditions in Clearwater. How the Sea Org were different than the public Scientologists that walked in and out of this place.How they reacted to protesters.

And people were coming and going from the Org, about one every five minutes or so.  It seemed to me to be more or less the same people though. They had webcams taped to the awnings but one of the Anons pointed out that they were not connected. Apparently the police “asked “ them to stop filming passerbys on a public street.

As for the police, we did see a few but they merely walked by, not at all like the off-duty guys the Flag people keep hiring.

Hardly any of the Scientology members spoke to us. Some were challenged by the Anons, “hey, what do you think about working for 39 cents an hour?” yelled one of the kids.  None of of the Scientology members paid attention to that.

One lady pulled up with a bunch of luggage, “did you hear about your buddy getting arrested for hate crimes in New York?” Coincidentally we had just been discussing “agent pubic.” Some New York Anon smeared himself with Vaseline and “body hair,” then ran around the New York Scientology offices smearing the goop on books and people. It was kind of childish I though and I pretty much told the DC Anons I thought so. I’d be pretty hard pressed to call this a hate crime though. Very much a prank– sophomoric.  one that I’m afraid the people involved are going to pay dearly for.  But hate crimes? Hah!

Anyway, the lady turned out to be a well known member who had been out talking with the Anons before. Her name was Cynthia I think . She was really the only person who spoke to the Anons, one lady demanded to know what people had against Scientology (a church don’t cha know) but scurried away when some of the Anons started telling her. All in all it was quite peaceful and interesting.

I wandered back towards the Mall after a while, I ducked into a Metro train at the last moment and saw a couple of girls just miss it, they looked just like a couple that walked in and out of the Org several times , or perhaps I imagined it.

When I emerged I saw a fellow handing out booklets, they were “the Way to Happiness” (big surprise! ) I took one of the books, thanked him, then mentioned that it was too bad many people in his organization didn’t seem to follow the stuff written in this book. He looked confused and mumbled that he’d been in a long time and everyone follows the tenants in the Way to Happiness. I mentioned that his church thought I was an SP and certainly didn’t practice that stuff to people like me.  He looked scared, and scurried away.

I always find it amazing that people who are supposedly trained “talk about anything” and who consider themselves superior  are so incapable of even facing the inherent conflicts in their beliefs. Their communications skills seems stunted to me….retarded.  It’s not like these are stupid people, they just strike me as a group that has given up some of their basic human gifts. That of questioning, discovering, and creating new ideas. I find it very sad and I find them … sad. I feel a sense of loss when I’m around them because deep down I know they are lost to the rest of us. To the six billion that make up the population of this planet, this group of a few tens of thousands have turned their backs on growth and imagination. They think they haven’t, they believe that they are a vibrant–vital group that is going to save the planet.

I don’t see how they can do that by running from us.

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Heavens to Murgatroyd!

OK, this was not us, there was a small amount of glass on our street, some skid marks, that was all when I got home from work yesterday.

Right in front of my house

Someone had

A really bad day.

I don’t know exactly what happened.  One of my neighbors took these photos while I was at work. Aperently someone was  driving a bit too fast, had a cell phone out and clipped a parked car on the side of the street. and flipped over.

Thankfully no one was hurt.

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More Crazyness!

I’m seeing a general uptick in activity against anti-Scientology protesters in the last few weeks. Lots and lots of those cease and desist letters are going out and they are four pages long now. The additional material seems to be screeds against alleged “Anonymous” activities on the Internet. Of course Scientology can’t seem to connect the protesters with some of this other stuff (the flashing .GIF files sent to epileptic BBs for example.) That’s a bit like connecting the antics of Fred Phelps’s idiots and your local Methodist Church.

Someone apparently working at the behest of Scientology did on the order of 4000 DMA take down requests on YouTube. Most of the requests were bogus because the owner of a work is supposed to  be the only person making such a request. Well some fellow who does a bunch of online business (including a gay-porn site) started systematically putting out thousands of sworn statements suggesting that he was the owner of lots of videos having anti-Scientology content. YouTube initially took the vids down but just as quickly restored most of them.

There was another World Protests Scientology Day a couple of weeks ago in Clearwater and many other Scientology offices across the globe. This was number eight, like the other seven it was completely peaceful. I attended for a short time, mostly to talk with people and observe. I spoke with the single CPD officer stationed to watch the protesters (in stark contrast to the 25 or so at the first one.) One thing I asked was if he’d heard of the many bomb threats the Scientology legal affairs guy told me about in a previous protest. According to the Flag Official Representative, the Scientology offices in Clearwater were getting multiple bomb threats every day last summer.

The Police officer hadn’t heard of that. He said everything to his knowledge has been peaceful and the protesters were behaving themselves. That’s what I’ve been seeing too but it helps to ask around. I’ve also checked on the CPD web page and their police blotter (which like most PD s is on line these days.) Not a mention of it. It’s not mentioned by the FBI either (I get their bulletins.)

Mmm, either Mr. P was um.. telling me a big o’ fib that day back in May or the Scientology offices are covering up information about people making phone threats against them. I’d say you were just telling me a lie Peter, aiding and abetting terrorist activity has a Federal rap is I’m not mistaken. That pretty much invalidates the old Hubbard mantra of “SPs can be lied to.” No one should be lied to Mr. P. Certainly not in an environment where facts can be easily checked.

I’m not upset that you lied to me Peter, I’m amused by it. Lies tend to complicate things, lies tend to make things worse. I would expect that a 50+ year old fellow who’s the “head of the Flag Legal Department” or whatever your title is might understand that. Most very young children understand this, why can’t you? Or do you just violate that rule because Hubbard tells you to. In my world that would tend to invalidate lots of what Hubbard has to say, but that’s another subject.

Peter tells me that the Anons are terrorists who make harassing and threatening phone calls, then show up in scary masks to terrify people. Other people in Clearwater tell me these are ignorant kids out on a lark. I think both ideas reflect on the general ignorance of the people stating them, but is there a kernel of truth to it?

Weeeell sure, I think the EFG masks are kind of intimidating, I think some of the Anon’s I’ve spoken to didn’t really understand what they were messing around with.  A lot of them (the majority) do however.

What of it? The general movement is the important thing, not the individuals. Individuals can only deal with things in their own idioms. Each can only be true to themselves and each must be dealt with as a separate entity. But individuals can work together without formal command and control if the goal is important enough. Scientology has a history of attacking the center of a “push” as they put it. If the Anon movement has no center, they must attack individuals who may not have a large part of the movement as a whole. but each individual has the power to communicate with the entire movement at a moment’s notice. I have a saying that “how can one expect a mob to be smarter than an average person?”

The answer? “Make the mob out of above average people.”

That is what Scientology truly fears.  They have good reason to.

My only regret is that more people who are into Scientology are not permitted to see the truth for themselves as I’ve done. I think Hubbard himself said that people need to find out things for themselves and not take one person’s work for it. “What is true for you is true,” but you have to verify.

Since I don’t need to buy myself a bridge and I don’t have regs and Sea Org members telling me what to believe, I can go out and talk to anyone about anything I want. I can come and go as I want, can people like Peter truly say that? Could he sit down with me over a cup of coffee and tell me what he  thinks, irregardless of the Scientology bottom line? I sincerely doubt it. He MUST speak only about approved things, he MUST have only approved opinions and I suspect he can’t sit down with someone who has an open mind.

I’d invite him to come, sit down with me once and talk, perhaps listen for a bit. I don’t think he can.

Does that make him more or less free than I?

You know what? I still don’t give a fig about what they believe in. The issue, the only issue seems to be spelled out in Keeping Scientology Working.  If they can decide to give up KSW. If they can give up that kind of thinking and declare. to the world that it’s counterproductive to attack people and ideas they don’t agree with, I think Scientology would find it suddenly had less problems. But they actually have to DO it not just say it, not just pretend or lie about it.

***

During the protest one of the many Flag transport van  swerved (I thought) very abruptly towards a fellow on a bike. I thought the van might have intended to run the guy down but then I saw he only intended to splash him with a nearby puddle of water. It was obviously on purpose he made a “you’re crazy!” hand gesture while he was driving past. It’s not the first time that this has happened, a few months ago one of the vans swerved out into the opposing lane of traffic to (presumably) freak out a protester, he did get that one on film.

I have noticed a general lack of courtesy by the many van and bus drivers in Downtown Clearwater. They tend to share the street like a dog shares a bone. I have observed them racing around the downtown area seemingly oblivious to pedestrians and bikers. They seem to do pretty well in some very tight streets but they remind me of NY cabbies. Heck I’ve seen pedestrians (in Sea-org get-up) walk right into traffic like they didn’t believe a car would actually hit them. I wonder if the pedestrian related accidents are more or less than average around Scientology buildings?

Is it really worth this kind of playing around, what if the bike rider had gotten hit? Is it worth the unbelievable shitstorm that would once again envelope Clearwater, “Bike rider run down by Scientology,” do you folks really want those kind of headlines?

***

In other news;

There have been a number of protests at the Scientology Gold Base in California and this may have gotten some kind of reaction. The local CA police at first permitted the protests, now they are waving an injunctions written in Clearwater ten years ago claiming anyone with an association with people of the now closed Lisa Macpherson Trust may not come within so many yards of a Scientology building yada-yada….

Someone is VERY upset that people are protesting Gold.

Then last week, for some reason the cops pulled back and allowed the protesters to protest, so the staff over at Gold put up a number of large speakers and blasted the protesters with “annoying sounds.”

In New York, Katy Holms arrived at the début of a new Broadway play she’s in, to number of Anon protesters. Scientology was well aware of that the Anons intended to be there because they sent a welcoming committee, several in fact. One fellow was reportedly trying to get the Anons to riot. “Go to the Org and break all of their windows!” he reportedly said.

More importantly, there has been a sharp upswing in harassment activities, surveillance, sabotage and even violence. This mostly seems to be centered on California where, admittedly the protesters have been a bit more aggressive. Some people have been noting that Scientology. members have been growing weary of the constant protests.

At their Gold Base, they (allegedly) have a high concentration of “volunteer” workers who operate the Scientology binderies and CD manufacturing. Volunteer means that (allegedly) they are working at far below minimum wage to produce very expensive products. Apparently the Scientology masters are using their “hide tech” and keeping people inside buildings when protesters show up . This will have a specific dollar value to whoever is benefiting from the sales of this merchandise so I can well understand why the powers that be in Scientology do not want protesters around Gold. It all comes down to money in the end.

I wonder what the workers think of the noise?

Enturbulation.org seems to be down permanently. Why I do not know but this will probably  spawn lots of other sites just like it. (ed note, it looks like http://whyweprotest.org has taken up the mantle.)

***

I don’t see the  people at Gold or the folks marching around Clearwater as being very free.

As I said, giving up my freedom for provisional salvation (not to mention lots of my money) seems silly, especially when I have millions of books at my fingertips, Hubbard’s works (should I so desire) and the much larger wealth of human endeavor. I think I like having the freedom to investigate and criticize, I’d bet most Scientology members would too, if they were allowed. Freedom is a funny thing, we often don’t know when we have it and we cannot always tell when we have lost it. BTW, in case some of you Sea Org member reading this think that I talking out of my bunghole, think again. Look at my DA pack, Peter can show it to you. I gave up several years of my life so you can march around in your salor suits.

It’s easy to tell who’s lost their freedom, who gave it up for no reason. From the outside, it is very easy to tell.

I hope Peter can someday sit down over a cup of coffee with myself or somone and actually talk, actually communicate, as apposed to just stating the party line over and over again. That has got to be frustrating.

I feel for you folks, I really do I and I wish there was some way to help.

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Obama – no drama!

OK, so I played hooky from work yesterday and did Clifford the Big Red Dog for another political function.

This time I was in a nice Obama-blue Hawaiian shirt with my old unit ballcap on my noggin. I played “volunteer security force,” for presidential candidate on the stump guy.

The event was at Knology park, a  5500 person venue one of the many small training venues in the area. Deb and I arrived around 9 Am, I parked the car a good mile away, there was NO parking in the immediate area and many people had set up ad-hock parking areas in their homes and businesses.  For a nominal fee!
Deb and I played usher to around 2500 people in our section; Deb put on her Alpha-school-marm persona and made sure people crammed together. I did my impression of a large, friendly but intimidating fellow and backed people up when they ran into stubborn Obama supporters.  It went very well, we were supposed to keep watch for agitators or worse but we ended up spending most f our time keeping the aisles clear. They crammed so many the Fire Marshal started to get pissed. I hear they turned away thousands.

We had to move several hundred SROs to other areas of the stadium, most were OK with it but I (of course) ran into a couple who refused to move. I would ask them to state clearly to me that they were refusing to do as I asked, then I would say in a loud voice “madam, I am *asking* you to please find a seat!” I didn’t have to do that more than twice and I never had to say the next thing on the script which would have been “I’m sorry maam but the people I’m about the call won’t *ask* you to move!”

Anyway, Barrack Obama gave a speech; we helped out and helped clean up (Ow! Moving those million steel  barricades!”)

They said everyone did a fantastic job, the financial sector is continuing to melt down,  and Obama’s opponents called off the debate this week!

What!? I was going to pop some corn and watch that sucker! I sure need to rest my dogs!

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Coffee and Crazyness!

I did my mocha and writing ride again last night, into Downtown Clearwater.

I happened upon a protester at the corner of Cleveland and Ft. Harrison. He and some friends were doing some kind of anti-government 9/11 thing. I had a hard time reading their signage.  It was all hand written by a sharpie and really difficult to read in the dark. It said “Most people still think Saddam did 911.”

He seemed earnest in his beliefs although it was difficult for me to tell exactly what he believed in.   He was well aware of Scientology but he had some strange attitudes which lead me to suspect he was a Scientologist or very sympathetic to them. As a matter of fact he mentioned a connection with the CCHR which he characterized as an organization that was independent of the church. He said that lots of people in the CCHR are not into Scientology (that’s news to me!)

At the same time he didn’t seem too sympathetic to Scientology itself. It was a strange mixture.  He was into satanic stuff or so he said.  He seemed to think that would shock me and he mentioned two or three other things that he was dead wrong about. Like who actually authored the book “A piece of Blue Sky.”  He mentioned the Jack Parsons Hubbard ODO connection like this was supposed to be news to me.
I should have known better because his sign when I got close enough to read it extolled the virtues of http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/main.htm, a pro conspiracy smorgasbord  that’s been making the rounds for the past few years., Zeitgeist makes convincing noises but completely misinterprets history and short-strokes all over the place.

He was very vehement in his dislike to “psyches” as he put it. All pharma is evil, his Mom was on Prozac, and she got off of it and committed suicide, see! That proves Prozac made her commit suicide!

(Um yah, sure; I’m sorry about your mum dude!)

He tried to get me to talk about Scientology, “I’m your friend! You can tell me about what you know” he said. I informed him that I don’t think of him as a friend since I had just met him and knew nothing whatsoever about him. “Well I think of you as MY friend,” he said.

Sure buddy! The only people who talk that way are trying to pull one over on me.

I’ve noticed that a lot lately in Clearwater. I’ve bumped into some very chatty people who seem to dislike Scientology, want to pump me for information. They  use the term “psych” a lot. (Little protip Peter; Most people don’t use the word “psych” outside of Scientology and certainly not as a derogatory term.) I’ll also try to forget that Downtown Clearwter has about as many cameras on the public street as Fort Knox and from some of the stuff Scientology has placed on YouTube, they are probubly picking up and *recording* conversations.

Also; I’ve noticed that most people who utter the word psych don’t seem to understand the difference between Psychology and Psychiatry. That’s kind of a giveaway;I mentioned to this fellow that Psychology and Psychiatry are about as different as hairstyling and surgery, he gave me a funny look.

I always find it strange when people criticize stuff they know nothing about.  Would it not make sense to actually read up on the subject and find the real flaws instead of just making shit up? Of course you stand the risk of understanding what the mental health industry is really for, it’s not some nutty bunch of guys in thick German accents trying to tell you that “man is just an animal!”

**

“Baez,” the portly Mexican-looking Flag security guy ran out to make sure I wasn’t hassling all the Sea Org people walking around. (Hi Baez!) Someone probably ran into his office to tell him the evil SP was spreading evil or whatever evil SPs do. ( I got to work on my German accent!)

I think he’s one of the guys who was a petitioner on their goofy injunction. If so he’s publicly stated that I’m a crazy person who might very well cause harm to Scientology members (like murder them!)

Because of my craziness!

I might do something drastic!

Instead I went over to Starbucks, got a mocha and wrote for a while. (Sorry Baez! I really hope your barracks inspection went well this week! I remember those when I was a kid in basic! Barracks inspections  were a bitch! (Giving them and getting them!)  I think it’s nutty to be doing that kind of shit as a forty+ year old man, but I am the crazy one!)

There is a protest scheduled for this Saturday, 10:30 at Clearwater Coachman Park. Bring a mask and water. They say that they will march until their water supplies run out which in this heat won’t take too long!

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