Geoff’s Blog

Films this week

Went to the cinema on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week and managed to watch four films so here are my impressions.

Get Smart was a bit funnier than I was expecting and Anne Hathaway was also looking nice which seemed to be the point since she was more placed for Steve Carrell to bumble around. Steve Carrell suited the analyst with dreams of being a secret agent well. There was also a nice message about the person being most important and not always judging them on what they do.

Bangkok Dangerous was on when I made it to the cinema at 16:30. I didn’t really know anything about it except that Nicholas Cage was in it. It’s all about an assassin. He has his rules that he never breaks so he won’t get caught. He then quite randomly starts to break his rules and everything goes action movie. There was even a training montage. It had got an average review that I hadn’t read but I would probably peg it around the same average or slightly below average if I’m being harsh. As a film about an assassin it has been done better and as an action movie it tries to make you feel for the character too much without enough real reason behind it. I did enjoy the relationship he managed to strike up with a deaf pharmacist but it didn’t feel real enough.

To round out my days off I managed to get an early showing of Rock n Rolla the new film by Guy Ritchie. So I feel compelled to compare it to Lock Stock and Snatch at least a bit. To build up the story there were a lot more different groups introduced and perhaps to restrict length I didn’t feel they were as developed as groups in the other films. I enjoyed the title character the rocker who is rumoured to be dead but since there were so many other things going on he didn’t enough screen time really. The story was much darker on the whole than previous films. Lock Stock really built up the story with a group of friends having a good time, Snatch with the Pikeys and Rock N Rolla loses out on that charm a little. Having said all that I did enjoy the film a lot and getting to the end, the number of people being introduced made sense when it points out that another film with the same characters will be made. This was not an annoying cliffhanger ending though, just a note at the end that {characters} will be returning in {new film}.

Since I had managed to get into RockNRolla before 1pm I was out at 3pm and opted to catch a showing of Babylon A.D. Set in a near future setting Vin Diesel is a mercenary called Toorop (I had to check the credits to be sure). He is demonstrated to be good at what he does and that he seems to keep his word. He gets hired to escort some girl to New York and on the way stops treating her as just another delivery job and more like an actual person. Some weird stuff happens at the end but I just didn’t really ‘get it’. I was also a little distracted by the use of shaky cam during a chase and some unnecessarily frequent scene changes. I can’t really recommend the film unless you really like Vin Diesel, there is a brief shower scene that might interest you if you do although that was strictly from the waist up.

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Weekends

Taboo

The following weekend the sun came out as it seems to do every year when I go to celebrate my friend James’ birthday. We had planned this months back and spent the day on Clapham common enjoying the music and general festival atmosphere of South West Four. Cleverly named after the postcode where it is hosted (no its not that clever but a lot of London seems to have some odd fascination with postcodes). We ate, drank and were merry in the field and tents while music was played for our enjoyment. When the event ended we carried on drinking and even managed to make our way to the Two Brewers for  more drinking and dancing until the very early hours. The Sunday following was almost a complete write off, I woke up watched Star Wars and pretty much went back to bed.

Sout West Four

Conveniently this was the bank holiday weekend and so getting up on the Monday Deidre and I headed up bright and early to Notting Hill and found a space along the parade route to take lots and lots of pictures. This was my first Notting Hill carnival and although the costumes and routines were quite impressive the carnival seemed a little disconnected and the sheer number of people who turned up made the latter part of the afternoon quite tiresome. It sounds like the atmosphere was more fun and friendly on the Sunday which makes sense so I’ll probably head to that next year round.

Notting Hill Carnival

This last weekend I celebrated another friends birthday with a few drinks while everyone else prepared for a much larger night out. I didn’t manage the later celebrations because this was the last weekend of the month and so the long awaited Nike ‘The Human Race’ was the following day. To remember the event I took this photo of me looking excited:

Ready for The Human Race 10k

There are many more photos at the facebook group that give a much better idea of the size of the event. The scenes at London would have been replicated at all of the 29 participating cities I imagine. After all the training covering a total of 180km since I signed up the 10km race itself took me 56m46s and I came 68844th place. Considering that was out of almost a million runners globally I was pretty happy with that.

London came 2nd apparently with an average running time of 57m47s and out of the people who ran in London I came 6827th place which is still pretty good.

So based on all the fun I have had with my weekends free I decided to book up a few holidays from work and so in addition to my normal days off I will be free on weekends through October and November. Now I just need to find some friends to spend them with…

Posted in Life, Running, Work | No Comments »

Mass Effect

This is a post about a computer game. I’d be interested to know what anyone who reads it thinks of it, especially if you do not play games. Have I made it sound interesting? Have you ever heard about it before? I have tried not to reveal much about the story but maybe it is too vague.

Today I plan to talk about one of the games I have been playing. It is an adventure type game where you take on the role of commander Sheppard a soldier in the human Alliance military. Set in a future where humanity has joined with various other galactic species and is finding its place amongst the other races who mastered space flight hundreds of years ago. As you play the game you find out more about the history that shaped the galaxy you are currently exploring usually by guiding your character to talk to other people or reading computer pages. The history for me was very interesting to investigate, and had a cyclical nature to it. The first races were peaceful but soon discovered a hostile race, a warrior race then came to the rescue but turned on the peaceful races. A new militant race beat down the warrior race and became an important police like force. Humanity was initially seen as a hostile threat and a couple of generations later is when you are introduced.

The mechanics of the game are similar to past games from the same company, a character you can create picking from a variety of skills, combat skills, technical skills and biotic powers (think telekinises). You can customise the appearace choosing male or female for your character too. My originally named Geoff Shepard character was a male who specialised in biotic powers.

Starting the game you head up a three person squad investigating a mysterious attack on a human colony, the attack is ongoing and you are soon attacked by a some of the Geth race. This is a race of artificial intelligence equipped robots who overthrew their creators and evolved in secret and have only now begun to spring up around the occupied areas of the galaxy. All quite mysterious but carrying on through the mission we discover an ancient artifact from the ancient civilisation that apprently created a lot of the major space stations linking the galaxy together. This is the sort of thing that makes me think of the Stargate television series but if you never watch that its basically the same idea, the stargates were made by ancient races and I suppose is a neat way to bypass any ownership of this giant space motorway system.

After this mission you basically get called a liar and to prove your story you get to explore the centerpiece of the galaxy. A huge space station called the citadel where the government is based and you can interact with more of the alien species. You also flesh out the crew who you can continue exploring the galaxy with, you get to include one of the Turian race (militant police race), one of the Krogan (warrior race) and a Quarian (the race that created the Geth).

The game lets you choose the direction that interactions should play out so you can make your character interactions take on a helpful, neutral or aggressive tone in the majority of conversations. When I first played through the game my conversations were typically aggressive but as I was enjoying exploring a lot of my actions were quite helpful. Basically I was acting like a jerk but still helping them out whereas I could have been acting like a jerk and not help them either. During this early exploration my squad consisted of the Krogran warrior and the Quarian since I was most interested in these two races. When I came back to the game after a long break I carried on taking the Quarian with me but chose to take the Turian with me instead of the Krogan for no particular reason.

My break from the game was due to a couple of reasons. One was that I had a lot of new games around the same time, just after christmas. The second was that the game felt like it was going to end too soon. Once I left the citadel I was presented with a quite surprising number of locations to explore and I duly set out without too much of a system to explore everywhere I could. Simple survey missions on planets would return information on minerals or artifacts found and on every system there was a planet I could land on and drive around in my tank. This just seemed to get quite repetitive, quite fast. Despite a very strong start to the game with the initial mission and Citadel exploration and a couple of primary missions the secondary missions just dragged out the game. After coming back to the game I completed another primary mission that actually progressed the main story and that inspired me to finish off the game.

Once I finished the game thanks to the achievement system I immediately started another game from the beginning. Choosing this time to play as a more helpful character but also limiting my exploration of the galaxy to completing missions only.

In summary the story that unfolds and the character interactions and detailed history that can be investigated are very impressive and really draw my to the game. The unfettered exploration of the galaxy is not as interesting as it could have been there is no reason why those who want to explore shouldn’t have been rewarded with more detailed environments and further character interactions. The game is meant to be followed up by a sequel which I will definately purchase as I am interested in exploring more of this fiction.

Another game I have been playing recently also has a strong story driven pull but this one is interspersed by tetris style ‘battles’. I might talk about Puzzle Quest more after I have played it more but the basic premise is matching coloured jewels to beat a variety of mythical opponents, orcs, trolls and the like.

One last note, I found a blog and after reading the last few posts I have been working through the archives. It’s a shame that http://virgin-slut.blogspot.com/ has stopped posting as a lot of the posts I have read are very interesting and well written.

Posted in Games, Mass Effect, Xbox 360 | No Comments »

Dr. Horrible

Quick go and see it! It’s being taken down on midnight Sunday.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Running (again)

So the new best way to get home from work is to run.

That’s what I did tonight so what usually only takes me about half an hour or forty minutes on the bus today took me an hour and ten minutes. I did save almost £1.60 if my memory of bus fares serves me correctly.

The only reason I’m really talking about this now is that I ran a slightly longer route than I would normally take if I had gotten buses and the result was I ran a total of 11.86km so any concerns that I might collapse during the 10k run have pretty much vanished. Yay for me.

Since my last post I had managed to run on the Saturday (6.48km), Sunday (7.63km) and Monday (6.6km) then my foot hurt and I sat about Tuesday and Wednesday playing games, because of how productive I am.

Next time I post it won’t be about running. Promise.

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Dear Internet

Dear diary/blog.

With only two months to prepare for the horror that is a 10km run I decided to buy a new Nike+ sensor, having lost the last one somewhere around March. This gives me a better idea of how far I am running at the moment and shows quite clearly when I have been slacking off on my training. I bought it around teh beginning of July, I forget the exact date but know the first run I did with it was on the 4th of July.

7.19km was a nice start, the usual run that I had been doing sans sensor the last night shift. A very flat run on a nice circuit from Hammersmith bridge to Putney bridge and back again. Since the weather was so nice the next morning I followed that run up with the exact same route this time it clocked in at 7.22km. I guess I just ran a litte wider on a corner or two. So Friday morning and Saturday morning had been good nice and early each morning with not many people about, I wonder if I can get up that early the next day.

Sunday morning I didn’t run. It’s Sunday a day of rest. It was raining too.

Monday I did run, I ran a little later in the day and this time I ran on a circuit crossing Tooting and South Wimbledon. This run was only 5.4km though and at the end of it I was shattered. I think the problem with this run was that there were too many hills. Two of them. Well not really hills just bridges, but they were steep bridges.

Tuesday I did not run. I have no excuse for not running. I sat around most of the day in my dressing gown. Then I got dressed and went to the cinema. In the car. Wanted is a silly film.

Wednesday I went to work. I planned to run. I took a bag with trainers in and everything. I was going to run home from work. My bag of everything had no t-shirt. It was raining again.

Thursday I went to work again. I didn’t plan to run. I planned to drink free beer at work.

Friday. Work again. Free beer again. No running again. Did try out the new Korean restaurant in Earlsfield though, Cah Chi. You can take your own wine and they have a selection of their own wines, each table conceals a gas burner so if you choose any of the barbeque menu options the staff bring the marinated meat to your table and cook it in front of you. All very tasty and our meal of two appetizers, two mains with accompaniments and rice came to just under £20 each. Well worth checking out.

Saturday I went for a run. Near home but a flatter circuit, did two laps. Distance was 6.48km felt very tired at the end though, if I slow down maybe I can do three laps.

This morning I was working. Took a lunch break to go running and my bridge to bridge circuit came up as 7.63km, I had run quite a bit slower. Felt like I could have kept going but was running out of break time.

So to sum up I have found a good route to run at home that compares better with the route I run at work, well actually credit for the route should go to Deidre, she found it a while ago and I had butchered it by turning off towards South Wimbledon and introducing the hills. The promise of free beer is too appealing to pass up. I like Korean food, especially when barbequed in front of me.

Thanks for listening internet. Your’s always, Geoff.

PS: Website of the week is youniverse.com check out the visual personality test but there isn’t much else to keep me coming back to this dating site / social network. You can also keep up with my run progress at nikeplus.nike.com

Posted in Food, Running | No Comments »

Nike Human Race

I signed up to the Nike Human Race last night.

So on August 31st this year I will get to run with 29,999 other people for 10km around Wembley, I signed up in wave 3 so if anyone wants to run with me let me know I think it will be more fun running with someone else. There is also some special concert being held in advance of the run I which is a nice bonus.

I chose to support the WWF as my charity since I’m drawn to any environmental causes over other potentials. I’m not out to seek sponsorship though its just a portion of my entrance fee goes to the WWF. I’ll also get a red nike t-shirt with my runner number on it and apparently a medal when I finish it, like a proper sportsperson.

I had wanted to try the Nike Run London event a couple of years ago when they were running during a night but I wasn’t living in the city at the time. I missed out on the one they did in 2006 between the north and south Londoners due to work but I still see people running in the orange south london shirts when I go running around Hammersmith/Putney.

I’m also inspired by my friend Nikki who is planning to run a half Marathon this year. If I can get myself running 5km more than once a week in preparation for this run then maybe I’ll look into doing a half Marathon next year. I managed a run last night shortly after signing up but tonight I seem to have lost the motivation, hopefully I’ll go for a run after sleeping most of the day. I really need to step up my running since I have started combining doritos with salsa dip on my night shifts. One big bag of cool original corn chips ‘for sharing’ devoured by myself over 2 nights can’t be good for me.

Posted in Running | 2 Comments »

Listing things

Not made a post for some time. That is how a lot of my older blog posts started out so I’m not going to dwell on it. I haven’t managed to progress my career much either, I planned to study for a CCNA qualification but I haven’t found the motivation to move past the first chapter.

For a quick summary of what has happened I am resorting to the list format. Observe -

• Went to a leaving party of a good friend (Tony) and past housemate who is currently travelling around Australia meeting new friends and soap opera actors. Feb 22nd.
• Went to a Birthday party (Anh) where I listened to various excuses from people who were no longer going to Glastonbury. Danced until late and then got unnecessarily irritable when I went one stop further than I needed to on the night bus home. Mar 15th.
• Found a place to live. Slightly smaller than Earlsfield but cheaper and not too far away. Moved into that place and closed accounts with the old flat. Apr 1st.
• Trip to Islington to watch a friend’s (Will) band play. Apr 3rd.
• Celebrate a school friends (Ruth) birthday at a house party also met another guy called Geoff. It was a fun party. Apr 5th.
• Ordered a new phone, contract was coming to an end so I have switched back to a Nokia and still trying to get used to the space key being in a different place than on the Sony Ericssons. Apr 15th.
• Grand Theft Auto IV was released and I picked it up before my night shift the day after it was released, managed to spend a lot of my free time playing it so that I finished the story exactly a month after the game was released. There is still a lot more for me to explore, I haven’t even touched the multiplayer features. Apr 30th.
• On a particularly warm weekend I was invited to a barbeque where I got to play with some fire and admire the new garden landscaping at the hostesse’s house (Nikki). We also played ‘Taboo’ where you have to describe a series of words and phrases without using the listed words, think of it like a wordy version of pictionary lots of fun. May 5th.
• Part one of a birthday celebration for Nikki, a table had been reserved at Mish Mash bar in Clapham. After stocking up on a variety of cocktails during the happy hour spent what I can remember of the night taking photos, dancing and spending money on even more drinks. May 17th.
• I booked my car in for a service and was there first thing in the morning. As always seems to happen various problems were found which resulted in the cost ballooning from the original quote to well over triple.  I didn’t get it back until 3 days after putting it in. May 19th
• Picked up a meal and show deal on lastminute.com and enjoyed a relaxed meal at myBar Bloomsbury before seeing ‘We Will Rock You’ at the Dominion theatre. A fun musical set in the future where unapproved music is banned and it is illegal to own a musical instrument, all the songs involved are by Queen. May 19th
• Part two of Nikki’s birthday celebration to accommodate her friends who couldn’t travel that far south of the Thames. This time located to Bar Kick in Shoreditch, had a couple of drinks before switching to soft drinks and played foosball and took photos for most of the night. May 22nd.
• Rock Band game was delivered a rhythm game involving a drum kit, guitar and microphone so you can make a band with some friends. Spent so long hearing how much better it was than guitar hero which I loved so that should keep me entertained during the British summertime. May 23rd.
• Drove my newly serviced car through central London picked up Nikki, Sheron and Deidre and then drove up to the Lake District and put up tents in the dark for the bank holiday weekend. May 23rd.
• Got up early, drove to the bottom of Scafell Pike and then climbed to the top of said pike, the highest mountain in England. Climbed back down and got shouted at by a farmer when we took a wrong turn and ended up in his field rather than on the public path. Back to the campsite we walked to the village pub and then made a small campfire to enjoy until it got dark. May 24th.
• Went to the Go Ape high wire assault course, enjoying various zip lines and tarzan swinging moments strapped into a safety harness. Followed this up with some afternoon tea and bought food for a barbeque. Enjoyed building a bigger fire, getting the instant barbeques going and cooking sausages and marshmallows on sticks. May 25th.
• Cooked breakfast on a barbeque then drove back to London. May 26th.
• Went to see Maximo Park play at the Kentish town forum. Maximo Park are great, would have preferred standing tickets but its not like I would have been organised enough to sort out tickets myself. May 28th.
• Found out there was a Rock Band event at the HMV on Oxford Street. Played the game with some guys who were much better than me and we spent a good part of the day milling around playing the game and entering the competition to win a trip to Ibiza. The competition is touring the UK and is being judged by Maximo Park. Jun 5th.
• After hearing a couple of internet friends getting more and more excited about going to see Foo Fighters at Wembley I was pleased to get the opportunity to join the fun. One of the friends had found themselves with a couple of spare standing tickets and after hastily arranging a day of work I snapped them up. A little rushed on the day I didn’t actually get to meet either of my internet friends but did meet a friendly guy in the crowd who after I gave him £10 he duly returned with a couple of beers and change. The concert itself was fantastic and as far as I could tell the whole crowd loved it. The show finished up with surprise guests Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones joining Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins. Fantastic night and even managed to get all the way back from Wembley to Tooting before the Tubes closed. Jun 7th.

So it has been a pretty busy few months, and I already have tickets to see Will play again and Glastonbury at the end of this month. Maybe then I can resist the lure of GTA IV and Rock Band and get some serious CCNA studying done…

Posted in Events, Xbox 360 | No Comments »

Flatshare Hunting

At the end of March my housemates and I will all be abandoning the property that has been home for the past couple of years. We are also basically heading our seperate ways which is a shame but I’m confident we will still keep in close contact. Since most of our arrangements for doing things recently have been almost exclusively email/facebook based I can’t imagine why that wouldn’t continue. Anyway I started this post to talk about my moving possibilities so without further ado…

After some frantic searching for a flatshare to move into, I’m pretty confident that I’m not going to be homeless at the end of March. Of the 3 places I have seen, one was a little more expensive than I really wanted, especially since it was still being done up. As converted office space it had a lot of room, the bedrooms and bathrooms were clustered together near the entrance but it had a massive kitchen/living area. Imagine a large open plan office and you get an idea of the space, the kitchen was along the back wall with a couple of chairs a TV and some other furniture placed around the living area. I could imagine moving various furniture I have in the flat bean bags and shelves full of DVD’s would probably help make the area feel more homely. The guy who had placed the ad was one of the people I would be sharing with and as he showed me around he seemed perfectly likeable so I’m sure we would get on, I didn’t get the opportunity to meet the girl who I would be sharing with though. The bathroom wasn’t very big but perfectly adequate and with only 3 people sharing shouldn’t be much trouble. The room I’d move into would be furnished, this is something I am accepting of most flatshares which is a bit of a shame since I have loads of furniture myself. It came with a double bed and a whole wall was taken up with included wardrobe space, apart from that though the room wasn’t really expansive and would get cluttered with my computer and TV set up although I may have been able to arrange to move my computer into the living area. The location is ideal slightly closer to work than I currently am and within easy walking distance to all the shops and supermarket. It is available this weekend which is a really early for me but the guy placing the ad seemed to think mid month move in might be possible. Since it was the first place I saw I wanted to check out a few other properties to make sure I wasn’t just getting carried away.

Second place was curiously close to Wandsworth Southside but in an area I hadn’t explored, close to a large park and one street away from an underground station. It was also a bargain, not much more than I am paying at the moment (I have accepted I won’t get any cheaper than I’m currently paying). Better yet the move in date is mid March which would stop me stressing early and give me plenty of moving leeway. The house had a nice sized living room leading through to a normal sized kitchen and I think there was a small garden too although that isn’t one of my must have requirements. Much more homely feel than the office property but not much space to add any more furniture. This ad had caught my eye since it would be sharing with ‘three lovely ladies’ and unlike most hadn’t specified female flatmate preferred, I only briefly met one of the ladies since the girl showing me round was the one who would be moving out. Heading upstairs to the room I was impressed with the space, a bed fit nicely in the corner and there was space in the window area that would suit for my television and various games. One side of the room had a chest of drawers with a cupboard built into the wall above it and there was another wardrobe built into the wall next to this. The bathroom was a little small and desperately needed the ceiling repainted, my guide assured me this was being done by the landlady soon but I wasn’t that concerned, if I got the place I’d probably offer to paint it myself. Despite only being the second place I had seen I was sure to register my interest but wanted to make sure the ‘three lovely ladies’ wouldn’t mind sharing with a lovely young man. If they aren’t against the idea I’ll look forward to meeting them all hopefully soon and arrange a deposit. In the meantime I’m still checking out places.

Moving on to a third place with another nice cheap price this time located further from work but still in the reach of a couple of buses in Tooting Broadway. The ad had the place listed for move in this weekend but also said it had en suite so I was keen to see the place. Literally 2 minutes from the Northern line station would be very handy for getting into town and visiting one of my friends who lives in Clapham and I have seen precious little of since moving to London. A large detached house with a small entrance hall and I was greeted by the friendly face of the girl who would be moving out. Down a short hallway into a large open plan living room / kitchen which reminds me a little of the setup in my old university halls just with leather furniture. There was a small oustide area which I was shown but it just had a car belonging to one of the housemates parked in it and not much more space. There was another bedroom on the ground floor in the hallway and some storage space under the stairs. Heading upstairs there was another room above the bedroom downstairs and then I got to see the room available. She mentioned there was another bedroom down the upstairs hallway and a bathroom that two of the housemates shared. The room available had a double bed tucked into the corner with a standing wardrobe, desk and chest of drawers in front of the window. Unfortunately these seemed to take up basically all of the floorspace. The desk wouldn’t be staying, shame since I could use a desk its the chest of drawers and wardrobe I’d want to replace. The en-suite was no lie though, with a power shower and toilet it was a very appealing but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the house was far more student-y than I was after. Coupled with the very early move in date and the apparent success I had so far I decided it wasn’t the room for me but thanked her very much for her time.

So of the three places I have seen so far I apparently am easily impressed. I don’t feel I am scraping the bottom of the barrel by any means, each place has had its benefits and drawbacks. I don’t doubt I would get on with any people I move in with but I would prefer a sociable environment and that did seem to be a little lacking from the last property I viewed. If I only had a week left to decide then I would have snapped up a cheap room with ensuite and the spacious living area but as it is I am waiting to hear back from the second place and am happy to carry on looking if that falls though. It’s all pretty exciting really and I’m looking forward to making some new friends. For the next couple of weeks I feel I can relax a little and search out the most appealing properties rather than chasing every listing that looks vaguely interesting.

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The Internet

Seem to have had a particularly interesting few weeks of discovering new things on the internet.

Google Reader Which lets me view all the sites I try to keep up with most regularly in one handy place. For those not familiar with RSS feeds, its like email from all your favourite websites and no spam.

SarcasticMom which is for the most part very funny and the photos are brilliant and the kid Braden just looks cute, although he has the mind of an evil genious which also appeals.

Karoon’s and Lauren’s blogs since they have both started filling out their blogs again too.

Kotaku is a gaming related site that I have seen a few articles on before but have been checking basically whenever I get on the internet nowadays, and it is though this site that I found that sarcasticmom site, how crazy is the internet?

StuffWhitePeopleLike which is about stuff that white people like.

March 14th apparently a very significant day and with a nice link to detailed instructions on how to suck cock.

There were lots of other sites too but these kind of stood out the most and I thought they deserved special mention, I’ll probably add the individual bloggers to the right hand side of this page sometime soon.

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