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Carefully, Correctly Wrong
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| Paradox |
[Dec. 11th, 2009|03:08 pm] |
Oh yeah, and while I'm not caught up in the geeking... does anybody fancy popping round to watch Paradox sometime? I've seen the first episode and it seems pretty good so far. |
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| London Calling |
[Dec. 2nd, 2009|12:13 pm] |
I'm making plans to head down to London this weekend. I've got a moderately busy itinerary planned - Bruce Schneier talking to the Open Rights Group on Friday night, marching against climate change on Saturday with the Liberal Democrats, attending No2ID's AGM on Sunday, and having a job interview on Monday.
Everything's a bit up in the air at the moment, but is there anything else going on this weekend that I shouldn't miss, or does anybody fancy meeting up while I'm in the land of gold and poison? |
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| Things Going Boom |
[Nov. 2nd, 2009|08:28 pm] |
Just got back from the fun-fair and fireworks at Cringle Park. I watched ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tartful_dodger going on spinny rides, had a hotdog, and then we watched things going boom and ate doughnuts. I'm sure some of the explosions were a little close to the ground, mind...
So anyway, I'm thinking about heading to Platt Fields on Thursday night at 7:30pm for more explosions and fire. sward's up for it, anybody else? |
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| Good Evening |
[Oct. 23rd, 2009|03:43 pm] |
I've just had a really nice evening. I've spent it with friends, chatting about all sorts of stuff, having guests in my flat, feeding them until they burst, and taking a couple of peoples' Withnail & I cherries.
I'm off to bed tired and happy. |
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| Random Night Out |
[Aug. 27th, 2009|11:30 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | social | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  peaceful | ] |
So tonight has been a weird evening. tartful_dodger and I met up with sloop from work at 1940 Squadron ATC where he volunteers. We went for a pint in the Blue Bell, where I ran into one of the Manchester Lib Dem councillors I know from volunteering.
As a result of trying to demonstrate more personal interests for a job application, I recently learned that CAMRA have joined the 19th Century and allow you to sign up via Direct Debit online. I did this a few days ago, and my membership card arrived in the post today.
My councillor friend asked me whether I was a CAMRA member, and I was able to answer yes - at which point me, sloop and Olly got dragged into the local CAMRA branch meeting. Turns out that the Blue Bell won CAMRA's pub of the month award for August 2009, and they were there to celebrate, along with a free buffet.
As a result of somebody I work with, some of the activism I do, and a job I'm applying, I've had a really good evening... |
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| Pub Suggestions |
[May. 23rd, 2009|12:26 am] |
My friends Tim and Datch are visiting Manchester this weekend. I need a suggestion for somewhere good for a pub lunch, preferably in Levenshulme or Chorlton, because my brain is completely frazzled. Help please! |
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| London Update |
[May. 13th, 2009|09:02 am] |
I am currently stuck in bed with tartful_dodger - I can't get up without waking him, at least, and he had trouble getting to sleep so I'm letting him snore away.
London so far has been fairly relaxing. We've been hanging out, doing some pottering, relaxing in our hotel room. On Monday evening I met up with some old schoolfriends - natrul and Earthworm, in Julia's pub at Baker Street. Julia was at work so I didn't get to chat to her much, but it was nice to catch up with the guys. Ben's risen from games testing to middle management at Sega Europe, and is heading down to Oxford on Friday for a meeting at Rebellion, where I know a few people. Andy and my old band, The Long Slide , are now actually playing gigs around London; I wonder what they sound like these days and may have to head back down for one.
I'm meeting up with Julia this afternoon to catch up properly, then heading off for some identity activism; we've got some plans to meet up with some of Olly's friends too. London is generally annoying me by being big and crowded and expensive and hard to get around. Still, back to civilisation on Friday to see my snuggly greyeyedeve which will be ace. |
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| Social Week |
[May. 3rd, 2009|12:20 pm] |
Apart from a lot of activism, I did actually have a chance to be sociable last week. I took my bike wheel back to the shop on Monday, only to learn that they'd have to order the right one in and should have it by Friday (they didn't so I'm still bikeless, grr). I met up with my tartful_dodger, darkwaterfairy and v15u4l_3rr0r, mooched back to Olly and Flo's for dinner and custard and fun. Met up with Olly and Jess for Ho's and sausage on Tuesday lunchtime too.
On Thursday, I went to the first Manchester-based Liberal Drinks at Trof. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a Lib Dem blogger's do, with a token non-Lib-Dem and a token non-blogger (yours truly). Most of the conversation revolved around blogs and blogging, when the bloggers weren't checking their blogs on their blogophones, drinking their blogopints or eating blogburgers and blips. Nice enough people, but not really a group I fit in with, so I ended up sloping off early to do some activism.
It would be hypocritical of me to say that I don't have a blog, but I use it for keeping in touch with friends and ranting. I don't believe it's going to change the world, but it does enable me to let off steam which helps me do actual activism. I've been asked since Thursday to contribute to a blog about why bloggers should stop blogging and get out and do stuff, which I think is missing the point; the activist endeavours I am involved in which have web presences all (almost) have RSS and/or iCal feeds, and I have invited people to syndicate them rather than divert my attention to blogging.
Friday night was #manlug currybeer, which was fun. I ended up skipping post-curry beer and walking back to Levenshulme with Lucy, chatting about politics and activism and local government.
Yesterday I wheeled Eve into town to see Låt den rätte komma in - I'm using the Swedish title to differentiate it from the upcoming American remake. This is a beautiful film, wonderfully put together. A lot of the long shots look like Hopper paintings. The film doesn't feel the need to insult your intelligence by laying out everything in front of you, but lets you discover things as you go through which shed light on what's gone before. Some things are never explained (though this might be due to the film being an abridged adaptation of a lengthy book which I now want to read). It uses vampire mythology to explore puberty, coming of age, gay and trans issues, and more. Highly recommended, and not just for the catfight scene. The only way in which the remake could be better would be if it made the characters older; there's a lot of stuff in the film which would be incredibly hot if it didn't involve twelve-year-olds. |
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| Weekend Social |
[Apr. 21st, 2009|11:39 pm] |
Well, this (long) weekend was good; I didn't do much activism, and did do a lot of socialising. With a busy week ahead, this may have been just what I needed. Friday night saw me round at Andrew and minnesattva's, watching Doctor Who with softfruit, matgb, miss_s_b and another friend of Andrew's, besskeloid. City of Death was a fun romp through 70s Paris, and I could recognise plot elements that Douglas Adams would eventually re-use in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency . I remember The Curse of Fenric scaring the crap out of me as a child, and it was interesting to see it cut into a single piece of video rather than in episodic form. However, by that time we were too busy making smutty comments about giving blowjobs to Nicholas Parsons to concentrate too much on the plot-heavy, atmospheric episode.
On Saturday I had a nice lie-in, then went into town with tartful_dodger to take his laptop back to Morgan; unfortunately I forgot to take the paperwork with me so they wouldn't accept it. The bloke at the counter was really arsey. We mooched in the bright sunshine down to the Knott at Deansgate station and met up with Jen, Holly and emma_b79. I had a pint of Ginger Marble, and some Ginger Marble ice cream, which was awesome. We all parted ways and I walked back to Oxford Road with Holly, stopping for a pint of Old Perculier in the Salisbury before training back to Levenshulme. I fixed up Holly's bike and we went for a ride together down to the Fallowfield Retail Park so I could do some shopping. I ended up staying up quite late and Olly came over to crash.
Sunday was an early start for Birmingham, but I wasn't exactly good at getting up, to the point where Eve and I missed our train and had to get a taxi to Stockport station. Olly's roleplaying session got cancelled so he jumped on a train an hour or so after us. Our train ended up taking two hours to get from Stockport to Brum via Nuneaton, and I had to run down to the BBB pushing Eve's wheelchair in the blazing sunshine to catch the demo. Only to find out that the wheelchair lift at the venue was broken, so we had to go round the back entrance. And the lift inside the venue was a bit iffy and temperamental. I got Eve to the demo late (running into v15u4l_3rr0r), and missed most of it because I was downstairs freshening up. Olly caught us up as we were having a cup of tea afterwards after getting lost.
The BBB was much as I remembered it from my previous visits long ago; lots of stalls, people of all shapes and sizes rubbing shoulders, a really positive friendly atmosphere. People spotted us as relative strangers and chatted with us, making us feel welcome. The stalls were full of shiny and pretty. I spent 99 of my 100 budget for the day - most importantly, on a lovely purple-trim leather collar for Eve, whose neck has been bare for far too long. At around 4:30pm we headed back up towards the Hippodrome and met up with my big sister and her boyfriend for beer and tasty all-you-can-eat Chinese goodness. Everybody got on and my sister was impressed by my boyfriend, which is very reassuring. The train journey home was similarly lengthy, and we were all exhausted by the time we got back to Manchester.
Monday was also an early start - I'm due in at 8:30am every morning this week - improved by Olly making me a bacon and egg toasty sandwich and coffee. I skipped lunch, knowing that fluffle's birthday extravaganza was coming up. Olly and I met up with the birthday boy, his housemates, kaphinated and Mike in the Salisbury before proceeding to the Tropeiro restaurant on Sackville Street. This is an all-you-can-eat churrascaria, specialising in barbequed meat. There's a self-service salad bar which also has rice, mashed potatoes and some meaty stews, and the cook brings meat on skewers from the kitchens to the tables, serving you as you sit. There were many kinds of meat, all delicious, including chicken hearts which I'd not eaten before. I washed it down with a couple of bottles of Palma Louca, and skipped desert due to being far too full. At 20 a head, it's not the cheapest place to eat, but the quantity and quality make it excellent value for money. Too full for pints, we headed up Canal Street to Taurus and sat outside drinking gin. Bunnikov out-stared a one-legged Nazi goose, and much hilarity ensued.
So yeah, four days of being social, not doing any activism - it's like the Bank Holiday weekend I didn't have. It's made dealing with Liberal Democrats and bike theft this evening much easier to deal with... |
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| Plans |
[Apr. 18th, 2009|02:19 pm] |
Off to Birmingham for the Bizarre Bazaar tomorrow, and meeting up with my sister for the first time since Christmas. It means a bit of an early start, and greyeyedeve is under strict orders to conserve spoons today.
Any Brummies fancy a pint? I can't promise anything since so much is dependent on Eve's energy levels, but let me know if you might be around. |
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| Night Watch / Day Watch Double Bill |
[Apr. 8th, 2009|10:17 pm] |
Short notice I know, but... who wants to come round to my place and watch Night Watch and Day Watch as a double bill tomorrow night? I'd like to start at 7pm at the latest - feel free to bring some beer and pizza or something to throw in the oven - and we should be done by 11:30pm.
Me, greyeyedeve and wehmuth will be here, and some company would be nice. Let me know if you fancy coming along, and when you could be here.
Update: To accomodate morningstar_lj we'll be starting at 6pm! |
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| Sociability |
[Mar. 13th, 2009|10:45 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | manchester, social | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Ian Brown - "Goodbye to the Broken" | ] |
I've actually been out a couple of times this week for non-political purposes, which makes a bit of a change.
Tuesday night saw me vaguely reliving my student days by going to a pub just off the old UMIST campus with nasrat; it was clearly not an entirely realistic recreation since we didn't stay until kicking out, but further realism was added by the fact that I ended up in Gemini's Pizza near Whitworth Park. It was good to catch up with Paul, and good to wander down around the University buildings with tartful_dodger reminiscing about my student stamping grounds, and remark on how much smaller Manchester seems these days - possibly I was less fit back then, or just less aware of the further outreaches beyond the Oxford Road corridor, but a trek from UMIST to Whitworth Park would have been an undertaking rather than a mild inconvenience back then.
Last night I ended up in the ever-lovely Knott by Deansgate Station with Olly, softfruit, haggis, shinydan, minnesattva and syllopsium. Emily let us nibble very tasty chocolate, Dan likened Portsmouth FC to Jennifer Aniston's breakup with Brad Pitt, and Olly decided to show off by downing half a pint of Ginger Marble in one, and was surprised to find himself really quite drunk shortly afterwards. I ended up walking him back to Hulme before pedalling home via saying hi to v15u4l_3rr0r.
Tonight I'm back into the grind of activism, but it's been nice to escape a little bit and spend some quality time among awesome people. |
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| FAO still-resident MancGoff People |
[Mar. 8th, 2009|02:37 pm] |
I will be joining nasrat, formerly of this parish, for a pint or two from 7pm in the Bull's Head at Piccadilly Station. Do feel free to join us.
Update: On Wednesday, that is. Not this evening. I am a muppet. Thanks to tartful_dodger for pointing out my incompetence. |
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| Real Life |
[Feb. 1st, 2009|12:31 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | social | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | relaxed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | DeathBoy - "Fine Day to be a Humanoid" | ] |
Looks like I've mostly been blogging about work and politics of late.
Last weekend, taimatsu came up for the weekend to see greyeyedeve. This coincided unpleasantly with the Coroners and Justice Bill, and I ended up spending lots of time reading legislation and writing e-mails rather than being sociable. I was also pretty burned out from a busy week and some... overexertion, sadly. The girls had fun at their spa pampering session, we watched films, saw friends in the pub and did cooking and stuff at home, along with a whole raft of highly entertaining rudeness.
I've also been seeing a lot of tartful_dodger recently, which is wonderful. Last Friday we both had a day off work and so I wandered round to his for a few hours; on Wednesday after a day at work in our Hulme colo facility, I popped round for a cuppa on my way home.
This week though I'm spending some proper quality time with greyeyedeve. I've been a bit let down by buses getting me back to Levenshulme from wherever I've been (I'm sure the 168 and 169 don't actually exist), but I've not been out late much this week. I was off work on Friday and met her in town at Café Pop, did a bit of shopping together, cooked dinner together and so on. Last night we snuggled up and watched more Sarah Connor Chronicles, and today we're off to Urbis to see their exhibition on Emory Douglas and the Black Panthers. I've already seen most of this with wehmuth but I figure that Eve will enjoy it.
In other news, we had a visiting minnesattva last night which was lovely, feeding her toasted hot cross buns and tea and watching Bender's Game. I have gotten so fed up with the stupid unskippable anti-piracy crap on that DVD that, despite Eve owning a legally-purchased copy, I am now seeding a torrent of the film to save other people from paying to sit through stupid lectures (because piracy isn't theft, and it's not the same as stealing a car) about a crime that the purchaser has not committed. |
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| General Update |
[Jan. 24th, 2009|01:22 am] |
Phew, it's been a while - now I have a busy day-job, I've had much less time to do LiveJournal justice. It's 1:30am and I'm supposed to be up at 8:30, so I'll keep this brief and talk about my trip to London last weekend...
Went to London with softfruit. Thanks to peachweeks for the crash space, sorry I didn't get more time in your excellent company. Met up with wato, kaz_pixie and muftak for tasty burger lunch. I stole Kaz's chips and she stole my pistachio ice-cream. Went to the British Library for the Taking Liberties exhibition. It's a bloody good overview of a lot of civil liberties issues from Magna Carta onwards, and I could easily have spent three or four hours in there going into issues in more depth - well worth going to, and on until the end of February. There's some natty opinion polling thing involving scanning a barcode wristband as you walk around the exhibition, and results are available online. It's not quite radical enough for my liking mind, hence the lack of the homonymous film and book in the shop, and no flyers for Convention on Modern Liberty at the end of February (which you should also all go to).
Met up with softfruit in Holborn (where the Ho-Bo-Ho-Mos live), and ended up in the pub with a bunch of bisexuals and Liberal Democrats. Ended up feeling a bit tired and fed up with polycule size queening, so headed back to where I was crashing and chatted with Miles about Ridley Scott while drinking nice Japanese whiskey.
Sunday was spent Lib Demming, which was very productive but I can't really go into details. Still, we finished ahead of schedule which meant that Jen and I got to head back on an early train, which was nice.
It was quite a busy weekend, but I saw some people I haven't seen for ages, got some useful stuff done, met new people and generally had a good time. All in all, a winner. |
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| Londonistan |
[Jan. 15th, 2009|08:35 pm] |
I should be out and about in London on Saturday afternoon, from noon. I may or may not have plans for Saturday night. It would be awesome to meet up with people who are free, maybe to do something together like visit a museum, maybe to sit in a café or pub, or perhaps even something else! I am open to suggestions. Let's meet up and I'll do my best to be good company. |
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| 2008 Resolutions in Review. |
[Jan. 4th, 2009|11:26 pm] |
Life recently has been pretty good. I've seen softfruit, wehmuth and tartful_dodger at home as well as geeks at currybeer, had a bit of time to watch DVDs and snuggle with greyeyedeve, been to Urbis and the Manchester Art Gallery, done some tidying and build the last of my IKEA furniture.
Looking back at my 2008 resolutions (which were really just saying that I didn't do my 2007 ones that well), I didn't do that well; almost all of my socialising has been activism-related. I don't think I went to a single gig in 2007, and only one or two club nights for short periods of time with people I don't know well where I talked about politics.
I did much better at cycling, though not for the last couple of months. This is something I need to sort out, fixing my wheel issues for good. The lower dosage of beta blockers should allow me to cycle in anger again, but I've not had much chance to put this to the test.
My home geeking has been rubbish last year. I've had a bit of a play with Ekiga videoconferencing, but that's really about it. I've got a new laptop up and running, but I've still not got any virtualisation stuff on it. I set up LTSP 5 but haven't had a chance to explore it.
I have spent a lot of time doing activism. Identity activism is limping slowly, and this year's student society seems to be as ineffective as the last; next year I'm not going to bother trying. I'm spending more time getting involved in the Lib Dems, and getting very little back from it at the moment. LGBT Lib Dems built up a lot of momentum in the autumn but seems to have quietened down over Christmas; hopefully we can pick it back up soon, because it'd be great for the rest of the exec to have enough energy and motivation to stop Jen from having to do anything!
Next up, I'll be thinking about my priorities for 2009... |
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| Recent Events |
[Dec. 22nd, 2008|11:22 am] |
This actually happened over a month ago now, but I keep forgetting to LJ about it. I was in Tescos one evening buying a bottle of Jameson, and on my way out I was stopped by the security guard. I thought he was about to accuse me of theft, but instead told me that he'd been watching me on CCTV as I stood at the spirits shelves, assuming from my appearance that I was intent on thieving. As it turned out, the guy next to me had half-inched a bottle of vodka, and he'd not noticed because he was keeping an eye on me. He said he was feeling guilty for misjudging me and wanted to apologise in person, which was nice but also surprising.
In other news, I didn't mention last weekend (the one 9 days ago) - I managed to fall asleep in the Peace Gardens near the town hall after a long afternoon of identity activism, in the freezing cold, while wrapped up in scarf, jumper, coat etc. which was pretty funny given that I didn't get ill. I was killing time before the BBC Backstage Bash which I attended with Manchester Free Software. There were a bunch of noisy Geekup types there including perdita_x, and it was fun to hang out with them. The bar was mostly free, the food was plentiful, and all in all I had a great time. I looked manly with a Long Island Iced Tea while chatting to the awesome barmaid who looks like Dora from Questionable Content. Catching up with Cat was great too, and I was tickled by watching Helga pick up an MFS flyer and launch into a tirade about why the fuck do people get so worked up about freedom?
This weekend has been good with wehmuth here. We watched lots of Sarah Connor Chronicles, and came up with a series detailing the fight between electric machines and older technology in Thomas: The Tank Engine Chronicles . Since Dave lives in Switzerland, and has recently spent three months in Brazil, we went for a change of scenery at the German Christmas Markets in Manchester with gluhwein and bratwurst, followed by dinner at Las Iguanas drinking caipirinhas and eating Brazilian food. We also headed out to Chester for an afternoon, looking at the cathedral, pottering around the streets and visiting one of Dave's old Keele friends. I'd never been to Chester before, and though it was a bit too wet and dark to walk the walls properly and shoot Welshmen, I love the city centre streets with the raised arcades on either side. Three-dimensional architecture makes me terribly excited in a totally irrational way, and the only thing that Chester was missing was an elevated walkway across some of the main squares to allow people to avoid street level. I'll have to go back in the summer. Yesterday we went into town for Thai and Korean food at Tampopo with an old Uni friend, plus a bit of shopping; while in Game I found a copy of Prey which now has a GNU/Linux client, so I bought it and spent some time in the evening playing it, punctuated by a lovely phone chat with tartful_dodger.
Tonight, greyeyedeve returns which will be lovely. Though we only have a couple of nights in each other's company before I'm off to Salisbury for Christmas - and we'll only just touch base after Christmas before she's off to taimatsu's for New Year. I'm really looking forward to having a break with my family and getting away from various Manchester stresses; the only fly in that ointment right now is my abject failure to do Christmas shopping... |
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| Busy As Ever |
[Nov. 7th, 2008|12:05 pm] |
Phew, life is exhausting at the moment. I've picked up greyeyedeve's lurgy which has made things harder - I had to take Monday and Tuesday off work. On Wednesday night I went to the Platt Fields fireworks with minnesattva and andrewhickey. The display was pretty awesome and I'm glad I went, despite tiredness. I was a bit over-excited, particularly when the bonfire was lit. It burned down a bit too quickly though which was a shame.
Yesterday lunchtime I did some identity activism on local TV; I'll upload the video for that soon. Last night, I went to the town hall for the hustings for the Liberal Democrat candidate for Gorton Constituency in the next General Election. I may make a longer, friendslocked entry about this, but there were a lot of factors at play and it was a very hard choice. I think my first choice was right, but in retrospect should have cast my second preference differently. On the way to the town hall, I also caught the last post for my ballot paper for the President of the Federal Party (first preference Chandila, second Lembit), so it might actually get delivered in time to be counted.
When I got home, my Ikea stash had arrived. Eve's been up at night with her cough, and v15u4l_3rr0r is using the front room at the moment, so I put together the table and a chair to give her somewhere to sit if necessary. I managed to give myself an injury while screwing vigorously - blisters on the palm of my hand. Fnarr. O2 / Be was being a pain, refusing access to mostly US-based websites. This turned out to be a DNS rather than a routing problem, so I installed dnsmasq on my colo box, firewalled it from anywhere other than my broadband IP, and told my laptop and desktop to ignore the DNS server given to them by the ADSL router and use my colo box instead. This isn't an ideal long-term solution, but is good enough for now.
Tonight I'm off for #manlug Currybeer. Tomorrow I'm doing an identity activism stall in town, and then meeting up with sprezzatoura and thirstypixel before their gig. I should find time to get to B&Q to buy a drill and a few other bits and bobs, which will let me finish off the table assembly. On Sunday, I might be Lib Demming in Old Moat ward. |
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