AVI supports the blank noise project people.
http://blanknoiseproject.blogspot.com/
Friday, December 22, 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
news...
At last as fiat and tatas have formed a JV I believe the tata cars will sport a better engine than the truck engines they have right now. ( no offense meant but thats a fact..)
Did you know that the state bird of Maharashtra is the green pigeon??
or that Nagpur and the surrounding areas have almost 7-8 places of interest for the wild life lovers..
In view of the current controversy regarding statues... I think the security of the statues must be the responsibility of the very people who deem it necessary to have one in the first place..
Or else how about a law to remove all statues from the country...??
Did you know that the state bird of Maharashtra is the green pigeon??
or that Nagpur and the surrounding areas have almost 7-8 places of interest for the wild life lovers..
In view of the current controversy regarding statues... I think the security of the statues must be the responsibility of the very people who deem it necessary to have one in the first place..
Or else how about a law to remove all statues from the country...??
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Ain’t you greedy Billy**?
This week I had an interesting conversation with Billy… it revolved around his aspirations; how he wanted to pursue further studies in Engineering, how he liked quantum mechanics and non-linear dynamics so much, and he was wrong in trying to enter the IIMs through the CAT… he felt that doing so was to indulge in greediness and that the end result of a high profile MBA would be piles of money.
Well as much as I would like myself to believe that Billy’s aim in life was to indulge in technological game play and invent something that would be a life saver for human kind… my mind wasn’t able to comprehend his so called philanthropic version of leading a life. I mean thinking of dedicating your life for the good of society is not a bad thought at all… but is it really so easy to defeat all your desires and is it as easy to throw yourself above that harbinger of industry, that feeling that makes you aspire for another man’s butter, that base instinct that makes you want more….
If you look at the life process and the straitjacket thinking that engulfs an average human being from youth to old age... it would involve something like this. If the young man fresh out of college is from a background that has seen a lot of poverty and squalor, his immediate aim would be to earn money, oh yeah lots of it and somehow or the other bring his family out of the hellhole that they have been residing since eons. Further down the line it would go on getting modified but the nature remains the same… the same old materialistic desires
A roof to cover your head, a decent life for your parents and one for your own…. (They need not be the same; read vinay’s post on the same), further getting materialized into a new house, a car, a this and a that; a cycle which would go on and on within itself….
What starts as a simple wish of seeing your loved ones live a better life (and this I agree is a fundamental one and a person who does not have this is not fit to live in this society) degenerates into something much more potent and fallible: greed.
My argument that day in our conversation was that human being by nature is greedy (you call it by any other name, the song remains the same:)) and what varies is only the target of his greed. Consider the example of a business tycoon, a member of the Forbes Power List, who decides that he has had enough of all the money and good will that he has earned/ inherited and so is going to start a new venture… Is he doing it because he wants to further his business interest and increase his bank balance? Or is he doing it because he feels that this venture would offer employment to hundreds and thousands of individuals and would help them endear themselves to their individual greed? I mean is the guy really philanthropic after all… if he were, is starting a new venture really necessary? Couldn’t he have doled out the money to those individuals himself (as loans of course people)? Or is it because, as Billy said again, he is so very adventurous that he doesn’t mind playing such a high stakes game with a few billions of his money (not only his, of course…) and just the thrill of accomplishing a gargantuan feat? Or is it simply because Mr. Moneybags wants to that just a wee bit of extra pocket money and that dinner with on the plush yacht on the Riviera with the swish set…
So what is it if not materialistic desires (a milder way of putting greed to the champions of humanity…) that drives the world and its entire baggage … May it be societal, economic, political, geo-political, socio-economic etc.
I am not to say that materialism is wrong for that would mean we have been barking up the wrong tree since the inception of humanity and without it there would possibly be no reason for economics as a subject and consumerism as a byword to exist; but pray tell me, does a real philanthropist (the like of whom Billy claims himself to be) exist??
** Name changed to protect the subject’s identity :))
P.S. Take hope from the heart of man, and you make him a beast of prey.
Well as much as I would like myself to believe that Billy’s aim in life was to indulge in technological game play and invent something that would be a life saver for human kind… my mind wasn’t able to comprehend his so called philanthropic version of leading a life. I mean thinking of dedicating your life for the good of society is not a bad thought at all… but is it really so easy to defeat all your desires and is it as easy to throw yourself above that harbinger of industry, that feeling that makes you aspire for another man’s butter, that base instinct that makes you want more….
If you look at the life process and the straitjacket thinking that engulfs an average human being from youth to old age... it would involve something like this. If the young man fresh out of college is from a background that has seen a lot of poverty and squalor, his immediate aim would be to earn money, oh yeah lots of it and somehow or the other bring his family out of the hellhole that they have been residing since eons. Further down the line it would go on getting modified but the nature remains the same… the same old materialistic desires
A roof to cover your head, a decent life for your parents and one for your own…. (They need not be the same; read vinay’s post on the same), further getting materialized into a new house, a car, a this and a that; a cycle which would go on and on within itself….
What starts as a simple wish of seeing your loved ones live a better life (and this I agree is a fundamental one and a person who does not have this is not fit to live in this society) degenerates into something much more potent and fallible: greed.
My argument that day in our conversation was that human being by nature is greedy (you call it by any other name, the song remains the same:)) and what varies is only the target of his greed. Consider the example of a business tycoon, a member of the Forbes Power List, who decides that he has had enough of all the money and good will that he has earned/ inherited and so is going to start a new venture… Is he doing it because he wants to further his business interest and increase his bank balance? Or is he doing it because he feels that this venture would offer employment to hundreds and thousands of individuals and would help them endear themselves to their individual greed? I mean is the guy really philanthropic after all… if he were, is starting a new venture really necessary? Couldn’t he have doled out the money to those individuals himself (as loans of course people)? Or is it because, as Billy said again, he is so very adventurous that he doesn’t mind playing such a high stakes game with a few billions of his money (not only his, of course…) and just the thrill of accomplishing a gargantuan feat? Or is it simply because Mr. Moneybags wants to that just a wee bit of extra pocket money and that dinner with on the plush yacht on the Riviera with the swish set…
So what is it if not materialistic desires (a milder way of putting greed to the champions of humanity…) that drives the world and its entire baggage … May it be societal, economic, political, geo-political, socio-economic etc.
I am not to say that materialism is wrong for that would mean we have been barking up the wrong tree since the inception of humanity and without it there would possibly be no reason for economics as a subject and consumerism as a byword to exist; but pray tell me, does a real philanthropist (the like of whom Billy claims himself to be) exist??
** Name changed to protect the subject’s identity :))
P.S. Take hope from the heart of man, and you make him a beast of prey.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Friday, October 06, 2006
Serendipity... wazz dat?
Someone whom I knew well (well not any more I guess….) proclaimed this was the most beautiful word in the English language. I wonder why I never gave a damn about it… till I realized that such a word never existed in my library…I mean it must be aeons now since I chanced upon a pleasant surprise. Call it bad karma or any other but the last time I discovered anything good was when I went through my dusty CD collection and found an unheard and unseen Metallica Cunning Stunts concert video! only to discover that the second CD was corrupt. So much for good luck and all that jazz…
Consider this week’s happenings… finally after much pleading and cajoling and coaxing the Fuehrer, (my pop, who else?), agreed to upgrade our buried PC (kindly read and reflect the use of the first person plural pronoun carefully). So off we went, yours truly and his cousin, K.K., comrades in arms, to Lamington Road, the Mecca for hardware shopping. After enquiring in a dozen shops or so, we finally zeroed in on a shop and ordered for the latest config… costing more than 20grand. As luck would have it just before the guy brought a chance enquiry revealed that it did not support the hard disk that I had. Hence we had to settle for a lower config (not necessarily of a lower cost…), after much hustle and bustle we came home and screwed up all the parts. Whirrrrrrr.. started the fan on the proc…..the pc booted and soon we were screwing the BIOS et al… when the sound of the fan died out in the same fashion ( in fact a tad quicker) as it had started. That sent shivers down my spine… oh my gawd.. What if my...sorry ... 20k goes down the drain???... After much brainstorming we realized that the SMPS had failed.. so off we went to the same shop, on a Sunday that too with the skeletal services of CR… trundling through the streets of grant road which were all decked up for the Ramzan after sunset feast and we got it changed… this time having checked it well at the shop itself… but coming back realized that this was no better… in fact worse.. didn’t start at all!! See what I mean? So again I went, this time after office this time with running nose for company and got it changed, with a brand name to boot. By this time any iota of luck that I had inherited had got discharged leak an over used battery and hence the hard disk refused to boot… apparently my 160 GB hard disk has gone kaput… I had hardly used it… Now I have to go hunting for the Samsung service centre to get a replacement and also try to salvage whatever is left of my awesome collection of muzik, movies, masti ( u know what..), masala etc etc to help me left out of my mundane being.
Now you see honey, the word is not worth a place in the ‘bibliotheque’ called life coz it has simply become extinct, like a dodo, or maybe its step cousin, antipathy, be enshrined as a golden word, simply because it is a lot more common antipathy, be enshrined as a golden word, simply because it is a lot more commonplace and easy to observe.
now a days any i receive any sewuence of good news with caution and some trepidation... achaanak khuda hum par itna meherbaan kyu hoga, right?
See hun, I was right on one more count…
Seeya folks sooner, thanx for putting up with some pathetic writing skills as this will continue for one more month at least, and go back, you’ll find a coupla instances of the Prince of Serendip in the above turn of events as well. So you weren’t entirely wrong you see… no one is!!!
Consider this week’s happenings… finally after much pleading and cajoling and coaxing the Fuehrer, (my pop, who else?), agreed to upgrade our buried PC (kindly read and reflect the use of the first person plural pronoun carefully). So off we went, yours truly and his cousin, K.K., comrades in arms, to Lamington Road, the Mecca for hardware shopping. After enquiring in a dozen shops or so, we finally zeroed in on a shop and ordered for the latest config… costing more than 20grand. As luck would have it just before the guy brought a chance enquiry revealed that it did not support the hard disk that I had. Hence we had to settle for a lower config (not necessarily of a lower cost…), after much hustle and bustle we came home and screwed up all the parts. Whirrrrrrr.. started the fan on the proc…..the pc booted and soon we were screwing the BIOS et al… when the sound of the fan died out in the same fashion ( in fact a tad quicker) as it had started. That sent shivers down my spine… oh my gawd.. What if my...sorry ... 20k goes down the drain???... After much brainstorming we realized that the SMPS had failed.. so off we went to the same shop, on a Sunday that too with the skeletal services of CR… trundling through the streets of grant road which were all decked up for the Ramzan after sunset feast and we got it changed… this time having checked it well at the shop itself… but coming back realized that this was no better… in fact worse.. didn’t start at all!! See what I mean? So again I went, this time after office this time with running nose for company and got it changed, with a brand name to boot. By this time any iota of luck that I had inherited had got discharged leak an over used battery and hence the hard disk refused to boot… apparently my 160 GB hard disk has gone kaput… I had hardly used it… Now I have to go hunting for the Samsung service centre to get a replacement and also try to salvage whatever is left of my awesome collection of muzik, movies, masti ( u know what..), masala etc etc to help me left out of my mundane being.
Now you see honey, the word is not worth a place in the ‘bibliotheque’ called life coz it has simply become extinct, like a dodo, or maybe its step cousin, antipathy, be enshrined as a golden word, simply because it is a lot more common antipathy, be enshrined as a golden word, simply because it is a lot more commonplace and easy to observe.
now a days any i receive any sewuence of good news with caution and some trepidation... achaanak khuda hum par itna meherbaan kyu hoga, right?
See hun, I was right on one more count…
Seeya folks sooner, thanx for putting up with some pathetic writing skills as this will continue for one more month at least, and go back, you’ll find a coupla instances of the Prince of Serendip in the above turn of events as well. So you weren’t entirely wrong you see… no one is!!!
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Dormant
back to the same phase...the same impending sense of dormancy, the feeling from your guts saying all is not well sans any signs of abnormality outside....the same helplessness of desperately wanting to break the shackles and doing something...and then reminding yourself there are no handcuffs per se...
its all in the mind they say...that the mind can mould mountains and crush it too...but tell me...what can mould the mind...what can season it and make it think in a particular way...the way you want it to and not go back to the past...to those moments which still tend to sap all your energy and zeal...and leave you feeling cold and uncomfortable.. wonder what it takes to leave all the present and channel your thoughts and efforts into something worthwhile..
wonder what it takes to climb out of valleys of despair and climb and cross over to the plains of hope and sunshine..where not everything is trying to put you down and out..where taking life as it comes is the norm..where living for the moment is the standard practice...
I wonder why I wonder when I wonder what a wonder...
P.S. : The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
its all in the mind they say...that the mind can mould mountains and crush it too...but tell me...what can mould the mind...what can season it and make it think in a particular way...the way you want it to and not go back to the past...to those moments which still tend to sap all your energy and zeal...and leave you feeling cold and uncomfortable.. wonder what it takes to leave all the present and channel your thoughts and efforts into something worthwhile..
wonder what it takes to climb out of valleys of despair and climb and cross over to the plains of hope and sunshine..where not everything is trying to put you down and out..where taking life as it comes is the norm..where living for the moment is the standard practice...
I wonder why I wonder when I wonder what a wonder...
P.S. : The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Hunt, Go Play!!
This weekend yours truly had a brainwave...and we the family decided to watch a movie.It is extremely diffcult to convince pa to go for a movie as the only genre of movie he will watch is Comedy and that too in tamil!.The last hindi movie he watched was MBBS and that too on our way to Goa in the Volvo. In theatre it must have been Chahchi420 (yes that antique tamil remake..starring kamal).So i finally convinced them all and we went to the movie Vettaiyadu Vilaiyadu ( Hunt, Play...word to word) ..as it was running in the nearby multiplex and we had nothing else to do.
The movie starring Padmashri Kamala haasan, jothika,Prakash raaj..and a host of new faces...including heroine#2 and the antagonists begins with a local goon who bears an uncanny resemblance to my cousin Vasanth commanding his henchmen to bring DCP Raghaavan's eyes to him ( OMG not another Gulti action thriller please....where people inevitably end up killing their arch foes to avenge the rape of their sister..( thangachhi paasam types i mean))!
Surprise surprise ..immediately comes the hero and then some histrionics follow...with the hero bashing up the goons with nonchalant ease..bringing up the credits for the movie...and in the background booms harris Jeyaraj's song...with lotsa rap...(ughh!!...blaaze..u're gonna be bashed up for introducing this trend in Indian movies...)
'Another Day in the life of a Police Officer'..thus starts the movie...The entire movie is about two psychopaths who believe they are the best doctors in the world but who cannot stand anybody who doesn't give a fu*K**g hoot to them..and so kill them (how so very simple..nai..if you don't like the current boyfriend of your ex-..just slit his throat...AMEN!!)....and how namma ooru police mama vanquishes them.
The chase hots up when the daughter of DCP of Madurai Prakashraaj's severed finger is found hanging outside their residence...the chase takes Raghavan to NewYork and in the process meets Jothika...with a healthy friendship taking roots.The movie is stylish in most parts and the actors carry out their parts with ease.Thankfully there is no overacting.
Kamal haasan gives another finely etched out performance and makes you wonder at the level of commitment that shows through the character. The SRKs and company only need to watch this one to understand how one can win over the audience with subtle acting minus all the hamming and hee-hawing. Jothika also acts ( actually..). As a mother of a child and an abused wife whose husband leaves her for another woman...( the name of the other woman is same as yours honey....if u happen to read this!!)...she actually makes u feel sorry for her.There is a certain amount of grace in their friendship and romance which is heartwarrming.Special mention is to be made of the two villains who are beliavable in their roles as demented geniuses.The way Kamal proposes marriage...both the times...is funny though effective...( wishful thinking dude!!).. There are thankfully no dandanakka danakkunakka dappangutthu songs and the cinematography is attractive..On the flipside, the background music is too loud...( sometimes it grates on your ears) and the movie could definitely do with some crisp editing as the movie sags especially close to the intermission.There are too many songs...and especially the item song..with the fuckall watever Khan...is not very pleasing..(et tu Gautham..i mean Ramya Krishnan was passable and the song thoodu varuma rocked but not this..). Also the details of the murders are gory and gross...specially the mutilated bodies...the rape scenes..the severed finger are not for the faint hearted!!
I think Kamal sports that paunch just because the role is that of a policekar ( nai..really)...but why in the darndest of dreams most jothika carry one too...aren't there any gyms in Chennai or Newark for that matter??And Harris Jeyaraj refuses to bring in new tunes..from Minnale to VV the tunes don't show much variety dude!!I wonder why everyone except the lead actors wear hair colour...i mean from the sidekick of the side thug to Jothika's sister...why this horrendous attraction??? And the Product placements start getting on your nerve..especially the hello Moto ringtone!!
All in all I would say, in these Joharesque times VV is definitely worth a watch..and the director carries the story of the honest and upright police officer from his second film Kakka Kakka with considerable ease.Except for the occassional snafu..the movie works on you and so does the music..especially 'Nilave velli velli Nilave'..Go Watch!!
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Monday, August 14, 2006
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Copy Cat!!
OK ppl...( well dee actually)..the post below has indeed been copied..... bah!! Well think about it..how could that be an original unless me was a floyd??
so with due respect to dee's combatorial skills....me goes hands up!!
so with due respect to dee's combatorial skills....me goes hands up!!
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
The lyrics of the song I lauuuuuuuuuuv the most!!
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun
And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to nought
Or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desparation is the English way
The time is gone
The song is over
Thought I'd something more to say
Home, home again I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells ...
there cannot be another Pink Floyd...ever!!
SYD; may your soul rest in peace-
Monday, August 07, 2006
Bulldozing thru 'em all...
Well taking a cue from my previous post...PPOE has just been given a new life...
And the Prince this time is none other than the quasi-original prince of Bengal...Saurav Ganguly
We have had enough of his dadagiri and come to know a lot about his proficiency in using the Internet and Email...but now suddenly the CAB and lotsa cricket players have started trying to salvage his defunct cricket career...not to mention his current string of scores in the English county league../
PPOE...pull dada's career outta the gravel and onto the Champion's Trophy...who cares if India wins or loses?? Its all in the game anyways....and we are a billion strong nation who have seen it all....so carry on Tiger...over the Palk Straits..
P.S.-The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.
Oscar Wilde
And the Prince this time is none other than the quasi-original prince of Bengal...Saurav Ganguly
We have had enough of his dadagiri and come to know a lot about his proficiency in using the Internet and Email...but now suddenly the CAB and lotsa cricket players have started trying to salvage his defunct cricket career...not to mention his current string of scores in the English county league../
PPOE...pull dada's career outta the gravel and onto the Champion's Trophy...who cares if India wins or loses?? Its all in the game anyways....and we are a billion strong nation who have seen it all....so carry on Tiger...over the Palk Straits..
P.S.-The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.
Oscar Wilde
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Of bulldozers and kings
- India's contribution to the New Oxford Dictionary this year::
PPOE- (you say point to point over Ethernet..i say ur a mad geeky goat or a software engineer..both are the same i guess!!)
Pull Prince (not the pop-rock-rap star) Over the Earth- noun. a new phenomenon observed in certain pockets in North western and northern India with its epicenter as Kurukshetra.It involves constructing(!) pits of 6~8 inches in diameter with ample provisions for ventilation, sanitation and food and sending your own child, generally of 5~8 years of age to live there for a coupla days.By the time the child gets habituated to the life in the hole...ppl outside call the local police, the 83rd Infantry Corps of the Indian National Army, the Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai fire brigade and lately even the Andaman division of the Indian Navy in the event of the pits getting filled with water during the monsoon.All the involved parties then formulate a strategy to pull the child alive...and then after lotsa top level delibrations the child escapes the torture..and apparently this enables the child to get free medication, free education and atleast a coupla lakh of rupees as pocket money...after all the psyche of the child is likely to be scarred for ever by the 5star treatment it receives Down Under..this latest craze has spawned an entire new face to the economy of these regions.
1) all temples right from Pittsburg to Patiala to Pandharpur now have special pooja and prarthana for the child's well being.
2) P.R.Y. an NGO has started a new website for the latest updates on the details of the burrowing children...u can order for special poojas at the above mentioned temples from here...and avail tax benefits under section 88C
3) All the bore-well lorries...( the ones which carry deep boring mechanisms) from the districts of Coimbatore and Ramanathapuram in Tamil Nadu have gone missing...most of them have been reported to be lined up on the Mathura-Delhi-Shimla highway where maximum remuneration is observed
4) Truckloads of sand for construction is being exported to other states from here at solid discounted rates
5) The Bill~Melinda Gates foundation has instituted scholarships to PPOE afflicted children
6) Psychiatrists all over India are having a field day....
7) The Finance Bill makes special provisions for allocation of funds to the hundreds of Raajkumars under a new scheme called Prince Salim rehabilitation scheme..the allocated amount is slightly lower than the combined outlay for Sports development and IIT~IIM annual budgets
8) Under the weight of a tremendous presentation made by yours truly our esteemed company has decided to take up LSTK projects ( lumpsum turnkey..if u don't know...) with detailed engineering to facilitate the affected ppl to get a wee bit heavier at their pockets. Am expecting a raise now for the company has decided to charge a lumpsum fee of one sixth of the profit availed as consultancy charges..
9) Last and most importantly a few English and all Hindi news channels have set up flying squads which are always on the lookout for 'San sanees' of this kind..
so folks next time the hay stack in your neighbour's farm catches fire u know whom to call...of course the Media silly!!
whoever told we Indians are not industrious??
P.S.-
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
-H.L.Mencken
( in the event some madder goat decides to sue me for this....kindly note it is pure fiction on the road to reality)
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Kill Phil!!
okay ppl (if at all someone comes across this one..)i am sorry for deserting my blog..too much work then..now am working in a pvt company and so don't have much work...mee thinks an introduction of the ppl arnd me wud help...first i'll start with my offie..my department is a small one consisting of almost entirely the darker sex....not that there aren't many in the others but wateva..and the fellowship arnd me is made up of the foll ppl...gataari ( actually quite cool), dooode( a bawa wid a gujju name..),design,guj(a perfect specimen..) and skoda.all 6 of us do ultimate lukhaagiri in offie...tryin to do sumthin useful....but ending the day downing gazzallion cups of tea, lemon tea and coffee..doode is an auto freak...and keen to give GRE and fly...good for him..as for the others they are fettered with the bond thingy to this Place....ohh!! tha very thought gives me the heebie~jeebies...well theek hai..chalta hai..will be bak!!
the above might be ultra~cliched, and ultra boring...but this is only coz sum1 has threatened me to go slow on the prose or he/she's gonna feed me to the vultures..yea i am learnin tho..and each day u can expect the blog to get worse...
p.s. Power in not when you punish the guilty..Power is when you have every justification to kill someone and you dont..Thats Power.. --Oskar Schindler
the above might be ultra~cliched, and ultra boring...but this is only coz sum1 has threatened me to go slow on the prose or he/she's gonna feed me to the vultures..yea i am learnin tho..and each day u can expect the blog to get worse...
p.s. Power in not when you punish the guilty..Power is when you have every justification to kill someone and you dont..Thats Power.. --Oskar Schindler
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