The reason for the season

Merry Christmas everyone!

Ho ho ho!!

A holiday tradition continued...

Discipulus Legis and I went to see the San Francisco Ballet's production of The Nutcracker last night. It was probably the best production that I've ever seen, and I've seen quite a few in Chicago and New York. What was Discipulus Legis's assessment of her first time at the ballet? "This shit is sexist." Yes, my dear, it certainly is.

Negative brain plasticity

Discipulus Legis is making me watch A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila. I can actually feel my brain cells dying off one by one.

Happy holidays! Now give us money.

Gee, with so many worthy non-profits out there--organizations that fight disease and hunger, organizations that advocate for children, organizations that protect the air we breathe and the water we drink--I can think of no better place to give to than GLAAD. Maybe they'll put my hard earned dollars to work making another PSA featuring a C or D list celebrity and... um... what else do they do again?

Kudos, GLAAD, on another subtle, yet impactful fundraising appeal. Hey! I bet it's not too late to get that girl who believes in cashmere instead of Santa to do another holiday appeal for you. I'm sure that would be a big hit with everyone!

Giuliani for mayor!

I'm trying to follow the presidential race as little as possible but I did see that Rudolph Giuliani visited San Francisco recently. This is what he said he would recommend for SF's homeless problem:

"The correct, loving, caring social policy is to engage, not ignore ... to discourage, not encourage," ... "We would tell them, you can't live on the street; you're not allowed to."

Sounds good to me. Rudy for mayor!

Changing hearts and minds

Discipulus Legis and I are selling some of our old books on Half.com. One of our wares is a book called Love Won Out: How God's Love Helped 2 People Leave Homosexuality and Find Each Other written by literary giants Anne and John Paulk. As one might be able to gather, the book details how to leave the homosexualist lifestyle for good.

Anyway, today I received the happy news that a man in Connecticut bought this book from us. I googled his name, and it turns out that he has written several Christian book reviews. I'm guessing that this man really is on fire for the Lord, so when I ship Love Won Out to him, I'm going to ensure that the book will not suffer any damage in transit by wrapping it in pages from the local gay newspaper, The Bay Area Reporter. Not the porn pages or anything, but whatever the pages will be will have some good, solid, gayness on them.

This is one of the most brilliant ideas I've had in a long, long time.

Questionable advertising

There's an ad on TV right now, I think from Burlington Coat Factory, where a woman asks a little girl, "Do you believe in Santa?" The little girl replies: "I believe in cashmere."

I think one could safely argue that this little girl should be killed, seeing as how her soul is already dead.

Giant Cat Sez:

Deutsche Grammophon is chapping my hide

So Discipulus Legis tells me all about this new online music store that Deutsche Grammophon is unveiling today. Of course, I was quite excited--especially since the tracks have a 320 kb/second bit rate, which is more than twice as much as the standard bit rate--so as soon as I came home from work I got on the Internets and went straight for the DG Web Shop. Naturally, I went straight for the Magdalena Kozena albums and lo and behold, there was her new Handel album, a disc that isn't even available at iTunes yet. Seeing as how I don't want to be greedy, I selected one track, placed it in my cart, registered, entered in my credit card information, and pressed "BUY." This is what I got:



This sucks.

This is why crime is so high in SF

This photo was taken at the corner of Fulton and Divisadero at about 3:00 p.m. this afternoon. This is San Francisco Police Department car #274 parked in the red zone in front of a fire hydrant. Note that there is no SFPD officer in the car, nor are the car's flashers or hazard lights on, nor was there any crime nearby. However, Eddie's Cafe--purveyors of coffee and pastries--is located at that corner. Thanks, SFPD, for doing your job so well.

Christine Quinn is a walking rat, sans wings

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn recently called pigeons "rats with wings." A spokesperson for a group called the Urban Wildlife Coalition said that was equivalent to calling pigeons an "epithet . . . much like the n-word."

No, it's not like using the "n-word," but Quinn is f-ing stupid for saying it anyway.

My love for pigeons is a given, so I won't even get into that. But why do people have such hatred for animals that are really, really successful at thriving in awful conditions? Once, while waiting on the subway platform at 34th street in New York City, I saw a big fat momma rat, a big fat daddy rat, and three little baby rats scurry across the platform and into the subway tunnel. If you're a rat, and you can get plump and raise three bebehs all the while dodging trains, avoiding the third rail, and managing to find food that isn't poisonous, then more power to you. Same with mice and cockroaches. I've lived in apartments with vermin, and while I can't say I enjoyed it, I wouldn't fault the little creatures for being what they are and doing what they do best.

In the mean time, I hope someone coats Christine Quinn in honey, rolls her in birdseed, and throws her to the pigeons in Central Park.

A public service announcement

Don't euthanize cats with cerebellar hypoplasia.

See Charley the Cat to understand why:

Atheists the new gays? Please say it isn't so!

Although I try to ignore everything that is posted on Townhall.com (or most of HuffingtonPost.com too, for that matter), I couldn't pass this one up. Apparently, Dinesh D'Souza takes issue with Richard Dawkins when he calls on atheists to start "coming out" of the closet just like the gays do. I deeply respect Dr. Dawkins and think he is a brilliant man, but I too take issue with him saying that atheists should be the new gays. Why? Because I would hope that atheists, a bunch of smart people, would pick a much better model than the gay rights movement, which, as we all know, is a total joke.

Another thing I don't get about straight women

If anyone out there can explain this mystery to me, please leave a comment:

Why do straight women who have female friends insist on referring to those female friends as "girlfriends"? For example, straight women often say things like this:

Straight woman: "My girlfriend and I like to go shopping together."

Why doesn't she just say, "My friend and I like to go shopping together"?

I like to go shopping with my girlfriend too, but for entirely different reasons, believe you me.

Adopt a turkey, don't eat one

Yes, it's that time of year again... time to adopt a turkey! Every year, a wonderful organization called Farm Sanctuary sponsors a turkey "adoption" drive. Farm Sanctuary is a shelter for abused and neglected farm animals, creatures that suffer unspeakable cruelty on a regular basis. They also work to put an end to factory farming--which is bad for the animals, bad for the environment, and bad for the people who end up eating factory farmed animals--and something that even meat-eaters can get behind. So, don't be a cheap ass. Go to www.adoptaturkey.org and spend $20 to adopt a turkey.

Here are the turkeys that Discipulus Legis and I adopted this year, Cicada and Pearl:

HAPY HALOWEEENZ!

Something truly horrifying

Today mine eyes did behold a most terrifying and horrible sight: Discipulus Legis running Windows Vista on her brand new MacBook. I now know the true meaning of the word "abomination."

I scare children

Last night, Discipulus Legis and I went to a Halloween party. She was a bloodsucking, back-stabbing, ambulance-chasing lawyer from the personal injury firm of Dewey, Cheatem & Howe, and I was an accident victim. It was my first-ever costume where I used fake blood, and my amateur makeup artist skills may have been a little too good. I put blood streaks on my face and gave myself a black eye, and at the party, an eight- or nine-year-old girl dressed as a fairy princess, took a look at me, walked away, then came back and very seriously asked me: "Did something really happen to you?"

I scare children.

Los Angeles is burning

This makes me glad that we don't live in Los Angeles anymore.

Hearing that Orlando Bloom crashed his car on the corner of where we used to live in LA made me kinda sad that we moved (Discipulus Legis provides the details).



But not that sad.

More lolz

I have a fancy Master's degree in writing yet I take the most pleasure writing lolcat. Why?

LOL Opera

What happens when my love of opera collides with my love of lolcats?





lol opera!

Shiny happy kittehs

I was just reading news.yahoo.com and saw a headline that said that 5,000 birds have been seized in the nation's largest cockfighting bust. The headline's rollover picture was horrible (a chicken, with almost all of its feathers gone, looking bloodied). I couldn't even read the story. Cockfighting is absolutely awful and anyone who likes it is an f-ing idiot. To distract ourselves from thoughts of horrific animal abuse, let's look at this:



Ah, that's better.

Where's Richard Dawkins when you need him?

Discipulus Legis took me on an impromptu date tonight to see For the Bible Tells Me So, a new documentary about fundamentalist Christians and the gays. It was good, but it was missing depth and the sense of angst that the interviewees were supposedly feeling about homosexuality and religion. There were abundant tears, but no sense of why people were crying (In contrast, Trembling Before G-d makes you understand why the film subjects were so upset.) The only truly effective and moving parts of the movie involve the story of Mary Lou Wallner and her daughter. She alone makes it worth seeing.

Of course, given my feelings about religion, I had strong feelings about the movie for other reasons. The opening credits of the movie show the usual "GOD HATES FAGS" imagery but it's intercut with commentary from learned religious academics. In response to these "simplistic" readings of the Bible, one academic says something like "you can have a 5th grade understanding of the Bible... when you're in 5th grade." A clever comment, but the Bible itself advocates a 5th grade understanding of life as a whole. You get a gold star for doing good, you get a time out for doing bad (albeit it a long and hot time out), when times get tough there's a fairy tale to make you feel better. My problem with what the Bible says about homosexuality has nothing to do with Leviticus 18:22; the problem starts at Genesis 1:1. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Um, what? The Bible contradicts or ignores what science has proven to be true (or has pretty good evidence to prove what is true). Who cares what it says about being gay? If it can't get the origin of the universe at least on the right track, it has bigger problems.

And yes, it was interesting to learn that in the original text of the Bible "abomination" meant "not customary," but would most people who believe in the Bible and seriously look to it for guidance understand this semantic hairsplitting? No! Dumb people read the Bible! Gays should embrace the fact that they've been excluded from religion. Embrace atheism and forge a new path not obstructed by all of this nonsense.

I thought only dogs looked cute in funny costumes

Seeing these pictures makes me want to have a kid for the sole purpose of dressing them up in these costumes for Halloween. The stork can take the children back after that.

Best newspaper article of 2007

Today's San Francisco Chronicle features an article--titled 'Enough is enough,' S.F. says of homeless--that basically says that San Franciscans are FINALLY sick of vagrants peeing, pooping, doing drugs, exposing their genitals, aggressively panhandling, and other no-nos on the streets of our fine city. It's one of the best things I've read all year, and includes a gem of a sound bite:

"Maybe there has been an epiphany," says David Latterman, president of Fall Line Analytics, a local market research firm. "People have realized they can hate George Bush but still not want people crapping in their doorway."

I am not in the least bit religious but A-M-E-N. If my tax dollars go to programs that feed and clothe the teeming masses of bums that crowd SF's streets, then I'd much rather that food be nutritious jail/prison rations and the clothes be of the jumpsuit variety popular in correctional institutions. It seems like a win-win for everyone.

Sallie Mae still sucks

I don't even fully understand the implications of this article, but I'm sure it means that Sallie Mae is still evil and still sucks very, very hard.

Job hunt statistics

It's taken me a little bit over two months, but I've finally found a job in SF. I just looked through my files and it turns out that I sent out 17 cover letters and resumes (and writing samples and whatever else was requested), was invited to interview at 7 of those companies, and have been offered one position so far (which I accepted. I start tomorrow. Woohoo!). That means I have about a 41% response rate, which isn't all that bad considering all of the job hunt books I read said that no one gets jobs by responding to ads (which is all I did. Thanks Craigslist!). Goodbye Maury, Montel, and Judge Milian! I'll miss you!

So much opera, so little time and money

Another opera season, another year of regrets at all of the productions I can't see because I'm not independently wealthy and don't have a private jet (Disicipulus Legis is working on the wealth and private jet part of that as I type as she studies her Tort Law and Practice book). Don't get me wrong; SF has plenty of good opera that I'm excited about (ARIODANTE!), but there's a lot of operas playing in other cities that I'd like to see, too. Atop that list is Carmen at New York City Opera. The production stars mezzo-soprano Beth Clayton. I last saw Ms. Clayton as Amastre in a NYCO production of Xerxes a few years back, and a finer "Se cangio spoglia" I have not heard, nor a more convincing en travesi performance I have since seen.



That's Clayton, at left, as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier. Note to San Francisco Opera: Please produce Der Rosenkavalier during the 2008-2009 season and be sure to cast Clayton as Octavian. Thanks.

"You're gonna die soon, you're gonna die soon..."

A concerned reader asked Queerty: "If you are a hipster like Sarah Silverman, are you granted special permission to be a bigot?"

Yes. Yes you are. A hilarious, attractive, hipster bigot.

Baseball should be called "The Game of ZZZzzzZZzzz..."

I hate baseball because it's long, boring, and the "athletes" who play the game are fat, disgusting slobs (see example at right). I pretty much hate all of baseball equally, but when it comes to the famous Cubs/Sox rivalry I hate the Cubs a little bit more. Jay Mariotti writes in the Sun Times that he'd like Sox fans (who are currently delighting in the fact that the Cubs are on the brink of elimination from the playoffs) to "grow up." I strongly disagree. Not only would this destroy a key part of Chicago's civic life that has animated the city for decades, but Cubs fans have to learn to take what they've dished out for so long. In my experience, the vast majority of Cubs fans couldn't tell you the difference between an RBI and an ERA. They just like to sit in the bleachers drinking beer and looking at Wrigley Field's ivy. That's perfectly fine, but it you're one of those "fans" just pledge your allegiance to Beer, Bleachers & Foliage and don't turn into a raving moron every time the Cubs come relatively close to winning a World Series.

Another day, another shooting in SF

There was another murder in San Francisco last night, this one just five blocks from Discipulus Legis's school (and about a mile from our apartment). This news on the heels of another story about how SF murder totals for 2007 have already surpassed the number of murders in 2006.

This is the first city I've ever lived in where I've felt afraid to be outside after dark.

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles!

Look what I found outside of our apartment last night!



It's a 10 lb. (?) bowling ball featuring the image of women's wrestling legend Chyna. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet, but I feel it has come into my life for some reason. I must find that purpose. Oh yes.

Worst MUNI line ever

It seems that everyone in SF claims that their MUNI line is the worst, but MUNI line #5 MUST be the worst in the whole city. I see evidence of this every single day. Like today, when I ended up walking with Discipulus Legis to school because there were already 20 people waiting at the #5 stop right outside our building and there was no way she was ever going to get a seat on the next bus, or probably the one after that (and as it turns out, she wouldn't have been able to sit on the next THREE buses that passed by because they were all so full).

Or like last week, when I waited near City Hall for forty minutes for a #5, but then got so fed up that I walked the MILE back to our place and wasn't passed by a SINGLE bus. But what did I see on the opposite side of the street? THREE MUNI #5 BUSES stacked on top of each other. Yes, that's a very efficient way to service the SF citizens who must rely on the MUNI #5.

This city needs a Republican mayor. Stat.

God I hate Sallie Mae

Reading things like this enrages me too much to comment coherently, so I'll just provide the link: High-Priced Student Loans Spell Trouble

And this brief summary:

The near doubling in the cost of a college degree the past decade has produced an explosion in high-priced student loans that could haunt the U.S. economy for years.

Haunt the U.S. economy for years. Love that. F you greedy Sallie Mae bastards. I hope you all lose your jobs and rot.

Opera at the ballpark

For my birthday, Discipulus Legis treated me to sitting for three hours outside in the cold. Yeay! Why did I enjoy this so much? Because it was at San Francisco Opera's "Opera at the Ballpark" event. SFO simulcast Camille Saint-Saens's Samson and Delilah to AT&T Park (where the SF Giants play) and it was pretty awesome. We sat on the field, not too far from the right field foul line, during the first act (and then moved into the stands for the second and third acts because Discipulus Legis is not used to the cold), ate garlic fries, and enjoyed the festive atmosphere.

People were running the bases and dancing in the infield, and during the second intermission there was a "Take Me Out to the Opera" sing along. The lyrics were something like, "Take me out to the opera, take me out with the crowd/Buy me a seat at the opera house/I don't care if it's Mozart or Strauss/Cuz' it's root, root, root for the divas..." and so on. It was very clever. Kudos to the person who rewrote the words). There were also little fan signs that said "GO SAMSON!" on one side and "GO DELILAH!" on the other. I always root for Delilah, but it never turns out well for her in the end. Oh well. Anyway, it was a fun night all around and an awesome birthday treat.

Video from the event. The sound was pretty amazing (especially if you like opera being blasted from big speakers, which I do):



Panoramic view from the stands:

More crime in our neighborhood

The San Francisco Chronicle reported today that there was a rash of shootings and stabbings in SF this weekend, and one shooting was near the gay Safeway where Discipulus Legis and I prefer to do our grocery shopping. This city is WAY too tolerant of crime; it coddles the people who are likely to commit it and does nothing to prevent the conditions that cause it. What exactly does the SFPD do to earn their paychecks? Why doesn't city government do anything about it either? Oh yeah, because the people who run this city are a bunch of bleeding-heart, liberal do-nothings. The Summer of Love ended more than three decades ago. It's time that the city grew up and started tackling some of its problems.

I can has glass coffee table?

Usually, I'm not a fan of glass coffee tables, but this picture makes me want one bad.

Alicia Silverstone is awesome

Alicia Silverstone is appearing in a new ad campaign for PETA. Kudos to her and PETA for making a splashy stand for animals. See video below.

As an aside, I first read about this over at AfterEllen.com. The comments of the non-vegetarians on the blog were ridiculous. Exercises in self-delusion and rationalization. If you profess a love for dogs and/or cats but still eat meat, you are a hypocrite. Period. If you are a hypocrite in this manner, then don't try to explain it away. If you are uncomfortable being a hypocrite, stop eating meat or start eating dogs and cats in addition to the cows, pigs, and chickens you probably already consume. There is no difference between them.

The author of the blog post said she was of the "Meat is murder--tasty, tasty murder" school, which again seems ridiculous to me. If you believe killing animals for food is murder but eat meat anyway, you are selfish and self-absorbed. In addition to the fat, gristle, artificial hormones and other chemicals that are in every bite of dead flesh you put into your mouth, there is a lot of misery and suffering contained in that bit of muscle as well. I don't understand how a person's momentary culinary pleasure is worth more than the pain and fear of another sentient creature. Again, people of this school, kill and eat your dog because there is no tasty, tasty difference.


Anyway, the video:

PROOF that Sylvia Browne is a crackpot

Another day, another episode of Montel Williams. Sylvia Browne is on again and now I have proof that she has no idea what she's talking about. During the course of Sylvia shows, audience members pepper her with questions about their lives. One young woman stood up and asked Sylvia if she should attend graduate school. Sylvia said yes, and the woman asked in which subject she should get her degree. Sylvia simply said "writing." There. Proof that Sylvia is a crazy lady. No one should get a degree, let alone a Masters, in writing.

Why is it so hard to complain in SF?

Today I accompanied Discipulus Legis on a trip to her school on MUNI Bus #5. The driver pulled over a few feet from the stop, let everyone off, and sped away, completely blowing by an older woman in a wheelchair waiting at the stop. Yes, the woman looked a little homeless-y, but if she had proper fare, she should be let on like anyone else, especially because the bus was almost empty and there was ample room for a wheelchair.

I thought what the bus driver did pretty much sucked, so I took note of the bus number and surfed over to the SF MUNI web site when I got home to look for the complaint line. Well, there is no complaint line. You have to call 311, which you can't call if you have cell service with T-Mobile. And besides, does anyone really believe that 311 operators are dutifully reporting MUNI complaints to the MUNI personnel office? Yeah, right.

Today's event followed an incident two weeks ago where a DeSoto cab driver tried to claim that he didn't have $8 in change after Discipulus Legis and I tried to pay for a cab ride from Union Square to our place with a $20 bill. Again, I took down the number and visited sfgov.org looking for the taxi complaint line. Again, there was none.

Why is it so hard to complain properly in this city? In NYC, if a cab driver is being a jerk, it has the driver's name, the cab ID number, and the 800 number to call for complaints right there, clearly visible in the back seat.

Anyway, to the driver of MUNI bus #5624 this morning at 10:17 a.m., I hope you find yourself disabled and waiting for the bus, and I hope MUNI drivers pass you by and leave you stranded. Payback's a bitch, isn't it?

Meh. Looking for a job sucks.

Job hunting is demoralizing. Looking at pictures of cats is remoralizing, so pictured below is my and Discipulus Legis's kitteh acting too cool for school.

"I Have Pidgitude"

What can't you find on the Internets?

Coming of age in the city, Part II: The medical examiner

Following quick on the heels of the drive-by shooting from a few days ago, this evening I saw a City of San Francisco medical examiner van pull away from the apartment building next door. Earlier this evening, as Discipulus Legis and I were returning from dinner, we saw a police car with flashing lights parked near the corner. Later, we saw a fire truck pull up and paramedic-type individuals with medical gear milling about. They didn't seem to be in a big hurry though, and I thought it was strange there was no ambulance. I guess the medical examiner van explains all that. Another interesting day at the corner of Fulton and Steiner in SF.

Cute Overload commits act of extreme uncuteness

Normally, I am a huge fan of Cute Overload, a blog that chronicles cute animals from all over the world practicing the fine art of cuteness. Today, however, CO is on my PL (poop list). The title that CO choose for the picture at right is--and I quote, though it pains me greatly to do so--"A Pigeon finally does something good!"

Um, pigeons have been doing great things for a long time, like oh, I don't know, saving lives in wars. When's the last time a kitten did that?

In any case, in spite of CO's vulgar defamation, the story of the pigeon and the baby macaque is quite adorable. Read about it here.

Rest in peace, Alex the parrot

I have a soft spot for parrots (having taken care of one--or should I say, having been bossed around by one--for several years) so it made me sad to read that Alex, an African Gray parrot who was used in language research, was found dead on Monday at the age of 31. Dr. Irene Pepperberg bought Alex at a pet store and taught him how to count and identify different objects by color and size. Scientific American did a neat video segment on Alex a few years ago, but if you don't have Real player and refuse to download Windows Media Player (wise choice), here's an embeddable video of Alex from YouTube:





Poor little guy.

Daytime TV rots your brain

Seeing as how I am currently unemployed, I have the opportunity to watch a lot of daytime TV. Maury (trashy, yet not fake like Jerry) is my favorite secret guilty pleasure, followed by Montel (trashy, but with a veneer of respectability--except when Sylvia Browne is on), then the divorce court shows, and then the small claims court shows (not trashy enough with too much fake outrage from the "judges").

Anyway, the longer I go without working the more I find myself being drawn into the "career college" commercials they play continuously throughout the day. Maybe I would make a pretty darn good mechanic. Become a massage therapist? Hey, why not. It seems lucrative. Dental assisting? Seems more rewarding than being a freelance writer (which is like pulling teeth, but like pulling your own teeth... without Novacaine). What I truly wonder is if it's really as easy as the commercials make it out to be. Do these places really have lifetime job placement assistance? If they do, does it work? And, more importantly, why does "career services" at NYU's journalism department seem to consist of a few crappy web pages with broken links?

A masterpiece

Discipulus Legis bought me this from Urban Outfitters today. It's a small art piece by a woman named Kate Sutton. Buy yours today before they are sold out!

Coming of age in the city: My first drive-by

At about 9:40 yesterday morning there was a drive-by shooting almost directly in front of my apartment building. I heard two very loud pops (gunshots don't sound like they do in the movies) and rushed to my open window to see what the heck was going on. There was some shouting followed by more shots in very quick succession. The San Francisco Chronicle's reporting on the incident seems pretty inaccurate. The victim that was shot did not run down Steiner to Grove Street. He was dropped right on the corner of Fulton and Steiner, as the fuzzy picture I took with my cell phone camera shows. The ambulance is on the corner, and the crowd that's gathered there is watching the paramedics put the guy on a board and put him in the ambulance.



For some reason, the focus of the SF Chronicle article is on SF Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and how he supposedly swooped in from Grove Street and helped apprehend the suspects. (A post over at SFist.com goes ga-ga for this Mirkarimi-as-hero thing too). The claim seems pretty random to me, again since the incident did NOT occur on Grove Street. There were numerous people standing on the corner of Fulton and Steiner, including the people going in and out of Alamo Square Park (there are stairs leading up to the park on that corner), and plenty of witnesses who had a much better view than Mirkarimi (if he was jogging on Grove as claimed). Those people, who were truly in the crossfire zone and got a good look at everything that went on, are the true heroes of the story.

Anyway, it was a scary incident, and in all my years of urban living in a few different major cities, I've never experienced anything like it. The SFPD should have uniformed officers ALL OVER the streets in the Western Addition/Tenderloin areas. Say what you will about Giuliani, but his "broken windows" theory of policing works.

Here are more pictures:


Police cars on Fulton Street.


Always nice to see "POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS" on your sidewalk.


Cops process the suspects' vehicle on Fulton.


Cops on Fulton. I wonder if there are an equal number of cops on Grove Street... where nothing happened.


Cops rope off Fulton at Steiner.