Random musings of a grammar nerd

The Many Faces of Giselle

2006-10-22T17:04:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I have the sweetest, calmest, most adorable cat:

And then there's the possessed Mr. Hyde side she was showing this morning:

22 years is enough of a wait.

2006-10-15T09:26:00.000-04:00

(photo from the Detroit Free Press)

GO TIGERS!!!!!!!!!!!

The Detroit Tigers haven't been to the World Series since I was six years old. I still remember watching the 1984 World Series in our family room, having pizza and drinking Coke out of my one of our Little Caesar's Tigers glasses and cheering wildly when they won. It's been a long wait since then, but what a beautiful way to win a series.

Last night, they raised my blood pressure a few too many times- leaving bases loaded, allowing the A's to load the bases after 3 straight walks, bringing it to the bottom of the 9th with the game tied and two outs. And then after singles by Monroe and Polanco, Magglio Ordonez steps up to the plate and with a 1-0 count, just smashes the most beautiful, perfect walk-off home run into the left field seats to win the game and bring my beloved Tigs to their first World Series in 22 years.

Now in Detroit, our championship hopes have long rested on the Red Wings and Pistons. We haven't had much luck with baseball or football in my lifetime. I don't think many people hold out hope that the Lions will ever be much good. But somehow the Tigers have managed to hold on to fans even through 12 straight losing seasons, including 2003, when they lost 119 games to set a new American League loss record. Nobody expected them to have a good season this time around, and they came out fighting for first. After tanking end-of-the-season games to my fiancee's adored Kansas City Royals, popular opinion was that the Yankees would make short work of the Tigers. And yet they turned a poor end-of-season record into 2 series wins, 7 post-season wins in a row, and now a trip to the World Series. I can't wait to cheer them on.

Live Nickel Creek footage!

2006-07-22T13:50:00.000-04:00

Videos from Nickel Creek's Bonnaroo Music Festival appearance are at AT&T's Blue Room. Click on "Bonnaroo" on the left side of the page, then you can choose the band you'd like to see. There are also videos from Bela Fleck & The Flecktones (all hail Bela, the Don of the Banjo Mafia!), Ben Folds, and several other groups. Sadly, Nickel Creek's videos don't include Chris Thile's hilarious "Set Me Up With One Of Your Friends." But the three that are included are, of course, fabulous.

An open letter to Eugene Levy

2006-07-21T16:29:00.000-04:00

Dear Mr. Levy,

We like you, we really do. You were fantastic in "A Mighty Wind," "Best in Show," and "Waiting for Guffman." You practically made us laugh until we cried with your writing, acting, and singing as part of Christopher Guest's wonderful crew of comedic actors. Your dry wit in these movies is worth more than a thousand stupid Farrelly brothers' gross-out jokes or Jim Carrey mugs. You've provided voices for 2 recent kids' movies that got good reviews from the munchkins I work with. IMDB even tells me that you were in an episode of "Road to Avonlea," a Kevin Sullivan series loosely based on the stories of Lucy Maud Montgomery, and that wins you huge points in this Anne of Green Gables fan's heart.

But then we started to get worried about your choices. An Olsen twins movie? The man who brought us the slow-motion, anti-depressant-addled Mitch in "A Mighty Wind" getting billing after the Olsen twins from "Full House"? And we didn't even have the stomach to see "The Man"- just the previews were enough to make us cringe. You even got a worst supporting actor nomination in the Razzies for it.

But possibly most troubling is your presence in the American Pie series, and it is this continued association which brings us to this letter today. Your participation in the first one is kind of understandable. One can imagine that reading the script made it clear that it was just the kind of sex-obsessed silliness that would bring horny teenagers to the theatres in droves. Still a little below your talents, but an understandable proportion of money to effort. Okay, we said, but surely he'll have the dignity to get out of this embarassing role before the sequel. But there you were, in the second and third installments too. Then, shortly after the direct-to-DVD release of the abysmal "American Pie: Band Camp," the unfathomable fourth entry in the series, in which you were the only returning cast member from the original movies, CNN brings us the depressing news of a fifth movie in the series. Why, Eugene, why?

To be fair, IMDB does list a new Christopher Guest movie, "For Your Consideration," in your resume. This is a good sign, although our hope is tempered by your track record of stinkers in the last few years.

So please, we beg you- stop taking these crappy jobs. Leave them to the Rob Schneiders and David Spades of this world, a Baldwin or Sheen/Estevez brother, or pretty much any member of the Girls' Bike Club. Stop this slide before you end up with top billing in one of the Sci-Fi channel's laughably awful movies!

Sincerely,
Your hopeful-despite-all-evidence audience

Just my opinion

2006-06-30T09:02:00.000-04:00

In my mind, Britney Spears' 50-hour marriage and those 3-month Hollywood serial marriages are more damaging to the idea of the sanctity of marriage than the "damaging" effects of letting two homosexual adults make a consensual lifetime commitment. I wish the legislatures would stop wasting their time on issues like this and focus on more important things, like putting together systems which actually empower people to get out of poverty.

"The President confessed to having had limited experience with enraged rabbits."

2006-06-01T20:31:00.000-04:00

Okay, so Dave wasn't making it up- Jimmy Carter did report that he saw a giant, angry swimming rabbit. The full story and photos are here. (Fantastic title quotation from Carter press secretary Jody Powell's book The Other Side of the Story.)

Ooh!!! Sparkly!!!!!

2006-05-31T20:30:00.000-04:00

"Elves," he said. "They're just so silly."

2005-12-02T14:56:00.000-05:00

For your holiday listening enjoyment:

David Sedaris tells a hilarious story on how the Dutch celebrate Christmas. It was my first introduction to Sedaris, who writes funny stories which are even better when you hear him reading them.
He reads it on NPR's "This American Life." (It starts 25 minutes into the episode, which is available in Real Audio). I distinctly remember listening to this on the way to a nursing home Christmas pageant,trying not to veer off the ramp onto I-270 because I was laughing so hard I was almost in tears.

My other favorite "This American Life" story is the "Squirrel Cop" story. This is just not the way you want to start your new job! (It's about 20 minutes into the episode.)

T-shirt of the day

2005-11-29T10:36:00.000-05:00

Excellent! Take this, grammar manglers!

Fun Quote Saturday

2005-11-13T22:41:00.000-05:00

for Dave, in honor of one wonderful year together:

"The world is full of nice boring young men. The crazy ones are hard to find and harder to keep, but it's worth it."

~Carl Hiaasen, Native Tongue

Hummus! Yay!

2005-11-10T17:16:00.000-05:00

Let's try this again, and see if Blogger will deign not to eat my post again.

Yay! My food processor arrived Wednesday from Amazon. After much debate over which one to get, I picked a pretty white Kitchen Aid 7-cup processor - plenty of room for making hummus! Sadly, I can't make it exactly the way Dave describes the recipe since I no longer live in KC, but Mustang Mama gave me an excellent tutorial.

Other fun things: Tonight: take the cat to the vet! Always fun! And never causes any stress for me or bad behavior by the kitty!
Tomorrow night: Dave arrives for the weekend!! Yay! We're going to The Melting Pot on Saturday to celebrate our one year anniversary of dating. I'm so excited to see him!

What You Should Watch On TV Today

2005-11-05T11:45:00.000-05:00

11/5/05, TNT, 5:00 Eastern time: The Negotiator. With Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, David Morse, Ron Rifkin, John Spencer, and Paul Guilfoyle.

Now, to be clear, I'm not recommending that you watch the entire movie. It's kind of ponderous and dull at times. It is more of the kind of movie you'd watch because you stumbled upon it while channel surfing on a Saturday than anything worth paying to rent at Blockbuster. Jackson is his typical high-intensity self. Spacey just irritates me.

I am, however, strongly encouraging that you watch the first 15 minutes or so. Why? You'll get the chance to see Samuel L. Jackson, David Morse, Ron "Arvin frickin' Sloane" Rifkin and John "Leo McGarry" Spencer dance the Cotton Eye Joe, joined for a do-si-do by Paul Guilfoyle from CSI. Seeing these actors (who normally play such reserved, dignified roles) out on a bar dance floor doing a silly dance is giggle-inducing. So I'll watch the beginning of that, and then switch over to the syndicated "Alias" episodes from the first season (aka "when they were really good and the writers weren't smoking nearly as much weed").

Also on: Sci-Fi appears to be having a Disaster Day, with a whole slew of their amusingly craptastic made-for-Sci-Fi movies: "Tornado!" with Bruce Campbell (practically scene-for-scene rip-off of "Twister"), "Tidal Wave: No Escape" with Corbin Bernsen (hilariously illogical and silly!), "Deep Core" (thankfully haven't seen this, nor heard of either of the "stars"), the 3-part, 6-hour "Storm of the Century," "Avalance," and "Epicenter." I'm guessing that they're leading up to that disaster movie that's on one of the major broadcast networks tomorrow. With scenes that range from the Eiffel Tower crumbling to Washington's face falling off Mt. Rushmore, neither Dave nor I can figure out exactly what sort of natural disaster it's supposed to be. But all bets are that it will be silly and totally nonsensical. We can only hope it will be as amusing as some of the ludicrous Sci-Fi channel movies and not just plain irritating and stupid like "Mansquito."

Leftover M&Ms. They're what's for breakfast.

2005-11-02T21:17:00.001-05:00

Okay, so I had no trick-or-treaters on Halloween night. Not one. So I've got leftover M&Ms (note to M&M Mars: 2 packets of Peanut M&Ms out of 40 does not a variety bag make!) and some Kit-Kat bars. I should probably bring them into work, lest I be totally tempted to finish them all!

Speaking of work, as I'd mentioned in a previous post, our costume theme was board games. Pictured above is my Scrabble costume. One of my co-workers came up with the idea of using Halloween-themed words. It was kind of fun to make- a fairly brainless craft project to do while watching TV and/or talking to Dave on Sunday night.

Random Quote Friday

2005-10-28T10:38:00.000-04:00

in honor of the radio telethon they're doing at work this week:

Betty White: If you like great PBS programs like "Do Shut Up" and "Shut Your Gob," you'll want to support our pledge drive.
Bart: Pledge drive? Uugh!
PBS Guy: That's right, Betty White.
Betty: If you watch even one second of PBS and don't contribute, you're a thief! A common thief!
PBS Guy: Oookay, take it easy, Betty.
Betty: Sorry, but these thieves make me so damn mad. You know who you are! Thieves!
Homer: You're mad? Where's my show?!

Game on!

2005-10-22T10:33:00.000-04:00

Tonight's plans: Detroit Red Wings (8-7-1) at Columbus Blue Jackets (7-2-5), 7 p.m. My family is coming down to Columbus for the game, figuring that our best chance to see our hometown Wings at an affordable price is to see them away from Joe Louis Arena.

Update: Final score: Red Wings 6, Blue Jackets 0! Great game!

I've never seen an NHL game, although Dave & I did have an amusing time watching the UHL's now-defunct Kansas City Outlaws lose to...well, some team who fell on the ice slightly less than they did. There was a huge fight 32 seconds into the game which resulted in about 17 minutes of penalties. We also had 3 near-misses when pucks came flying over the glass towards our 4th or 5th row seats. Those were the highlights. Other than that, it was just giggling when one of the players slipped and fell on the ice with no help from any other player, and randomly cheering for unknown players when they got anywhere near the correct net.

But in investigating the Outlaws, we did find the team with possibly the greatest logo ever- the Danbury Trashers:

The Trashers hockey stick I got for Dave has a legion of malevolent, stick-wielding trash cans, streaming out of a garbage truck. It's fantastic!

p.s. Dave tells me that the opposing team was the Rockford IceHogs. Their website tells us that IceHogs hockey is "about heart. Soul. Skill. And, of course, rabid dedication to the time-honored practice of beating the living heck out of the other hockey teams, night after night after night."

Fun Quote Saturday

2005-10-15T00:03:00.000-04:00

"O is for Oz.

Do you want to visit the wonderful far-off Land of Oz
where the Wizard lives and scarecrows can dance
and the road is made of yellow bricks and everything is emerald green?

Well, you can't because there is no Land of Oz
and there is no Tin Woodsman
AND THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS!

Maybe someday you can go to Detroit."

~Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book by Shel Silverstein (definitely not the ABC book you share with your children!)

Got to Kansas City on a Friday

2005-10-12T22:20:00.000-04:00

...well, actually a Thursday, but I didn't think Rogers & Hammerstein would like me altering the Oklahoma lyrics for my little blog.

I spent last weekend in Kansas City, visiting my boyfriend Dave. Also at the Dave House were his once-and-current roommate Mustang and Mustang's girlfriend FCC@V. It was quite the house party! I got to feed my craving for KC BBQ at Gates, go to Mustang's sister's wedding (where Dave graciously consented to go beyond his comfort zone and dance a couple of fast dances with me), and visit Union Station. Dave & I had our first date there last November, and it was wonderful to go back there with him again. We met under the clock pictured above, and spent the next 6 hours or so talking. It was a pretty perfect first date, even with the irritating bagpiper that showed up later to annoy us both. But we even bonded over our dislike for bagpipes. We're looking forward to going back when I visit in December, when all the holiday decorations will be up.

But all in all, it was a wonderful weekend in KC, and as expected, very hard to leave. But it was nice to find out, when I finally got home 2 1/2 hours later than planned due to stupid plane delays and a highway accident, that my mischevious and occasionally diabolical cat had mostly behaved herself while I was gone. She did spend the next hour meowing loudly at me, probably yelling at me for abandoning her.

Fun Quote Saturday

2005-10-01T11:47:00.000-04:00

"’Well, basically there are two sorts of opera,' said Nanny, who also had the true witch's ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. 'There's your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like "Oh oh oh, I am dyin', oh, I am dyin', oh, oh, oh, that's what I'm doin'", and there's your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes "Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!", although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That's basically all of opera, reely*.’"

~Terry Pratchett, Maskerade
(*Spelling as indicated in the book. No person who has an ounce of self-preservation would think of arguing with Nanny Ogg over how she wants to spell things!)

"Hey Poindexter! It's Halloween! Put the book away!"

2005-09-30T18:13:00.000-04:00

I need to figure out a Halloween costume for work. Our theme is to dress as a board game or some part of a board game. Suggestions are welcome, but it would greatly help if they were simple enough that:

1) I could make it without great monetary expenditures
2) the kids that I work with would understand what it is (Dave, this means I will not be dressing up as the Ukraine from "Risk." You, of course, are free to do so!) and
3) I can still move about and sit down to do my job without great problem.

Ideas (other than the Ukraine) that have been tossed around already were something related to Candyland, a pie piece (or the whole pie) from Trivial Pursuit, Connect 4 board, or something from Clue. Dave may be digging up his old childhood board games this weekend to find other ideas.

Current music running through my head: "Why Should The Fire Die?" by Nickel Creek. Also listened to Emmylou Harris' "Red Dirt Girl" album this afternoon. Fantastic, amazing, flowing, soulful. Highly recommended.

"I am a leaf on the wind."

2005-09-27T22:17:00.000-04:00

Saw "Serenity" tonight, and will post more on it later in the week. I'm not posting spoilers here yet.

Caveats first: It's violent, it's dark, and sometimes gruesome visually and thematically. It's not for everyone, and certainly not for children.

That said, it's a beautiful movie. The music seems sparingly used and mostly fits in with the action very well. The visual effects are stunning, but they're not supposed to be everything. Behind them is heart and intent and deliberate storytelling, and it struck me at one point that this is what the Star Wars prequel trilogy should've had that may have saved it from being such an empty shell. The movie almost moved me to tears at some points, had the audience laughing and clapping at others, and made me jump in shock several times. Okay, so I startle easily and didn't have Dave to hang on to this time (but I will when I go see it with him in KC next week!). But there are still some shocking and suspenseful moments. And one very dizzying sequence that would be hell in IMAX.

I loved the first sequence on the ship- Mal walks through the ship and runs into various members of the crew, and it's an excellent, smooth shot that gives you a quick mini-tour of the layout of the ship. The little visual touches on the set are fantastic- I especially like the vines painted around the kitchen. You just imagine Mal and Jayne sitting there, laughing at Kaylee's girliness as she stencils just to spruce it up a little.

Other notes: Simon seemed a little stiff (even for Simon) in the early scenes. Watching Summer Glau, much like seeing Jennifer Garner on early seasons of "Alias," makes me want to go out and learn martial arts in the eventual and inevitable case that I'll need to knock out 5 men twice my size in a bar fight without breaking a sweat. The people sitting next to me shared my bafflement that there were animal trainers listed in the credits. The only animals I noticed were Mr. Universe's goldfish. I mean, trained goldfish, that's really cool...but somehow I think I must've missed something. There might've been a lizard in a cage, but again, what training was needed for that?

TOBOR. It's "robot" spelled backwards.

2005-09-26T17:31:00.000-04:00

Television Without Pity did this cool thing where they solicited donations to help schoolchildren affected by Hurricane Katrina. For every $2,000 raised for charity, they'd also have a recapper do a special recap of his/her choice. M. Giant did a recap of a Monk episode but reports that he had initially thought about recapping the horrible, horrible Star Wars Christmas special. He didn't think he could get a copy in time, though. But thanks to Mustang 23's dad and one of Dave's friends, we have a DVD copy of it! It's just so incredibly bad that I'd have loved to read a recap of it. It's just...there's Wookie porn. With Diahann Carroll and Jefferson Starship. And 25 minutes of unsubtitled Wookie grunting at the beginning. And Mark Hamill with more makeup than I've ever worn. And Carrie Fisher obviously stoned. And Harvey Korman and Art Carney. And Bea Arthur! Singing!

Of course, now Lucas is probably going to hunt us down to get the last remaining copies of the special so he can continue denying that it was ever aired. Really, who can blame him? It sucked!

"Shut up! Shut up! I cannot believe you are not shutting up!"

2005-09-26T06:52:00.000-04:00

to my neighbor whose car alarm wouldn't stop going off at 6:30 and 6:40 and 6:45 and 7:05 (stopped & started 3x) and 7:10 (2x & counting) this morning:

"If I ruled the world
I would dream up inventions.
I'd throw out the rules,
disregard all convention.
I'd make the world peaceful,
happy and bright
so all of us
would sleep much better at night.

"First thing I'd demand
would be a car alarm
easy to install
but hard to disarm.
It would be silent on streets
and parking lots, instead
it would only go off
in the car owner's bed."

~Christine Lavin, "If I Ruled The World"

"So what does that make us?" "Big damn heroes, sir." "Ain't we just."

2005-09-25T14:10:00.000-04:00

10 Reasons Why Joss Whedon Rocks (and thus, why you should go see "Serenity")

1. Creative genius behind three fantastic shows: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Angel," and "Firefly"

2. Going to guest star on "Veronica Mars" this season and is an unabashed fan of the show.

3. Loves Strong Bad & put Trogdor references in at least 1 Buffy episode. There's even a picture of Joss wearing a Strong Bad shirt midway down the page here.

4. "You're a bloody puppet!"

5. Joss talks about the development of the score for "Serenity" in an interview at Culture Pulp (WARNING: Full interview may contain spoilers!) In pre-production, he burned a mix CD of songs for David Newman, the composer.

Q. And this is actually what my score-geek friend wanted to know: What were those songs?
A: "There were a couple of songs from Nickel Creek, whom I adore -- I love them with a fiery vengeance. here was some movie stuff: "Angela's Ashes," Elmer Bernstein's theme from "Far from Heaven" -- not because they were necessarily the right idiom, but because the themes were so incredibly indelible within the first 20 seconds, which is about as much time as I usually gave David. [laughs] They had to become indelible before there was too much going on for anybody to hear anything.

So, #1, I love how he thinks about and talks about music. #2, he's a Nickel Creek fan! Nickel Creek is a fantastic band, both in recordings and in concert, and I can see how their blend of traditional bluegrass and new fusion-y and rock-type styles would work in the Serenity universe.

6. Made a spectacular, amazing musical episode of Buffy which moved the plot along, had clever lyrics, and was mostly well-done by the cast. (Unlike attempts by some other shows...)

7.The "Firefly" DVDs include the extra of Adam Baldwin singing "The Ballad of Jayne" --complete with fuzzy ear-flapped hat!

8. For these "Buffy" exchanges:

Giles: "You'll see. Everything will be right as rain."
Spike:"Oh, listen to Mary Poppins! He's got his crust all stiff and upper with that Nancy-boy accent. You Englishmen are always so...Bloody hell. 'Sodding', 'blimey,' 'shagging,' 'knickers,' 'bollocks'. Oh God...I'm English!"
Giles: "Welcome to the Nancy Tribe."

Anya: Don't be ridiculous. Martha Stewart isn't a demon. She's a witch.
Xander: Please, she-- Really?
Anya: Of course. Nobody could do that much decoupage without calling on the powers of darkness.

9. Possible obsession with monkeys?

from "Firefly"

Mal: "Kaylee, what the hell's going on in the engine room? Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose?"

and from "Buffy"

Oz: "Did you know that the monkey is the only animal cracker who gets to wear pants?...So I'm wondering if the other animals feel sorta ripped. Like is the hippo going "Hey man...where are MY pants? I have my hippo dignity" And the monkey's all, 'I MOCK you with my monkey pants!' And then there's a big coup in the zoo."

10. Because, as Dave notes, the character of Jayne alone is worth the price of admission:

Jayne: "All I got was that dumbass stick, sounds like it's raining. How come you got a wife?"

Jayne: "Wha-- are you-- are you saying she's a witch?"
Wash: "Yes, Jayne. She's a witch. She has had congress with the beast."
Jayne: "She's in Congress?"

"Dear Diary...

2005-09-24T21:59:00.000-04:00

"Today I was pompous and my sister was crazy. Today we were kidnapped by hillfolk, never to be seen again. It was the best day ever!"

So goes my favorite quote from the Joss Whedon series "Firefly." It's got lots of suspense and drama and mystery, but also lots of fun throw-away lines like this one. I watched a couple of episodes when it originally aired, but then Fox cancelled it unwisely and unceremoniously, and I lost track of it until this summer, when my boyfriend insisted that I spend some of my post-thesis free time watching the DVDs. I think it's a fantastic series, and I'm so excited for the new Firefly movie, "Serenity," which comes out next Friday, September 30.

But... I get to see it on Tuesday at a special blogger screening! Yay! I am trying to stay as spoiler-free as possible, but I do have this background blurb to pass on:

"Joss Whedon, the Oscar® - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family –squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal."

Haven't seen the series yet? Get thee to the nearest Blockbuster and rent them. I'm told that you should still be able to follow the movie even without seeing the DVDs. But see the movie, and you'll want to go back and see the episodes on DVD. And then go back and see the movie again. And bring friends! And enemies! And random people off the street! And grandma!

I'll work on a cliff notes version of the main characters & post that soon. Until then, check out the movie site, which includes links to other "Firefly" sites.

Random musings, part 1

2005-09-24T21:07:00.000-04:00

The first e-mail I received from my boyfriend ended thusly: "Details are good. Lengthy, random, off-topic musings are better." A friend heard this and commented, "What a wonderful invitation to be yourself!" So that's what you'll get here- random thoughts which might occasionally seem like total non sequitirs. But in my twisty brain, they usually make sense.

About me:

Like: Music- playing & listening (bluegrass, country, folk, rock, jazz), suspenseful TV (Veronica Mars, Alias, Lost, Without A Trace), mystery novels, snark, proper use of apostrophes and homophones, cheese

Dislike: Incorrect use of its/it's or they're/their/there, broccoli, Tom Cruise, Dr. Phil, 7th Heaven, "revising" old movies when releasing them on DVD (George Lucas, I'm looking at you!), Fox News

Websites frequented:

Television Without Pity
Assumption of Command
Homestar Runner (Trogdor!)
Go Fug Yourself-mocking bad celebrity fashion choices
Defamer- random celebrity gossip
WAV files from Joss Whedon TV shows and random movies
Lardlad-sound files and summaries of episodes of "The Simpsons." Excellent source for keeping up with a Simpsons-addicted boyfriend :)