gotjenkins.com

I recently picked up an acer laptop from someone at work. The hard drive failed, and he was in the market to buy a new computer anyway, so he passed it along to me.

I just happened to have an extra 2.5″ hard drive, so I plugged it in, tracked down the recovery disc, and fired it up.

Turns out acer doesn’t give you a factory restore disc. Instead, they put the restore data on a recovery partition and have the user burn their own recovery disc.

It’s a cost cutting measure, I guess. Doesn’t sound like too evil of an idea, but as always there is a catch. What if your hard drive fails? No problem. Put in a new drive and restore from your burned recovery disc.

The thing about burned media is that consumer grade writable media is more unstable than a pressed cd or DVD. As a result, burned discs can have reliability issues when it comes to using them for backup and recovery. Needless to say, the burned recovery disc has failed, so there is no way to get the original drivers and OS reinstalled.

A quick review of acers website shows that there is a twenty four hour help desk. I fire off an email with my problem and get a relatively personalty-free answer in a few hours. This email told me two things: I was dealing with an automated help system (A ROBOT), and I could purchase a new recovery disc directly from acer.

Great! I click the link, enter the serial number, and… get an error code. I report the error code to the help desk rep who then tells me that acer is no longer able to produce my recovery disk because this is a “legacy machine” that is no longer supported. A legacy machine? Come on. This laptop is 20 months old. If it was a work machine we would still be depreciating the bastard. His (its) advice to me? Purchase a retail operating system, install it, and track down drivers for hardware on the Internet.

I don’t know about you, but I do not have extra cash lying around than I can burn on another copy of an operating system that I already own a legitimate license for. Acer should be embarassed that this is “the best [they] can do” for customers who spend a grand (or more) on a computer and accessories and need help less than two years later.

There is no way that I am the only person in this situation, which means there is likely a small but angry group of acer owners with effectively bricked units, and the way I see it there are three options:

1) shell out a bunch of money for a copy of an OS that they already own a license for,

2) switch to a free OS that they likely don’t want, or

3) get over the fact that their laptop is now a large and expensive paperweight.

None of those opitions are good ones. It’s no wonder people pirate software. I don’t know what I’ll be doing, but I can tell you with pretty solid confidence where my next laptop will NOT be coming from.

Oh, sorry – did I say “paperweight”? I meant “Legacy Paperweight”.

So the general consensus is that Miss California did not win the Miss USA competition because when asked about gay marriage by Perez Hilton, she basically said that she believes that marriage is between a man and a woman.

I’m not too concerned with who won a beauty pageant, however if that’s really the reason why she didn’t win I think it’s pretty much bullshit. There are a couple of things that need to be taken into consideration here:

1) She is a stupid kid. I say that not to insult her intelligence, but really to say that she’s probably in her late teens and hasn’t been an adult long enough to form her own opinions about anything. You learn alot about yourself in your early twenties, and that’s the first time that many people really start thinking for themselves and evaluating all of the bullshit things that they have been taught by parents, teachers, and clergymen.

2) Like it or not, every one of us has the right to have and express opinions and beliefs. While I vehemently disagree with what she said, I absolutely think it’s great that she was able to answer the question honestly. She has the right to her own opinion, even if that opinion is grossly prejudiced and sets the clock on human rights back thirty or more years.

What happened here, in my opinion, is someone not winning what is ultimately a beauty contest because of a question about opinion. It’s kind of like a priest being on that panel and asking the girls if they are catholic, and then immediately rating all the “no” girls as a 4. Except instead of a catholic priest, it is a bitter internet-ordained minister living in his mothers basement.

However, None of that is important. The really important thing here, and the thing we should all be asking ourselves and soul searching about, is this:

When did that fruitcake Perez Hilton become a significant enough part of our society that he is judging a beauty contest with Donald Trump? For Chrissakes, all the guy does is run a blog. It’s not even a good blog. He posts pictures of celebrities, and the uses microsoft paint to draw genitals on them, or write SLUT in big letters, or call them fat whores. Why do we care what he thinks at all? The self proclaimed “queen of all media” is a self important douchebag. Why are we paying attention to him?

Next year the people at Miss USA need to make some major improvements to their judge panel. Maybe those muppets from Crank Yankers are available.

Last night, Laura and I watched the Grammys, the only award show that I have any interested in. Honestly, I’m only even interested in the Grammys because of the performances and collaborations, which can range from fantastic (Foo Fighters with Chick Corea, Times Like These) to boring (Dave Matthews Band, The Space Between) to the bizarre (Katy Perry’s plastic fruit motif).

So in no particular order, here’s what I think about last night’s performances (or, at least the ones that stand out in my mind):

U2 – I’m trying hard to reserve judgment on the new album until I get a chance to give it an in depth listen, but… I just don’t like the new single. I don’t know what it is about it, but I just don’t care for it yet. Even if it grows on me, I don’t know that last night’s performance ever will. Bono wearing eye shadow? A giant screen with the lyrics as Bono sings them? It just didn’t feel like the usual awesomeness I expect from U2.

Stevie Wonder & the Jonas Brothers – This sounded OK. What I mean by that is this: If I closed my eyes and only listened to the performance, it would have been OK. I don’t know who had the idea to pair them up with Stevie Wonder, but for some reason it really irked me that every time Stevie played or sang something, one of the Jonas Brothers would shout into the mic “Take it away, Stevie!” or “Yeah, Stevie!” or some shit like that. Boys – let’s make sure we’re clear on something here: It’s Mr. Wonder to you. Also, I thought I saw something odd last night during their performance, and other folks on the internet seem to have noticed it too: The Jonas Brother playing the white guitar and occasionally singing doesn’t really play his guitar. He carries it on stage like he’s going to play it, he moves his hands up and down the frets, and he moves his right hand up and down like he’s strumming, but… not only does his guitar not make any discernible sound or noise, but his strumming hand doesn’t strum in time with the music that you do hear, and his left hand slides up and down the fretboard without making any actual chords. Maybe I’m nuts, and maybe the other people who noticed it are nuts too, but… something is not quite right there. And how come every time Stevie Wonder was on screen, these three kids had to run over there and get in the shot with him like they belonged there?

Speaking of people who didn’t really play the guitar: Kenny Chesney. Sat on a bar stool and sang while playing a 6 string guitar and his backup band performed. My first problem here is similar to what I mentioned above: His strumming/picking hand movements didn’t at all match the sounds coming from his guitar. My second problem is that Kenny played a 6 string, which was nowhere to be found in the mix. The only acoustic that could be heard in the mix was a 12 string, presumably being played by someone in his band. Musically, this was OK, I guess. Not really my genre.

Al Green, Justin Timberlake, Keith Urban, Boys II Men: Awesome, awesome, awesome. They all sounded great. I thought Al and Justin sounded great together, and Keith had a nice solo somewhere. Didn’t really notice the presence of Boys II Men, though. Were they just backup?

Coldplay & Jay-Z: Again, this was pretty neat. I’m not a huge coldplay fan, but Viva la Vida is a pretty great all around album, and this was neat performance. I didn’t know until later that there is actually a studio cut of Lost with Jay-Z on the iTunes extended version of the album.

Kid Rock: What the fuck is he still doing on TV, at the grammys, or in the spotlight in general? Rock and Roll Jesus? And that stupid song based on Werewolves of London? That’s all it takes to get on TV now?

Taylor Swift & Miley Cyrus: I had no idea that Taylor Swift could sing that well. I don’t know anything about her, but I thought her voice sounded great.

Katy Perry: Seriously? What the hell was with the fruit? I don’t really care for her single, and that performance didn’t really do anything to change my mind.

Paul McCartney/Dave Grohl: Paul is a Beatle, and sounded like a Beatle playing a Beatles song. He sounded good. Dave Grohl was a monster. He wasn’t flashy and didn’t show off, he just sat behind the kit and rocked the fuck out.

Radiohead: This kicked so much more ass than I thought it would. I was genuinely impressed at the end of their performance. The USC marching band was a pretty fantastic addition.

Neil Diamond: I like Sweet Caroline, but Neil has an old white guy singing habit that I hate: talking through the song, instead of singing. It’s not a spoken word piece, it’s a song. Quit doing the Shatner thing and sing the damn song.

Mayer/BB King/Buddy Guy/Keith Urban: Quite the consortium of guitars on stage. A cool collaboration, although if you told me what the lineup was going to be before the performance, I never would have guessed that BB King would be the one that shone the least out of that group (although I am glad to see that he still plays). I didn’t even recognize Buddy Guy, I had to look it up to see who he was. I’m a little embarrassed by that.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: There may be a lot of merit in their work together, and they may be doing really great stuff, but for some reason I just can’t get into it. Admittedly, I haven’t heard the whole Raising Sand album. While the handful of tracks I have heard are pretty good, I just can’t get into it. It’s almost kind of… boring? Maybe I’m biased because I want him to give this other shit a rest and do the Zeppelin reunion tour. That must be it. Good to see that Robert Plant still comes off like an egotistical prick, though.

So that’s my long winded summary of the performances last night. If I have to sum up this year in one line, then I guess this is my glowing review: For me, there were more really neat and interesting moments than there were WTF bizarro moments. Great sales pitch, right?

It’s tax season again, and this is our first year of filing married and having the house, so I’m anxious to get everything filed to see how it all shakes out.

Naturally, this means that somehow our forms are going to get fouled up. Sure enough, today I received the 1098 from Countrywide, and something doesn’t seem quite right – box 5, which is normally used for reporting property tax paid, is blank.

I called countrywide to ask about this – we paid almost two thousand dollars in taxes and at least part of this is deductible. After navigating one of the most frustrating automated menus that I’ve ever experienced, I finally talked to a real person. This person explained that they did report my tax paid to the IRS, but they don’t print it on the 1098 because “almost no one uses that on their return”. She also gave me the amount and told me that I should just be able to write it down and tell it to my tax person.

So… Property tax paid is tax deductible on federal income tax returns, and you are telling me that “almost no one uses that”?

Horseshit. Hopefully the person that does our taxes will be able to work with me using the information we have.

Countrywide – F+

I managed to get a speeding ticket back in early November. The ticket says that I can pay the ticket after fifteen days, which would be November 25th.

The ticket also says that I have thirty days from that date to pay the ticket – that makes my payment due by no later than Christmas day.

Well, if you are paying attention, you may have noticed that today is February 2nd. As of right now, I have not paid my ticket. I don’t even know how much I’m supposed to pay.

Within two days of getting the ticket, I gave it to a friend of mine who is a lawyer and can get the ticket reduced to a non moving violation. He wasn’t able to fix it right away because it was a handwritten ticket and some clerk hadn’t entered it into the system yet. In fact, it was January 7th before the ticket was in the system, and the county assigned me a court date of February 4th.

Today, we called to make sure everything was ok for our court date, and we found out from the clerk that they THINK they have received the request to change the ticket, but they aren’t sure where it is and they haven’t entered it in the system yet.

Guys? The fucking court date is WEDNESDAY. Don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, you should process that request before the court date so that we can get the new charges and PAY THE FUCKING THING? It’s been three months. Three!

It’s no wonder that all things government are bankrupt and broken.

I never really thought of myself as a grammar nazi, but some of the folks I work seem to disagree. Now that I think about it, I guess I do have a lot a gripes about stupid language things. I’m going to bitch about two of them for a minute – these two bug me a lot, and it seems like I hear them more and more lately:

1) ‘I could care less.’ It gets the point across, I guess, but what you’re really looking for here is ‘I couldn’t care less. If you could care less, then you have to somewhat care in the first place. If, on the other hand, you couldn’t care less, then you absolutely, positively, don’t give a shit about whatever it is being discussed.

2) ‘Oh, for God sakes’ I’m not really sure where this one came from. It’s not even a matter of not understanding the words that you’re saying, it’s a matter of not even listening to yourself when you talk. Basically, here you’re using an exclamation made up of words that you don’t know. The right thing to say here is ‘for God’s sake’ or ‘Christ’s sake’ or ‘for fuck’s sake.’ Saying ‘for God sakes’ or ‘for (whatever) sakes’ is just plain stupidity.

The thing that is really irritating to me is that both of these are things that are stupid lazy errors. Just listen to the words that you choose and think about it. Do they make sense? No? Then fix it or find another way to say it. Saying something that doesn’t make sense might just get your point across – and that’s OK – but saying it right might just keep you from looking dumb.

Lately, I’m an interesting combination of IT guy and accountant (read: geek and nerd) with this job of mine. While I do perform a lot of accounting functions, more and more I’m picking up IT responsibilities to go along with it. All of this is fine; after all, my bachelor’s degree is in MIS, so it’s nice to feel like I’m actually using the five years of college I endured.

The experience of being kind of a hybrid techie/bean counter has really given me a new perspective – and perhaps a new respect – for both sides of the fence.

No matter where you work, the company line that everyone is expected to tow always sounds a little bit like ‘We’re all part of the same team and we should be acting in the best interest of the company.’ Anyone who is really a part of it, though, knows fully well the the team mentality sounds great in theory, but often deteriorates into ‘our’ team and ‘their’ team. Generally, this mentality often happens when you are dealing with the IT department and, well, anyone else.

Let’s face it – it’s not their fault. IT has a responsibility to make things work and keep them working. So when you have dozens of different ‘user’ departments, consisting of potentially hundreds of individual workstations and systems, it isn’t rare for everything to break at once. Then the IT guy has to prioritize who’s problems to fix when, all in the face of all the users bitching about how their problem is the most important and needs to be taken care of right away. Compound this with a general end-user skill level of ‘I don’t know dick’ and it’s easy to see how us vs. them comes into play – IT guys don’t have the time to educate, and users don’t have any desire to understand. Studies show that IT professionals are highly stressed (if not THE most highly stressed) and this explains why.

We’re in the midst of preparing for an upgrade of our accounting system this week. Additionally, we are converting from a client-install setup to terminal services (just in case you lost the decoder ring: moving from installing software on each individual computer to remote access of the server itself.) Typically, this is a really bad idea – doing both of these things at once means that we will have a much harder time diagnosing problems once we go live. Is it terminal services? Is it the new version of the software? Is it a combination? Who the hell knows?

In for a penny, in for a pound; Regardless of how we got here, we’re here.

Perhaps the hardest part of this process – and what I am absolutely talking about when I say it’s interesting being in the middle – is determining user setup and group policy on the terminal server. All of our users have admin rights on their win2K/winxp workstations, but in terminal services we restrict the access to only the things that they need. So things like the control panel are out, my computer is out, access to c: is out, et cetera. As we move along, it kind of becomes a fight between the ‘us’ and the ‘them’.

From the IT point of view, we want to restrict the terminal server as much as possible so that people can’t screw it up (because people *will* screw it up.)

From the user point of view, back up the damn server daily if you have to, but give me the access I need so that I can do my work – don’t leave me with some crippled half-assed system that doesn’t do what I need it to do, especially when it worked before the ‘upgrade.’

Which point of view is right? Hard to tell. Your users are technically internal customers, so I’m not sure it’s right to break the systems they need to do their jobs. At the same time, your users are often idiots about technology and need to be protected from themselves before they accidentally render said systems useless. A delicate and fragile balance, indeed. If users aren’t willing to adapt and techies aren’t willing to educate and help and be flexible, all you’re going to get is a god damn mess.

Personally, I don’t want to make any more work for the IT staff than necessary, but at the same time, I want to have the kind of functionality that I’ve come to expect from my systems. I can’t think of a good reason to have a software system that is less functional after an ‘upgrade,’ but that’s just me. I tend to think that there needs to be a little bit of common sense, a little bit of cooperation, and a little bit of willingness to evolve for things to really work out well. IT departments need to have a little flexibility and a little extra patience, and end users need to be willing to make some changes to their procedures – that handwritten list of steps you use to run a report in version 2.4 won’t work for shit in version 5.5, so you need to be prepared to run it ‘the new way.’

Let’s be honest – the ‘new way’ is probably better anyway.

It’s a good thing that I’m getting ready to move out. I’ve about had it with my neighbors.

Don’t get me wrong – these neighbors of mine have been a pretty consistent pain in the ass for a long time now. This isn’t really anything new; rather, it is just the latest chapter in selfishness, person irresponsibility, and ‘fuck-you-what-about-me’.

Politically, we’ve never been on the same side of the fence. They are tried and true bible beaters, with a 100% track record of ‘voting with God.’ So not only are they assholes, but they’re also political sheep, and they think that everything they do is ‘in the hands of God.’ Spare me.

These folks don’t exactly have the best track record with pets. There are no fences at the edge of their property (except for our fence, which might I add, they have bent and beat to hell over the years.) They have had a couple of dogs since we’ve lived next to them, and currently have two. One is a greyhound mix with a little bit of something else, but I’m not exactly sure what. The other is a stray mutt chihuahua that they found and adopted. Neither dog is particularly well trained or obedient, but nothing a little training won’t fix. They both have the potential to be great pet dogs. More frustrating than the dogs they won’t train are the cats. They ‘own’ two cats, neither of which lives in the house. Both cats roam the neighborhood at their leisure, crapping wherever they want and killing whatever critters they find. Cats are not outdoor pets. If you don’t want your cat to live in the house, don’t get a cat. One of the cats, however, is really friendly. I call him Jimbo, and I have every intention of stealing him once we move. Jimbo is actually a girl, but whatever.

Anyhow. Recently, the dogs they can’t control (much like the kids they can’t control) caused an accident and knocked a guy off of his bicycle. Naturally, the guy is suing them for something or other (because that’s what we do in america – we sue people for stupid shit rather than taking personal responsibility for our problems.)

So one of the conditions of settling the lawsuit: Either get rid of the dogs, or put up a fence.

Given that the standard MO here is “fuck-you-what-about-me,” naturally the dogs (which you have to be RESPONSIBLE to take care of) are going to go, because – wait for it – ‘we don’t really want to put up a fence.’

So now the dogs are going to go to the pound where, chances are, they will be put down.

We put down huge numbers of dogs on a daily basis because we can’t find homes for them and animal shelters are full. So what would Jesus do? Jesus would put dogs to sleep that have a home because Jesus doesn’t fucking want a fence.

You should be required to take and pass a test of proving your competence and accountability before you are allowed to be responsible for the well being of another living thing. Dogs, gerbils, fish, children, whatever – you can’t pass the test? Not yours.

Credit card fraud is apparently a big problem in the financial world. Identity theft, obviously, is also a big problem. So I guess it should be no surprise to anyone that both banks and vendors are implementing programs to reduce or eliminate fraud.

When implemented poorly, however, fraud prevention programs wind up being not just a pain in the ass, but also becomes consumer obstructions. Preventing fraud is good, preventing the consumer from spending money they want to spend is not so good.

A case in point, if you will. I recently bought a new laptop. So recently, in fact, that it just came today and I haven’t even installed anything on it yet. This laptop came from Newegg.com, which has a pretty good reputation as far as online retailers go, and I got a really good deal on it. $1,300 bought a computer much more powerful than it should have.

It’s worth mentioning that I have to be difficult when it comes to credit cards. My billing address and my shipping address are never the same – my billing address for everything banking is a PO box, while my shipping address is always my house.

Anyway, last week I order the laptop online, I order a pizza from papa john’s, and I order thirty dollars in Wii virtual console points, in that order. As far as I can tell, everything seems to have gone OK, up until the point that I buy the Wii points. When I try to buy the Wii points, Nintendo rejects the credit card transaction. I don’t really think anything of it – there have been situations before where my card has been declined because I used it too much in too short a period. I assumed that this was one of those times.

The next morning, I’m at work and I get an email from newegg telling me that my card has been declined; they tell me that I should contact the bank and clear up whatever is going on so that the charge goes through. I call chase and naturally wind up dealing with someone who speaks very little english at all. She tells me that there have been several transactions that they are holding so that they can verify whether or not they are fraudulent. Still no big deal. She goes over the list, and there’s probably half a dozen charges that they have ‘held’ so that they could verify them. They date back to almost a month earlier, and they never called me to verify them.

This pisses me off a little, so I ask why no one ever called about these transactions. She tells me that they have tried to call me, but they keep getting ‘disconnected’ by whoever answers the phone. I ask her when they’re calling, and she says that it’s usually between 9 and noon.

You’re disconnected by whoever answers the phone? Well no shit! The person answering the phone is an answering machine! So I explain to her that they will never be able to get ahold of me calling that number at that time because, well, I have a job. She clears the transactions and tells me to go ahead and have the vendors re-run the card; everything should be OK.

Great. That’s what I wanted to hear. One more thing before I go, miss non-english speaking lady: Let’s go ahead and change my phone number to my cell phone so that when you need to call me you can actually get ahold of me. She changes my business number from my work number to my cell number, and I get off the phone.

Seeing as I’m in the clear, I contact Newegg and have them re-run my card. Ten minutes later, I get another email from them and I get a phonecall from mastercard at about the same time. The email says that the card was declined again, and mastercard is calling me to verify that I have recently made a change to my personal information.

Good timing, I say – Yes, I’ve changed my phone number on file. While I’ve got you on the phone, I just got an email that this charge was declined again, and I was told by the last person I talked to a few minutes ago that everything is OK. What’s the deal?

“Oh, sorry about that, sir – you see, when you make a change to your personal information, we have to place a temporary hold on your account.”

WHAT?!? Why didn’t the gal I was just talking to tell me that? I never would have changed any of it if I knew it going to complicate things further… Why wouldn’t you guys tell me that when I made the change, knowing that I was going to be re-processing a credit card charge immediately?

She apologizes after I flip out on her, and she tells me that if I tell them to go ahead and run the card one more time, it will work. I’m pissy about it, but I do it, and within ten minutes there is a pending authorization on my card at chase.com. Thank God, I’m done.

Except, I’m not.

Fast forward about 6 hours. I’m getting ready to go home, and I check my email one last time before I go. I have another email from Newegg telling me that my address has failed verification with the credit card company, and that I need to log in to my account at Newegg and fix the incorrect information.

Great.

So I log back in and look at the address information. The billing address, which gets verified against the credit card, is OK and has no flags. It’s the shipping address that is flagged, and it’s flagged because the shipping address isn’t on file with the credit card company.

I’m starting to get a little pissed at this point. I call the people at newegg this time so that I can actually talk to someone, because my billing address is different from my shipping address and the shipping address isn’t on file. It shouldn’t have to be. The two aren’t related. I could be buying this laptop as a present for someone I live with and I may need to have it shipped somewhere else so that it’s a surprise. The verification policy at newegg has made that impossible and begs the question – if the shipping address has to be on file with the credit card company, why give anyone the option to ship to an address other than the billing address in the first place?

So I call newegg and they tell me what to do: Call the credit card company and have them add the shipping address to the account as a secondary address.

FINE. By now I’m making it a point to tell anyone who I talk to about this how much of a pain in the ass it is. I call the credit card company, I have them add the address, and I have newegg re-run the verification. As I’m getting off the phone with Chase, what does the gal say to me? ‘Sir, I noticed just now that you don’t have any of our fraud protection services activated on your account. Are you interested in using any of these services?’

NO. No I’m not. You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve spent the better part of a day arguing with people because of fraud protection, I absolutely don’t want anything more than what you’ve already given me.

Finally I’m done and the laptop is on the way, right? Right. Except for the fact that – wait for it – by adding the address to my account I changed my personal information and my account was placed on temporary hold again.

Anyway, you see where this is going. The long story short is that, after more bullshit complications than I thought were possible, the laptop came today.

This might be kind of a messed up parallel to draw, but in a way this is at least a little similar to terrorism and terrorism prevention. Don’t misunderstand – I’m not at all equating the two. Consumer convenience is nowhere near as important as physical safety – I’m not necessarily comparing the two, just drawing an interesting parallel. But if you look, in both cases, we’ve suspended conveniences that seem easy and day-to-day in the name of keeping people safe; consumers have to provide 3 digit security codes and bring copies of birth certificates and multiple proofs of identity; travelers have to take their shoes off at security and can’t bring liquids on a plane. In the case of consumers, it’s protection of identity; in the case of terrorism, it’s protection of self.

tuesday is the worst day of the week. there’s no other way to look at it.

the weekends are good.
mondays aren’t great, but they’re not as bad as most people thing – you’re coming off two days off, and so it’s not so bad. you spend part of the day catching up with people, getting things together for the week, checking your email and listening to voicemails.

wednesdays are okay. they’re the hump. you still have a long way to go to the next day off, but you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

thursdays are good. on thursday, you can see friday, and where there’s friday, there’s a weekend.

fridays are great. on friday you know you’re good for two more days. for most people friday is a slow day, an easy day, tying up loose ends from the week and beginning to plan for the next week. most work places recognize casual friday, so that’s usually a plus too.

but tuesday? tuesday’s nothing. tuesday is the second day of the work week. you last day off was two days ago, and the end of the week seems so far away. tuesday is guaranteed to be the longest day of the week, regardless of how many hours you work.

today is, in fact, tuesday.