Very entertaining thread!
George- my brother in law had a Challenger that he sped away from the cops in rural New Mexico one night in the 1980s. He claimed he could barely see the lights from the cop car and was going close to 150 mph- then ran out of gas.
This was in the days before cellphones, and a cellphone probably doesn't get a signal in that part of the state even today. He hid from the cops when they caught up to him, then walked to a phone booth. Took him two or three hours. Called his wife and told her to call the cops and tell them his Challenger was stolen.
Two days later after a lot of questions from the local sheriff, he got the car back and drove it until it rusted away.
George- my brother in law had a Challenger that he sped away from the cops in rural New Mexico one night in the 1980s. He claimed he could barely see the lights from the cop car and was going close to 150 mph- then ran out of gas.
This was in the days before cellphones, and a cellphone probably doesn't get a signal in that part of the state even today. He hid from the cops when they caught up to him, then walked to a phone booth. Took him two or three hours. Called his wife and told her to call the cops and tell them his Challenger was stolen.
Two days later after a lot of questions from the local sheriff, he got the car back and drove it until it rusted away.
I always used what they referred to as ‘fictitious tags’ (usually ones from the salvage yard that still had a good sticker) then trading cars and tags out after a ‘incident’ although sometimes the carnage was too great and the car had to be left behind, I did stupidly (on topic! 😀) leave some incriminating evidence in one that led back to me and my home address, that’s when I pulled that stolen trick out.......well it’s right there in the driveway where I always park it officer, wait.....no, that’s your car.....where’s mine? 😀 It worked, but like ya say it was touch n go there for a couple days.
Edit.....keeping a straight face in those situations was another key, although quite difficult!
Really don’t understand how I became the fine upstanding citizen I am today.😛
Edit.....keeping a straight face in those situations was another key, although quite difficult!
Really don’t understand how I became the fine upstanding citizen I am today.😛
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I had that engine in my Dodge Coronet the "Gray Ghost". Since I wasn't racing it did OK. 24MPG which isn't shoddy for heavy 4 door sedan. Dodge used it in cars, vans and trucks. Very solid. The Slant Six was better loved, but the 318 was a workhorse.
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Blahahaha
I had Wind Mobile before they launched LTE.
It was such trash, It would connect to T-Mobile _ACROSS_LAKE_ONTARIO_ instead of one of the four towers within spitting distance. When it DID connect, it was about 50 KILOBITS... Now I suck it up and get whatever the best deal is from Robellus (Rogers, Bell, and Telus for those of you who aren't from Canada). That nets me about 100Mbps on average.
Such colorful lives people have had - gulp! Mine is like an old faded snowy B&W photo in comparison - where the black is more like some coffee color...
Long-lost by the cadence of this thread, I wanted to say that the Internet seems to be all about getting attention. Whatever it takes to get attention is king out there.
I was trying to explain this to my son relative to the US first amendment rights; how people are so worried that their right to say whatever extreme they can conjure up - in order to get this internetty attention - might somehow be "abridged". Truth, fact, logic, correct scientific basis be damned.
It's even easily detectable in here - not that as an internet hosted forum, we'd be fully immune from that which goes on in the more "wild" places like Twitter or Reddit.
In this context, I'll admit it - I'm jealous of Cal Weldon's "The Food Thread", with its 1 megasample views and nearly 15K "likes" - that is, like enough to bother to say something in it, validating the OP as many times.
It's something everyone wants. I suppose efficiency is something to be optimized in that regard; today, you can bobby pin the wall outlet, make a video of it - and get as much attention as would have consumed a much larger effort in decades past. So maybe these "stupid kids" are optimizing on another plane - and would run circles around the old folks in creating efficient solutions to load up on attention from the internet.
As we know, attention on the internet ==> $, fame, power and all the other goodies many human beings innately value above all else.
Long-lost by the cadence of this thread, I wanted to say that the Internet seems to be all about getting attention. Whatever it takes to get attention is king out there.
I was trying to explain this to my son relative to the US first amendment rights; how people are so worried that their right to say whatever extreme they can conjure up - in order to get this internetty attention - might somehow be "abridged". Truth, fact, logic, correct scientific basis be damned.
It's even easily detectable in here - not that as an internet hosted forum, we'd be fully immune from that which goes on in the more "wild" places like Twitter or Reddit.
In this context, I'll admit it - I'm jealous of Cal Weldon's "The Food Thread", with its 1 megasample views and nearly 15K "likes" - that is, like enough to bother to say something in it, validating the OP as many times.
It's something everyone wants. I suppose efficiency is something to be optimized in that regard; today, you can bobby pin the wall outlet, make a video of it - and get as much attention as would have consumed a much larger effort in decades past. So maybe these "stupid kids" are optimizing on another plane - and would run circles around the old folks in creating efficient solutions to load up on attention from the internet.
As we know, attention on the internet ==> $, fame, power and all the other goodies many human beings innately value above all else.
I've been reading this thread for a while, and thinking similarly to you jjasniew that compared with particularly Tubelab, amongst others, I have hardly lived a life.
He has gone far further then I in a career, had a family, and performed quite a few 'antics' that I would not dare to even consider.
I did though, my early teens, used to regularly rob a local park tuck shop at night, and was never caught because I paid attention to the forensics, but I became very sick of the stash of chocolate bars hidden on top of my wardrobe.
In the States you have a higher standard of living, and cars were usually beyond most of us in the UK in our teens, but with a friend we did tune a Mini 850 to stage3+ and the speedo four up, did go round the dial to the Empty end of the fuel gauge.
We also tuned a Lambretta GT200, bored to 225 and, with a Wal Philips fuel injector. In the context of '67 it was like a bat out of hell, nothing could keep up with it. I seized it at 75 in 3rd, two up with a girlfriend.
I've since had a 500cc Triumph Daytona, very unreliable, and two 1000cc BMWs, but that scooter was for me the most exciting ride.
With regard to the internet and exposure, I remember saying to my parent when I was eight or so, that people's expression for a given pain varied, some feel a lot but are quiet, and others feel little but never stop groaning.
It seems similar with public exposure, we have clever hard working backroom boys who develop wonders, and with no glamour, fame or big money, and we have celebs who seem to have nothing much to offer but just being a celebrity, and they are often rich.
He has gone far further then I in a career, had a family, and performed quite a few 'antics' that I would not dare to even consider.
I did though, my early teens, used to regularly rob a local park tuck shop at night, and was never caught because I paid attention to the forensics, but I became very sick of the stash of chocolate bars hidden on top of my wardrobe.
In the States you have a higher standard of living, and cars were usually beyond most of us in the UK in our teens, but with a friend we did tune a Mini 850 to stage3+ and the speedo four up, did go round the dial to the Empty end of the fuel gauge.
We also tuned a Lambretta GT200, bored to 225 and, with a Wal Philips fuel injector. In the context of '67 it was like a bat out of hell, nothing could keep up with it. I seized it at 75 in 3rd, two up with a girlfriend.
I've since had a 500cc Triumph Daytona, very unreliable, and two 1000cc BMWs, but that scooter was for me the most exciting ride.
With regard to the internet and exposure, I remember saying to my parent when I was eight or so, that people's expression for a given pain varied, some feel a lot but are quiet, and others feel little but never stop groaning.
It seems similar with public exposure, we have clever hard working backroom boys who develop wonders, and with no glamour, fame or big money, and we have celebs who seem to have nothing much to offer but just being a celebrity, and they are often rich.
Yah, I often wonder if I’d have applied myself to a stricter regimen in my early days if things might have been different for me now.......but then I think well I did have one heck of a good time in the school of hard knocks and it probably shaped me in some positive ways.
So.....que sera!
So.....que sera!
99% of my ZIP code gets good service from Verizon. That's what Tracfone defaulted me to. But >here< 300 feet past the ridge, Verizon is 1 bar and AT&T is 4-5 bars drifting in from the next town. It cost me a buck to get an AT&T SIM and it's fine now.
I once had a 66 Coronet with a 225 inch slant six in it. I beat it like a rented mule until it had more rust than body. For years I would buy a cheap Chrysler A body car with a slant six, beat it until it died, junk it and get another. I never paid more than $200, and some were actually free.
I had AT&T here (about 2 miles outside a small town) until early this year. I got one bar in the summer when the trees are green and dry. Zero service when it rains. Decent service in the winter when there were minimal foliage to absorb the 2.1 GHz signal.
I always bought a cheap unlocked phone on Amazon and I had a $200 Motorola that I got about two years ago. I got an email from AT&T stating that they were shutting down their 3G service and my current phone would no longer function on their network. They wanted me to buy a $$$$ Samsung or Apple phone which meant phone payments on top of the $170 per month phone bill. Two of the three phones on our plan needed to be replaced. NOT
As much as i dislike Comcast, they had the best deal. Their Xfinity mobile uses the Comcast box already in the house for phone service, or any other Comcast box it can find. When there is no available Comcast box, it uses Verizon towers. The cost is $10 per month for all three phones, plus a reasonable per gig data charge that only applies when on a Verizon tower. Like AT&T two of our three phones were "incompatible" so we needed to buy new phones. At least they offered some budget phones so my daughter got a $140 Motorola. I chose an iPhone XS for the "excellent camera" which I now regret. My old Amazon Motorola took better pictures. At least Comcast sold me the iPhone for several hundred dollars less than the going rate.
True that I did a lot of crazy stuff in my life, especially in my teens, but I never did anything to harm another person, or perform "evil" stuff. Yes, I might have cause my high school to be evacuated....twice, but the second time was actually a joke that went wrong. The A$$ hole that dumped a carton of BB's down the concrete stairwell during class change and sent 7 people to the hospital, deserved the blanket party he got.....not by me.
I was generally smart enough to avoid getting caught....one of my brothers was not always so smart, but he was the "chosen son" and I was the family outcast that had to leave home with just what I could stuff into my 1949 Plymouth.
I didn't exactly have a good childhood, and some of my friends were not exactly upstanding citizens, but I managed to stay a few steps ahead of disaster my whole life. I grew up in Miami and left for the Motorola plant west of Ft. Lauderdale at age 20, where I was mostly a "beach bum" until about age 30. I was content working in the calibration lab until I could see a future where there was no factory, or cal lab......that's when the motivation to do better hit me over the head.
Those who didn't get the hint were laid off when the factory wound up overseas. Those who had climbed the corporate ladder over their friends backs early on became easy targets by other early climbers......life in the corporate world works a lot like those TV reality game shows where people are voted off every week.
Those shows are based on a thesis, and work on "non cooperative game play" by the American mathematician John Forbes Nash, who was the subject of the movie 'A Beautiful Mind." His work should be read by anyone working in such an environment, and still trying to climb the corporate ladder. Watching Survivor, and The Amazing Race every week definitely guided my path through 41 years of corporate life. As with ant career there will be victories and set backs. I managed to dodge many bullets and for the most part find employment that I liked.
Would things have been different if I had applied myself more in my early career, yes, better? probably not.
We have a lot in common. I grew up in a thuggish, racist neighborhood; complete with race riots and Nazis goose stepping right by the house. At least half of the people I grew up with are dead or in prison. One guy, despite being in his 60s, keeps going back to prison for petty crimes and schemes. A few committed suicide. My younger brother died at 57 from a lifetime of drug abuse. One of my best friends, who has lived a very virtuous, productive, and prosperous life, is suffering from mental illness and his life is falling apart.
I stayed out of trouble for the most part. I was considered a "good" kid. I drank, smoked pot, built hotrods, street raced, and chased the young ladies around. I never stole anything, or committed vandalism. I really just wanted to get out of the neighborhood without a criminal record, and I succeeded.
Frank Collin was the leader of the Midwest American Nazi Party. His office was on 71st Street by California, right on my neighborhood turf. Frank Collin - Wikipedia
I've always wondered what separates people's "enthusiasm for life" for lack of a better term. I have to believe it's something you're born with - or not - and this seems to be substantiated by folks describing biological brothers who are very different than they are, in this specific regard.
I'm an only, so I'm lacking in having another being from the same gene pool around for comparative reference.
Admittedly, I'm envious of George from Tube_Lab - even though I do understand there's always someone "better", always someone "worse" and I'm "right where I should be" and all that. I know had we been put in the same locale, I would have wanted to be friends.
I believe M Scott Peck said [paraphrasing] "Together we were able to trace through the usual framework of childhood experience cause and effects and heal his mild neurosis. We were unable in the slightest degree to determine the origins of his success with life".
Whatever "it" is, that some people seem to have regardless of the environment they fell to earth in, is something I'm actually more interested in than speakers or amplifiers. When my son was born, the one thing I'd hoped he'd have was this "it", but unfortunately, that was not to be. My father had a bit more than me, but alas he wanted to build his own airplane in retirement - he was a navy pilot trainer - and that dream never got past a few piles of magazines supported by the kit plane manufacturers.
Similarly, I once had a 74 cutlass with a rocket 350; I'd picked up a 4 barrel manifold and carb for it. Hemming and hawing over the scope of the project, a friend finally remarked "Dont bother - just enjoy the ride!". Observing the struggles of my buddy living in the same apartment complex with his Mustang and all the oil leaks around the heads, how many tubes of silicone he poured into those gaskets - I did just that.
There's like a piece missing between having an idea of what I'd like and getting to the realizing of it. If it's a matter of degree - OK I admit I've survived; no employer ever fired me for being lackadaisical - so something is there to some degree. But certainly not to a level which one would call "impressive".
I wonder what "it" is? Where it comes from? Are you born with your amount of "it"?
If so, how to better work with whatever you've been "allocated".
I'm an only, so I'm lacking in having another being from the same gene pool around for comparative reference.
Admittedly, I'm envious of George from Tube_Lab - even though I do understand there's always someone "better", always someone "worse" and I'm "right where I should be" and all that. I know had we been put in the same locale, I would have wanted to be friends.
I believe M Scott Peck said [paraphrasing] "Together we were able to trace through the usual framework of childhood experience cause and effects and heal his mild neurosis. We were unable in the slightest degree to determine the origins of his success with life".
Whatever "it" is, that some people seem to have regardless of the environment they fell to earth in, is something I'm actually more interested in than speakers or amplifiers. When my son was born, the one thing I'd hoped he'd have was this "it", but unfortunately, that was not to be. My father had a bit more than me, but alas he wanted to build his own airplane in retirement - he was a navy pilot trainer - and that dream never got past a few piles of magazines supported by the kit plane manufacturers.
Similarly, I once had a 74 cutlass with a rocket 350; I'd picked up a 4 barrel manifold and carb for it. Hemming and hawing over the scope of the project, a friend finally remarked "Dont bother - just enjoy the ride!". Observing the struggles of my buddy living in the same apartment complex with his Mustang and all the oil leaks around the heads, how many tubes of silicone he poured into those gaskets - I did just that.
There's like a piece missing between having an idea of what I'd like and getting to the realizing of it. If it's a matter of degree - OK I admit I've survived; no employer ever fired me for being lackadaisical - so something is there to some degree. But certainly not to a level which one would call "impressive".
I wonder what "it" is? Where it comes from? Are you born with your amount of "it"?
If so, how to better work with whatever you've been "allocated".
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For me ‘it’ was always pushing the envelope, and sometimes my envelope exceeded what was socially acceptable. I had no fear from teenager through about 30 years, then my frontal lobe started connecting.....I fought it hard, but by the time I was 40 I had succumbed into a compliance I’d never thought possible. I’d never done anything too immoral and I sleep easy....the only regret is the hell I put my family through, but they all lived long enough to see me straighten out, so that’s cool.
Pushing the envelope now involves much less dangerous things like audio and fishing, hunting etc.....but the arthritis from running on the chip all those years is starting to catch up and I’m starting to realize old people don’t move so slow because they want to! 😛
Pushing the envelope now involves much less dangerous things like audio and fishing, hunting etc.....but the arthritis from running on the chip all those years is starting to catch up and I’m starting to realize old people don’t move so slow because they want to! 😛
Regarding younger people- when I hear people say there aren't anymore good bands anymore, it reminds me that my son told me that there are over 10,000 hours of new music uploaded to YouTube every week.
Now I'm not one to talk because I get up every morning and read the online newspaper. The newspaper contains a lot of the same information I read on the internet the day before. What I'm getting at is it isn't that there aren't any good bands anymore, it's because there are so many, one person doesn't have time to sift through them all. My generation used to listen to the radio. We would hear a song we liked, go to the record store and buy the 45 or the LP. We depended on the record companies to pick what music we heard and listened to. Radio ruled the music industry.
My son doesn't listen to the radio, even in his car. He doesn't read the newspapers, and none of his friends do. All their information comes instantly through the internet.
As far as youngers being more stupid: my son is going to be 27 years-old in November and still lives at home. He's not stupid, he's got a bachelor's degree, works hard at his job and as a musician. He's paying for his car and medical/car insurance, pays my wife and I for room and board. His girlfriend is in her second year of medical school and will have about $300k in student debt when she graduates. So, they'll start out married life in a big financial hole. Next door neighbors are in the same hole, but they're both MD's and earn nearly $500k/year.
Things aren't like they were when I was in my 20's. Plus, I didn't tell my son when he was 15 year's-old that he was a guest once he turned 18. That made me enlist in the US Marine Corps a week after I graduated high school. My number one goal in life was to get out of the house. Tough way to do it, I paid for my BSME degree with the GI Bill.
I wouldn't change anything about how I've lived my life.
Now I'm not one to talk because I get up every morning and read the online newspaper. The newspaper contains a lot of the same information I read on the internet the day before. What I'm getting at is it isn't that there aren't any good bands anymore, it's because there are so many, one person doesn't have time to sift through them all. My generation used to listen to the radio. We would hear a song we liked, go to the record store and buy the 45 or the LP. We depended on the record companies to pick what music we heard and listened to. Radio ruled the music industry.
My son doesn't listen to the radio, even in his car. He doesn't read the newspapers, and none of his friends do. All their information comes instantly through the internet.
As far as youngers being more stupid: my son is going to be 27 years-old in November and still lives at home. He's not stupid, he's got a bachelor's degree, works hard at his job and as a musician. He's paying for his car and medical/car insurance, pays my wife and I for room and board. His girlfriend is in her second year of medical school and will have about $300k in student debt when she graduates. So, they'll start out married life in a big financial hole. Next door neighbors are in the same hole, but they're both MD's and earn nearly $500k/year.
Things aren't like they were when I was in my 20's. Plus, I didn't tell my son when he was 15 year's-old that he was a guest once he turned 18. That made me enlist in the US Marine Corps a week after I graduated high school. My number one goal in life was to get out of the house. Tough way to do it, I paid for my BSME degree with the GI Bill.
I wouldn't change anything about how I've lived my life.
My number one goal as well. Got out the house 2 weeks after turning 17. My only regret is I couldn’t do it earlier. Tough, but I’d say up there in the top 3 or 4 good things Ive done. I’m 64 in a month, so that was 47 yrs ago :-O
Yah, I couldn't get out of the House fast enough either! 😀
Not that my folks lived in a dump like this:
But a man's gotta be moving on. 😱
Not that my folks lived in a dump like this:
But a man's gotta be moving on. 😱
After bootcamp, I was stationed in Millington, TN, then Lakehurst, NJ. I was paid $135 every two weeks. I didn't owe anyone a penny. I went on weekend trips/holiday trips from Maine to Key West, FL and everywhere in between. MWR had trips that would cost $8/night at the YMCA. Some were like palaces, others were dumps. But I didn't care, I slept and showered and was out and about.
It was great to travel the world, young and carefree. Of course, I didn't get to go where I wanted when I wanted to go. But I always tried to make the best of it, always having in mind that I was there temporarily, to make the best of it, meet the local people and get off the beaten path.
It made me realize that people everywhere just want to have good food, a roof over their head and enjoy good music, art and entertainment.
I also realize how important music is in my life, and I wouldn't want to live if there was no music.
It was great to travel the world, young and carefree. Of course, I didn't get to go where I wanted when I wanted to go. But I always tried to make the best of it, always having in mind that I was there temporarily, to make the best of it, meet the local people and get off the beaten path.
It made me realize that people everywhere just want to have good food, a roof over their head and enjoy good music, art and entertainment.
I also realize how important music is in my life, and I wouldn't want to live if there was no music.
I had to make it my sole mission in life to get out of the trailer park. One thing I realized early from seeing everything going on around me was in order to do that I must never under any circumstances get involve with women. Everyone in town was convinced I was queer. I did get it drilled into my head early that being stuck with child support will trap you in a dead end job with no prospects of getting out, and likely a cycle of addiction and violence. I’d had enough of that. One thing that made it easier (or harder) was that I was forbidden to learn to drive or get a license or car. Why? So my mom and stepdad’s car insurance wouldn’t go through the roof. Not driving meant no dating, and no real prospects for jobs, other than a lawn service I ended up working for between high school and starting college. I could arrive at work filthy from sweat and nobody cared. Everything I could spare went into keeping a bicycle on the road and cobbling together audio gear from junk. I did some occasional work with a couple local DJ’s - who started doing the school dances and later moved onto raves when the war between the two angered the school administration enough to stop *all* the dances. One was white and the other black - and both kept me around because they needed me to keep their stuff running. The latter taught me everything he knew, and I still have fond memories of the rave to end all raves, right before I went off to college. I did get in trouble with my friends’ parents - who universally considered me a bad influence on their precious children. But no run ins with the law and a squeaky clean record (necessary for the exit strategy), but my speakers made WAY too much noise - and I should have been buying a car, not wasting what money I had on “Pyle Drivers”, riding a bicycle in traffic, and teaching their sons to disobey them.
College itself wasn’t much different - no real social life or dating, working a **** job and living in the dorm. But I did have a couple of other geek friends, and we manage to keep ourselves entertained on virtually no budget by Playing With Power. Not quite up to Tubelab standards, but the best that could be done with what we had. I did have the loudest stereo - which I did use to DJ parties with - when I could get transportation. Still no car - I hadn’t even gotten my license yet and there was NO budget for it. It I did manage to graduate with zero debt, because I also realized that too was a black hole. Finally in grad school I had a stipend (not much of one) but it paid off campus rent at a house on the River where a friend was starting an ISP of all things. From there I managed to make enough contacts to get a real job, and am still working there today.... more or less.
Other than some “electronic fireworks” left over from the early days, I don’t blow stuff up. From back in my early DJ days, I tried to make it so stuff doesn’t blow up, even when being played louder than it was ever intended to. Speakers maybe - but almost all blown drivers were intentional. Like a 4 inch full range driven by a Phase Linear, as a demonstration that too much power does kill speakers, not too little power. I’ve built a few systems, and would get into DJing on again, off again over the years. I’ve built plenty of amplifiers that I can clip the tar out of without the slightest overheating, and most of my speakers are horn loaded. So things can go BOOM, but not explode. Been building my bucket list system the past couple years, and figured I’d get back into doing sound again when I pull the plug from work. Coming soon - would have been next year if not for the pandemic.
College itself wasn’t much different - no real social life or dating, working a **** job and living in the dorm. But I did have a couple of other geek friends, and we manage to keep ourselves entertained on virtually no budget by Playing With Power. Not quite up to Tubelab standards, but the best that could be done with what we had. I did have the loudest stereo - which I did use to DJ parties with - when I could get transportation. Still no car - I hadn’t even gotten my license yet and there was NO budget for it. It I did manage to graduate with zero debt, because I also realized that too was a black hole. Finally in grad school I had a stipend (not much of one) but it paid off campus rent at a house on the River where a friend was starting an ISP of all things. From there I managed to make enough contacts to get a real job, and am still working there today.... more or less.
Other than some “electronic fireworks” left over from the early days, I don’t blow stuff up. From back in my early DJ days, I tried to make it so stuff doesn’t blow up, even when being played louder than it was ever intended to. Speakers maybe - but almost all blown drivers were intentional. Like a 4 inch full range driven by a Phase Linear, as a demonstration that too much power does kill speakers, not too little power. I’ve built a few systems, and would get into DJing on again, off again over the years. I’ve built plenty of amplifiers that I can clip the tar out of without the slightest overheating, and most of my speakers are horn loaded. So things can go BOOM, but not explode. Been building my bucket list system the past couple years, and figured I’d get back into doing sound again when I pull the plug from work. Coming soon - would have been next year if not for the pandemic.
You know the house I grew up in was a lot nicer than that. My dad bought it new in 1955 with a VA loan.
I don't know when that picture was taken, but I remember when that neighborhood (Marquette Park) wasn't blighted. But over the top crime and two decades of riots drove out the good working class people of the community, and the neighborhood went to crap. Uniformed Nazis (you saw them every day wherever you went in the community; they had 24/7 "patrols") didn't exactly make it inviting to outsiders either. And the vast majority of folks hated the Nazis, even if they were 100% against racial integration. Plus the Nazis were recruiting their sons too.
It wasn't exactly a family friendly community. There was nothing but trouble for the youths. Drugs, petty organized crime, and Nazis set the tone for the neighborhood. I couldn't wait to get out.
Let's keep this thread away from forbidden subjects, shall we?