Recap Rant: COtL, Chapters 2 & 3

This post was supposed to happen a week ago, but every time I sit down at the computer, a parental unit comes in and bitches about me being on the computer all the time and what I should be doing instead.

So, now that they are involved in whatever lame TV show that's on right now, I present the Recap Rant for chapters 2 and 3 of Coloring Outside the Lines.

Chapter 2: Square Peg
Edward starts off hating his new coworker/boss Bob. They haven't even done anything at the job yet, he just hates him for being poked fun at. Oh, Edward, really? Did you not expect to get a little ribbing for being a pansy-city boy starting a stable job at the rodeo? THEN he freaks out because he thinks he's going to actually be riding IN the rodeo. Silly boy, it's not that simple. No way would the author harm your butt in the rodeo ring just yet. I'm sure it's coming, since left-field stuff like that seems to happen to you often. Freed Eagle, anyone?

So Bob takes him around and shows him the stables where he's supposed to be working and Edward notices he's experiencing his first sunrise in a long time and almost has a breakdown thinking about how he's always slept through them because of his past "life". Let me tell you something, cowboy. I miss sunrises all the time, and it ain't because I was out whoring around all night. I sleep in because once I get a real job, I'll be seeing sunrises until I die. End of story. He then muses about how nice the made up little town is and how you can see the moon and everyone is so gosh darned nice. Then he almost has a freak out because Bob touched his shoulder in that manly way. Bob caught on and didn't judge, even telling the horse lady, Sharon, that Edward isn't into the touchy-feely. Then he sucks it up and hugs Sharon and then berates himself for not hugging her properly. I haven't the words, kids, I just don't.

Deep breaths, you'll get over it once the sun is up and you're sweating your ass off.

And sweat it he does, fellow readers. Not only does he work his ass off feeding the horses and mucking their stalls, he also gets bullied by the horses. Oh yes, bullied. They bite at him, head butt him, try to kick him, and even piss and shit on him. Bob tells him he's gotta lay down the law, cause the horses won't wait for food. Sounds like my cat. I've gotten many scratches and bites because I didn't dump her food fast enough. Little fuzzball knows her place now that I've flung her across the room (don't worry, animal lovers, she didn't hit a wall or anything. I made sure she landed on my bed or a pile of clean clothes just fine). Edward needs to do something like that. Fling a horse across the stable so the horses know he won't take any shit from them. Maybe bring in a bottle of glue and say something like, "Boy, I sure miss Sonuvagun, but I don't miss his bad behavior. Good thing he comes in this handy bottle to carry with me all the time now." That'll show them horses.

To get through all of this, Edward resorts to remembering Victoria and her voice and how she used to degrade him when he did anything, using it to drive him through the tasks and "show" her he wasn't a fuck-up loser anymore. Good on ya, Edward, but probably not the best method. We'll see if this makes things worse in the future.

When he learns to groom the horses, the horse called Psycho shits on him while he's brushing it's tail. No need for further detail on this one, folks.

Bob tells him it's okay to work shirtless, but Edward declines because of the scars he sustained from Raven in the last story. Understood. He even goes all submissive-like with Bob, hoping he catches on and drops the subject, but it's not until he tries to touch Edward on the shoulder again and Edward flips out that he gets the hint again. Oy.

Throughout the day Edward constantly worries what Katie will think of him, how she'd love the horses and how she'd hate him for hating the horses. Then, during lunch, Edward and Bob have a heart to heart about how much Edward sucks at the job and Bob reassuring him that he'll get the hang of it in no time. After lunch, where Edward finds a cute little note from Bella and Katie in his lunchbox, they take a dip in the lake out back, with their clothes on. I don't know about you, but working in a wet shirt and wet jeans would NOT be the best way to get through my day working a shitty job. Anyway, Bob apologizes for making Edward feel uncomfortable with the touchy-feely stuff, and even offers to be Edward's mentor, since Bob had one many moons ago when he started. Edward accepts and that's how chapter 2 ends.

There was so much whining I wanted to smack him. Being in his head gives me a headache. Oy.

Chapter 3: Paging Dr. Frankencock!
Wow, I'd forgotten that lovely nickname for Edward and his leviathan peen from The Red Line. I suppose it's a homage to how large his man junk is and whatnot, but all I can think about is a penis that looks like patchwork with stitching and different skin tones to complete the look. I'm a little grossed out, myself. Sorry if you are now, too.

Anywho, now we're in Bella's head. Slightly better, though there is still whining. She's thinking about her dad and how she had to leave him behind to be in WitSec with Edward in Podunk, Wyoming. Then she worries about how Edward needs therapy, and how he won't go see an actual licensed therapist. That line of thinking leads her to how she has to be all Dominatrix with him to get him to open up, which leads her to think about her sexual frustration. Good lord.

She manages to go on and talk about the idyllic campus of Casper College and how lovely and wonderful it is and has everything she needs to finish school. Oh, and it's super cheap because of Wyoming's exports. No one told me this. My life could be a lot better if I could have attended a fictional college in Wyoming that is dirt cheap. SallieMae wouldn't own my soul for eternity, that's for sure.

I digress. She gets home from school and has the warm fuzzies over playing house with Edward and Katie and how they're so connected: one feels bad and the other feels it, and Edward likes to hide his feelings. Shock! Awe! NO WAY!

Katie distracts her by babbling about school and the local ghost stories and how much fun she had. Then she goes on about what she learned about their new hometown and how Daddy needs to try out for the local baseball team (the Casper Ghosts. Original, yeah?), and how the town started with a bunch of Irish people back in the day. If that's TRUE in this made up world, why the hick accents, hmmmmmm? I'm not saying everyone should be talking with brogues about bangers and mash and cleaning the loo while drinking a pint of Guinness, but they aren't backwater hicks, as was stated in the last post. Whatever.

Ben, Katie's grandpa on her mom's side, is on the receiving end of a Katie fit because Christmas does NOT get abbreviated with an X at the beginning. We're treated to a little jesting on Ben's part about his Post-It addiction and leaving notes all over the house to remind himself of stuff. I do that all the time. Reminds me of the crap I need to get done and ignore to read fic and knit instead. It adds a little color to a room.

*GASP* The phone rings! This is a big deal for them in Bumfuck, Wyoming, because while they're in WitSec, the only time they get calls is from the po-po if something happens, or the doctor if someone is sick or whatever. Bella and Ben freak the fuck out because they're afraid their old lives are coming to get them, or maybe something horrible happened to Edward, and WOULDN'T THAT JUST SUCK A LOAD?!

Once the cop tells Bella everything is okay, nothing happened to Edward, he just lets her know that the marshalls will be dropping by for a visit the following evening and he wanted to give them a heads up. Once Bella is off the phone, Katie cries and Ben is freaking out saying he's going to pick Edward up from his job because everyone is so worried and freaked out now. Bella reassures Katie that everything is going to be okay and that Daddy worked really hard and fought a lot of bad people so they could get away and live in Tiny Town, Wyoming.

Once Katie and Bella finish their big talk about how nothing is going to happen and they're hopefully never going to move again (AWESOME.), Katie reveals how kids used to scream at her when she was still looking like the burn victim she was. This makes Bella cry and she promises that she'll always be there for her and so will Grandma Angela and Grandpa Ben.

The chapter gets a little lighter when Bella starts dinner and has an inner monologue about the different goofy names she calls Katie every day, citing that Ooop Ooop Ooplefski was her favorite so far. Uh-huh. I see that one sticking around forever. And ever. Freed Eagle and his daughter Ooop Ooop Ooplefski. Wonderful.

Edward comes home and freaks Katie out by pretending he worked himself so hard he died when she opened the door to let him in. Bella turns into excited-puppy-Bella at seeing her man come home, but then turns into bitter Bella when Edward pretty much ignores her to watch SpongeBob with Katie until dinnertime.


That's it for now, and BOY will chapters 4 & 5 be even better! Those will come next as a lump Recap Rant, hopefully sooner rather than later, and before she decides to update again! It's a little rough reading 6k+ words per chapter on a Palm Pixi screen and then skimming it again later to make sure I catch the good stuff for here!

Enjoy and leave some love and opinions on what you thought of the chapters or the recaps or whatever! :D

The Birth of Something... Well, Interesting, If Not Good

OK, kids, since I'm le suck on writing my own story as of late, for the reasons stated in previous posts (which are ongoing, sadly), I have decided that besides updates about my own writing, I will make this a place for hopefully hilarious recaps and other shenanigans involving other fics I'm reading. I know that some of this (okay, maybe all of it) will be offensive or downright mean, and who the hell am I to criticize others when I can't keep an update schedule of my own and write blockbuster fic of my own? Well, I can be a nice person, and I will point out the merits of the stories I write about, but come ON. If something is so bad that it deserves discussion, it will be had. Sorry. It's inevitable.

That's not to say I won't post positive reviews and recaps here. I love reading good fic and do believe that a good fic deserves it's dues and a little more traffic for the author so they can be fully appreciated. However, I'm too much of a sarcastic and cynic not to pass up recapping and poking a little fun at the bad fics out there.

Today's victim: Coloring Outside the Lines, which happens to be the sequel to a gem called The Red Line.

For those of you not familiar with The Red Line, it was a Twi-fanfic, E/B, AH, rated M. Bella was a psychology major at university and was dragged to a strip club by her friends, where she met Edward, who was a male stripper working off his debt to the club owner, Victoria. His parents had disowned him when he married his wife, Tanya, and had a daughter named Katie. After a tragedy killed Tanya and horribly scarred Katie, he ended up borrowing money from Victoria to pay for Katie's surgeries, hence his indenture servitude as a male stripper and gigolo. Bella decided he would be a good person to use for one of her case studies for class, and in turn, he ended up opening up her sensual side. Of course, they fell in love and had to overcome Victoria's hold on him. It was a great story until the author jumped the shark with a dream about Edward's parents being vampires, which would have been more plausible if it weren't a dream, and instead went on to talk about how Carlisle was having an illicit affair with Tanya and couldn't overcome his feelings for her once Edward started dating her, which is why his parents ended up cutting him off. There were other shenanigans, including Native Americans being insulted through a parade (and, thus Edward being named Freed Eagle), Victoria and her brother James dying, and a creepy "wedding" between Edward and Katie at the end because she loved her daddy so much. Emmett and Jasper are strippers at the club, too, and they're sorta friends with Edward. I can't remember every awesome detail of this story, and am afraid to subject myself to re-reading for accuracy here.

Also, at some point in the story, the author decided that using proper punctuation to close dialogue was too much trouble, and added a comma after everything a person said. She was also fond of using the word "pecks" to talk about pectoral muscles on man ("pecs" being the correct term).

Okay, so now onto chapter one of the delightful sequel. Looking past the theme with the same punctuation issues, as well as a few minor, yet glaring, grammatical mishaps (which I shouldn't really criticize, since I'm not Queen Grammar, but these were OBVIOUS), this is starting out as awesome as it ended. Since Edward, Bella and Katie had to go into protective custody, along with Edward's in-laws, Angela and Ben, they've been transplanted to Wyoming, where Edward is now a cowboy and Bella is still finishing up her psych degree. We begin the chapter with a creeptacular dream that Edward is tied up and being whipped by Victoria for running away from her when he wasn't freed from her, and Katie being there to watch. We're almost subjecting to a nauseating scene of Katie having to service Edward orally as punishment before Bella thankfully manages to wake Edward up before we have to read it.

Now, I understand there would be PTSD symptoms after a horrendous life of being beaten and tortured and forced into the sex trade, but really?! Did we really have to go there and quick everyone out right from the get go? Couldn't we just leave it to him dreaming about being beaten and maybe have Bella there instead of his small daughter?

Moving on. Bella reassures Edward that things will be okay, and that Edward really needs to see someone to talk about his past so he can heal and move on. Edward insists that she do it, since she helped him get free from his crappy former life, but Bella explains that he really wanted to get out, she just helped. She's also not certified to counsel him yet, and even though she'll listen to him, she can't really treat him. Brava, Bella, for not trying to fix everything in this fic. Yet. I'm sure it's coming, since she's a go-getter who wants to fix her Edward. Edward also shares his fears with Bella about allowing Katie to go to school for the first time ever. She's seven years old and since she's been having so many surgeries to fix the burns on her body, I guess she was tutored for a couple of years or something. Apparently the education of a child isn't really important the story when there are lemons and creepy marriages happening instead. Katie's really psyched to dress like a cowgirl, though, so at least she's adjusting to the new life.

Once things settle for the night, Edward wakes up the next morning, still having his separation anxiety over Katie going to school (which will have two plainclothes police officers to watch over her; awesome) and about his new job, WHICH HE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT. He doesn't know what the job is, just that he has to dress in shit-kickers and a cowboy hat. Wouldn't the witness protection people at least give him SOME heads up so that he could be a little more relaxed or prepared for the first day? He's to be picked up at the end of the driveway by some dude in a truck with a bunch of other dudes in the back. WHY IS THIS OK, WITSEC?! Really? Did they make sure every guy was OK to drive off into the dusty sunrise with?

Oh, and the fact that he and Bella think that Wyoming folk talk like Billy Bob's second cousin from Alabama who got lost looking for Indian casinos and decided to stay in Wyoming is just a glimpse of the awesome joys we'll be facing throughout the story. Bella reminds him of his new name-- Anthony Masen --and that sends him into an inner monologue about hating his new name, new life, and how he doesn't want to be called Tony. Um, sweetie, what nickname you'll be called is the least of your worries right now. The way you're thinking, you should be wondering if any of your new coworkers will tell you that you have a pretty mouth and leer at you.

After breakfast and good-byes, the truck of workers comes to pick up Edward/Anthony. They can obviously tell right away that he's a city boy, and fuck around with him a little, asking if he wants and cow piss to drink on the way. Once the boys have a laugh and explain it's really coffee, they just call it Ant, all is well on the journey to work, setting aside Edward's worry for Katie. He FINALLY asks what the work is they'll be doing and the guy he's sitting with tells him that they'll be working at the rodeo. THE. RO. DE. O. O.M.G, this is the set-up for a story of epic proportions.

You can look at this story and see some very sweet moments and happy things going on, but there's so much else going on to tarnish it that it's tough. I had so many "wtf" moments while reading this chapter that I couldn't contain my laughter. I just couldn't. The future chapters promise to be just as lulz-inducing, even though I'm sure the author is not aiming for that reaction from her readers. This story could be EPIC. Which sort of epic is still in the air, but at least it can comfortably sit in that category.

Anyway, that's it for the first chapter of Coloring Outside the Lines. Please keep all discussion here in the comments section of the blog. Don't take the drama elsewhere. That's not the intention of this place, m'kay? If ya'll can't play nice, I won't do this anymore, AND THIS SHIT IS TOO FUNNY NOT TO WRITE ABOUT.

Happy Thanksgiving to my American peeps, and Happy Thursday to everyone else! :D

I know. I know.

It has been a while. There's really not a whole lot I can say about it that you haven't heard before. My computer is STILL dead, though I tried turning it on with a fan pad under it to keep it cool and it didn't stop working from overheating like the computer guys said, so I'm thinking it is the motherboard like Geek Squad said. I still don't have the money to fix it, or buy a new one, but at least I think I know the problem. My parents were thisclose to buying me a new laptop as my only Christmas present for the next two years, but mom realized that with tax, warranty, and MSOffice it would cost more than they could manage right now. I appreciated the thought and gesture, but it sucked that it didn't happen. I didn't throw a fit and I'm not bitter. Just sad that life is still major suckage.

I just checked and noticed my last post was in July. Since then, I DID have one interview at a school district nearby, but I didn't get the job. I wasn't horrible in the interview, but I definitely showed my nerves a couple of times. So I'm still technically unemployed. I've even applied at non-teaching jobs and haven't gotten calls because I'm too qualified or something. I have friends telling me I shouldn't put that I have a bachelor's degree so that I have a better chance of being called. I just might try that.

I'm substitute teaching again in the meantime, and after a slow start, I've managed to rack up nine days of teaching so far. Three in the district I student taught in, and six in a neighboring district to my town. The neighboring district's sub job is for the high school industrial arts teacher (basically wood shop class) and the first day was interesting. Clearly the kids are used to doing whatever they want (within reason. No one was a major problem for me today) as long as they get their work done in whatever time frame the teacher gives them. It's going to make for a crappy six days though, since he basically left me only enough for the kids to do something every day, but not enough to occupy them the entire HOUR AND A HALF I have every class. Yeah. Hour and a half. Not so bad, but when it's basically a study hall after a while and you have to make sure the kids aren't acting worse than kindergartners, it can get a little tiring. Ah well, it's a paycheck, right?

OH, and my grandpa is coming to live with us again for two months, starting this weekend, so God knows how much that will cut into writing time. He's my grandpa, and I love him, but it's like babysitting a four year old in a man's body and you can't really punish him because he's your grandpa and that's just wrong. So mom and I will be trying to keep each other from the edge and grandpa from wandering off.

GOOD NEWS: I have opened a document and started Chapter 11 of StWOM! :) I have about 600 words of it done so far, and it's taking us into the days leading up to Thanksgiving weekend, which is going to be a big freaking deal when all is said and done! Once I get the next few chapters rolling, things will (hopefully) start to speed up and get to the points I've been waiting to get to for almost two years now. I never thought it would take this long to get the freaking story out and I apologize profusely yet again for dropping the ball. I never meant to take so long updating the story, and I never in my wildest dreams thought it'd be months in between updates. I get bummed when authors do that too, though I understand real life gets in the way like it is for me, and I hate doing that to my readers. Fear not, though, it's coming together piece by piece. My parents are still kind enough to let me use the computer, though between them checking their email and playing their games of choice for hours on end, it's a little tough to get writing time in when the juices are flowing.

OTHER GOOD NEWS (depending on your POV): I am participating in NaNoWriMo this year! I know, you're probably thinking, "Why the hell would she sign up to write 50k words in 30 days when she can't even write 4k in six months?! Especially original fiction?!" Yeah, I thought about that, too. I'm trying not to let the 50k in 30 days bother me too much, I'm just doing it to try my best and knock some of the ideas floating in my head out. There are a few plot bunnies in my head that won't leave, but they don't really work up well as Twi-fiction (or any other fanfiction I've tried writing). I had an idea that I was trying to work up as an Emmett/Bella fic, kinda dark and noir with a twist of Sin City, but it just wasn't working out like I wanted it to. It was an idea I originally kinda started as a Sin City fanfic, but there wasn't too much of Sin City in it besides one character's name, and I can change that out to work for me. The other characters were original and the general feel of the story was Sin City, without really using any of the stories. I have a lot of it mapped out in my head, so we'll see if I can make a go of it as an original.

Another idea I had sorta started out as a celebrity fanfic (NO, not about Rob, but I won't tell you whom, either) but a couple of name changes and maybe habit changes and I could DEFINITELY use it, since a fair bit of it was already mapped out in my head anyway.

Clearly all I can manage to write is fanfic of some sort, but I suppose I need a springboard to get somewhere somehow, so it's not so bad. Like I said, there's not much to change in those two ideas as it is, so it's not a huge leap. What's my biggest lesson I've learned since I started writing, though? MOTHERFUCKING OUTLINE THE STORY FIRST. BIG lesson, right there.

Let me tell you a story: There once was a girl, we'll call her CeCe (it's a variation on my name). She loved to write and wrote all the time in middle school and high school. She loved it so much, she wrote in her classes, pretending to take notes when she was really writing love scenes and epic fights of great defense. She had a great passion for her writing and often felt she was the female protagonist in every story, which made for great writing because she could translate the feelings she would feel on paper and make a great story. It all just happened for her and she never needed to outline. She would write out the major scenes in a story and then connect them together in a wonderful tapestry.

Now flash to ten years after high school. CeCe has lived life, gone to college and graduated, experienced things she wanted to try, and didn't experience things she so desperately wanted and thought she would by that point in her life. She'd grown a lot more critical and cynical and depressed about life, and when she tried to have a passion for something, something or someone would come along and kill it by criticizing her for it or showing how much better they were at it than she. She certainly wasn't living the life she'd expected to live ten years after high school, a fact that depressed her further. She no longer could put herself into her character's POVs and feel what needed to be felt to get through a scene. Her thoughts would scatter easily and she would lose important elements and then become frustrated and disappointed when scenes didn't work out like she wanted.

Lesson: Your mind won't always stay the same, so you can't keep the same habits forever. So now I'll outline so I can stay true to the story and not feel like I'm putting inferior trash out there.

ANYWAY, after that long ass post, I think that'll do. Yeah, I'm still knitting, mainly socks, though I've been eyeing some fingerless mitts for the upcoming winter. We'll see.

Hopefully I'll post again sooner rather than later and I'll have awesome news about the next chapter(s) of StWOM! :) I hope you're all doing well!

Good News? I Could Use Some Right Now

I wish I was writing this with better news about my life right now. Please don't be alarmed, nothing horrible has happened. In fact, nothing has happened at all, which is why I'm feeling completely helpless and on the verge of tears all the time lately.

My computer is still not fixed. I can't remember if I posted since I got it back, but I ended up taking it back from the repair shop without them fixing it because it had been almost a month since I took it there and nothing was being done to fix it. I had called three times and by the last call found out that the part had been ordered, but then canceled for some unknown reason. Why unknown? Because the guy who orders the parts AND does the internal repairs of the computers was on vacation in Canada with no cell service, and his brother/business partner has no clue about how to do any of that side of the business. I know that more than two people work there and you're telling me that the only guy who can do ANYTHING that's supposed to be done in a COMPUTER REPAIR SHOP is on vacation for two weeks? Why bother staying open at all while he's gone if nothing can apparently get done? So I picked it up and I've just forgotten to call anywhere else for pricing on repairs.

In the meantime I have been looking to see if I can get any deals on refurbished laptops or maybe open a credit line to get one through Toshiba or HP or whatnot, but since Apple refused me just to see if I could get an iPod, I doubt they'll give me anything for a computer.

As far as the job search? I keep applying all over the state, and even out of state, and nothing. I get an email from my former cooperating teacher (and number one reference on my applications) asking me if I've applied for any jobs. What does that tell me? No one I've applied to has even been interested enough to contact my references for the possibility of hiring me. I tell her that I've been applying and I'm getting really worried, and she tells me that I can always sub if no one hires me. I know I can sub teach again, but I didn't want to have to do that for another year if at all possible because no one respects a substitute teacher unless it's elementary school kids. I mean, come on, don't you remember being all excited about having a sub in school and trying to get away with stuff you can't normally get away with? Especially after the last high school I subbed for where the entire class just up and left for the cafe (which they KNOW they aren't supposed to go to under penalty of punishment by the principal if caught) and then had the nerve to get pissed at me because I reported them to their teacher, who took my side of the whole thing.

So anyway, I keep trying and hope that I get a last minute job or something. I know that's extra stress, but it's a job. It's difficult getting a summer job as well, because I have too much education and scare off employers because they don't want to pay someone more money because they have more education, or want to hire someone who's only had one job (in my defense I worked there for six years) and hasn't worked for four years (again, my defense is that with school, it was impossible to work). It's a very frustrating time for me, and others in my situation right now. My old roommate, who also graduated with me in the same career field, managed to get two interviews, but hasn't been hired either. Same deal with a friend of mine who student taught after me at the same district I'd been at. We picked an ever shrinking field and it's alarming that we may not have careers soon. It's also very difficult when schools want teachers with experience but no one will hire newbies to get any experience so they can get their foot in the door.

My ultimate back-up plan is that if I can get financial aid (which I doubt with the amount of student loans I owe) or an assistantship somewhere, I want to go to graduate school for special education. I've been interested since before I graduated with my bachelor's, but not enough to abandon music completely and switch over, and I KNOW that schools ALL OVER the place are always looking for special ed teachers or intervention specialists. We'll see how that goes.

Anyway, I have the computer, unhindered, all this week since my parents are out of town for the week to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary, so MAYBE I can convince myself to write out at least chapter 11. I haven't outlined anymore chapters, but I have discussed a new plot bunny with my buddy Jayne_Rulis that I might turn into something when things are more settled and on the up-and-up for me. I'm sorry for the wait and I thank you guys so much for understanding. If I do get the chapter written this week, there are no guarantees it will be beta'd quickly, as Feisty is experiencing her own real life problems. Her housing situation has suddenly changed and she's dealing with the clean-up and moving process, so I won't harass her if I can help it.

Any good news with you guys? I do hope that things are going well for you and if not, I hope they get better for you soon. *HUGS*

 

computer update

stupid fucker who was supposed to be working on my computer is on vacation this week or something & no one else knows what the fuck is going on with what's supposed to happen with the reairs. I went with this repair place cause of the positive reviews, but this is becoming ridiculous.

oh & to top of this awesome news, apparently my car is beyond fixable, so now I have no car & no way to get to a job should I get one. Or get to the interview to get a job. FML. Hopefully my parents' truck will be fixed before any of that happens, but god knows.

So. That's my week. Hope yours was better.

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