Toastmasters-How to Say It Speech-Friday Bloody Friday...with a dash of Thursday.

So, how many people took part in the annual ritualistic suicide attempt known as Black Friday shopping a week and a half ago?

I myself detest this day of department store horror more than Santa Clause hates taking his insulin shots.

And yet it seems as though Black Friday and all the selfish, senseless insanity that comes with it is our official commencement to a holiday season which is supposed to be about selflessness, peace and good will towards man.

The term “Black Friday” has more origin stories than a fruit cake has ingredients and just like a fruit cake, none of it is anything you’d want to put in your mouth and try to swallow.

The oldest explanation dates to the 1800’s when slave owners would sell their slaves the day after Thanksgiving at a discount to plantation owners that needed extra hands for the coming winter.

Please note; this particular explanation is hotly contested amongst Black Friday Scholars in regard to its veracity and should be taken with 64.79891 milligrams of sodium & chlorine. That’s a grain of salt for those of you slow at your conversion tables.

Fast forward a century later to 1951 when employers used the term to describe the high influx of employees calling in sick the day after Thanksgiving in an attempt to get a 4 day weekend.

In 1966 the term Black Friday was taken into custody by the Philadelphia Police Department to describe the complete and utter chaos that took place on their streets due to the high volume of shoppers flooding the city like a Christmas day tsunami in Thailand.  

In the early 80’s the term was used by retailer accountants that had to always post a loss for each quarter with red ink up until the Friday after thanksgiving which would have high gains, therefore allowing the accountants to use black ink to reflect profits.

And by the late 80’s Consumer Corporate America took hold of the term Black Friday and made it a permanent part of our pop-culture lexicon and defined it as the day you blow all your money, all your patience and all your common sense simultaneously.   

Through the years, the monster of Black Friday has grown exponentially to the point that one day is no longer enough to cage this fiend. So now Black Friday has been allowed to decimate another day of the week as if it was Godzilla recklessly strolling through the streets of Tokyo.  Black Friday now officially starts on Thanksgiving Thursday.

This phenomena is known as Brown Thursday. So instead of fighting with your family over Thanksgiving dinner, you’re now encouraged to go out and fist fight with your neighbor over an X box One or Playstation 4.        

Fading to black a day early is an awful idea because the last thing our broke & stressed out country needs is one more combustible log to throw on an already blazing fire of yuletide rage.  

As if the deluge of psychotic Christmas music, cold weather & company Christmas parties wasn’t enough to deal with, we now have to start the shopping pandemonium a day earlier.

But it’s not even a day earlier because people (and I use that word in its loosest term) are usually lined up outside the stores one week prior to the first day of Christmas shopping.

Camped out on the sidewalk with their tents and tables and chairs and blankets as if they were nomadic wanderers in search of a big sale oasis, or a cluster of displaced refugees navigating a war torn country.  

In fact, if you were to compare a picture of a refugee camp to a picture of Black Friday Shoppers outside a Best Buy, there’s no discernible difference. 

While refugees are usually struggling to stay alive, elude death squads or hope to God the U.S. doesn’t carpet bomb their country, Black Friday Shoppers  face an even graver danger; each other.  

Because, it truly is war, ladies & gentlemen, when it comes to Americans and their wanton lust for cheap electronics made by a 10 year old kid in China.

And once the doors finally do fly open, all those shoppers bum rush the place in the same manner you see refugees stampede towards a U.N. food truck on CNN.

You’d surmise by the way these merry marauders act that not once in their life had they seen a flat screen TV 50” in dimension. They act like the apes in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 that stand in awe before the monolith…and then proceed to beat the snot out of one another in its omnipotent shadow.      

The tragic irony of Black Friday is that hardly anyone is there with the intent of giving to another unless it’s a fist to the face, a kick to the groin or some festive pepper spray to someone’s already weary eyes from standing in line for over 72 hours straight.

Other than that, it’s an encouraged Me-for-all Free-for –all of barbaric proportions that would impress even Alexander the Great whilst he stood amongst the still smoldering ruins of  Persepolis.  

Stabbings, shootings and being trampled as if you’re some unlucky dolt who lost his footing in Pamplona’s running of the bulls is all standard causality that comes with the territory. 

What I’d like to know is how do these people keep their heads high when they emerge from the carnage of Black Friday with their arms & carts full of junk that they’ll discard in a month’s time? It’s tantamount to coming home from a Ferguson riot after you looted several businesses just for the hell of it.

I mean a lot of these Good Tiding Gladiators strut out of stores with a sense of victory as if they’d once again slain the beast of Friday and are to return home to a hero’s welcome.

Will this dark time that visits us once a year ever end? Not as long as this fledgling economy continues to limp forward on its broken leg until someone takes it out behind the barn and puts a bullet through its head.

Until then all we can do is hope that more people turn to their laptops and forego all the madness, malice and mayhem that accompanies Black Friday (and it's evil accomplice Brown Thursday) shopping and just buy their gifts online.

Because if you think about it, where else can you buy for your brother, his wife, their children & your parents while wearing your underwear and looking at Jennifer Lawrence naked at the same time WITHOUT going to jail?

Nowhere.

That’s the beauty of the internet.  Maybe if more people were informed of this incredible shopping experience, one day, by the grace of God, we’ll be able to make Black Friday and it’s sinister sibling Brown Thursday, urban legends we use to scare our kids into being good the entire year. Because if they’re not good, they’ll be thrown to the wolves of Friday…starting at 4 pm Thursday afternoon.   

   

Getting Toasty

A few months ago I joined an organization called Toastmasters International. Sadly it has nothing to do with the act of "toasting" alcoholic beverages nor does it have to do with learning how to perfectly toast a piece of bread. What it does focus on is public speaking.

Why do you want to improve your public speaking skills, Chris? Is a question the few of you reading this may be asking yourselves. 

The answer is simple. If you plan on conquering the world, you're gonna need to know how to address it publicly to large masses of people at a time. Plus, my 7 a.m. slot for Tuesday mornings was open so I said what the hell. 

For the uninitiated or for those of you just too lazy or not properly enticed to click the hyperlink in the first sentence of this article, Toastmasters helps anyone who wants help in honing their skills in regard to speaking in front of people.

There's a large percentage of people that suffer from Glossophobia which is the fear of public speaking. I am not one of those people, however. My biggest fear is not being able to pee in a urinal when a dude is next to me peeing which is called Paruresis. Unfortunately there's yet to be a Paruresis International so I've just decided to settle with Toastmasters.

The meetings are fun and once you join you get two awesome books that give you an assignment schedule to follow. Each assignment is a speech that you are to prepare and execute following certain criteria for each individual speech. 

Once you've recited your speech at a meeting in front of other members you're evaluated on your speech subject, your voice performance and pace and your body language. Every week is a mini-competition where people with the best skills for that day are awarded a ribbon. As you can see by the pic that accompanies this article, I've kinda got a knack for this shit.

The speech subject matter can be about whatever we wish it to be, which makes for some interesting speeches from yours truly.

SO, since there's a handful of you that like to read my writing (literally, about 5 of you) I decided to post each speech I do. On an average, I do about one prepared speech every 3 weeks so for those of you looking to kill 5 minutes at work, I've got you covered 5 min out of every 3 weeks.

You can find the first two speeches here and here.

You're welcome.  

    

Toastmasters - Get to the Point Speech - Caught in the Net

By a show of hands, how many people here subscribe to Netflix?

I myself have been a long time subscriber and as if I’m not digitally manipulated enough on a daily basis by emails, text messages, or voicemails, I have an iTunes library that’s in constant disarray and a torrent bin that’s messier than a 1 yr. olds diaper after he’s just been fed Taco Bell.

So when I want a break from being a 21^st century digital boy I do so by engaging in the act of something that is exclusively 21^st century. I try to unwind by watching a movie via Netflix.

This never works out the way it was intended.  

You see, every time I pull up my Netflix I can never watch anything because there’s too much of EVERYTHING.  

Just how much is everything you may ask? Close to 9,000 movies and over 2,000 TV shows. That’s a lot of everything.  

In fact I think it’s safe to say that Netflix could easily be called the Walmart of the movie streaming industry due to the sheer volume of crap they have on hand for you to consume.

Whether it’s action /adventure, comedy, drama, horror, romance, foreign, foreign drama, foreign romance, foreign horror  or foreign drama horror comedy that has a romantic edge to it as prevalent in the Spanish film Witching & Bitching, there’s literally something for everybody.

My biggest problem is, which one is for me? And thus, every night when I go to www.netflix.com I feverishly ponder that question and stare quietly into the abyss while the abyss stares back at me.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realize that nothing is more valuable than time. Everything else, more or less, you can make more of except for time, that one is always a losing sum game.

So when it comes to how I’m going to spend my leisure time I take it very seriously. I don’t want to become too engrossed in a movie that’s not for me. So I’ll attempt to peruse that which dwarfs the library of congress 10 fold in an attempt to figure out what type of cinematic experience best tailors to the unique individual that I am.

This is always nothing short of a Sisyphus task which bears no progress and ironically squanders the very time that it is I’m trying to save.

Sure, I’ll come across some interesting titles that, after reading at least two pages of user reviews I think I may like, but I never want to commit to anything because I’m afraid if I do I’ll be missing out on something better. So the movies that may be for me but just aren’t for me right now get thrown on to my Netflix list where it can be saved for me to ignore at a later date.  

I believe the whole concept of the Netflix personal list is empirical proof that Netflix knows that they’re bludgeoning the consumer over the head with too many choices to the point that the customer can’t think straight or make a decision.

In 1970 a book came out called Future Shock. In it the author coined a phrase called Overchoice. 

Overchoice theorizes that consumers can have too many choices and therefore are unable to make an optimal choice which causes stress, anxiety and unhappiness. Not to mention the inability to make a choice.

I’d say that this perfectly sums up my Netflix experience.

Now of course one could easily suggest that I just all together cancel my Netflix subscription and put an end to the tyranny of small decisions and quit entering that dastardly hedge maze night after night. 

But then I wouldn’t have access to all those choices I can’t make a choice on.

I hate it, but I’m inexplicably drawn to it. And at only $7.99 per month I can easily justify the cost even though I hardly ever watch anything because I’m too busy looking at…everything.

Truth be told, Netflix really is just like crack. It’s cheap, easy to get and incapacitates you for hours at a time. The side effects are irritability, loss of time, anxiousness, paranoia and sleep deprivation.  

And, it’s a national epidemic.

Just last week I was in a conversation with some friends and they were complaining about their lack of ability to choose what to watch on Netflix. 

They, like me, spent massive amounts of time just scrolling through the endless titles of movies, documentaries, musicals, indie films and Japanese cartoons which ultimately led them back to the safe confines of a Family Guy episode they’d watched at least 100 other times that week because they didn’t know what else to watch.

They say variety is the spice of life, however there’s a really good chance that “THEY” are a group of people that are clinically and legally insane and more than likely work at the upper echelons of the Netflix empire.

So to “THEY” I say, hey, enough with all these decisions. Man was not made to spend all of his free time deciding. Just put up a total of 5 movies for us to watch instead of over 5,000. That way we can complain that there’s nothing to watch instead of complaining that there’s too much of everything to watch.

If you liked this speech, you can watch it in it’s entirety on Netflix.com in the horror comedy foreign titles. Please note its only foreign if you’re watching it outside the U.S.

 

 

Toastmasters - Organize Your Speech - Here Comes the Tide

 I intended to give a speech on motivation and how it’s impeded by distraction, and then I got distracted. I thought it’d be a good idea to go get my mail before I started preparing my speech.

It was not.

Because in my mail I received what I believe is the social equivalent of a jury duty summons.

I’d been invited to a wedding.

Now I have nothing against the institution of marriage so long as it’s between two consenting adults regardless of racial, sexual or religious orientation. What I am a huge proponent of is the 3 ring circus of madness that signifies the kick-off of the marriage.

So instead of today’s topic being about motivation, it’s going to be the result of motivation.  Specifically the three motivating factors that contribute to my utter disdain for weddings that I’m invited to.

Now I’m not trying to be an iconoclast or a purveyor of cultural genocide. I’m just a simple man with a simple plea to stop the insanity or at the very least, stop the insanity from inviting me to spend time with it.

So without further “I do’s”…

1^st Reason Why I Dislike Weddings: They’re boring.

Let’s be honest, nothing exciting happens at weddings. Everyone knows how it’s gonna go down. They’ll be some music, they’ll be the exchange of vows and then there’s the whole “I now pronounce you husband and wife…or husband and husband… or wife and wife.”

Listen, either way, despite the miniscule nuances in gender, it always ends with the couple being married. There’s no drama, there’s no sudden plot twists where the groom realizes he’s been dead the whole time we’ve been watching this play out. It’s literally the same thing over and over. A re-run with a variation on set and cast members.

The average non-denominational wedding clocks in at about 25 minutes. Now I think the fact that it takes more time to have your car’s oil changed, get a pizza delivered or take your lunch break at work is a testament to the fact that even the bride & groom know their wedding ceremony is the prattle of the dead and even THEY themselves want it to be over faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.

And let’s not discount the side effects of boredom which are; Excessive alcohol consumption, over eating & an increase in bad decision making. I think we can agree that all three of those things happen in abundance & repeatedly throughout the night at the wedding reception which peruses the ceremony.

2^nd Reason Why I Dislike Weddings: They’re expensive. 

I’m talking obscenely expensive. Obscenity taken to such heights that even Caligula, The Roman emperor of depravity would blush at such obscenity.

A typical wedding’s cost is ballpark $23 grand…for one day. Actually not even one day, more like 15 hrs which equates to $1,533 per hour. This is lunacy at its zenith. In fact this is $500 MORE than what O.J. Simpson was paying his attorneys per hour during his murder trial.

So not only could that amount keep you from ever seeing the inside of a jail cell, but it could also be spent towards a myriad of more enjoyable things such as an incredible vacation, furthering one’s education, investing in mutual funds, stocks or 401K, putting a down payment on a home or starting a college fund for when the children arrive.

But instead of using the financial capital for something long-term & meaningful, it’s spent on invitations that get thrown away or go unanswered, renting uncomfortable tuxedos & buying an expensive gown that will be worn once and then put in a box.

Then there’s the whole paying the church, renting a hall for a reception and hiring a DJ so you can watch your aunt that’s drunk on the booze you paid for whose way too old to be twerking, attempt to twerk anyway, throw out her hip and then send you the medical bill since it happened at YOUR wedding.

And let’s not forget those of us that have to take off work to attend an event in which we KNOW two people will say “I do.” Yes, I know you do; in fact, you’ve been doing long before you got married. How about we focus on the “I don’t” as in “I don’t get paid for taking time off to attend your wedding, I don't want to have to buy you a gift and I don't want to sit at a table full of strangers at your reception."

3^rd Reason Why I Dislike Weddings: They’re stressful.

There aren’t enough hours in the day or days in the calendar year for me to elucidate on the myriad of things that can be stressful about a wedding. But more often than not, a good percentage of weddings never or almost never happen ipso facto (I really hope I used that adverb correctly). What I’m getting at is that a lot of would be weddings self destruct because of the stress that comes from the planning of it.

And if that’s not enough, there’s always the dilemma of only being able to invite a finite number of guests. This means some people that know all the other people that were invited will not be invited.

That in turn puts a burden of guilt & secrecy on those that made it to the invite list which causes THEM to stress out over keeping the wedding hush-hush as if it were some CIA cover up that will ultimately end up on social media anyway leaving the invited guests the ones held responsible for explaining to the uninvited guests why they weren’t invited in the first place.

Those invited suddenly find themselves cast adrift in an ocean of deceit; stress & anxiety that will inevitably drown them in its undertow or crush them by its tide. 

In conclusion I hope that I’ve made a valid argument for at least the personal reasons why I detest weddings and all that they usually encompass. 

And As I’ve stated before, I completely condone and support the marriage of two people wanting to spend the rest of their lives with one another and making each other a better version of themselves.

I just don’t think a wedding is the healthiest way to start off a marriage, especially when I’m invited to it.       

     

#Royal Family

Well, I’ve come to realize I’m somewhat of a sports fanatic. Yes, the one thing I’ve made fun of people both publicly and privately for so many years I’ve realized I’ve become. And honestly, I get it, I really do.

Maybe my love for my hometown sports team is because I’ve been away from my hometown for so long (going on 14 years) and when watching a game be it football or baseball, surrounded by others that are transplants from Kansas, we can’t help but bond.

We all share a lot of traits, values, information, memories, opinions, mindsets, etc. and it’s not only comforting, but invigorating, revitalizing, inspiring, familiar. In short its home. I’m around strangers but they aren’t strangers. It’s the same way pack animals indentify one of their own. And to be honest, it’s fucking awesome.

And seriously, there’s nobody better than Kansas sports fans. We really are a league of our own, a true class act. During the National Anthem of the first game of the World Series, every Royal fan in the bar stood up and removed their ball cap while it was sung. Every non-Royal fan in the joint looked at us as if we were part of some ridiculous cult performing some asinine ritual. But that’s just part of our core values; sincere politeness, respect & reverence…and of course the complete inability to give a fuck what others think.

During the heated drama of Game 7 one overzealous fan started lashing out at two Giants fans that had been attending all the games at the same bar all of us Royal fans had been frequenting. In an instant a fellow Royal fan told the guy to chill the fuck out, that the Giants fans in attendance were good people.  And after every game the Giants won (including the last game) every Royal fan went around the bar and shook the hands of every Giants fan congratulating them on a good game.

I don’t mean to blow my own self, but we’re fucking good people, fucking awesome to be exact. You can take us away from home, but it’s always in our hearts. We can’t help but be the people we are.

And seriously, what better team to represent all of us than a gang of underdogs, counted out numerous times by everyone and not once did they waiver, flinch, retreat or give up. Right up until the last second they never lost hope.

 Indeed they put their dreams on the line, knowing they could be crushed, for themselves, their teammates and their city. None of them pretentious, high profile, expensive mercenaries that lack hometown loyalty and would lend their talents to the highest bidder. They were just good old KC boys playing for the love of the game.

A game that threw them insurmountable setbacks, disappointments & failures yet they still showed up every night, despite the odds, to fight their fucking hearts out. That, I can honestly say, is just about everyone I know from Kansas. From my family, to my friends, down to the stranger sitting next to me at the bar 1500 miles away from our home, unflinching and undeterred in the eye of challenge & adversity.

We identify with teams like the Royals and the Chiefs because for the most part, they’re like us. They’re an extension of us and once you get a taste of it, plugged into that emotional matrix, you regard it as one of your own, like a child. 

Case in point, when I was at the grocery store today I was proudly wearing my KC hat and I encountered a Dodger fan with his hat and shirt who glanced at me in that certain way.  I could tell he was contemplating saying something snarky about our loss last night.

And before I could realize it I’d already planned on retaliating by grabbing a can of green beans and bashing it alongside his fat head asking him what the fuck HIS team was doing last night.

And then it hit me, I’m one of those people.  I’m for better or worse, in so many aspects, part of a gang, a group / mob mentality ready to battle on behalf of my team because my team is home. And I’ll protect and stand up for it by either word or deed.

And like I said, I get it, because my team represents my home, my entire life growing up, my friends, my dreams, my ethos, everything that is part of my psychological and sociological DNA. They represent the people I so dearly miss, both of this world and whatever lies beyond it. It’s spiritual, it’s emotional, and it’s everything that makes life exciting, all firing off at once.

And in retrospect, perhaps our Royals were not prepared to win the World Series on account of the city not having enough abandoned couches on hand to set ablaze. Nor were we prepared to celebrate by shooting each other and vandalizing the very city we were rejoicing on behalf of. No, we probably would've hugged each other (just like the stranger in a KC hat asked me to do once Gordon hit that triple in the bottom of the 9^th) & cry and scream in accomplishment.

But we don’t need the crown to know we’re already Royals and I think that’s prevalent due to the outpouring of support from fans across the internet. Sure, it would’ve been nice, but it’s never about the destination, it’s about the ride. And fuck, what an unbelievable ride it has been. One I wouldn't trade for the world, or it's title.  

Can't Feel the Beating

Superbowl something or another came and went and we all got to witness first hand just how violent and humiliating prison rape truly is.  Up until Sunday some folks would use words like “Champions” “MVP” & “Unbeatable” when talking about the Denver Broncos. Come Monday those same people were using words such as “Decimated” “Massacred” & “Total Fucking Dipshits” to describe the Mile High Masturbators and their harsh (and hilarious) fall from grace.

Personally, I was ecstatic to watch them crumble like a 3^rd world shanty during a 9.0 on the Richter scale. I’m sure others weren’t as enthusiastic about their shameful loss such as this pre-mature ejaculator. But regardless of who you were rooting for, none of us can disagree about the biggest divisive play of the game which didn’t happen anywhere CLOSE to the field.

Coca-Cola aired a commercial of a bunch of people singing America the Beautiful in their native language and God damn it if the entire universe didn’t split in half.

Apparently some folks of the xenophobe variety took offense to this (if you don’t know what a xenophobe is, chances are you are one) and said that it was sacrilegious, insulting and downright blasphemous. The audaciousness of Coke’s endearing marketing move drove rednecks by the thousands to threaten to boycott the product.

I don’t know much about history other than if we forget it we’re doomed to repeat it, so in that aspect I just usually catch shit on its re-run. But what I am sure of is that the U S of A was founded by people that did not speak the language of the land’s indigenous people. This in turn made it nearly impossible for the newly arrived (without an invitation) immigrants to be able to get a job, have a house or buy that kick ass new Lincoln Continental with the suicide doors.

So what did the immigrants do to fix their dilemma? They systematically wiped out the indigenous people and their way of life through genocide. And for what reason? To insure that one day fat-ass descendents of immigrants could consume a gnarly concoction full of sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, calories & carbs and then threaten the company that manufactures it because they had OTHER immigrants sing a song in one of their commercials.  

 I think it’s a safe bet that of all the rednecks up in arms about the sanctity of America the Beautiful being sullied, maybe only 20% of those jack asses actually know all the words to that song themselves. And of that 20% maybe (and I’m being very generous here) 3% of them can correctly spell all the words to that song.

Which begs the question, who’s more of an abomination to America the Beautiful?

Personally I thought it was a beautiful commercial. When I hear a song I never pay attention to the words I listen to the melody. The melody is the heart of every song. It’s what strikes you and stays with you long after the song has ended.  And regardless of how many times America the Beautiful was sung in a different language, the melody never changed, and that’s the beauty of the message.

We’re all different, yet all the same and if we can appreciate our differences instead of hate them, things can be pretty fucking awesome.

 But of course there’s always some group of fuck heads that have to complain about “their” way of life being infringed upon. But the way I see it, so long as you can let yourself balloon up to 300 lbs, ride your motorized cart around Wal-Mart & eat at McDonalds every day without this new era of immigrants committing genocide to you and yours, you’re still winning. So shut the fuck up and have a Coke and a smile.   

Let's Get Sloppy

Ok, so a couple weeks ago I posted that I'd been doing some freelance work for a website covering pop-culture topics. I also said that while I was grateful for the opportunity, I felt a little man handled as far as having my writing edited.

Now I have no control issues about my material, I just want it to be as entertaining as possible. In my eyes the apex of entertainment is only achieved when you have the merging of insight, wit, vulgarity, sexual innuendos and iconoclastic heckling.

Unfortunately my editor doesn't see it this way and that's ok. She has a core audience to worry about and can't run the risk of losing viewers in order to appease my reckless behavior. SO, like any people pleasing male, instead of breaking up with one to find another, I just went and made another and decided to sleep with both. My reasoning? Because I'm that awesome and everyone wants me.

So I'll still have my "respectable" gig which my editor will be working overtime in order to make it mass appeal friendly, and I'll have my dirty, slutty, wants to put things up my butt mistress where my sick and twisted tendencies are limited only by my imagination.

Her name is Slop Vulture. www.slopvulture.com if you're nasty.

It's focus is on pop-culture happenings of the douchebag variety. If there's some idiot Celeb that gets on everyone's nerves, you can bet your last dollar I'll be giving some commentary on it. And not some drawn on penis in their face commentary such as Perez Hilton or even LOL blurbs found on  such sites as What Would Tyler Durden Do.

This will be in depth articles updated weekly (if not daily) about people that for some reason or another have great fortune and fame yet still insist on being self absorbed, narcissistic fuck heads.

I hope you enjoy it and share it with your friends like a bong on April 20th or a sorority girl passed out at a frat house party*.

*Just kidding about that sorority girl, you never know what diseases they might have so don't have non-consensual sex with them. Unless you have a little pee-pee and can't last longer that a Nano-second. Even then it's still not acceptable but I can see why you'd only feel comfortable having sex with people that are completely unconscious. Performance impotence is a bitch, especially when you partake in homo-erotic sports play with your "bros"

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