The Language Barrier

Two Items of Note

2008-05-15T19:26:17Z

Firstly, of particular interest to debaclypsenow and flybrain, we present the hot new website Stuff Jewish Young Adults Like -- patterned after the recently famous website Stuff White People Like which has apparently spawned a cottage industry.

Secondly, my commute home last night was interrupted by a small flock of Canadian geese who decided to cross Meacham Road at Golf, one of the busiest intersections in Schaumburg. They crossed with the light, like good citizens, but the itty-bitty goslings with them weren't fast enough to cross the whole 6-lane street before the light changed, so we ended up missing a whole traffic cycle. Only one guy in a pickup seemed to mind, though; he was turning left and was so impatient that he kept creeping through the intersection until he was almost on top of them before he stopped. Jerk.

The best part was the layout: you had two adult geese in front, followed by about 8-10 fuzzy goslings. Then two more adult geese, followed by a single gosling who was clinging so close he was practically underfoot. While I waited, I amused myself by imagining a whispered conversation between the second group of "parents" about the shockingly irresponsible life choices of the first group -- don't they know there's a population crisis going on?

Happy Friday, everybody!

--- Ajax.

Word Of The Week #109

2008-05-14T17:09:42Z

Word Of The Week -- hobbledehoy
Definition: hob·ble·de·hoy (hŏb'&l-dē-hoi')
n.

An awkward, ungainly and/or bad-mannered adolescent boy.

Etymology: [Various; see below.]

Obscurity: 95% (Come again?)

Usefulness: 5% (Anybody using this word is trying to confuse you, impress you, or both.)

Examples:
(def. 1) "My daughter is sweet on this hobbledehoy she met in school; the poor kid spills something on himself every time she speaks to him, but she doesn't seem to mind."

This one's a reader submission from manda_x; I'd never seen it before, but a Google search turns up a charming column from The Morning News written in 2004 by a man who struggled with awkwardness long into adulthood.

Also notable is the profound etymological confusion surrounding this word. There are no less than three different suggested origins, in addition to the American Heritage Dictionary's apt but unsatisfying "Origin unknown":

The Random House Unabridged Dictionary for 2006 declares it to be a variant of hoberdyhoy -- an alliterative compound, consisting of hoberd (from Roberd, Robert) + -y + -hoy for boy (the b's changing to h's for purposes of alliteration).

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, however, considers it to derive from the English term hobbledygee, with a limping movement; another possibility might have been the French hobereau (country squire) combining with the Old French hoi, today, inviting speculation that the original sense of the word was something like "an upstart of today."

Lastly, Douglas Harper's Online Etymology Dictionary claims it's a compound based on hob in its sense of clown, prankster (as in hobgoblin), with the second element coming from the Medieval French de haye, translating as worthless, untamed, wild -- literally, of the hedge.

Personally, I like the third explanation best, but you can please yourselves. :)

--- Ajax.

Happy Birthday

2008-05-10T23:58:50Z

Yahoo! Happy birthday to nephthys510!

Somebody better be getting your drinks tonight, or they'll have to answer to me!

--- Ajax.

Word Of The Week #108

2008-05-08T16:53:27Z

Word Of The Week -- poltroon
Definition: pol·troon (pŏl-trōōn')
n.

A base, wretched coward; a craven.

Etymology: [French: poltron, from Old Italian poltrone, coward, idler, perhaps augmentative of poltro, unbroken colt (from Vulgar Latin *pulliter, from Latin pullus, young animal; see pau-¹ in Indo-European roots) or from poltro, bed, lazy.]

Obscurity: 60% (I've seen this word a few times, but am uncertain of the definition.)

Usefulness: 25% (More common synonyms are generally preferred in casual conversation, but it scans well.)

Examples:
(def. 1) "Stand fast, poltroon, your liege lord commands it!"

An interesting etymology behind this one. Down a rather long and winding road, it's related to poultry through the term pullet (a chicken less than one year old), which in turn comes from the generic Latin term (pullus) for any young animal.

Along with cad, blackguard, and dastard, this is also one of my favorite old-timey insult words, which are always handy to have on tap when "punk-ass" just won't get the job done. :)

--- Ajax.

Spring has sprung, but who will spring me?

2008-05-06T15:34:16Z

76 degrees and sunny. As gazman points out, this is not a day designed for sitting inside this dump.

This is, in fact, a day designed for sitting outside under a shady tree and making out with a pretty girl. (If girls are your preference.)

But here I am at work. Sigh.

--- Ajax.

\m/

2008-05-04T15:36:54Z

Last night's Testament show was awesome!

I hadn't been out to The Pearl Room before, but it's a pretty great venue. While the floor in front of the stage was packed cheek-by-jowl with people in black T-shirts, there's also a catwalk that was much less crowded and provided a better view, although I didn't discover that it was open to everybody until there were only three songs left in the set. Parking was also not a problem, because the place is in a massive strip mall that's right next to an industrial park, with streetside parking stretching back for half a mile or more.

Since I'd researched the opening acts on YouTube and MySpace earlier in the day and discovered they weren't really worth the extra time on my feet I'd have to spend to see them, I left about 9:30 and arrived in the middle of Testament's sound check. The drive out is also almost ludicrously simple from my house: 355 south to I-80 east accounts for 95% of the trip, and the venue is basically right off the interstate.

The one sour note of the evening was this: ten minutes before the first note of music was even played, a pretty full 16 oz. cup of beer came soaring over the crowd and crashed right into my chest. Even that wasn't so bad, because I reflected that a) at least it didn't hit me in the face, and b) I wasn't the one who had just wasted seven bucks.

Testament played a great set, and resisted the temptation so many bands have to play 3/4 of their new album and only pull out the classics when the crowd starts to get restless. (I'm looking at you, Clutch!) I'd say a good 80% of the setlist was pre-1995 stuff, and the crowd loved it. Chuck Billy still has great pipes, even after adding twenty years, thirty pounds, and being (successfully) treated for cancer. And Alex Skolnick, rejoining his first-ever band after an absence of 16 years, fucking shredded.

All of which is to say that the Metal Masters tour in August is going to be incredible!

--- Ajax.

Happy Birthday

2008-05-03T16:46:13Z

We have a double-shot of birthdays today -- happy birthday to my former Plastic Pals dead_bob and mrfadedglory73!

Well done in surviving another year, gentlemen. :)

--- Ajax.

The Great Debates

2008-05-02T20:19:46Z

I knew I was forgetting something! But this is actually better kept to a separate post anyway.

This morning I read at The Plank (one of The New Republic's blogs) that somebody (and perhaps several somebodies) at Fox News Channel is badly in need of a history lesson:

Fox News did a joking mockup of what the Lincoln-Douglas debates might look like today that evidently was more of a joke than intended. Evidently the folks at Fox imagine that Lincoln's opponent in the 1858 race for U.S. Senate was not Stephen A. Douglas, but rather abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass.

On the plus side, at least the folks at Fox realized that Lincoln wasn't running against Kirk Douglas.

The comments on the post are quite amusing, as people reminisce fondly about "the classic debate between beloved character actor George Kennedy and long-time Red Sox outfielder Trot Nixon," or the one featuring "Shawn Corey Carter (i.e., Jay-Z) vs. John Henninger Reagan (postmaster general of the Confederate States of America)."

Perhaps my favorite was "the contentious election of 1824, pitting future 1960s/70s icons Cassius Clay, Reggie Jackson, and Don Adams."

I'm willing to bet my readers can do better, though. Have at it!

--- Ajax.

Various things

2008-05-02T19:09:10Z

Busy weekend coming up: tonight is Bo-topia (a.k.a. wurdsome's birthday party) which I'm leaving for straight from work, then tomorrow evening I'm off to see Testament (and several other metal bands I've never heard of) as part of Powerfest 2008 in scenic Mokena, IL. And Sunday I'll spend doing the chores I should do Saturday, but won't because I have the excuse of the concert.

My BushBucks have arrived! And it looks like I'll be stimulating the economy more than I thought. I decided to spend some of it on new books and somehow that turned into a $100 orgy of expenditure last night at SFBC.com -- they were having a sale, $9.99 per book after you buy two at regular price. I'm getting A Canticle For Leibowitz (which, inexcusably, I haven't read yet), World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, and the first six (!) books in Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series, which is projected to run to ten.

And while I was being frivolous, I also spent another hundred bucks for a ticket to the Metal Masters Tour in August. Actually, make that $45 for the ticket, $30 for parking, and $25 in various fees and fuck-you charges. The headliners are Judas Priest and Heaven and Hell (which is basically Dio-era Black Sabbath, minus Bill Ward, plus Vinnie Appice) and the opening acts are Motörhead and Testament (again!) In a way this show will be me coming full circle in my concert-going history: the first concert I ever attended was a Judas Priest / Megadeth / Testament show at Rosemont Horizon in 1990. But to be totally honest, the thing that clinched it for me is "how many chances am I going to get to see Motörhead?"

For those of you who are going to the Cubs game on 5/17 -- and neonhummingbird, I'm still counting you as a "yes" because stankow has volunteered to cover some of your ticket, so please let me know if you weren't aware of that and have made other plans -- and have been wondering how to reimburse me, I haven't been able to think of an easier means than PayPal to take care of that, unless you want to bring a personal check with you.

Accordingly, my PayPal account is under exaustinite(at)hotmail.com, and the ticket price is $52.00, so whenever you're ready, willing, and fully-funded, let 'er rip. I'm covering all the taxes and fees and whatnot, to apologize for the crappiness and priciness of the seats, so don't worry about that. If you would prefer to send a personal check or something through snail mail, send an email to that address instead and I'll give you my meatspace coordinates. :)

(Oh, and there's still one ticket left, by the by...)

What else? Ah, yes. Those of you who were privy to my red light violation post back in March may be interested to know that I did go ahead and contest it by mail after all, but I ended up having to pay it anyway, as many including myself suspected I would.

On the other hand, I also got a notice from the IL Tollway Authority a few days afterward, demanding $220.00 in unpaid tolls and fees, which I managed to deal with over the phone without having to pay a single cent for. Turns out the expiration date had run out on the credit card I had tied to my I-Pass account, and I didn't realize this for about a week. When I updated it, the account still showed a small balance, so I figured I'd gotten lucky, but alas this was not the case. The gentleman I spoke to on the phone was very helpful and waived all the fees -- as well as the unpaid toll charges, which turned out to have been paid automatically as soon as I corrected my info on the I-Pass Account. So thanks for the pointless scary mail, IL Tollway Authority.

That seems like enough for now. TGIF! And PSA: Mother's Day is a week from Sunday! Don't forget!

--- Ajax.

Word Of The Week #107

2008-04-30T17:05:41Z

Word Of The Week -- exiguous
Definition: ex·ig·u·ous (ĭg-zĭg'yōō-&s, ĭk-sĭg'-)
adj.

Scanty; meager; small; slender.

Etymology: [From Latin: exiguus, from exigere, to measure out, demand; see exact.]

Obscurity: 90% (Come again?)

Usefulness: 25% (More common synonyms are generally preferred in casual conversation.)

Examples:
(def. 1) "To make up for the exiguous compensation, this position also offers long hours and an unpleasant work environment."

Came across this one during last night's before-bed reading. A couple days ago I started re-reading the Wild Cards books for the nth time, and am once again pleased to discover how well the writing still holds up.

Although the series kind of went off the rails after the 6th or 7th installment before regaining stride somewhat in books 13-15, I was happy to learn recently that it had been revived (after almost a ten-year hiatus) and that a new one came out back in January. The timing of that particular discovery was fortuitous, because I've been entitled to a free book from the SFBC for almost two months and haven't been able to think of one in particular I wanted. Browsing their catalog this morning turned up Inside Straight, and Bob's your mother's brother. :)

--- Ajax.

Happy (Belated) Birthday!

2008-04-28T16:10:06Z

Because I am a terrible friend, I totally forgot to post that yesterday was joii's birthday! Woe, woe!

Hope you had a good one, and I promise I'll do better next year. :)

(Also, to you Eastern Orthodox kids, happy day-after-Easter!)

--- Ajax.

Word Of The Week #106

2008-04-24T22:02:20Z

Word Of The Week -- debridement
Definition: de·bride·ment (dā'brēd-mäɴ', dĭ-brēd'm&nt)
n.

Surgical excision of dead, devitalized, or contaminated tissue and removal of foreign matter from a wound.

Etymology: [French: débridement, from débrider, to unbridle, debride (from the likening of constricting bands of tissue to bridles), from Old French desbrider: des-, de- + bride, bridle (probably from Middle High German brīdel, rein).]

Obscurity: 80% (Come again?)

Usefulness: 5% (Jargon word, not commonly used in casual conversation.)

Examples:
(def. 1) "Since the motorcyclist wasn't wearing much protective clothing, considerable debridement was necessary to treat his case of 'road rash'."

Better late than never! My apologies for missing my (self-)appointed Wednesday deadline. My excuse is that I had to stay late at work the past two days, and the roofers working on my apartment complex have woken me up an hour early every day since Monday, so my edges are starting to fray. :)

This one's a reader submission from letsgomiah, although I have encountered it before in the above-mentioned motorcycle accident context.

If you've got a strong stomach, or ate something you wish you hadn't, check out the Google Image Search results for debridement. Eeeewwwwww!

--- Ajax.

Brain dump

2008-04-22T18:22:02Z

The downside of starting work at 10:00 AM? That last, precious forty-five minutes of sleep right before the alarm goes off gets interrupted by the roofers nailing particle-board over your bedroom window so they can start their day's work at what must have been around 7:30 but felt like dawn.

A story I've been meaning to share, but inexplicably have not:

A few months ago I was driving home on the expressway, and I happened to spy a blaze of fire-engine red hair driving a beat-up, broke-student-issue Tercel in the next lane. "Hey, cool," I thought to myself, remembering that the Illinois Institute of Art (Schaumburg) is only a few minutes away from where I work. "This looks like a quirky art student, female type. I wonder if she's cute."

So I give it a little gas and pull up next to the car, and glance over to see...

A clown.

From my inbox:

Thank you for using Microsoft® Outlook® Express. Our information indicates that you use Outlook Express to access a Windows Live™ Hotmail® e-mail account via a protocol called DAV (Distributed Authoring and Versioning protocol). DAV, like POP3 or IMAP, is the way that a mail client communicates with a web-based mail server.

As a valued customer, we want to provide advanced notice that as of June 30, 2008, Microsoft is disabling the DAV protocol and you will no longer be able to access your Hotmail Inbox via Outlook Express. As an alternative, we recommend that you download Windows Live Mail, a free desktop e-mail client that has the familiarity of Outlook Express and much more.
I've got two words for Microsoft®, and they're not "Happy birthday."

Five'll getcha ten that the new client does not, in fact, have "the familiarity of Outlook Express" and that I will have absolutely no use for the "much more."

Lastly, the Trib was full of tales of woe when I checked headlines last night. Shootings, stabbings, child abductions, an idiot suing Benny the Bull for getting a high-five, and what I'd thought was martial law -- last night's interim hed was "Sheriff's office takes over Ford Heights" -- but turned out to be something even more pathetic:
The Ford Heights Police Department has stopped doing police work after running out of officers.

Apparently $12 an hour isn't enough incentive to serve as the law in the downtrodden village. "A lot of them found jobs elsewhere," said Trustee Jimmy Viverette.

The village has long been plagued by financial struggles, even before an ailing economy and rising foreclosure rate hit. A "gentlemen's club" that opened in 2006 was seen as injecting financial vitality, but it hasn't been enough. The loss of police service was just the latest blow to residents.
Ladies and gentlemen, when even strippers can't keep your town in the black, it's time to hang it up. But it gets worse:
This is not what we set out to do," [Cook County Sheriff Tom] Dart said at a news conference Monday outside the Ford Heights station. "This was thrust upon us."

Neither Mayor Saul Beck nor Police Chief Earl Bridges was present.

"Good question," Dart said when asked where they were. "The mayor is out of town, and the chief of police, I'm not sure where he is. . . . He was invited."

Bridges said he was unable to attend due to a "very personal matter."
If I were to guess that this very personal matter involved the aforementioned gentleman's club, I trust my readers would understand my cynicism.

Have a good Tuesday, everybody. :)

--- Ajax.

Word Of The Week #105

2008-04-17T01:27:47Z

Word Of The Week -- vum
Definition: vum (vum)
interj.

New England. Used to express surprise.

Etymology: [Alteration of vow; see usage notes below.]

Obscurity: 95% (Come again?)

Usefulness: 5% (Anybody using this word is trying to confuse you, impress you, or express surprise.)

Examples:
(def. 1) "Well I vum, there are some Pepperidge Farm cookies left!"

If, like me, you had no idea this was an actual word -- I learned it while dealing with a particularly vexatious hand in Scrabulous -- then you may enjoy the Usage Notes from dictionary.com, like so:

New Englanders sometimes express surprise by saying, "Well, I vum!" This odd-sounding word is in fact an alteration of the verb vow that goes back to the days of the American Revolution. It is also heard simply as "Vum!" or as a sort of past participle: "I'll be vummed!"

A Southern equivalent is swan or swanny, also meaning "swear": "Now, I swanny!" According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word swanny derives from the dialect of the north of England: I s' wan ye, "I shall warrant ye."

I know some of you are New Englanders by trade and temperament: have any of you ever heard someone say this? 'Cos I haven't. Southerners are also invited to comment on sightings of "swanny" in the wild.

But whether it's real or an elaborate prank, it's a handy way to get rid of a V, which is one of the more difficult Scrabble letters to unload in a tight spot. So that's good enough for me, I vum!

--- Ajax.

Happy Birthday!

2008-04-16T17:02:13Z

Happy birthday to thenatemengshow, whom I haven't seen around here in far too long!

--- Ajax.

First Jobs Poll

2008-04-10T19:40:17Z

Because I'm bored and it's rainy, a poll for our mutual amusement.

View Poll: Workin' for a livin'

In comments, I encourage you to detail any particularly horrible experiences you had on the job -- either your first, or a particularly awful subsequent job. (You can also talk about wonderful, fulfilling experiences at work if that's how you roll. ;)

--- Ajax.

Word Of The Week #104

2008-04-09T21:37:09Z

Word Of The Week -- dyspepsia
Definition: dys·pep·sia (dĭs-pěp'sh&, -sē-&)
n.

Disturbed digestion; indigestion.

Etymology: [Latin, from Greek: duspepsiā: dus-, dys- + -pepsiā, digestion; see pek^w- in Indo-European roots.]

Obscurity: 30% (I know where and how to use this word, but am not totally sure of the exact meaning.)

Usefulness: 30% (More common synonyms are usually preferred, but meaning is generally clear from context.)

Examples:
(def. 1) "Frequent bouts of dyspepsia forced Chuy to give up his habit of swallowing habañero peppers whole as a midnight snack."

As you'll note from the etymology of this word, words with -pepsi in them tend to refer to digestion. And Pepsi-Cola is no exception, as it was originally marketed back in 1903 as a digestive aid. Sadly, it tends to have the opposite effect on me personally, at least when consumed in quantity. (Although to be fair, it could be said to accelerate my digestive process, if you catch my drift...)

Something else that'll make you dyspeptic: the lunch I had at work today, which consisted of 4 pieces of cold Papa John's Pizza (with shrooms, pepperoni, ham, and bacon) and a big handful of raisins. On days like today I often feel like my body needs a better caretaker, but my defense, as always, is this -- at the time, it was yummy. :)

--- Ajax.

Update to the Update

2008-04-08T02:50:12Z

Got 'em.

10 tickets purchased via StubHub at $52.00; the seats are waaaay up in the upper deck between home and first base, and they are general admission, but they are ours. :)

We have 8 confirmed attendees at this time: byrneout, dogofthefuture, mule242, stankow, resplendentoops and guest, neonhummingbird and uh, me, I guess.

Mathematics reveals that there are still 2 tix going begging. One of these is reserved for a friend as a 95% maybe, but the other I trust will find itself a home before the Day. You all know how to reach me if you're interested.

--- Ajax.

P.S. Re: paybacks, don't worry about it just yet, I'm not having any cashflow problems. I'll let you know what's up when I figure something out. :)

-- A.

Cubs Game Update

2008-04-07T17:11:24Z

After double-checking, it looks like the direct link to buy tickets from Wrigley is only allowing me to select up to 1 ticket for the game on 5/17. So that's no good. :/

Our alternative is getting them from StubHub, which will involve a certain premium to get us all seated together. The cheapest I can find for a group our size (currently 9, but I'm assuming we can scrape up a 10th or dispose of the extra ticket somewise) are these, located in Row 09 of the Infield Upper Deck Reserved 525, at $52.00 apiece.

After that it looks like we have these, which are Row 20 of the Outfield Terrace Reserved 208, at $75.00 apiece.

I've never ordered from StubHub before, so I don't know what to expect on continued pricing/availability. But it would be useful to know if this alternative has made the tickets too rich for anybody's blood, so if you were in and now you're out (or alternatively, if you hadn't heard about this before and want in), please let me know ASAP. I'll probably want to order as soon as I hear from several of our principals, so probably mid-week at the latest rather than next Monday. :)

--- Ajax.

Happy Birthday!

2008-04-06T15:33:45Z

Happy birthday to ihaven0name, whose "new" pink hair looks great on her!

--- Ajax.

On Taking Oneself Out to the Ball Game

2008-04-02T22:38:35Z

If you've ever wanted to see the Cubs (or the Pirates) play at Wrigley Field, we're organizing a group trip for the 12:05 game on Saturday, May 17th.

Six of us are on the list so far, but as decent tickets tend to go fast, I wanted to make sure all potentially interested parties knew about it well in advance. I'll probably try and buy them by April 15th, which is two weeks from yesterday. The current favored seating choice seems to be the $24-$28 Terrace Reserved spots. We might be willing to be bleacher bums on another day, but in this case one of our party will be a very handsome and well-behaved 4-year-old gentleman, whose comfort is best catered to in order to ensure a fun afternoon for all concerned.

Of particular note to neonhummingbird (and any of youse who attended last June's Stankowpalooza '07 gathering), stankow will be going -- as will mule242, who as you can see, owns a killer pair of shades. :)

So if you're interested, please let me know ASAP.

--- Ajax.

Word Of The Week #103

2008-04-02T19:24:00Z

Word Of The Week -- catamaran
Definition: cat·a·ma·ran (kāt'&-m&-rān')
n.

A vessel, usually propelled by sail, formed of two hulls or floats held side by side by a frame above them. Compare trimaran.

A float or sailing raft formed of a number of logs lashed together, used in certain parts of India, South America, etc.

A quarrelsome person, esp. a woman.

Canadian Dialect. A wooden sled.

Etymology: [Tamil: kaṭṭumaram: kaṭṭu, to tie + maram, wood, log.]

Obscurity: 55% (I've seen this a few times, but am not totally clear on the definition.)

Usefulness: 10% (Jargon word, not commonly used in casual conversation.)

Examples:
(def. 1) "My uncle Vic rented a catamaran for our trip to Costa Rica, and we had an awesome time."
(def. 2) "Knowing she'd never be able to swim the full 50 miles, Sharon built a makeshift catamaran from some deadwood and twisted grass, in hopes of riding the current to the mouth of the river."
(def. 3) "Laura, will you quit being such a catamaran and just do as you're told?"
(def. 4) "Troy's favorite part of spring was when the snow melted enough to reveal where he'd last left the catamaran, which tended to disappear for weeks at a time during snowy weather."

I admit that I have never heard this word used to describe anything other than a boat, of roughly the type pictured above. I can only assume the third definition came about as a consequence of somebody being unable to think of the right word to describe somebody else who wouldn't frigging shut their mouth for five seconds, already.

--- Ajax.

Separated at birth?

2008-03-30T15:52:36Z

I knew that looked familiar...

Dave Chappelle in his "white newscaster" get-up.

Cover of the current issue of The New Republic.
--- Ajax.

Happy Birthday!

2008-03-28T21:34:01Z

His wife already made the announcement earlier today, but nevertheless, happy birthday to dogofthefuture!

In his honor I pose the following Question for Friday Contemplation:

If you could ask the Source of All Knowledge in the Universe one question, what would it be?

--- Ajax.

Overheard in #predicate...

2008-03-28T00:27:06Z

[Ajax demonstrates the ability to read a newspaper edition.]

[19:16] <Ajax-> "Blagojevich says Cubs should stay at Wrigley forever"

[19:17] <Ajax-> "Sky blue, grass green," added the embattled governor, who refused to be drawn out on the subject of whether puppies were cute.

[19:18] <Ajax-> In other news, comic books were right. As we've all secretly suspected: "Electrical shocks can hone sense of smell"

[19:19] <Ajax-> By day he enters data, but by night he battles villainy as...the Nostril.

[19:20] <stankow> And you people thought my comic book idea was dumb. Well, get ready for The Electric Dalmatian, bitches.

--- Ajax.