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Star Trek is a pretty lame show, in my opinion, but at least it makes for some decent games. I tried out the Elite Force II demo tonight and left thinking that the weapons were probably nowhere near that wicked in the TV series. Slick graphics - they've done some rather nice things to the relatively venerable Quake 3 engine. The shading is weird, though; it's excellent in some places and lousy in others. The good part of the shading is that models can cast hi-res shadows on themselves, which makes Chris very happy. The bad part is that the dynamic lighting is per-polygon or something, so it's not smooth at all. But the characters are extraordinarily well modeled and textured, and I got a decent framerate considering the levels I had it cranked up to (all the extras except antialiasing at 1280x1024). Lots of scripting (as in, the appearance of just about every enemy you encounter is scripted), but it doesn't come off as contrived. And wicked weapons, as I mentioned earlier. Arc Launcher, heheheh... zapzapzapsplat!
I've got a largish gift card to EB so I may consider getting this game. But... it might be foolish, considering that Deus Ex: Invisible War, Jedi Academy, Half-life 2, Tribes: Vengeance, etc. are all coming out within the next year, and that all have me slavering. Invisible War, especially. I think the mere shock of its glorious lighting engine and brilliant storyline will be enough to blow every single article of clothing off my body.
I think now, being one-ten in the morning or so, would be a good time for me to go to bed.
posted on Saturday, May 31, 2003
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Took my last two exams today and it's the first day of summer vacation. Hot damn.
posted on Friday, May 30, 2003
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I think I know why it's been kind of difficult to empathize with anyone lately: I haven't had many emotions of my own. This is getting irritating.
posted on Thursday, May 29, 2003
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Second day of finals. I feel somewhat more now that I can begin to consider the idea of contemplating a start to... what I'm trying to say is, maybe it feels a little more like the end of school now.
Mr. Stapleton's back and it's wonderful to see him; he gave us a great sight translation on the exam today concerning the murder of Pompey. It talked about how Pompey was sailing to Egypt (to escape Julius Caesar, perhaps? I'm not sure), and an uneasy silence fell aboard ship. He tried talking to a centurion, blathering something about how they used to be in the army together, but the centurion just looked back at him and nodded silently. Silence again, until they reached shore. As Pompey's feet touched the sand, the centurion stabbed him repeatedly with a short sword; Pompey covered his face and fell dead on the day after his sixtieth birthday.
Cool stuff. I love Latin.
posted on Thursday, May 29, 2003
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Today was the first day of final exams, and it was as much of a letdown as finals can be. This just doesn't feel like the end of anything.
Time is a Pennsylvania road which I'm being dragged along. Those of you from Pennsylvania will know what I mean: lots of ups and downs, and more potholes than actual asphalt.
Sorry, I know, that was pitiful. 'Twas just a token epigram to ward off blogdeath, so lay off with the despising glares already.
Friday is the last day of school. My vote on that is somewhere between "Ask me if I care, and enjoy your broken nose" and "I've been waiting a long time for this but I didn't expect the cheeky thing to actually up and happen."
posted on Wednesday, May 28, 2003
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Upcatchage first, I suppose.
I can't think of anything much that happened between my last entry and Friday. A yawning gap to be sure; but I may as well let it be, as long as I don't have any junk to toss in.
I remember Saturday with substantially more clarity, and not just because it was yesterday - also because things happened on Saturday. By "things happened" I mean that, after blatantly skipping the AP GoPo party, I went to Erica's, where some permutation of the usual crowd had congregated. Erica, Trevor, Hannah, Elena, Claire, Diana, Erica's friend Ellie (who I hadn't previously met), and myself constituted said crowd, with the possible exception of people I may or may not have forgotten to list.
Ellie was cool, both funny and quiet, and didn't stick out like a sore thumb or even like a wart on an otherwise healthy thumb. Would it be inappropriate if I were to mention that I thought she was kind of cute? Probably, considering that this is a public blog and all. Hell, I'll say it anyway: she was cute and I noticed. I think single is probably a good thing for me to be, at least for now. And I also think that I should probably not write these things where anyone with 'net access can see them. I want to remember all the things I thought way back now, but there're some things best kept to myself - or, rather, kept from most of the rest of the world.
Claire was kind of an unexpected arrival - for me, at least - but happily there was no awkwardness as a result of her presence. She hadn't hung out with us much for a while, so I was kind of concerned that there would be somewhat of a disconnect. There probably was one (couldn't be helped, really), but it didn't keep anyone from having a good time.
I sometimes wonder how she relates to me now, and where we are after last year. There wasn't ever anything formal between us, but for a while there was something there... I do wonder what I was thinking back then, but not with regret - I just wish I could remember how liking her felt. Probably better for me not to dwell on that; the main part of that was over a year ago and it doesn't mean that much for me in the long run.
My brain tells me that's the truth. So why do I feel revisionist for saying so?
But anyway, the party. There were chips and salsa, and grapes, and pineapple, and other things kind to the tongue. I ascended to new heights, so to speak, in the trees behind Erica's house, and generally made a monkey of myself. Hands down, best backyard ever. We also watched Pleasantville, a movie which solidly and decisively planted both feet in that ditch marked "mediocre," splattering the mud of political statements over the clean-shirted... anyway, it was minorly thoughtful, and might have left me with a better taste in my mouth if it didn't smack of something Michael Moore had poked a few grubby fingers into. Aside from that particular annoyingness, it just wasn't that entertaining. Oh yeah, and Hannah and Elena had to leave early since they couldn't drive after nine. Damnably irritating. Still a fun party, though.
Just about all of today has been occupied by an air show at Fort Bragg. I was only half-keen on going, but it turned out to be pretty awesome - FA-18's screaming overhead at better than Mach 1 and then climbing straight up for thousands of feet, the Thunderbirds (Blue Angels-alikes) doing ridiculously precise stunts in formation, etc. Amazing to watch, not to mention very, very loud.
Edit: Elie's name is not spelled "Ellie," as Trevor has pointed out. Hey, I figured Hannah might know how to spell it better than me, although I did have a nagging doubt that I'd seen it spelled with only one "l" before.
posted on Sunday, May 25, 2003
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The rain was depressing earlier today, but it made the woods all the more interesting this afternoon - much sharper contrasts in the colors... the leaves seemed a lot fresher when jeweled with those tiny droplets. I found a place way out there, like some kind of miniature meadow with big patches of leafy grass. I just sat there for a while, felt the rain, breathed the cool damp air...
posted on Thursday, May 22, 2003
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I'm very tired.
I want more than seven-point-five hours of sleep tonight.
In that spirit, I'm going to hit the sack.
Where does that idiom spring from, anyway? Doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe mattresses are like sacks, or something? Anyway, if there were to be anything to write, I'd go to bed slightly ticked because I'm too tired to blog it. However, there isn't much to write, so I shall go to bed happy.
I will note, however, and in doing so contradict my earlier statement that I'm going to bed, that the usual group went to Starbucks after school today, by various means of transportation. Elena, while pulling into a parking space, knocked a small bit of glass out of her headlight by hitting someone else's bumper. The damage to the other person's car was almost nonexistent - a small corner of their bumper was bent up. We're talking about a half square inch of plastic here, ugly gray plastic that you never have any reason to take a close look at. Elena said she would have paid for it out of pocket, but the lady insisted on calling the police and stuff. How terribly annoying; at least it's not the sort of accident that'll postpone Elena's graduated license any further.
And now I shall reverify my earlier statement that I'm going to bed by the unexpected procedure of going to bed.
posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003
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The night sky this evening is unbelievable. Dark Carolina blue to midnight navy, with altocumulus clouds still faintly illuminated in the lighter half of the sky and stars sparkling in the darker part. That should happen more often.
Plus, wrongs have been righted. There's apparently a lot Hannah hadn't done before recent times. Okay, so there are only two things that I know of - walking the wrong direction on escalators and eating honeysuckle. But that's still pretty bad. The latter was corrected today when Hannah and I went on a walk around the Lake Pine reservior...
At one point, I said I had to get some honeysuckle when it was still blooming. Then, shortly before we left, I said it a second time... and something in her glance induced grave suspicions in my mind. The accusation was made and shamefully verified, but she's now better off for it, for lessons in the drinking of nectar were given. Go me.
And Hannah drove, and we didn't crash, and I wasn't eaten by the frighteningly automatic seatbelt... I think this day went rather well.
posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2003
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Today's Saturday. Today is also not much to go on about, so yesterday shall be the topic about which I write. Again.
(Since I never did get around to writing about Thursday, I'd write about it now - except that I can't remember a danged thing about Thursday.)
After school on Friday, a bunch of us (Sam, Hannah, Trevor, Rini, Diana, Elena, Erica, and myself [although Erica didn't play because she was sick]) played ultimate frisbee. Very much fun, although I won't report on the scores because it would sound like bragging; come to think of it, that was enough of a report right there. Afterwards we traveled by assorted means to the pharmacy on Person St., and then some of of descended on Erica's house for a DSFBC meeting. We made dinner - broiled salmon with rice and green beans, and also salad - and stomachs were happily filled. We talked, sat around, flipped coins at each other (well, some of us did), went up in the glorious treehouse and endured for too brief a time the less-than-glorious mosquitoes, and generally had a terribly relaxed evening.
We went home around quarter 'til ten - that is, Trevor slept over at my house and Hannah stayed and slept over at Erica's. Trevor and I found ourselves unable to stay up later than half-past one; how depressing is that? But we threw the frisbee around and yelled at each other until eleven-thirty, so it wasn't a bad deal, all told.
In today's waxing afternoon, Trevor left to go see The Matrix Reloaded with some people. I'd have gone, too, but my parents were unwilling to let me see an R-rated movie they hadn't seen first. So this afternoon was rather a melancholy one...
Like I said, today isn't much to go on about.
posted on Saturday, May 17, 2003
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Since I didn't update yesterday, I'll write about the then before I write about the now.
Yesterday was the GoPo AP exam, and it wasn't bad at all. I think I got a good shot at a 5, and I do hope I at least got a 4.
Done with Advanced Placement United States Government and Politics. It seems unthinkable that I've put the last few papers neatly inside my three-inch-thick folder for that class, and taken the Big Test, and laughed to myself about the spelling of the word "committee" for the last time in what will probably be a long while, and yet it's still not the end of school. I don't think it will be possible for me to take the rest of the term seriously. Is this what's meant by "lame duck"?
... Well, I guess I haven't left all of that class behind me. Actually, it's been one of my most enjoyable classes this year. Mrs. Newmark was, at least in my opinion, a very good teacher. Politics is wacked-up enough to be quite interesting to learn about. I think I've left with a rather good taste in my mouth; or is that just the marble cake Mrs. Newmark brought in today?
So after the AP exam, it became evident to me that my friends had neglected to inform me that we were all going to Crabtree. Phone calls were hastily made, and after much haggling, I was given permission to go. So we went, and pottered at the mall, as well as at Toys 'R' Us and Barnes & Noble. I got my butt handed to me by Hannah in a game of Super Smash Bros. Melee, but I made the disclaimer beforehand that I have never, ever been any good at that game or any of its predecessors (which is true), so I didn't really feel bad about that. Sometime I'm going to set up a LAN and coerce Hannah into a little deathmatch in DM-Compressed. Teach her a thing or two about boost-dodging, I will.
How to Impress a n00b:
1. Get a n00b to chase you. Escape, but make sure they stay on your trail. (note: this only works on n00bs that understand the dual concepts of running and mouselook)
2. Find a nice big wall and stand about twenty feet away from it. Get out a flak cannon or something similarly wicked.
3. Run at the wall. This is best accomplished by holding down the W key.
4. When you are about seven feet away from the wall, double jump onto it (keeping W held down).
5. Release W and tap S twice quickly. You must do this while in the air and touching the wall.
6. As you somersault backwards over the head of the pursuing n00b, give it a nice burst of flak to the midsection.
7. About the time the gibs stop bouncing, the words "wtf f3nyx si teh chetar" will appear at the bottom of your screen, or something else more suited to one's moniker.
But anyway. The pottering was fun, and Diana is substantially sexier than Trevor.
What I meant by that last phrase was that I refuse to become involved in immature discussions of personal appearance. I just thought I'd make that clear. And Hannah was brought into the reverse-escalator-walking fold. Stop trying to pour water on me! EB now stocks only a token number of PC games. Machines that massage your calf muscles are repulsive. I'm finding another bench if we can't talk about something else. It's much faster to just jump the wall than to go around. Xan's powered armor was green, you jackass, not orange. Definitely a real plant. Would Leah call me a chauvinist if I activated an automatic door?
And it takes more than fourteen hours to drive to Alaska. Trust me on this one.
posted on Thursday, May 15, 2003
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This means blogwar.
First off, a statement noting the small and sullen nubs of truth buried deep within a flood of pathetic vitriol. Yes, my use of emphasis was in certain locales very awkward, in the sense that it would not flow at all pleasingly off the tongue. It pleaded for a spot of polishing, to say the least. I never denied this.
Now on to those facts which he has either made a point of omitting, or has outright contradicted in the most vile and villainous manner.
1. I went to bed at about a quarter until one. The work Trevor derided was the product of about twenty minutes total - four seperate periods of about five minutes each, during each of which I was in class and thus had no peace and quiet in which to make productive work.
2. The number of syllables was perfect in each sentence, at every stage of the poem's creation.
3. The emphasis is now quite improved, due in a substantial part to the helpful advice of Erica, and due in no part at all to Trevor's spittle-slinging:
Upon that sandy beach the Prince did tread
To Wondrous Is'le, by map of magic led.
Five dwarves he saw who plowed the white-hued sand,
Who 'twixt themselves a ragtag patrol manned.
To hurl into the ocean was their goal,
Not one Prince Alex thought exactly droll.
So tricks and trinkets cheap he put to use,
And deftly foiled dwarves, and thus was loosed. 4. I consulted Dr. Marschall on the contested topic, and was told that meter - the number and emphasizing pattern of syllables - is quite a different animal from rhythm, which is how the thing flows when actually said.
My comrade's stew of verbiage, at which one would laugh if one could laugh with the nose pinched tightly shut, is well-stirred if nothing else - its foulness penetrates to the core of every ill-chosen adjective and through all the tenses of each moldering verb, as if through chunks of rotten meat.
posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2003
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This week is subtly better than the last, at least so far. I really have no idea why it's better. How the hell do these things work, anyway?
A DSFBC meeting sometime soon would be very agreeable.
Today I woke up at 7:57, three minutes before the scheduled arrival of my carpool. They were several minutes late. Thank the gods for small favors.
Frankly, that was the only outstanding thing about today. Now I've got to work like mad on my poetry project, which was due yesterday. Well, 'snot that big a deal, since I just got my test back in English, with a nice fat 99 at the top.
I think I'm done gloating now. Back to work.
posted on Monday, May 12, 2003
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As if forced out of isolation by the noble words of my comrade, Hannah's blog is back online - apparently she hadn't neglected the thing during The Great Lapse, for there is a veritable flood of... stuff... she'd posted in the interim.
Don't bother trying to follow the link to Trevor's archives, though. It won't work until the scoundrel republishes them.
(I sound to myself like some character giving not-so-subtle hints in a King's Quest-esque game. Well, be a good player character and follow the hints, won't you, dear fellow?)
posted on Monday, May 12, 2003
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"Captain, we have incoming at twenty degrees to port, fifteen seconds to impact!"
"Damn and blast! Evasive action, launch countermeasures! Projectile type?"
"Hard to tell, sir! From here, it looks like one of the new Terran high-yield LIFEs, estimated length 70 years..."
"Just our luck to get one of those locked on our tail!"
[from further up the bridge]
"It's ignoring the decoys, sir! Evasive maneuvers unsuccessful!"
"Two seconds!"
"Brace, brace---"
WHAM!
Fast-forward sixteen years.
Come to think of it, my life has been like the fast-forward on a CD player - it plays about a fifth of a second of music for every three seconds it fast-forwards through, only enough to give you vague idea of where you are. There's a lot that it just zips through, and you only notice bits and pieces of it as it flashes by.
posted on Saturday, May 10, 2003
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Hac nocte puellam vidi, cuius subrisu aurum flueat ut aquam.
(Not any kind of infatuation, just awe. I had no idea anybody could smile like that.)
And my minidisc player is awesome. Not "cute," awesome.
Aside from the above, there's really not much to write - at least, nothing that I can think of in this current sleep-deprived state.
posted on Saturday, May 10, 2003
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This is pretty much one of the coolest things I've seen - Rob's Amazing Poem Generator. Type in a URL and it formulates a poem from the contents. The one below is very nearly exactly the same as the result I got from the generator when I typed in this page's address; I just stuck in a word here and there so that the phrases would at least have sufficient verbs, articles, and quirky puncuation.
A beautiful deciduous spring
break started today.
Let things be. Oh yeah, I get
hypothermia, and from
walks. At all those links, below, and friends sometime and
(splattering my mind) having been exactly
there as soon after school tomorrow,
posted around
this morning. Got
back turned on some Bradbury to
see him; decided the query
of the bl0gg4g3 in a
day and five to church, because as in the
path for what it seemed
to be, it's utterly
transparent to eliminate the
great many Christians, who will probably
see one of the past without my eyes
Being me, I leaned out
into the
moment - had already
left. Go and check it out.
posted on Thursday, May 08, 2003
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Last week was a great week, but I think that fate is now compensating for that welcome anomaly rather too enthusiastically. What I need, to break the monotony of this week, is some heavy, ceaseless rain and slightly chilly weather, colder at least than this green-and-gold hell, and a late night and a morning to follow in which I can sleep in as damned late as I like, and some time to read and listen to music, and some time to think, so I can start to go about working myself out of whatever moronic ruts I'm stuck in. I don't even know what ruts those may be, but the thought of standing and waiting for them to soften into quicksand does not appeal to me.
posted on Thursday, May 08, 2003
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Thus far these few days, gray weather (the unfavorable sort) while the sun tries to shine, but once it unhappily cedes the field, the clouds melt away, pleased with their victory while feigning dignity. As an observer to the conflict, I don't see the point of any of it.
posted on Tuesday, May 06, 2003
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You know what sucks? I know one thing that does - having to get up on perfectly good Sunday mornings and go to church, and then having to hear people reverently sing things that would strike them as ludicrous, if God would reach down and switch their brains on. But God wouldn't want to have thinking followers, oh, gracious, no...
I don't mean to complain excessively, but hey, this is a place for scribing what's on my mind, right? Having complaints in my mind, and simply not writing them, is a lousy solution. The correct route is to eliminate the complaints from my mind. However, the two conventional routes I have to choose between are are either to write them, as I'm doing now, or to not have them in my mind in the first place.
... A particularly enjoyable way of accomplishing the latter would be to remove (dissolve; annihilate; melt; decompose) whatever is causing me to complain.
posted on Sunday, May 04, 2003
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Erica's party was extraordinarily worthwhile. I don't have that much to say about it that Hannah hasn't already said, except that I desperately covet Erica's treehouse, and that it was not too cold outside. It was, in fact, a very nice temperature for that time of night.
posted on Sunday, May 04, 2003
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I wouldn't be put off in the least if, during the summer, I were to find myself spending several weeks in the region of the Outer Banks - somewhere with sand, salt water, medium-sized waves, warm sunshine, a tide, and a horizon. With friends, of course, and a concrete absence of mature authority.
I would be even less put off if I were to find myself in such a situation right at this instant. Set me on some island with some swim trunks, some towels, goggles so I wouldn't have perpetually bloodshot eyes, some books by Asimov or somebody vaguely like him, a sleeping bag, and a good half dozen friends, and I would be the happiest bozo on the planet.
... That's a pretty good packing list, now that I think of it. Throw in some of that stuff that keeps me from smelling too bad, and I'd be ready to go. I should really write that down somewhere.
Else, I mean.
posted on Friday, May 02, 2003
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I've been so laid-back the last few days that it is beyond humorous and somewhere in the region of immensely relaxing. There's been virtually no homework this week; the weather blazes pleasantly early in the day and settles down to an energetic glow in the late afternoon. Wonderful, downright marvelous. And, before I launch into the next segment, I would like to point out that "Ex Days" sounds very much like "Deus Ex," with the words switcharooed.
Today was Ex Day. Events of the day are roughly as follows: I got 56 right (2 wrong, 2 omitted) out of 60 multiple choice questions on an old GoPo AP Exam, which means that I will probably do very nicely on the real exam. Normally I would rather not have spent 45 minutes answering questions on congressional incumbency and whatnot, but I was so joyous to get a good score that I didn't mind. We tossed basketballs around in Precalc and pretended that making linear graphs from data points was difficult (Olenchuk, our teacher, had some kind of family emergency, so we've got a substitute right now who is probably the least annoying sub I've had in any class, ever). We watched a Nova program on cancer in Health, and Mrs. Askins was annoying (definitely the most annoying sub I've had for any class, ever). We've got her for all of next week as well, because Ms. Edmundson is getting married. Shoot me.
Chris Hoersting's wallet also slipped from his pocket, apparently, because as I finished writing a note and was about to leave, I saw it beneath his seat. I checked his library card to make sure the wallet was his, but when I went to give it to him, he'd already left. He and Hannah are in an idiotically prompt carpool. I called their house to let them know that I had it and would bring it to school tomorrow, but Hannah, being endowed with a driver's license, was forced to come and get it. She didn't get lost, either, as she claimed she might. Considering that I live within easy biking distance of her house (probably a mile or less), and she's been to my house once and has also been present multiple times when I was dropped off by someone else, it would have been, succinctly put, pitiful if she had managed to somehow misplace herself on Old Raleigh Road.
I would have no trouble at all finding her house, due in no small part to the stone steps which distinguish her house from its less shale-ified neighbors. Also due in an even greater part to my superb navigational skillology. If you doubt me, look no further.
Vita mirabilis est, etsi interdum semper eandem esse videtur.
And not really much angst to be had right now. Nor any deepness, but what's one to do about that? If there's no inspiration for it, it'll read as forced (because, verily, it will have been forced); and who would want to read that? Of course, that brings up the query of who wants to read this thing anyway, which is why this post ends now.
posted on Thursday, May 01, 2003
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You are hereby ordered to check out Strindberg and Helium. Those are the best Flash cartoons I've seen in a while. Helium sounds just like I do on occasion, which is weird. If you don't know who August Strindberg is (I didn't), Google him first - he was a Swedish playwright who, at some point or another, got involved in alchemy and occult stuff. No, the cartoons are not Satanic. They are merely hilarious. I don't think there was even any swearing.
posted on Thursday, May 01, 2003
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