Sorry, I just don't care. Except I heard that one team cheated. So I hope the other team wins. I did just hear Arlen Specter on C-Span radio talking about how Congress ought to investigate that cheating team because football is so important to America. My tax money is supposed to go into making sure some people playing a game don't cheat? Why doesn't he check out whether people playing Scrabulous on Facebook are using Scrabble Helper? God forbid he should confirm some judges or something more tediously congressional.
UPDATE: Actually, I'm watching now. Checking out the HD camerawork and the commercials — which are strangely appealing to women and look terrific in HD. Hey, Charlie Brown got the Coke. That's nice! Anyway, I was amused to see the lineup on the other channels. It's so obviously things they think will appeal to people who don't want to watch the Super Bowl. Like "Music of Seal on Ice." That is not a joke. UHD is showing "Music of Seal on Ice." Hilarious! Let's see. What else? "Auntie Mame," "Sense and Sensibility," "Legally Blonde,""The Parent Trap," "Indigo Girls: Live at the Roxy"...
Ooh! Touchdown Giants! I approve.
ADDED: Hey, I'm enjoying this.
AND: That was pretty cool. Love the 1 second thing....
+: NY!
February 3, 2008
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Specter's another of those McCain-type Republicans that likes poking conservatives in the eye. He'll probably be in a McCain administration, along with Huckabee and Lindsey Graham. All birds of a feather.
Well thank goodness, at least we don't have to worry about cheating in golf.
We know that those Golfers are always above reproach !
It's amazing, the disdain for sports amongst at least two members of the Althouse family.
Pity, because Sports Enthusiasts are more likely to contribute to your PayPal.
How long can I go without finding out who's playing?
That's the twice-a-year question.
Anyone who denigrates the Superbowl is anti-American.
It's about so much more than Football. It's about the Star-spangled Banner. It's about all the unique commercials. It's about the pre-show and half-time. It's about tailgate parties, Dominoes Pizza and buffalo chicken wings. It's about cheerleaders and drunkards who beat their wives.
Good, wholesome American fun, and anyone who takes an interest in society and culture should relish it.
I hear it's gonna be a mostly Mozart halftime.
ricpic said...
I hear it's gonna be a mostly Mozart halftime.
My homeboy Tom Petty has the halftime show, I'm told.
Sorry, I just don't care.
S'cool, doc, I feel the same way about the law! But hey, that's why there's 20 kinds of toothpaste!
Ladakhi pop music is the way to go for halftime.
Some of the moves may be too sexy for TV though.
Mothers who don't encourage their sons to take an interest in sports, are denying those sons the chance to participate in larger culture.
When most men gather, they talk sports---football, basketball, baseball etc... a guy who cant, or won't, participate in that kind of sports banter among men--- is going to find himself, throughout life, on the periphery.
---Isolated, decreased job prospects, diminished dating opportunities, rejected by the in-crowd, and near the bottom of the social circuit.
My advice for a guy that wants to get ahead would be to, if nothing else, fake an interest in sports, and be able to hold up, somewhat, your end of a sports conversation..... so as to be at least moderately socially acceptable.
Just fake it, if you have to and simply feign an interest.
Listen, I don't make the rules.
But, mark my words, a guy who openly, and very publicly, eschews sports is going to have a tough time finding any other topics of conversation amongst his own gender.
Love,
Maxine
I agree, Senatorial meddling in pro sports is incredibly annoying, particularly the way the Senate uses the anitrust exemption to justify its nosiness.
Take away the antitrust exemption or leave it in place, but stop using it as an excuse to act like obnoxious superfans.
The government might be interested because there's probably more money wagered on this game by more people/voters than any single event in the world, certainly in America.
McCain might hire Specter (>80?) so he can look younger.
You're missing Tom Pettyyyyyyzzzzzz.....
Maxine Weiss:
---Isolated, decreased job prospects, diminished dating opportunities, rejected by the in-crowd, and near the bottom of the social circuit.
I resemble that remark, Maxine.
*laughs*
And, you know, Dr. Helen will back me on this. I believe she had a post where they did a study about guys and sports.
Guys that refuse to take an interest in sports are ostracized within their peer group.
And, it's all about Mom. Mom controls playtime, and Mom can prod her sons into tossing around a ball, or whatever.
It's also about being a good conversationalist, and that's what the guys at work, at the club, at dinner parties are talking about---Sports, and a guy needs to be able to keep up his end.
The women are in the kitchen discussing fashion and needlepoint. The guys are in the living talking sports.
So, where does that leave a Fella who very publicly, and openly rejects sports?
He becomes a complete Social Pariah and unable to converse in the proper manner !!!
But there's hope, and under my tutelidge, I can turn the situation around. I specialize in these sorts of social makeovers.
Love,
Maxine
Mothers who don't encourage their sons to take an interest in sports, are denying those sons the chance to participate in larger culture.
Most people don't give a shit about sports beyond a "oh that's interesting". Their significance in society is that the suck up tax dollars to pay for their follies.
Well Joe, I don't know what types of gatherings you frequent.
But, at all the smart dinner parties I've ever attended, the women congregate in the kitchen, yammering on about whatever---cooking, sewing etc..
Meanwhile, the men are in the living room having serious debates about the latest football teams, season tickets to the Lakers, Pete Rose, etc... And some hapless Dude who can't contribute and add his two-cents-worth to the ongoing banter.....the other guys are going to look at him funny.
No guy wants to be humiliated in front of his buddies.
Love,
Maxine
My advice for a guy that wants to get ahead would be to, if nothing else, fake an interest in sports, and be able to hold up, somewhat, your end of a sports conversation..... so as to be at least moderately socially acceptable.
Very well then, I'll give it a go.
Today on television I chanced upon a game of soccer, and I stood there and thought, "This game of soccer, fútbol, as you say it, makes me laugh. It makes me laugh the laugh of the African sub-saharan feliform known for its range of vocalizations that sound like hysterical laughter. No. Not like that. Not like a hyena. More like the Northern waterfowl also known for the laughter-like sounds it makes, and so loved it's put on the coins of the government of Canada. That's the laughter of a real loon, a mad person, a hair-raising sound that carries across the lake in the depth of the dark of the night, this laughter I'm laughing at soccer. No, wait. Not that atoll, more like the noise of a Howler monkey, that's the sound I make at soccer, the monkeys move in bands so there's always more than one howling, that's the laughter that I'm laughing at soccer when suddenly I realize today is the day of the great American fútbol, the real fútbol, the one that harkens from the days of the gladiators, the one that is played in a proper colosseum, results in gold rings and trophies the size of a man, if not hospitalizations, the fútbol that's played in bullet-proof Kevlar like a veritable army with limbs taped and joints padded, their squishy bits protected by hard plastic cod-pieces and played also like chess so there's a whole mind thing going on, so I click as fast as my thumb will click to the channel of the great American fútbol show and it's not there! instead these four old guys are sitting around a table in their suits and ties talking about a game they expect, and this goes for quite some time with no indication of how long they intend to wait, so finally I go, I'm standing there and I go, "eh. wonder how the plants are doing."
How's that? See what I did there, bonded with my mates?
Not bad. Keep practicing.
Remember, the trick is to impress the guys at the Club, your buddies at work, and all those smart dinner parties you'll be attending .
What happens to guys who grow up not playing sports? In my experience, they work as computer programmers and spend their free time playing World of Warcraft and Twilight Princess. And I don't personally know anyone in their 20's who has dinner parties. My friends and I get together and have dinner--while playing Dungeons and Dragons! YMMV
"Anyone who denigrates the Superbowl is anti-American."
Foot mouth insert.
"It's about all the unique commercials."
So now it's "unamerican" to care about commercials?
"It's about tailgate parties, Dominoes Pizza and buffalo chicken wings."
Dominoes Pizza sucks, and I can afford to have my parties with proper furniture.
"Mothers who don't encourage their sons to take an interest in sports, are denying those sons the chance to participate in larger culture."
There are other sports besides football.
"When most men gather, they talk sports---football, basketball, baseball etc... a guy who cant, or won't, participate in that kind of sports banter among men--- is going to find himself, throughout life, on the periphery."
Actually most of the men I know don't talk sports, and we have no problem striking up conversations.
"Isolated, decreased job prospects, diminished dating opportunities, rejected by the in-crowd, and near the bottom of the social circuit."
You're crazy lady. No sane manager quizzes prospects on football during their interviews, women don't give a crap about football and probably consider it a plus to have a husband who doesn't vegetate in front of the TV watching football, anyone who cares about being in the in-crowd (Paris Hilton) is a loser, and it's actually the lower classes that are more interested in football than the more educated.
The whole point of being American it that we pursue our own interests and are individualists, and not some collective herd.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THE GIANTS WIN.
I turned it on just as he caught the final touchdown. Excellent timing.
Trooper! What a game!! Total team effort by the Gints.
They made history tonight.
eriously, Ann. You pay Maxine to post, don't you? Gawd.
My wife and I, who have like -0- interest in sports wound up watching the Superbowl. For the commercials, and no other reason. Now I am currently working on a project in Long Island with a bunch of Giants fans who, daily ask me “so, you want to buy a square in our Superbowl pool?”. God bless them. No. Don’t care about sports. Really don’t. However, I was actually rooting for New England just to offset the pro-Giants bias I have been exposed to the last 4 weeks.
Now, my wife, as I find out half way thru the game, was rooting for NY because Brady had left his pregnant movie star girlfriend for some non-pregnant supermodel. Hanging offense in my wife’s eyes. I remained silent – fearing, you know, like - death.
I woke up my wife just now, who had faded in the third quarter, and told her that NY had won. She had a smile on her lips. I love my wife.
Maxine – go find something constructive to do, will you?
Althouse struggles - Elite female professional snobbery wars against fact that hot chicks dig a well-fought football game...
Althouse comes around, proving she is a hot chick!
Moose, apparently Brady & the mother broke up before she found out she was knocked up, so he isn't quite as nasty as your wife may imagine. How many women have gotten pregnant to reel a guy in?
Imagine my surprise to find out the Giants weren't playing Trooper York at quarterback at all. Some 15 year-old kid named Eli. Eli the Patriots killer. Except he doesn't look like a killer; he looks like a gawky mouth-breathing teenager. Hey, he didn't get his girlfriend pregnant, dump her for a supermodel and then lose the big game which would've served him right. Still, I wish the coach hadn't benched Trooper York.
Congratulations New York!
You don't think a wife would doubt her husband's masculinity, if he doesn't express at least some interest in sports?
It's kind of a dead giveaway, I think.
Where's Dr. Helen?
Ann, I noticed that AMC was running a Death Wish marathon today opposite the game.
I wonder if Death Wish (or Bronson) fans are among those groups that find the Super Bowl unappealing.
moose: Maybe I am Althouse. Didja ever think of that? Maybe she's posing as me to stir the natives and liven things up around here.
The Jints are a Great American.
What, they're in the National Conference? Nevermind.
Well, Grease is on right now and I'm watching it and I'm wondering if there is absolutely anything new in male-female relationships since this movie.
If Maxine is Althouse, Althouse needs to get a mental health checkup first thing Monday morning.
he looks like a gawky mouth-breathing teenager
It's true, the Mannings look a little undercooked. But, still, I am cheering for the homeboys tonight. What a great game!
Tonight, Carnival is in full swing, and the members of Bacchus (a huge, over-the-top parade krewe) had TVs on their floats so they could cheer Eli. Bars along the parade path had the game on big TVs in their windows, and projected on the sides of their buildings.
I'm saving my energy for Lundi Gras (Monday), so I stayed home to eat wings, drink mimosas and watch football and commercials in HD.
Blue-chip law firms require their Male Associates to show, at least, a cursory knowlege of football and sports.
When the male partners take the potential associate out for drinks, (a typical interview)... what do you think they talk about?
The potential associate is expected to hold his own, and if he doesn't show interest, and doesn't "click" with the other guys and all their sports banter....he doesn't get hired !
We see this all the time. If you are a guy and want to get into a blue-chip law firm ---BigLAW--- ...you'd better come across as an all-American sports fanatic, or else plan to work for minimum wage in the public court system.
You either fit-in, or you don't. You either "click" or you don't. And if you're a guy and don't....it's gonna cost you bigtime in the career world.
I don't make the rules.
Love,
Maxine
Animal Planet has the best alternative super bowl. They realize attention is elsewhere, and so for the whole duration of the game they have the Puppy Bowl, which consists entirely of dogs playing with each other on a field with football themed toys. There is cheering and music in the background. Dogs playing. For hours.
It's mesmerizing and hilarious.
Think of it: If Althouse is Maxine, that would allow Althouse to say, literally, anything she wants.
C'mon now, you all know there are certain things Althouse can't say, propriety, moral turpitude, ethics etc... Certain things Althouse would never be able to get away with.
But if she's "Maxine" she could just let it rip---get out all her pent up aggressions.
Then again, maybe I'm Ruth Anne. Maybe the meek, mild-mannered Ruth Anne has another side to her.
And then there's Gottlieb. Has Gottlieb ever said anything the least bit controversial, outrageous, inflammatory? Well, with Maxine, she gets her chance !
Although, I think Althouse is the most likely.
Love,
Maxine
Beth, I enjoy your New Orleans updates. Thanks for posting them.
"Blue-chip law firms require their Male Associates to show, at least, a cursory knowlege of football and sports."
Sounds like a reason for a sex discrimination lawsuit, if true. Also, if true, who cares?
Besides, why would I take advice from a racist. I saw your blog, and the post titled "The Kennedy Family hires a new Butler" was throughly racist. Comparing Obama to a butler and Oprah to a maid.
Oh that little thing? It was just a joke. C'mon now, you know I don't really mean any of it. It's all in good fun.
:)
Love,
Maxine
Maxine-- You write well, it's sort of entertaining, but really, do you have a life? I mean beyond posting comments to blogs? Something, like, outside of the box?
Hi Richard.
Hey, Richard---tell me something.....have I offended you?
"C'mon now, you know I don't really mean any of it. It's all in good fun."
Of course you mean it, and no it's not all in good fun except perhaps for a racist.
All right that's it. That IS IT!
I cannot abide people calling me a racist.
I won't have it!
Brian, I'll have you know, I'm simply not capable of being racist and here's why:
www.last.fm/listen/user/ValentineMaxine/playlist
Take a good look at that playlist, and the songs I've got listed.
Would a racist listen to those songs, and those artists?
Clearly I'm not a racist, and my choice of music proves it!
I demand an apology, Brian. PRONTO !!!!
Worst comment thread ever. I'm sure Maxine's preponderance was just a coincidence.
Actually, it wasn't.
For the record, dopes, Brady and Moynihan ended their relationship BEFORE she discovered the pregnancy. That's not the same thing as dumping his pregnant girlfriend.
Well which is it?
Either a little Maxine goes a long way....or, too much is never enough !
One or the other, by the way, where's Richard?, I'm not through talking with him. He hinted as some things, and then just took off.
Parting shots, eh ?
Admittedly, as a Rams fan, I want to see the Patriots exposed as the cheaters they are. But beyond that, there is a huge amount of government money invested in football. How many stadiums have been built with government money? Quite a few. And just how much money by citizens is spend on football? Billions. If there's fraud involved, it should be investigated by someone, and the media doesn't seem to be interested (since they are essentially on the NFL's payroll)
My tax money is supposed to go into making sure some people playing a game don't cheat?
Funny I thought the very same thing when they had congressional hearings on steroids in baseball.
Call me kooky but that sounded like a case for local law enforcement rather than a Senate panel.
Jeremy,
You are a sore loser and a pathetic buffoon.
Your payback for the 01 Rams chokejob was the 07 Patriots choke job.
If I were a pile of spooge like you, I'd cling to obviously-timed and obviously-baseless accusations--maybe anywhere from 0-6 years later--and avoid reality by insisting that the Giants won because of a league conspiracy.
Instead, I tip my hat to the 07 Giants who, like the 01 Pats, managed to beat a better overall team once, which is what is required.
And, moron, your choice in language suggests that you don't consider them to have been exposed for the trivial sin of taping the Jets (if you know football, you know they weren't the only ones, they were the only ones to get ratted out). I'd guess your IQ looks up at Plaxico Burress' jersey number (much like Ellis Hobbs, sadly).
You sniveling turd. You should go lick Kurt Warner's crotch.
Ann, I didn't watch either. I'm glad the Patriots -- the Hillary Clinton of football as far as inevitability goes -- lost, however. I know the TV networks tried to make this an interesting game -- but 7-3 at the half? Snoozeville. For anyone outside the northeast US, this was a bore.
Ann
Will you be at the parade taking pictures for us?
I had to think for a minute about what the "parade" was.
Well, when is it.
I'm not free to do anything in the next couple days.
Big primary day tomorrow in NY. Is the parade conflicting with it?
MadisonMan - if you didn't watch, how do you know it was a snooze? Football isn't soccer or hockey - it's entirely possible for it to be a gripping, exciting game without lots of scoring. For example, despite the lack of scoring, the second and third quarters of this Superbowl were quite exciting, with lots of key plays and brilliant performances.
The parade is Tuesday morning at
11 AM.
if you didn't watch, how do you know it was a snooze?
My son was watching in the basement. Not a peep. And 7-3 is a snoozeworthy score.
I only watched the last part. It was really exciting. And I don't care at all about football.
Yes, it did sound like the last 5 minutes was exciting. Pardon me for not putting up with 3+ hours of snooze and ads for 5 minutes of adrenaline.
Packers fans are sore losers.
Stephen Snell, I like your style.
This was arguably the greatest Superbowl in history. A historic team, a great team was defeated by an underdog who shouldn't have been in the same stadium with them. Every pundit and expert picked the Patriots and said the Giants wouldn't even be in the game. But they shut up (except for Plaxico) and played the game. There a lesson in there. If you choose to see it.
I admit to only watching the last 2 minutes. I am rabidly into college football so the pros' post-season is interesting to me but mostly as an easy transition out of the football season.
So for once I actually rooted for a NY team. Good for them. Now they and the Yankees and the rest of them can go right back to losing.
Everybody hates Bill Belichick. He's the Hillary Clinton of the NFL.
Actually, I take that back. He’s the Bill Clinton of the NFL. He was banging the Giants office receptionist while they were both married to someone else. He even bought her a brownstone in Park Slope. No stained blue dress. But there was a rumor of a stained foam finger that was involved in one of the divorces, but the records are sealed.
There is some crazy professor at the Univeristy of Wisconsin who swears that the Packers were actually in the Superbowl. He claims that what we saw was a fraud perpetrated by the Bush Administration and the main stream media. He has ten experts that will testify that the Packer’s could never lose on the frozen tundra. Packers don’t freeze. It’s science. He can prove that the Giants didn’t win the Superbowl. Of course two of his experts are Tiki Barber and Terry Bradshaw, so what are you going to do? Debate him?
Now if I can only get Josh Beckett to date Paris Hilton and Manny Rameriez to start dating J-Lo, then we would be cooking with gas.
Ann said: Sorry, I just don't care.
Ron said: S'cool, doc, I feel the same way about the law!
To steal from Trotsky, you may not be interested in the law, but the law is very interested in you.
Totally baffled by the Giants' management decision to replace Trooper York at quarterback (yes, I know, the kid they replaced him with made a few decent plays), I went on a search and finally found my answer: Apparently, the team bus left a highly emotional Trooper behind, suited up and ready for action, back in Times Square. It would seem that no one on the bus noticed until they were well past Oklahoma and by that time it was just too late to turn around and go back for him. Oh well, win some lose some.
of 42 superbowls, and i saw the first quarter of the first one and the last half of this one, i have to admit it was fun to watch. as an MSU grad the final touchdown was great fun and he was a class interview afterward.
that was good fun and good entertainment. what the heck....it beats the debates.
"Would a racist listen to those songs, and those artists?"
Sure, why not?
"Clearly I'm not a racist, and my choice of music proves it!
Yeah right.
"I demand an apology, Brian. PRONTO !!!!"
Your NOT getting it. You are either a non-black racist (male or female), or a black pretending to be a white racist who slips in some anti-white racism. In any case your articles are racist.
Internet searches make this easy to check. I did a search for "black" on your site and got these tidbits.
In your blog article titled "The unbearable Whiteness of....." you write:
"I guess black people don't write, and the Mexicans that clean the houses of these writers....well, who would want to look at brown faces day after day at work ?
No Ragheads, or Chinamen either...."
That's you using racist terms.
In your blog article titled, "When Blacks and Jews DON'T mix...." you have a picture titled, (Professor Erwin Chemerinsky) "Professional Jew" and another titled, ( UCI Chancellor, Michael Drake) "Professional Negro". You state ".....unlike the Blacks, ---- who needed Affirmative Action to get to the top:".
It might be humorous to refer to someone who racebaits and makes a living of racial outrage like Al Sharpton as a "professional negro" or jew. However in this case the phrases seem only to denigrate their accomplishments. You affirm this by claiming the one fellow could make it without Affirmative Action.
You then show a picture of Denise Rich and add the sentence, "(Above: Denise Rich--- a terrifying example of what happens when you cross a Black with a Jew!)".
I guess you are against racial intermarriage. Does this disgust you?
In your blog article titled, " Whites taking orders from Blacks" you are especially offensive. Besides the title which offensively suggests that whites shouldn't work for blacks. You show a picture of a "Black Authority Figure" and then a "White Underling" and put the words EQUALS.... then a picture of a noose.
Which implies that somehow whites have or should have a problem working for blacks, or that blacks will always terminate whites working for them.
You then go on to say, "Whites rarely subordinate to Blacks.......and when they are forced to, the tension builds."
Which is a racist statement regardless of your real race.
Now I hope you are aware of the potential connotation of a noose, as in a lynching, which given the title of the article is clearly the intention.
The last part of your "article" being the statement, "50 years of multi-culturalism and diversity have led to this:" followed by a picture of a noose and then the statement "Wrap yourself around it! Just kidding---!".
Like "Just kidding" makes it A-OK to imply that racial mixing should lead to lynchings.
You've already exhibited your bigoted and preconceived beliefs about football here, and I'm not surprised that the same kind of thinking carries over into your beliefs about race.
Actually, knowing what you have written elsewhere, I took your comment as a mock demand for an apology. It can easily be read with you dishonestly smirking as you wrote it.
Great game, surprisingly. Also best superbowl ad reviews anywhere found here:
http://practicalpablum.blogspot.com/
Sorry for chiming in late (by two years), but I can't resist.
Maxine, you sound so much like my own mother, who parked me in front of the Super Bowl as a teenager. I just never had an interest in team ball sports, which I have felt and still feel are a breeding ground for hypocrisy. "There's no 'I' in TEAM", yet so much worship of the individual super-athlete. Since the focus is on the individual anyway, I prefer individual sports, such as tennis, boxing, etc. I can give out other reasons for my lack of interest, but I usually don't go into it out of respect for those who care.
I earned a black belt in TaeKwonDo in middle school and that's what I was passionate about. Of course I didn't fit in with the meatheads at school, but once I got to college I found that everything changed; though you will always find the arrogant SOB that thinks that you're not entitled to breathe unless you "saw the game" or, later in professional life, golf is the "in" thing.
I'm sure there are some industries where you must be a sports-nut to be accepted, but I'm probably on too high of a pay grade to worry about bumping into them. My peers are educated in the enlightened sense, not the conforming sense. Some of them will "watch the game" occasionally, but I know their work schedules are as busy as mine, and they haven't had time to track sports since mid-college. Then again, none of us have time to watch black and white musicals either, and yet my mother made me watch those too, telling me that I might learn something. I still haven't figured out what I was supposed to learn from any of it.
I do know that I'm earning a very good living, enjoy what I do with a passion, and have a satisfaction in the purpose of my work that most could only dream for. Normally, I wouldn't have any time to surf the web either, but I'm stuck on a train with nothing else to do.
For those out there who really don't follow sports, faking an interest will not bring you any joy in life. I feel sorry for anyone doing things they don't enjoy to impress people they don't care about. In the end your true self will come out and your fake enthusiam will just make YOU seem like a FAKE yourself. You will have even less respect from your peers than if you had just been politely honest from the beginning. You'd probably be surprised how many actually feel the way you do.
Though I do agree that making a big deal about it is a bad way to go. Sports nuts can get very defensive when you challenge the passion of their life. The more convincing and logical your argument, the less welcome it will be received. Having a black belt won't keep the entire middle-school football team from stuffing you into a locker.
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