A Complaint

I have noticed that my fellow countrymen enjoy complaining a lot. It is very annoying.

Don't get me wrong, complaints have a definite place in an organised society. They help to highlight inadequacies which need to be rectified. As they are a form of feedback, they aid in the optimisation of various processes. Complaints are useful things.

My complaint concerns empty complaints (what my father would refer to as "coffeeshop plotting"). This is when people sit around in groups and make mass complaints about various things which regulatory or legislative bodies are allegedly responsible for, and follow up with sweeping statements as to what needs to be rectified, without consideration as to how these rectifications may be viably carried out. The implication is that someone else should take care of the matter.

You know what? This is lazy. This is irresponsible. If you complain without taking any practical action, you are just being self-indulgent. And if it is a matter which is so minor that no practical action is needed, or that no further action is needed because practical actions are already in motion, maybe you shouldn't be complaining.

We have a nice thing going on in this country. How about stepping up ourselves to correct all the things that need correcting, and appreciating the things that don't?

Blue Airport

(This was originally written in the departure lounge of Tullamarine Airport.)

Airports. Are. Boring.

I’ve been down to the liquor stores, and the cafés, and the speciality shops with the strange chocolates and cosmetics. There’s only so much shopping you can do before you never want to see another duty-free store again.

Also, bookstores. Normally I love bookstores – I spent an hour at one the other day – but the airport ones seem to carry books I would never want to read, for one reason or another. (Twilight graphic novel? Really?)

I’m sitting in the departure lounge right now, my aeroplane sitting in the sun a bare twenty metres away, me in air-conditioned, soft-carpeted comfort, and I am bored.

Think of how the aeroplane must feel.

It's Midnight, That's My Excuse

I have a Singapore flag on my desk. No one else I know has one on their desk, where they can see it every day and whenever their eyes shift off the computer screen for a second.

It occurs to me that I'm patriotic to a country I'm not even a citizen of.

Is that why my blood boils when I see someone with a pink IC complain, or downright smear mud on the name of their own country? They are recognised, officially, as a citizen. And yet they act as if they would carelessly throw that away. Maybe they would!

Throw it my way, won't you? I want it.

Can't Make Up Its Mind

Melbourne weather, what the heck.

(9:00 pm and the sun hasn't set yet, what kind of country am I in?)

Whippersnappers

The Fillet-O-Fish is a main-menu item with neither "Mc" nor "burger" in its name, which strikes me as anomalous.

I was in my neighbourhood Macca's the other day (according to the average Aussie, "Mickey D's" sounds dumb and they are right), and lady at the next counter got her three young children to give their own orders to the cashier. It was all very adorable until the eldest girl - she can't have been older than fourteen - asked for a chai latte, and then her mother corrected her and ordered three chai lattes, one for each of her children.

I...children are drinking caffeinated beverages with Italian names now? In public, as opposed to stealing a sip from their father's mug while their mother was looking the other way? Was it always like this, and I simply never noticed?

Why does my supervisor's five-year-old daughter have her very own mobile phone?

MENTAL BREAKDOWNNNN!!!

The Second Sure Thing

The two sure things in life are death (ha!) and taxes. I'm dealing with the second.

Why is lodging a tax return so complicated? Doesn't the government want its money?

Why do I have to lodge a tax return for two dollars worth of taxes?!

Bee Invasion!

Holy crap, there's like 50 bees in my bathroom right now. (I'm not exaggerating - if I was, I'd say there were a million of them.) The maintenance people are in there right now, fighting them with a bottle of insect spray. Meanwhile, I'm hiding in my room. Call me a coward if you like but - bees, dammit!

Okay, bees are now gone. As in, dead. Their creepy lifeless carcasses are still littered all over the bathroom. According to maintenance, the earliest we can get them cleared is tomorrow.

I just - urgh! How am I supposed to take a shower? Those - things - are all over the place!

(Fun fact - I almost left my room window open before I left for work. If I had, my room would have been full of bees as well. Does not bear thinking about.)

Singles' Grumbling Day

I forgot about it. I also forgot about Discount Chocolate Day.

I did, however, find a recipe for chocolate-dipped fudge brownies. Yes. This is a thing which must be made, and subsequently eaten.

Homestuck is rocking so hard on two fronts. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly reference rocks almost as much as that sweet Bro versus Jack image which is right now lending some of its awesome to my desktop. Oh, and the music. THE MUSIC. I can't stop listening to it!

So anyway. Why did they take Pattern Fills out of PowerPoint 2007? And when they put it back in PowerPoint 2010, why did they take away the ability to adjust their transparency?
It's going to take a while to get used to this program.

Stove Rules

I have a few rules for dealing with the kitchen stove, to make sure that I never set the house on fire, burn my housemates, etc. The rules are as follows:

1. If leaving the house for any reason and for any expected duration, both stove and oven must be turned off. No exceptions.
2. When cooking anything on the stove, I must remain in the kitchen at all times. This applies even if the power is off, as the stove is electric and retains heat for some time.
3. Boiling milk must be watched with especial caution.
4. If baking something in the oven, I must set a timer if I want to leave the kitchen. The oven light should also be turned on as a warning to others that it is hot. Leaving the house is not permitted.
5. The heat on the stove should be set to the minimal level required (generally not more than medium heat). 

I've found that, with these personal rules in place, I've never had anything worse than the pot of spaghetti spilling over and hissing, and since I was always within earshot I could take care of it immediately.

What brought this on? Well, this morning, I found a kettle on the stove, with the heat up. The transparent lid of the kettle had no condensation; suspicious, I lifted the lid to check.

Bone dry.

This is, in fact, how many kitchen fires happen. The presence of water keeps the temperature of the pot at 100 degrees C, since at any higher temperature the water undergoes a change of state to steam, dissipating the latent heat. Once the water is all gone, the pot is able to reach a higher temperature, until some part of it, or even some leftover food residue, reaches its ignition temperature. 

Of course, it might not ignite at all. It might just sit there for hours getting hotter and hotter, until someone decides to touch the handle. Either way, it isn't safe.

I turned off the stove, of course, and warned my housemate as to what happened. She was very apologetic, and explained that she is quite forgetful over such matters. I left it at that.

This afternoon, I went to the kitchen and found the same kettle, steaming away unattended on the stove. There was at least some water inside, but it was only up to an inch in depth and rapidly diminishing. It was quite clear that this was what had happened the first time, only I caught it at an earlier stage.

This isn't the worst I've seen. A few years back, I was living with some different housemates, all boys. Sometimes I'd wake up early in the morning and find a very warm pot on the stove, empty and clearly left there from the previous night, the temperature control turned up to the highest heat level.

Do these people... not have any sense of safety? Have they done this a million times without consequence? Does the prospect of a fiery demise simply not bother them? Does the prospect of massive property damage and killing goodness-knows-how-many-others living in nearby apartments simply not bother them?

There was an article recently on BBC News, about car-manufacturing companies which were confident that they would be able to built a completely accident-proof vehicle someday. When I saw that article - when I had only gotten as far as the title - I laughed.

Nothing will be completely safe so long as irresponsibility exists in this world.

Payment or Else

I received a rather threatening invoice this afternoon informing me, in 26-point red Arial Black lettering, that this was my "final notice" to pay for my impromptu ambulance ride and that "payment of this outstanding amount" was "required immediately". Failure to do so, the sheet of paper informed me, would result in my "debt" being forwarded to their "collection agent" for "action". By the tone of the notice, there could be no doubt that "collection agent" was an euphemism for "hired mercenary" and that "action" would involve some manner of explosive.

This did not stop me from being pissed off that this so-called final notice was in fact the first I had heard of the matter.

I suppose I will yet again have to deal with other people's messes. Sometimes I hate my life with a passion that borders on tangible.

Spambox

Checked my hotmail account to see what's happening in there. Lots of spam, it seems, including the tell-tale emails from contacts who never email me, and which are obviously sent by viruses.

Geez, guys, get an anti-virus or something.

Sometimes I feel like ditching my hotmail account. All the important people know my Gmail, Yahoo or university accounts anyway.

Roommate Chicken

In spite of sounding disturbingly like a recipe, "roommate chicken" is defined by Urban Dictionary as a situation where "a group of people sharing a living space each avoid doing a household chore for an extended period because each believes it's someone else's responsibility. The idea is that eventually the situation will reach a critical mass where the guilty party will cave in and do the chore." Urban Dictionary goes on to add that "in practice, the situation can escalate to extreme levels."

Ha ha ha. How many of us in shared houses haven't been there? I especially love it when someone happens to have a major essay or lab report to submit and feels that they are entitled to skip their duty for that week. Usually, further examination reveals that all of the housemates have some sort of major deadline due that week, and are all of the equal conviction that their deadline is of higher priority than everyone else's.

Take-home message: no deadline is a good excuse. Especially if you had a week to work on it but only started within the last remaining 24 hours. The dishes aren't going to clean themselves no matter how long you leave them in the sink, nor will the residual bacteria gain sentience, realise the shame of their existence and mop up their home for you.

Additionally, roommate chicken probably isn't limited to shared house situations. I've noticed in a variety of situations, that when a shared item runs low, most people prefer to survive without it rather than replace the item, even if the act of replacement is straightforward.

The worst part is perhaps that the one who finally caves in and rectifies the situation is usually the most responsible person, i.e. not the one who was shirking their duty in the first place.

Human nature, I suppose.

Red Tape is Fun

"What about "Red tape holds the nation together"?"

- Bernard Woolley

If you're planning on applying for a student visa to study overseas, take my advice and GET AN AGENT. On one hand, you might get a lousy agent who conveniently tells you to take the IELTS test a month too late for you to actually take it on time. On the other hand, said agent is paid to circumnavigate red tape and make aggressive phone calls to the embassy. The exchange is worth it, trust me. Furthermore, you don't have to pay anything beyond the standard visa application fee - the embassy pays the agent directly.

However, if you choose to handle the matter yourself, be prepared to send an inquiring email to your case officer:

Dear [WITHELD],
I took a medical examination last year for the renewal of my previous visa, less than twelve months ago. Shall I go for another medical test now, or are my previous results still valid for my current application?
Regards, etc

And get a reply like this, two days later:

Medical report is valid for only 1 year.
[automatically generated signature]

Expect officers to ask for copies of your passport even though NOWHERE in their document checklists did they mention such a thing was required. If an officer promises that a call will be made to you to advise you of the next action to take, no call will be made. Ever. No calls can be made into the embassy either, as the telephone line is carefully protected by a minefield of automated responses.

But if you really want some fun? Fill in the wrong form.

And then offer to pay the application fee with someone else's credit card.

On Internet Opinions

Let's start from a corner here. Reviews. I use the term defined as an evaluation of some sort of publicly-available material or performance, such as a book, movie or audio compilation. Back before the Internet turned into a superhighway, these would have been available chiefly in print form, in newspapers, magazines and journals. While these circulars would have had an audience, even a large one, it certainly would not be at a level comparable to that of online reviews today.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Reviews. They are, if you think about it, a rather presumptuous means of communicating an opinion. While an evaluation of a creative work can be relatively objective - "This movie earned $60 million on its opening weekend" - reviews tend to include an opinion to mesh the evaluation together - "This movie is excellent." Or several opinions, if the review goes into more detail. However, in spite of being a collection of opinions, reviews also include a instruction, either implicit or explicit - "Therefore, you should go watch this movie" - they have to, otherwise there would be no point in writing the review in the first place. In other words, I say reviews are presumptuous because not only do they state the opinion of the writer, the reader is expected to agree with the recommendation of the reviewer.

This is not necessarily true, of course. Since the review is made up of opinions, it is perfectly acceptable that there would be people who disagree with it, perhaps even strongly enough to communicate this to the reviewer. For a review published in print however, it is possible that the reviewer would know their audience well enough to anticipate their reactions to the creative work. It is also possible, especially when communications were more limited, that readers would have been more willing to accept a single review of a work and take that as the truth, instead of buying more magazines and newspapers to see what other reviewers thought of it, or even going to look at the creative work to judge for themselves. Thus it would appear, in the era before the Internet, that dissent towards a reviewer's opinion would, while present, have been limited in most cases.

You see where I am going with this. The Internet. Oh, the Internet.

The Internet revolutionised communications - not only did it enable people from opposite sides of the globe to talk to each other, it enabled them to do so rapidly, in real time even. Suddenly, people with niche interests could find other people with the same interests. Communities based off the smallest, quirkiest things were able to take off. And with the ease and anonymity of communication over the Internet, suddenly far more opinions would have been available to a wider audience.

Reviews, of course, found their place on the Internet. But now it wasn't just reviewers who got paid for their work - someone typing a review out of their bedroom could potentially gain an audience of millions. And someone looking for a review for a particular work would be able to find hundreds for all but the most obscure of productions.

In spite of being available on an entirely new medium, reviews haven't changed in form very much. They are still collections of opinions, sometimes with a logical, reasonable basis and sometimes just pure personal judgement. They still contain that implicit instruction - "If I say it is good it is good and you should go look at it, but if I say it is bad you should not, otherwise you have wasted your time reading this review."

However, since the audience for any given review on the Internet is potentially massive, and would consist of people with wildly varying opinions of their own, the possibility of a clash is not just incredibly large, it is a certainty. Think about it. Reviews consist of opinions. They are written in such a way that you, the reader, are expected to agree with them, at least partially. They can be written by practically anyone and about any creative work including video games, webcomics and fanfiction. And since this is the Internet, almost anyone from any background can access them.

Look up the reviews for any movie or book. No matter how incredibly good or bad it seems, there will always be those who consider it the exact opposite. Furthermore, they are entirely sure that they are correct, that you are an idiot if you disagree with them, and they are willing to use profanity or threaten to kill you if that's what it takes to convince you. Indeed, it appears to be standard now to be arrogant and rude when defending one's views over the Internet. A by-product of anonymity and a lack of accountability, perhaps?

Whatever the reason, it leads to often brutal arguments wherever such arguments can feasibly occur, be it tagboards, comment boxes or forum threads. Bad arguments lead to flame wars which may even spill beyond words and into downright malicious behaviour. Clearly, opinions deeply matter to people, certainly enough to induce violence against other people from an entirely different part of the world whom they'd never meet in person.

All of this brings me to freedom of expression.

I was reading a review of a webcomic which the reviewer considered to be atrocious beyond belief. For that matter, I considered it atrocious beyond belief, and completely irredeemable. It seemed impossible that anyone could defend it. Indeed, most of the comments on that article were some variation of disbelief that the webcomic creator had not been struck down by lightning for his crimes. And then there was one comment which defended the webcomic creator's right to freedom of expression, even if most would find that expression repulsive. Said commentator was immediately shot down for disagreeing with common opinion.

As you can see, it got me thinking.

Because reviews have that implication that the reader should agree with them. Because reviews act as an instruction, to tell someone whether they should or shouldn't sample a particular creative work. But reviews are, at the end of the day, opinions. And they are never representative of everyone's opinion. No matter how bad a book or webcomic or video game might be, there is probably someone, somewhere, who would enjoy it.

But what if the review includes critique intended for the creator of the work? It's the same thing. This time the instruction is to the creator, whether they should change what they are doing or simply keep it up. Again, it is still an opinion. And even if a hundred readers tell a webcomic author that they are terrible, there are probably at least another hundred who enjoy the webcomic thoroughly. Does this give either group of a hundred the right to think that the other group consists of idiots? Certainly not. Does this give the webcomic author the right to consider either group idiots? Certainly not, not that it's going to stop them. Should the author break down weeping at the fact that a hundred people think they are terrible? Well they could, or they could continue pandering to the other hundred people who actually like them. Their choice. It is the right of the author of the work to choose what they do with their art, especially on the Internet where there are few to no laws limiting the expression of such art. Should the hundred people who consider the author an idiot, act in a disdainful manner if said author does not alter the work to suit them? They could do that, but it would make them ridiculous for even expecting the author to accede to their demands in the first place.

I suppose what I'm saying here is that it is certainly alright to express opinions of creative works on the Internet. It is definitely acceptable to write reviews and explain in detail why something is good or bad. And there is no crime inherent in reading such opinions or reviews and either agreeing or disagreeing with them.

But calling someone an idiot (or worse) because they don't agree with you? Demanding that a particular work be taken off the Internet just because you and your friends find it offensive? Threatening other people for having an opinion which just happens not to be the one you possess? That is not fair at all.

I'm afraid the tired old "don't like, don't read" directive appears to be the best approach. Yes, one may find something horribly offensive. The fact that it exists in a location where others of a similar opinion may run into it and, in turn, be offended in themselves, may irk someone beyond belief. But really, all they can do is avoid it and the people who like that sort of thing, and perhaps write a review to warn others about this abomination to their principles. However, in the interests of fairness, if someone else describes a favourite work as an abomination to their principles, one has to be able accept it too.

Unless of course, one manages to become Supreme Overload of the Internet, in which case one may do as one pleases. And, uh, disregard this post. Er, Mighty Overlord. Sir.

Please don't put me in the Internet Dungeon.

A Letter

Dear housemate,

I understand that you have previously led a sheltered life in which you apparently were under no requirement to take care of yourself in any way. I understand that this is a new country and perhaps you are still disoriented. I understand that some things which seem obvious to the rest of us may be utterly incomprehensible to you. Nevertheless, when I examine the household recycling bin, which I had taken the precaution to label on its lid in a large font exactly what is permitted to be entered into it and what is not, and when I find within this same bin the following items:

• Used tissue
• Teabags
• Instant noodle wrappers
• Cheese wrappers
• Eggshells
• Egg yolk
• Parcel packaging indicating your full name and address
• Bank letters indicating your full name, address and account number

When I find these same items within a bin reserved for recycling, I am forced to conclude that you are severely lacking in common sense, and are perhaps illiterate as well. I would argue that you are also deficient in a sense of responsibility, a postulate reinforced by the mess left on the toilet floor as a result of your faulty aim, and which you apparently do not feel the necessity to clean up. I would propose to hold a grudge against you for such behaviour, or plan some form of humiliating revenge, except that it is clear to me that your carelessness will bring you much grief at some point in the future when you should reside amongst less tolerant and honest persons. Therefore I will continue to delve into the recycling bin, tear up your sensitive mail and scrub the floor with Dettol, knowing that there is no greater punishment than what your own stupidity will eventually inflict upon you.

I remain, with regards,
Your housemate.

Ants

About a million of them, to be precise, cutting a thick path from under the front door all the way to the dustbin, where apparently some banana peel interested them. Eradication involved large amounts of water and soap, complete rinsing of the dustbin and removal of the offending trash to the garbage centre.

It seems that the hot weather is driving the ants to seek food indoors (yet another reason why I can't wait for winter). I might probably have to draw lines of baby powder, coffee, vinegar or peppermint oil, and see what keeps them out. Worse come to worst, I could always keep the dustbin standing in a basin of water. I hate having to kill them. Besides having to commit mass-murder, the corpses are annoying to clean up.

Now spiders I can live with. Come to my house, spiders. I have some ants for you.

Obligations

I'm coughing and sore all over. My forehead, while not burning, is warmer than it should be (funny, my forehead's never been cold before... Maybe that only happens in death). The last thing I want to do is go grocery shopping.

And yet I have to, because I'm the only one capable of hauling back 3 kg of milk and a kilo of rice and another kilo of meat and all the other things which need buying.

Life does its best to suck sometimes.

And Coming in at Number 75...

Or, Update XIII. Because 13 is unlucky and stuff.

So... Feeling a lot better now. Part of blogging is for catharsis, and writing about things tends to put them in order.

I was thinking about evil twins, and I've come to the conclusion that they would do better if the whole Spot the Imposter thing was skipped. I mean, come on. It is always painfully obvious who the evil one is, even if it doesn't sport a goatee. Because, you know, evil twins are supposed to be, I don't know, evil? And then the audience has to watch everyone else bungle around trying to figure out who the imposter is, when anyone with the slightest bit of sense would have spotted them from the outset.

No, better to skip all that and go straight to the real reason evil twins are a threat: they usually have similar skills to the good guy, so all the old favourite tricks don't work. The good guy has to really think about how the evil twin should be defeated. And that makes for a great story. This is probably the reason why KARR is such a great evil twin. (Well, that, and the fact that KARR is so deliciously devious and yet endearingly naïve.)

So... If you ever set up an evil twin story, please, please skip that hey-who's-the-real-hero routine. It's lame. Really.

Okay, so... You know the game, Minesweeper? Pretty much every modern Windows machine has a copy of the game. It stands up there with Solitaire as one of the most stereotypically common games ever.
Fanfiction.net has a section for Minesweeper.
They were right. The Internet really does have everything.
...There's a Minesweeper movie trailer too.

While browsing deviantART the other day, I came across this.
SO COMPLETELY TRUE. Even when I watched the film at the tender age of five, I thought the Beast was way handsomer than that man-person he turns into at the end. I guess even then I was tired of the prettyboy-prince-who-always-gets-the-girl stereotype, and was gratified to see a more imperfect character find happiness. And was subsequently annoyed when this original twist was ruined by reverting to the same old boring stereotype at the end.

Besides, the Beast had a nice deep voice, while the Prince... ugh.

In real-life news, Halloween was fairly fun. No one in my class dressed up, but we had a candy party. One classmate ate half a box of Gobstoppers without realising it. Though that may have been partially due to the very frustrating piece of software we had to deal with that day. (Seriously, if you are going to work freeware into a lesson, make sure it is easily downloadable and compatible with common operating systems first.)
...Squeee!

One more thing. It's Guy Fawkes Day.

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Try not to set fire to anything.

Forms, Forms, Forms

For those still not in the know, I'm winging off to Australia in late February to complete my university education. And you know what that means?

FORMS.

Course applications. Housing applications. Tuition grant deferment applications. Visa applications. Application applications. Address, full name, various telephone numbers ten times over. The fields I'm never sure how to answer. The fields I can't answer because I lack the necessary information. And I'm supposed to believe that some day, somehow, all these forms will be complete?

That's a lot of faith there.

I wish I had the ability to fast-forward past these weeks of anxiety to the point of time when everything will be nicely wrapped up. Then again, if I were cheating I might as well fast-forward to when I'm dead. There isn't much point to life if you don't live it.

Anyway! School restarted yesterday, with the same class as last semester. I was hoping we'd finally get a classroom with windows facing outside... no such luck. The only advantage, as far as I can see, is that we have a clear view of the lift lobby, and can keep tabs on everyone arriving at our floor.

Speaking of lifts, the lift logic in this block is worse than ever. I'm on the sixth floor, and all lifts already at the seventh or fifth floors refuse to respond. It's always the first-floor lifts which take the call. Always.

Stupid lifts.

But our classroom is otherwise quite nice - it's a new room, opened up only this semester for our use. Thus the carpet is pristine, the walls are pure white and the chair cushions are springy. Also, they lack curry stains. And... other stains. Um, right.

The best news, though, has to be that the last experiment for my Final Year Project is scheduled for tomorrow. Once that's done there'll be one whole ton of stress off my shoulders. Ahh, freedom. I can almost taste it.

...Enough of that. For now, a roundup of some of the more interesting recent webcomic updates:

• In Something Positive, Davan once again proves he's the master of the witty comeback.
• Sluggy Freelance gets out of draggy mode with a plot twist. (Phase 2? Perhaps!) Also, Riff's shoulder angels continue to amuse, even while highlighting that a notion of right or wrong depends on perspective.
• Exterminatus Now is, for the first time, serious.
  And it's still funny.
• The latest Lil Formers strip makes me wonder what sort of person would want to lick a robot in the first place. Do they even have a flavour?
• In No Need for Bushido, Yori shows that he can be competent, not just by hurting Ryoku but also by successfully applying Cho's advice. Good on him!

And finally, a random fact of the day: I dislike bananas, but love banana cake.

Till next time.

Update X: Ten, I'm Telling You!

Been too long, eh?

1) I absolutely hate critics who don't know what they are talking about.

2) Turns out that knowing how to do something and actually doing it are two entirely different things.

3) Some people never understand instructions unless they are pasted in a visible place in 72-point font and incorporate generous amounts of profanity in the sentence structure.

4) Scaring people is easier when they aren't paying attention.

5) The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley. Especially when they depend on the cooperation of other mice and men (see #3).

6) BZP's forums have been down for over a week now. I hope it doesn't last.

7) The current Sluggy arc ends with a difficult choice and a generous dose of ion cannon.

8) Pirate is in a dilemma.

9) The Gmail crew pulls more funny stuff. I thought this was one of the better submissions, and this one's wonderfully animated. Also, Lego!
This one is just cute.

10) I hate shoes which are not sneakers. Actually, I pretty much hate any shoe which has a bad effect on my feet.
I refuse to endure damage to my feet for the sake of aethetics.

11) This post had a lot of junk code, so I HTML'd it to death.

12) I'm Ratchet, apparently.

And my cursor is acting up. I'm off.