Monday Update: It's HOT

So summer weather finally found us.  I guess that’s the best excuse I can find for not updating since WEDNESDAY.  I should have my WordPress taken away from me.  Truly shameful.

But seriously.  I hate this hot weather.  HATE. IT.  It just magnifies my intense dislike for Reno right now.  As if I didn’t have enough other reasons to completely loathe living here, now Mother Nature turns on the heat.

We went to explore the Legends shopping complex over at the Sparks Marina yesterday.  It’s sort of an outdoor mall (but in my opinion, kicks the doors off the Summit Sierra which I pretty much detest just on principle) with lots of great shops, most of them factory outlet stores.  Like the Carters store.  I will be going back there this weekend.  And it will be amazing.  The jammies alone had me turning cartwheels in the aisles.

The only drawback? It was so freaking HOT.  And for some reason, where we’re located, when the sun really gets going it just burns through and sears your skin.  The elevation?  The dryness?  WHO KNOWS.  But it sucks.  I hate it…. hate hate hate hate hate it.  And everytime I see the weather man on TV gleefully forecast yet more scorching days ahead I want to drive over to the television studio and kick him in the head.

I don’t like living here.  I feel it amplifies everything that is frustrating in my life right now.  I am so isolated and so hot and so tired and pretty much everyone who lives here sucks ass.  I’m sorry if you live here and feel you don’t suck ass but this is my honest assessment.  There’s just enough people crammed into this valley that everyone starts going all “Lord of the Flies” when they are out and about.  People drive like lunatic assholes.  Crowds of people embrace the mob mentality and everything becomes “every man for himself.”   Rudeness prevails.  Doors aren’t held open, people cut in lines, inconsideration is the order of the day.  Put miserable hot weather on top of that and I HAVE HAD IT.

I used to kind of like living here.  Yeah, that whole feeling is GONE.

There.  Is that enough whining for a Monday?  I sure hope so.  I pulled out all the stops.  I even feel a little ill about it, to be honest.  But everyone knows you can’t start off a Monday properly until you’ve bitched and moaned about something.  Up to and including Monday itself.  I feel I covered my bases.   But just for good measure:

Monday AND Reno can BITE ME.

I feel better now.

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Monday Hate List: It's Summer

Let’s bring back this little feature, shall we?  Because while I’m actually NOT feeling particularly crabby today (I know… I’M SHOCKED TOO), there’s always plenty to hate on a Monday, including Monday itself.  And I didn’t post anything all weekend because I was too busy with the “ahh” and the “*contented sigh*” and that sort of thing.  Weekends rock.

Okay, on with the hate….

• caffeine headaches.  Yes, I know we all saw this coming with my addiction to Rockstar and all.  Shut up.  No one likes an “I told you so.”
• the iPhone OS 3.0 update.  Okay, the only thing I hate about this is that it’s not being released for another week or somesuch wrongness.  I WANT IT NOW.  SOUNDS AWESOME.
• our mailman.  Yes, it continues.  I NEVER know when the mail is going to be delivered anymore.  Is it SO hard to deliver stuff by 5pm EVERY day?  REALLY?  Do I have enough capitals in this post so far?
• headaches.  Really, how do you get rid of these?  Cuz ordinary pain killers seem to have no effect.  I’ve taken four ibuprofen and nothin’.  Suck.
• the sun.   I got sort of used to the sun being gone last week with all the storms and everything.  This summer weather is for the birds.  I want my rain back.
• that it’s five more days till the weekend.  Not right, man.  (Except that I now recall Kile is taking Friday off and his parents are coming to town so WOO HOO short week!)
• waiting.  It’s for the birds.  I hate waiting.
• my bruised big toe.  Have you ever had one of these?  I landed on it funny when I fell down the stairs last week and ever since it’s been in PAIN.  Turns out?  You use your big toe quite a bit when walking.  WHO KNEW?
• “Ned’s Declassified” on Nickelodeon.  This show is like nails on a chalkboard.  So is “The Naked Brothers Band”.  And come to think of it, I don’t care for “The Penquins of Madagascar” either.
• on the preschool side of things, I hate “Oswald”, “Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends” and “DragonTales”, to name but a few.
• this stupid headache.  Seriously.  Get a clue, dude.

So that’s the list for this week.  Do you hate it?  You do don’t you?  You can tell me.  Anyhow, it would TOTALLY fit in with the whole overall theme.

Monday Hate List: The Return

Remember when I used to usher in the new week by spewing forth vitrol regarding everything in the world that was pissing me off?  Yeah, I’m doing that again this week.  Cuz I realized yesterday that I have a lot of Hate.  And it’s gotta be shared with the internet.

• The Children’s Place. We’ve spent a lot of money at this store.  Shoot, most of Harry’s wardrobe is made up of clothes from Children’s Place.  Cute clothes at reasonable prices.  Their sales were discount GOLD, people.  We loved it so much we got a store charge card.  We don’t do that, like, ANYWHERE.  We don’t do credit cards.  So to get one for Children’s Place was a testament to how much we liked shopping there.  I was looking forward to getting to get some of their utterly adorable girly clothes that had taunted me for years.  This brings me to last week when for whatever stupid reason, they canceled our credit account.  Why?  We made our payments on time.  We hadn’t paid much debt down but there wasn’t that much on there to begin with so big deal, right?  We paid every month.  We pumped a lot of money in.  And they cancelled our account.  The only reason given?  They checked our credit score and didn’t like it.  I don’t like it either, don’t get me wrong.  But shouldn’t our account history with the company take precedence?  Should it matter WHAT our credit score is as long as we’re paying our bills?  WTF, yo??  Let it be known this card was handled by Shittybank er Citibank. It’s truly a shame because I enjoyed shopping there.  But apparently in this trying economy OUR MONEY isn’t good enough.  They want AAA+ credit score customers only.  Whatever.  I’ll get my kids clothes elsewhere.
• Old Navy.  SERIOUSLY.  What is WITH these stores??  Do they not want to keep customers?  Is the pressure of ending up like Circuit City too much for them and they freakin’ fall apart?   We stopped in there yesterday for shits and giggles and browsed their sales.  They had a lot of cute stuff that was awesomely discounted.  I saw some toddler pajamas that were marked down from $14.50 to $4.50.  SCORE!  I showed Kile a pair (that had a discount sticker on them) and offered to use my PayPal funds to buy them.  He didn’t seem enthused so I put them back.  I did some more shopping and Kile apparently went back to look at the pajamas again.  He picked a pair that had monkeys on them (because Liam IS a monkey) but (gasp) it didn’t have a sticker on it.  Shouldn’t matter.  EVERY other pair had a sticker.  Shoot, Kile even saw another package of monkey jammies that had a sticker on them.  He figured the sticker fell off this one and tossed it in the cart.  Meanwhile, I found some totally cute long sleeved shirts that were originally $15 and were marked down to $4.  I need long sleeved shirts like you wouldn’t believe so I grabed two.  On was a purple stripe and another was a turquoise.  Pretty! We went to check out and the jammies rung up as being $10.  There was much hubub as we tried to explain ourselves and the cashier called back to a manager who said, “Nope, monkey jammies aren’t clearanced.  They’re $10.”  Well forget it!  Cripes!  We paid for the shirts and left.  I get home and I realize that one shirt was $9 instead of $4.  Turns out?  It was marked on it’s sticker as $9 but in the hubub over the stupid pajamas I missed it.  Now I’m cheesed off and am tempted to just return both the shirts and give Old Navy the bird.  How hard is it to SEPARATE clearance items?  HOW?  Can someone tell me?  Is it harder than moving the clearance stuff to ONE table and the regular or just plain sale stuff to another?  Surely it must be because otherwise they would have done that, right? RIGHT?
• People who run over Girl Scounts.
• That I was unable to get the yarn I really really really wanted this morning cuz I’m ze broke.
• That it took me FIVE tries to cast on the waistband of the pair of shorties I started last night.  I swear to GOD, I lost the ability to count somewhere there for a minute and I was about ready to toss the whole thing out the window.
• When dear friends lose their pregnancies.  That just sucks all around.
• When dear friends are losing their parents.  That sucks all around too.
• Rush Limbaugh.

That is all.  For now.

What is a Monday without caffeine?

It’s BAD.  BAD I TELL YOU.  We are all out of caffeine in this house and I’m very, very sad about it. I’m seriously considering taking a nap if I can get Evie down for one before Liam wakes up.  Fingers are (tightly) crossed. 

How was your weekend?  I didn’t post yesterday.  My bad.  I’d like to say that I’ve been busy busy busy but… yeah no.  We went to a birthday party yesterday and that took up a little time.  And… that was about it.  

I started yet another pair of longies yesterday.  Actually, these are going to more like capris.  I’ll make them go to about mid-calf and end in a flirty little ruffle.  I’m way excited to see how they turn out.  That is, if I don’t fling the yarn out the window before I finish.  The yarn is basic wool yarn you can get from any craft store and as such, it was machine dyed.  And a dreadful thing called “pooling” is happening.  I’ll show you pictures and try to explain at a later date.  I’m trying to break it up as best I can but there’s only so much you can do with crappy yarn.  

I have a lot of things I need to remember this week and I’m sure I will drop more than one ball.  I should really start writing stuff down.  But that feels like an admisison of oldness or something, doesn’t it? 

Okay, Evie is begging for her nap now (I’ve got her right where I want her!) so I should go appease her wishes.  I live to serve, you know.

Mondays Blow

*YAWN*  I’m so not ready for the week.  I hate waking up feeling as if I’ve been pulverized by a steamroller in the night.  And waking up knowing that it is a MONDAY just makes it that much worse.  So you’ll have to excuse me if I seem to be crabby and disjointed.  Though I wager you’d all probably worry if I was ever anything less, right?

***

So ya’ll totally didn’t get the point of my post yesterday.  It’s all good.  See, I don’t really care if he takes long showers.  I don’t care if he takes hot showers.  I REALLY don’t care if he takes long, hot showers.  If the smoke alarm goes off, it doesn’t REALLY bother me.  The baby can fall back asleep, the dogs can be beat into submission, peace will reign once more.  No big.  What I was really looking for was people who would agree with me that it was silly for him to get all defensive about something that isn’t really that big of a deal.  I wanted people to agree with me that the smoke alarm went off because of his long, hot showers.  Not that he shouldn’t take them, or they shouldn’t be long, or that they shouldn’t be hot.  I wasn’t even looking for people to back up the whole “turn on the fan, doofus!” thing (though that was nice).  But not one person chimed in with “Yeah, Kile is completely silly for getting defensive and OBVIOUSLY it is the hot shower that sets off the smoke alarm.  DUH!”

Ya’ll are officially fired.

***

I watched (mostly) the Golden Globes last night.  Meh.  What I saw wasn’t much of a surprise.  I don’t think Robert Pattinson was there and already that’s a huge detraction in my book.  I think it’s kinda funny that the movies that one the two big awards are small movies.  I don’t have a chance in hell of seeing either of them before Oscar season.

The best part was Heath Ledger winning for “The Dark Knight”.  I about cried.  Chris Nolan’s acceptance speech was wonderful.  And I just couldn’t help but think what a damn shame it was that he wasn’t there to accept that award himself.  So freakin’ sad.  But I’m very glad he won.  He deserved that one.

***

Evie is so damned cute that I think I’m going to eat her.

***

Okay, I need to figure out what all I need to get done today.  Empty the dishwasher, take out the trash, more knitting, figure out some online stuff, maybe get some things ready to sell?  At least I’ve already put away all the clean diapers that came out of the dryer this morning.  That’s SOMETHING.

***

Damn.  I hate Mondays.

***

PS:  I forgot to include the BEST thing.  Perhaps the only thing that could make a sucky Monday shine.  I got this from Kile who got it from Loralee and if you’ve seen/heard it already, I apologize.  But if you haven’t, then YOU’RE WELCOME.  Be sure to have your speakers on so you can hear it.  It’s the funniest damn thing.

http://youmakemetouchyourhandsforstupidreasons.ytmnd.com/

Monday Hate List – Now With Pictures!

I don’t generally condone of the word “hate” because it has such strong connotations, but in this case, I think Monday deserves it.  How dare it force us out of the lull that is the weekend and make us be productive and stuff!  So here’s what I’m hating today:

1. That we’re about out of groceries here in the house, but yet the budget gave out last week sometime.  Hmm.
2. Little dogs that desperately try to curl themselves up on my legs in an effort to stay warm and give me leg cramps.
3. iCarly, the Jonas Brothers, Hannah Montana, the Naked Brothers Band, Drake and Josh and any of those retarded Disney/Nick shows that my son seems to really, really love right now.
4. Maggie and the Ferocious Beast, Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends and pretty much the entire Noggin morning lineup these days.
5. I pretty much hate money in general right now, but mostly the lack of it.
6. That my parents’ gift STILL hasn’t been mailed off and now I’m worried that it’ll even get there before Christmas and that gives me STRESS.  STRESS STRESS STRESS!
7. Not that I have a van to drive it to the post office anyhow.  (still not registered but whatever)
8. Which means I need to rely on Kile to do it.
9. Which means I’m not holding my breath.
10. Stupid, nagging, caffeine-withdrawal headache.  I need a Rockstar.

So now that I got that out of the way, here are some pictures I cleaned off the camera this morning.

The rarely-captured feral blue-eyed boy.

The cup is a staple in virtually all photos of this child.

A nifty snowflake pin given to me by a good friend for my birthday.  It is officially Evie’s Most Favorite Thing EVER.

My first knitting project, my “practice blob” that I decided to turn into a bag this weekend.  GO ME.

Does this look cold?  Cuz it is.

Little tree.  Snow.  Nuff said.

Sure looks like a Monday morning to me, how about you?  I’m SO glad Harry takes the school bus now.

Kile’s van (aka: our only legal mode of transportation these days).  And snow.  Have fun driving to work, Kile!

Monday Hate List

It’s the return of the Monday Hate List.  Though, in reality, the Monday Hate List has never gone away.  It lives on in our hearts, Monday after Monday.   After all, there’s nothing not to hate on a Monday.  I stand by that.  

So here’s a rundown on what’s getting my goat this not-so-fine morning: 

• That it’s a Monday.  GAH.  
• That I haven’t had any caffeine yet.  Caffeine + Monday = ESSENTIAL.  (This could also be my fault but let’s not go into that.)
• That it is yet another 50+ degree day in sunny Reno, NV.  How the heck am I supposed to get into the Christmas spirit with such pleasant weather?? 
• Speaking of such things… WHERE IS THE SNOW?
• Have I mentioned that the weekend is over?  I hate that.  
• That there was no “True Blood” or “Entourage” to watch last night.  
• Me needy coffee…. 
• Dirty dishes in the sink.
• No black ink in the printer with which to print my Christmas letter. 
• Gift bags = still not shipped. 
• It’s a Monday.  

So what’s eating you today?  You know, other than the fact that it’s a MONDAY. 

Monday Hate List – Week 1

Mondays sure do suck, don’t they?  I hate to use the word “hate” a lot, because it’s such a strong feeling and to use it too often is to a) dilute it’s potence and b) foster a lot of unwanted negativity in your life.  But… it’s Monday.  And if you can’t hate Mondays then what can you do?  So I decided that for one day a week I would just embrace the hate and make a list of things that are ticking me off.  Some Mondays I might not run this feature.  After all, not every Monday sucks and there’s only a finite list of things to hate each week, right?  But gosh, I’ll bet getting some negativity off my chest (and ever-so-helpfully spewed into the Internet!) will help get me through the day.

• I hate freecreditreport.com commercials.  I hate the message that the most of them send (which is that someone else is often to blame for the dude’s poor fortune… the one where he rants about his wife’s poor credit and wishes he’d known about it so he wouldn’t have married her is the worst).  I also hate the stupid songs the guy makes up.  This is more true for the more recent commercials.  The only one that is halfway decent is where he’s working at the restaurant and is dressed up like a pirate.  The rest SUCK.  Especially the “rap” one.  Makes my ears bleed.  So not only do I like the image they’re trying to put forward, but I hate the songs.  HATE HATE HATE.  Plus, (as if I needed more reason to hate them) it’s all a lie anyhow.  NICE.
• I want to kick McCain and Palin and their stupid campaign in the ass.  I don’t want to vent too much, and disturb whatever Republican readers I might have, but DAMN.  The more I hear, the more I want to not only tear my hair out but theirs as well.  I’m so tired of the lies, half-truths and the manipulation of the public.  Why can’t we stick to issues instead of hinting at some nebulous (and pretty much untrue) associations with racial overtones?  SERIOUSLY?  Honestly, it’s obvious to me that McCain is just lashing out because he knows Obama has the upper hand right now and it’s just sickening.  This month can’t pass quick enough, as far as I’m concerned.
• Charter cable is really pissing me off.   For the last week we’ve had really spotty service.  Anything over channel 100 is hit and miss these days.  Which really sucks on a MONDAY when I really wouldn’t mind some NOGGIN to keep Liam happy.  I don’t want to watch Nickelodeon because of all the obnoxious commericals.  And since the service is spotty, I can’t even call up Blue’s Clues on On Demand.  AAARGH.  At least the box isn’t overheating every 30 minutes anymore but COME ON.  We pay for this service and we should be able to watch HBO whenever we damn well feel like it (thank god it was working last night so I didn’t have to miss “True Blood”!).  I’d have them send a service technician out but I’m scared to death that they’ll deem the problem is on “our end” and bill us up the wazoo for it.  NO THANKS.  Right now, I’m just counting the days until our contract is up and we can switch back to satellite.
• I hate pretty much anyone who shops at Walmart (myself excluded, of course).  I swear, that store has the RUDEST shoppers of any store on the planet.  I’m talking about the clumps of people who are always in your way when you want to get something off the shelf, but then if you are in THEIR way then you get the Glare of Death.  I swear, I think there’s a new syndrome out called Walmart Rage.  Everyone in there is just so MAD all the time.  And yes, that includes me.  I swear, my blood pressure was through the roof when we were in there on Saturday.  WTF?  God, I wish we had more Targets.  And at least ONE Super Target.

So what are you hating this (not-so) fine Monday?  Feel free to share the venom in the comments.  Let Monday have it!

Housekeeping

Everything is so cluttered.  And it’s not just my house (though, lord in heaven, the clutter in this house threatens to eat us all).  My mind is filled with useless clutter.  So, since I have to start somewhere and it’s unlikely I’m going to be starting with the house itself anytime soon, I’m starting with my mind.

How to you de-clutter your mind?  You spit out the random snippets of things that are dancing around in there, clamoring for your attention in a blog post, that’s how.  Now you know.

***

Thanks for everyone’s questions about WordPress!  Keep them coming!  I’m not sure when I’m going to start the series, but I’m thinking it’ll be sometime this week.  So stay tuned!  I’m seeing a lot of the same sorts of questions so that tells me what you all REALLY want to know.  Which is good!  And I’ve got some great ideas.  Hopefully, I can help some people out.  And if I lure just a few people away from the vile clutches of Blogger, then I will consider it a raging success.

***

Liam is feeling unwell today.  He was unwell yesterday too.  Runny nose, slight fever.  General crankiness (beyond the normal “I’m 2 years old and a little shit”, at least).  Poor guy.  He was very upset this morning when we couldn’t find his dolphin.  Because heaven forbid the child should have to drink his morning milk without dolphin in hand.  I’m hoping he starts feeling better before he a) infects me and or b) infects Evie.  I do not want Evie to get sick and I can’t afford to feel under the weather right now.  Plus this is a particularly sucktastic week for Kile at work so he can’t afford for me (or him) to be sick right now either.  Sick, sick, go away!!

***

Evie is sleeping in our bed pretty much full time now.  I know I had mentioned putting her in her crib a bit before, but we’re kind of moving away from that.  At least for now, we are.  Liam was 10 months before he slept in his crib and until then he had slept in our bed for naps and bedtime.  Since Evie is just shy of 5 months old, I figure we’re sort of jumping the gun anyhow.  She has already been taking naps in our bed, though admittedly, she often draws me in with her for at least 20 minutes or so.  I took a cue from what we did with Liam and the past several nights have been taking her up to bed when Kile’s putting Liam down and start nursing her.  Kile comes in when he’s done with Liam and reads a story to Evie while she finishes up and then it’s off to dreamland she goes!

So far, it has worked great.  She’ll wake up maybe once before I go to bed, and it’s usually shortly after she goes down so I figure she’ll stop doing that fairly soon.  It sure has been strange to have the evenings entirely kid-free around here.  Nice, but weird.

***

Hey, I’m doing my own ads!  I toyed with BlogAds (again… I had run them once upon a time but… meh) and for the last week I tried Performancing ads.  Which was well and good until I got an email from a sweet gal telling me that she had been trying to purchase ad space on my blog with the Performancing ads and kept erroring out.  Well, shoot, that’s not going to do!  So I found a WordPress plugin and am serving up my own ads now.  Middle-man be darned!

So this fabulous gal and her WAY cute products are now my very first advertisers!  Check out the link under the BlogHer ads in the righthand sidebar.  Click away and let her know that you think she rocks too (cuz she so totally does).

And if you’re interested in advertising, check out my new advertising page for details.  Look at me, trying to be all legitimate and stuff!

***

It’s less than two weeks until I get my iPhone.  The waiting is TORTURE.

***

How awesome are the Olympics this year?  I barely remember the Olympics in Athens or the one in Sydney.  I guess I’ve been a) busy and b) uninterested.  I think Twitter has really helped the Olympics be awesome this time around, as have all the blogs.  Getting to be excited about it with a bunch of other people at the same time what makes it fun, right?  GO PHELPS.  That man could probably get away with murder right about now.  Golden boy, indeed!  Shoot, all the American athletes have been amazing this year.  The gymnasts just blow my mind, for example.  I’ve even enjoyed watching the athletes from the other countries.  There have been ome great stories this year and I love watching the human spirit at work!  Good examples of this: the women’s marathon and the runners from Jamaica.  I’m going to miss these things when they’re done.

***

Good gravy I’m tired today.  Trying not to rely on the Rockstar too much this week but I think I’ll have to make an exception today.

***

I stop and realize where I was at one year ago today and I can’t believe it’s been a whole year and that everything last year really happened (well, maybe not the positive pregnancy test part because I do have a wee, adorable baby to cuddle this year because of that!).  Last August was a nightmare.  I wouldn’t say this August is a dream or anything, though.  I wish I could just go ahead and get this funk behind me once and for all.  The thyroid pills help, but I still have more “off” days than “on” days

***

Okay, time to move on with the day.  I think I’ll go get some Rockstar and give my ass a proverbial kick.  Do Mondays always suck this much?

I'm sure there's something more pithy to say than "OMG, it's MONDAY."

This is how it gets to be 5pm on a Monday afternoon and I still haven’t posted.  First: You make it a Monday.  The end.

GAH.  Of course, you all read about my weekend, so you should understand where I’m coming from.  It’s hard to come down from something like that.  I’m pretty sure there wasn’t near enough alcohol consumed either.  In fact, come to think of it, I don’t think I had ANY alcohol!  Dangit!  I hate when that happens.

My online time has been very broken up today.  A few minutes here, a few minutes there.  Not a lot of time for a) posting, b) reading blogs, c) commenting on blogs (goes without saying), or generally getting anything done around here that remotely resembles housework.  I did do some online shopping in the last 24 hours, which you would think would be fun but is NOT.  We’re still trying to make staying at Westin on Friday night work so that means corners are being cut EVERYWHERE.  I need to find/raise/make/save money wherever I can manage.  So far, not doing so hot (see the above online shopping).  It’s a work in progress.  And the stuff I bought is sorta “gotta have” anyhow, so I guess that makes it… okay?

Anyhow.  All of that aside, I wanted to share some girly goodness with you all.  Witness what my husband did to Evie when he got her dressed yesterday morning:

He stuck a bow to her head!  Actually, it’s a “clippie” that has a bow on it (parents of girls know exactly what a “clippie” is, right?).  Anyhow, he used the ol’ Karo syrup routine and stuck it on there.  And, yeah, it was kinda adorable.  But it was a hot day.  And the bow would not stay put.  Soooo, when we were at Walmart, I searched for some simple headbands.  You know what a tall order that is?  Now, I generally dislike baby headbands because they all look ridiculous to me.  All satiny, lacey, spangley… BLEH.  No thank you.  My baby is not a Bratz doll, thankyouverymuch.  But, lo and behold, I was actually able to find some SIMPLE headbands.  No adornments (well, one had an applique style butterfly on it, but it was very understated).  SOLD.  And now, we have something to clip the clippie to!

Kill me now.  I know I said I would never do the headband thing (did I ever say that on this blog?  If not, know that I said it in person.  Often.) but this is CUTE.  So I guess this means I’ve joined the Dark Side or something.  Whatever.  Like you could resist these cheeks:

She will conquer BlogHer ’08 with those cheeks, mark my words.