In which startling developments are revealed while Our Hero waits for the Other Shoe to finish dropping.

Startling developments are startling!

Once again time and life have gotten away with me, which has prevented me from posting with any kind of respectable regularity.  Somehow I'm sure the blogosphere has not ceased to exist without my acidic bile spew for the past 11 days.

So many things, both good and bad (for once thankfully mostly good) have happened that it would be exhaustive to go over them all.  Additionally good news isn't nearly as interesting as bad or bizarre, so I'll just gloss over the big good fun things: my parents came to visit the weekend after Third Party's vile, wretched sire and screeching banshee beldam "graced" us with their presence.  The visit was the proverbial night-and-day deal, was an absolutely pleasant experience, and went a long way in repairing the psychic mauling TP's parents gave the both of us.  It doesn't hurt that we went out to dinner at Red Robin.  Jesus in a sidecar wearing a lobster bib, but those are some tasty burgers.

Following that, we receive word that two very dear people offered to sell me a spare car for incredibly cheap.  A 2000 Hyundai Elantra is worth about 2 to 3 times what they're asking for it, it comes from a good pedigree since they have mechanics in their family, and all it needs is an inspection and a new left front turn indicator light and it's good to go.  Furthermore, they're letting me put half down now and giving me time to pay the rest off at my leisure.

 I eyed them suspiciously when they told me the deal, expecting there to be some caveat somewhere that would involve me getting raped to sleep by dickwolves nightly for the next 12 months, but apparently there actually are good people out there in the world.  The car, in fact, is being brought over this evening for perusal and I'm looking forward to seeing if they are as actually forthright as I suspect they might be.

In a final recitation of what can be called "good news," I've decided to take my UK client up on the offer of more work.  Hopefully this will lead to me being able to phase out the transcription proofreading assholes, as they have become somewhat tarnished in my opinion of them of late; indeed, to refer to them as the most vile of used, dripping douche nozzles would seem an insult to the relative sterility of such a feminine hygiene product.  I'm tired of them either going days without sending me anything or trying to foist off on me poorly-translated files that take ridiculously long to proofread.  Not for $10 an hour, anyway.  The people who assign me work like that deserve the Special Hell, as Shepherd Book would say.

Finally on to the Fucking Weird section of our evening:  in a recent trip to the local Taco Hole, whereupon discovering they had once again gotten my regular order of 3 Meef Chewbaccas with a side order of Chili Chimps completely and totally wrong, necessitating a trip inside to the front counter.  While I waited for the fine young MTV viewers behind the counter to correct my order, I glance over to the bulletin board on my left where I find the most absolute bizarre business card ever:

D McGinty                                                                Birthdays * Funerals * Weddings

The "D" stands for "Awesome"                            Professional * Vindictive * Fnord 

Pentanthera Paracommunications

autumn42@gmail.com                                                                                 610-906-2490 

So what in the holy hand grenade is up with this guy?  I'm including the phone number and email address here because, well, fuck 'im, he put his god damned business card up at Taco Hole.  If he doesn't want the free advertising he can leave me an email or a comment and tell me just what the shit he actually does.  Besides immanentizing the Eschaton.

In which Our Hero realizes yet again that he's actually glad that can't afford a smart phone.

It's not paranoia if they are out to get you.

As I've mentioned before in previous work-related rants, I'm a freelance editor (also known as corporate whore) that picks up regular work for an audio transcription company proofreading transcripts for them.  Today I received a packet of work that, after doing some curiosity-fueled research, completely scared the ever loving shit out of me.

The file itself is similar to what I did a couple weeks ago where I slaved over 30 hours of retarded requests for penis jokes from that text message answering service.  I thought it was the same thing, but I was getting different style messages - less instances of "suck my big black cock" and more along the lines of email and text messages spoken aloud.  What I did keep hearing over and over again was the word "Vlingo," so I conducted an exhaustive bit of research (I fucking Googled it okay?  Get off my dick.  Jesus fuck.) and it turns out there's some company with a new smart phone app that has some pretty good text-to-speech recognition, judging from the raw file that I've got here in front of me.

Of course at that point I started thinking, "Holy shit, these are people's personal emails and texts!  Why do I have access to them?"  And then I figured out that this Vlingo company is obviously recording all the instances of people using the app on their BlackBerrys or their Droids or iPhones or whatever, saving whatever the person says and obviously storing it somewhere.

My Tinfoil Hat Senses started tingling, and I went and checked out the Vlingo website, where after some exhaustive digging I uncovered their Privacy Policy (I finally scrolled down to the bottom of the page and found it, like a god damned retard).

The second paragraph seems innocuous enough:

Vlingo never stores or keeps personally identifiable information on any user and never shares any user information outside of Vlingo for any reason. We do collect personal information to improve the service...

 Jesus Mary and Slowbro.  At least they admit it, even if they're not recording any personal information.

Then, I find another gem:

We collect and store the location of your handset only when you speak (which you can opt out of at any time through the Options screen of the Vlingo mobile client application). We do not associate the handset's location with your personal information. We do not know who you are when you use the location-awareness component of our service. We use this location information for research and development purposes and to improve your experience with the service.

 Great, now they're tracking my location too.  So they're pinpointing where and when I'm using their service, and what I'm saying.  At least you can opt out of it.  And what the hell are "research and development purposes?"  It's bad enough mobile phones have GPS trackers built into them already, but at least that has some survival use if you're lost in the middle of nowhere.  Then again, you probably have shit for signal anyway out there in Bumfuck, Minnesota or wherever it is you've gotten dumped after some crazed coyotes removed your liver and wrote "CALL THE AMBULANCE" on your chest in lipstick.

Do I really want some god damned company knowing where I am when I send filthy text messages to some fat bloated disgusting fursuit-wearing diaper fetishist I met on Craigslist last night looking to exchange "yiffing" for some free salvia?  Furthermore, is what I'm currently going through considered "user information?"  If so, why is it something I'm allowed to look at?  I ain't employed by Vlingo; as an independent contractor, I'm actually not employed by the transcription company either, technically.

Should I even care?  I mean it's just a job.  I should be working on it right now and earning some money that I can put towards buying some shitbox car so I won't be trapped here with two poo-eating dogs and their lovely owners all the god damned time.  At the same time I feel like I should be warning people about this Vlingo bullshit and how they're installing radio transmitters in my teeth so the Russian canine astronauts can communicate with me in the middle of the night, or whatever crazy paranoid people talk about.

In which Our Hero is unapologetic for his ten day lack of updates.

The past week and a half has been laden with truly succulent fruits that, alas, have been ripe on the vine for much too long; the following shall be a recapitulation of the comings and goings of the beings that inhabit what I've just now decided to call Chucklead Estate.

What in the holy hand grenade have I been doing with myself recently? Well I encountered a truly heinous work assignment from a client last week that involved proofing thirty thousand lines of text, each consisting of an approximately 3 to 5 second audio file. It was about 30 hours of audio altogether. The less said about that, the better; suffice it to say that the client was a company that has one of those text message answering services. You send a text or leave a voicemail asking, "How many cocks can Dick Cheney take at once?" and some schmuck somewhere else has to come up with a witty answer before sending it back.

After perusing 30,000 audio files, the only god damned thing that stands out are the trends. Most often I saw questions about the fucking and/or sucking of cocks, asses, and vaginal orifices; the amount of tree cellulose a marmota monax could fling if such a creature had the ability; who Robert Pattinson was dating; whether Lady Gaga is a hermaphrodite; what Justin Beiber's phone number was; and how many god damned licks it takes to get to the center of some fucking hunk of crystallized candy on a stick.

This is what I did all week. Suddenly I found myself longing for the days when all I had to do was review the recorded inmate calls from Allegheny County Jail and listen to some fine upstanding citizen either constantly accuse his girlfriend of infidelity or beg for money from his 12 year old niece.

There were some bright spots of entertainment last week, however; one such shining example of how this place is a clearinghouse for the bizarre is how Signore Flailing Retard returned home one afternoon from the gun store with two new firearms in tow.

"But wait," you say, "what's so noteworthy about that?" What, indeed? I do after all live in a geographical location lovingly referred to as "Pennsyltucky" by those who are accustomed to an environment with less farmland and more teeth. Why would the purchase of a rifle and a handgun, both little .22 caliber peashooters, be so noteworthy?

Well first of all the firearms were procured in trade. SFR decided, in his infinite wisdom, to trade in the massive penis extender of an assault rifle he hitherto owned for the two smaller caliber weapons due to the fact that the AR-15 is not legal to own in the neighboring state of New Jersey.

For those who are mildly interested in its provenance, the AR-15 is the civilian version of the fucking instrument of death used by the U.S. military since that lovely 10-year police action in Southeast Asia, the M-16. It differs only from its military counterpart by lacking the ability to fire in a fully automatic setting, which means that you can only launch its massive ammunition one round at a time. Imagine your disappointment when being limited to throwing slugs the size of ballpoint pens downrange only as fast as you can pull the trigger. Quel dommage!

With that informational tangent now concluded, let us return to our regularly scheduled demonstration of towering intellect: Signore Flailing Retard traded in his giant bolt thrower for two little baby man guns because he plans to move with Little Miss Tripping Balls back to his home state of New Jersey sometime soon. Whether this is before or after living off the Federal and State government for a protracted period of time is not known to me, but The Plan is In Place.

The rifle is for him, of course; he simply loves the feel of its long, thick weight in his hands. He grasps it lovingly, caressing the barrel with the reverence of a convert. The handgun is for his lovely fiancée, however. This way he's not afraid to leave his house lest the wild Nigras of south Jersey break down the door and gang rape the lass at the slightest provocation, depositing their thick chocolate syrup betwixt her creamy vanilla thighs in an attempt to dilute the purity of the Master Race.

I will take this moment to relate some further information in regards to SFR: he was born and raised in a south Jersey trailer park. That statement is not hyperbolic; it is undisputed truth. His mother, in fact, still lives in the same trailer park, perhaps even the same trailer. From what I hear, it's quite lovely.

For some time before moving into Chucklehead Estate with Little Miss Tripping Balls (a day that will live in infamy), both he and she lived together in a separate trailer home, which they refer to in loving nostalgia as "their house." Now, go take a look in the mirror. Look at the incredulity on your face right now. You look that way because the idea of referring to a corrugated aluminum shipping container with cheap vinyl siding and a cable TV hookup as a "house" is about as logical as the thought of hammering yourself in the testicles with a ball-peen hammer until it starts to feel good.

This man has been riding a wave of bullshit for so long I honestly believe his wet suit is cutting off the circulation to his brain. Not only is he Grade-A 100% Shanty Irish trailer trash, complete with vociferous disdain for the Jews and the Nigras and Those God Damned Faggots (and don't let him get started on the Mexicans), he's got Little Miss Tripping Balls wrapped around his finger.

Well, he can pack up his shit and go trundling off to that horrible festering swamp of a state, and he can take his lovely fiancée with him. Undoubtedly he'll have her in the kitchen squirting out a new generation of prematurely balding potato-nosed IRA supporters in no time, despite their fervent claims to "not want to bring children into a world like this."

Do you know that moment when you hear something so stupid that you actually lose the ability to communicate in a reasonable manner? That moment when your medulla oblongata overrides your higher brain functions and makes your vocal cords seize up so that even if you were able to formulate a sentence in your head that could refute the immense willful ignorance of what you've just heard, out of self-preservation it won't let you?

Yeah, I spend most of my days just smiling and nodding.

In which positive news is relayed and passive-aggressive hijinks are praised.

I had a "business call" this morning at 9:30 with the UK banking guy. I feel my skin crawl at the sheer prospect of attempting to communicate in a cogent manner prior to 11 AM, so it was only by a supreme harnessing of my willpower did I not degenerate to pre-verbal grunts and other strange lizard brain rumblings; the Green Lantern ain't got shit on me.

The meeting was to discuss the possibilities of taking on more work for my intrepid internet marketing compadre across the pond; he wants me to increase the number of articles I re-write a week to around 25, bringing my haul to a lofty $100 weekly. Considering how the most time-consuming part of the job is finding articles of sufficient length to swallow, partially digest, and then regurgitate, I readily agreed. In addition he was interested if I would write email autoresponder campaigns, about one a month, for around $100 a pop as well. So apparently I'll be earning about $500 a month from this yahoo, which is more than double what I was earning currently.

Combined with my transcription proofreading gig, which could be as much as $250 a week if my handler would just quit jerking me around and send me pure proofing jobs, I could potentially earn around $1500 a month before taxes. Of course I'd have to withhold a portion of my own pay for Uncle Sam at the end of the year, but it's better than being out of work completely. Hell, making that kind of scratch, I could easily afford some shitbox used car in a couple of months maybe. Just in time to visit the more miserable members of my family circle that still reside in the great state of New York. Maybe for the holidays; there's nothing like a dose of passive-aggressive bullshit to teach you the merits of family members that don't live around the corner.

Not that passive-aggressive bullshit can't be highly entertaining. A story was related to me earlier today by A Third Party, whose name, gender, height, weight, eye color, hair color, skin color, ethnicity, religious affiliation, shoe size, sexual proclivities, and whether or not they were a member of the Communist Party will remain confidential in order to protect their identity.

Third Party was venturing outside to get the mail this afternoon when they encountered Our Benefactor (He Whose Name Must Be Said Reverently and with at least Half an Erection) outside. He had asked Third Party if Little Miss Tripping Balls had spoken to TP. TP said no; in fact Little Miss Tripping Balls seemed particularly frigid this morning (judging from the collection of sexual enhancement herbal supplements strewn about the living quarters of her and her fiancé, I'm not surprised).

TP made mention of this, and was graced with the following story: late last night after everyone had gone to bed, The Great Benefactor (Whom Even Chuck Norris Would Not Fuck With), in an inebriated stroke of genius, broke off from his current project (transforming a whole sockeye salmon into approximately 10 pounds of homemade lox) and ventured into the adjacent room to the kitchen.

This room, known colloquially as the Pool Room due to the full-size Billiards table that is typically covered with a mountain of detritus, is also known as Where Dog Shit Goes to Die. Prior to their current little shit machines, Little Miss Tripping Balls and Signore Flailing Retard were in possession of an incredibly old, sickly, bitchy little American Eskimo dog with dingy yellowed fur. The dog was old five years ago; it would constantly lose control of its bowels and proceed to shit absolutely everywhere. His favorite spot was the Pool Room.

The dog died in March. There was dog shit still in the Pool Room as of about 1 AM last morning.

I used the past tense there for a reason: apparently Our Magnificent Benefactor (Who Sparkles Even Though He's Not a Vampire) decided to gather up each piece of fossilized canine excrement he could locate and proceeded to tie a neat bow around each one with baker's twine. He then laid them lovingly upon the chair in which Signore Flailing Retard sits while he's using his computer as a tribute to the man's recently deceased pet.

"For some reason I don't think he was very appreciative," he then told Third Party, feigning hurt and bemusement. "I thought it would be a fitting memorial."

"Well," Third Party replied, completely deadpan, "that may be why your daughter seems a trifle upset this morning."

Sometimes I think I can really come to love that man.

In which a week's worth of catch-up is played; the merits of Lynchburg Lemonade are touted; and plans are formulated to steal someone's inheritance.

Since last I pounded my thoughts into form down through my callused fingertips, through this high school computer lab-era keyboard, and out into the cloud of lemon-scented bullshit that is the Internet, there have been several events which may be
categorised
categorized (Jesus Christ I've been re-writing too many UK news articles) as "news," a word I find particularly vile and distasteful, like a mouthful of dogshit wrapped in an orange peel.

I am a certified run-on sentence specialist, licensed and bonded by fifteen states and three territories. Do not attempt this at home.

I needed time to recover after transcribing a five-hour deposition over the weekend. It completely destroyed whatever semblance of a social life that I possess, which consists mainly of trolling the Trade chat channel in World of Warcraft and looking for poisonous mushrooms in the backyard to eat. Throughout the entire process, all I could think of was the two-and-a-half years I spent, miserably, as a part-time law student. In a way I have my cancer diagnosis to thank for getting me off the hook in finishing that abortion of an educational experience, though truth be told I was so miserable and unmotivated that I wasn't long for that world, I'm sure: my grades were going down faster than Lindsey Lohan's cellmate.

But I object on the grounds that the anecdote is irrelevant to the matter at hand. I spent much of last week trying to return my mind and body to some level of equilibrium, just working steadily and trying to get some sleep. I patently refused to do any more transcription for that chucklehead that sent me that massive audio file; I told him it was just too damn long for me to do so and keep my sanity, so he sent me a batch of twenty 15-minute files, a collection of recorded prison inmate calls. I did one and immediately decided that I would rather lovingly place my junk in a box filled with rabid, starving wolverines with fetal alcohol syndrome instead of working on the other 19. So I sent them back and forbade the bastard from sending me any work besides proofing.

Still, I made about $300 over the past week and a half out of the deal, which will go a long way in paying off some back rent to the Benefactor (May His Penis Always Drag Along the Ground). His lovely daughter and her fiancé were gone again this weekend, which was rather pleasant despite the fact that the responsibilities of caring for their two rambunctious puppies was left squarely in the laps of those remaining behind at the farmhouse. As a result there was a disproportionately high amount of canine excrement and excretion sanitation being conducted on premises over the past 48 hours.

The upside of this was of course some time spent with the Benefactor (He Who Farts Raw Sunshine) sans the cooling influence of Little Miss Tripping Balls and the Flailing Retard. He's a rather remarkable man, though I find it hard to bring myself to trust him (or anyone for that matter, but that's a different therapy session). Still, I'll gladly be entertained by his inebriated rambling stories and anecdotes. In addition he can be quite an accomplished cook, even if he did burn the holy everliving fuck out of the french fries last night.

Still, the man is a connoisseur when it comes to alcoholic beverages despite his hyposmia (look it up). I sampled a concoction last night that I wouldn't normally have the courage to try; it was only in looking at the rascal's liquor cabinet and discovering such esoteric liquids such as "Triple Sec," whatever the shit that is, that I decided to try my hand at mixing drinks. Having some freshly-purchased lemonade in the refrigerator (which had just been cleaned by Those Left Behind this past weekend after deciding that Little Miss Tripping Balls and her lovely fiancé the Flailing Retard had left the god damned thing about as filthy as it could get before being declared a national health emergency), I pulled together the ingredients for a quite delicious cocktail known by drunks far and wide as the Lynchburg Lemonade. While I was at first reticent to drink anything that alludes to the act of stringing people up by their necks for the crime of being a darker shade of skin pigmentation than the local populace, it was worth the guilt. Perhaps the drink should be called the White Man's Burden.

So upon the conviviality fostered by good food and drink this weekend, the Benefactor (The Man Who is More Classic than Coke Classic) shared some stories of his past. The most riveting tale was in relation to the dissolution of his marriage between himself and the mother of Little Miss Tripping Balls. Apparently Mommy Dearest was unhappy living in a 250-year-old stone farmhouse situated on 20 acres of beautifully manicured property and had proceeded to open her vagina wider than the Grand Coulee Dam to the inhabitants of this fair town. She then felt so guilty about the fact that she had had more semen inside her than a nuclear submarine and decided to take it out on her puzzled husband by flinging a kitchen knife as hard as she could at him.

Thankfully she was so exhausted by the constant penis-pounding she had been receiving that the knife landed hilt-first, bouncing off her husband's chest and falling harmlessly to the kitchen floor. Suffice it to say that a divorce was pursued by both sides shortly thereafter. And I thought my last ex-girlfriend was crazy. Well, she was, but not so batshit insane as to attempt to murder me with a kitchen knife (she couldn't cook worth a damn).

So while there was no outside activity on the grounds this weekend on account of the National Weather Service warning that stepping out from under the shade of the porch would result in your face melting like Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark, plenty of time was spent inside. That led to the camaraderie of cleaning out a vile, squamous refrigerator, which led to the simple joys of a shared meal and freely-flowing alcohol. I have the distinct impression that Our Great and Immortal Benefactor (May His Bedroom Be Always Clear of Dog Shit) is in need of friends and allies in his constant struggles against the forces of his daughter and her shithead boyfriend. And at the risk of appearing like a vulture slowly circling over the dying gazelle that is his love for his daughter, I'm wondering how easy it would be to displace someone in a certain person's Last Will and Testament.

Just, you know, as a hypothetical thought experiment.

Really.

In which five hours of audio takes a day and a fucking half to transcribe.

5 hours of audio.

Five hours.

Well at least I just made $125.

Still, five fucking hours.

Fuck me.

In which the nefarious depredations of eyestrain are suffered.

New gig started today. Almost wrote "Sartred" today. Which is only ironic because it seems this freelancing thing really is a way out.

Of course I gave myself eyestrain. I'm proofreading audio transcripts, and my first job ever for these sadists was a four hour deposition about how some old bat got shit-canned from some evangelical Baptist school for not being Christian enough. Or something. So my eyes hurt, and my brain hurts. I'll have to pontificate about this more tomorrow. For now, rest. And maybe dinner.

In which our hero prepares to suck the golden teat.

I received another job offer this weekend.

That's actually incorrect; I suppose first of all, since I seem to be well on my way to becoming that particularly vile syphilitic whore known as the Professional Freelance Writer I must begin to use the proper nomenclature. I don't apply for jobs; I "bid for contracts." If I want to sound hip, I may refer to them as "gigs," but I think there may be a requirement of growing a Vandyke beard and wearing a decidedly effeminate beret before I can use the term "gig" without feeling like a pretentious asshole.

Also, and I may be wrong, but I think that I don't have employers. I think they may be "clients." This would go along nicely with the prostitution motif, so I believe this is correct. And somehow, perhaps through some lizard-brain preservation instinct, it just feels wrong calling them "johns" so I suppose I'll have to stick with the former.

That being said, I won a contract bid for a client this weekend who needs three health-and-fitness articles rewritten. The propriety of a house-bound shut in with the kind of skin pallor a vampire would be envious of working on a set of health-and-fitness articles is not lost on me. It would be like Michael Vick coming out with his own line of dog food. Nevertheless the gig (god what a hipster reject! Look at that, he called it a gig!) pays $40 for something I could do in a few hours, so I gladly took the work. I've already re-written two of the three required articles.

I also spoke to the $60 a week prospect this morning and was accepted as a UK banking news re-writer. Apparently this re-writing thing is the way to go in the advertising blogosphere; you take an existing article, put it into a wood chipper, drink the viscous concoction, and then shit out a cruel parody of the original article that will pass a cursory plagiarism inspection before filling it with SEO keywords and reposting it to a different blog. Like all advertising and marketing ploys, it's asinine, has no intrinsic value, and needs shlumps like me willing and able to do the grunt work for a pittance, people so desperate for cash that they'll fuck their own assholes on live television just for a hot meal.

Well I'm reaching for the lube right now, ladies and gentlemen; I suggest those of you in the first three rows use the plastic sheeting at the bottom of your seats. Yes, the ones left over from the Gallagher show last night. No, I didn't know he was still alive, either.

In which I am soggy but unbowed.

There was a massive dose of precipitation this morning. My air conditioner leaks badly in humid weather so I've had to put a makeshift pan underneath it to catch its coppery tears. At 4 AM this morning it was half full, and I neglected to empty it. When I was awakened earlier by a phone call (a wrong number, of course), I found it nearly overflowing. I'd give you a guess at how lizard-like one's movements are when one is half-asleep with cats underfoot whilst transporting a full tray of reeking water to the bathroom, but there's no prize for getting it right.

At least the rain finally cut this beastly heat a bit, and while there is still some rain falling it seems like the worst is over. Would that were true with more serious matters. I did get a bite in my email this morning concerning a part-time job however. At $60 a week before taxes it is very part-time. But it's re-writing news articles from home over the Internet so I can't complain too much.

I'm hoping I get this job. Even though the $240 a month I'd be bringing in wouldn't quite cover rent at least I'd be able to give Our Glorious Benefactor something (see what I did there? Shades of Dickens. I told you I was over-educated).

I found him last night downstairs in the living room. He had his shirt off and he was perched at the kitchen counter like a gargoyle, clutching a precious glass of some sort of alcohol and blinking owlishly at everything. "Three sheets to the wind" was about three hours previous to my discovery of him keeping the counter top from floating away.

He was absolutely morose, like a man who has seen the end coming but knows he can't do anything to change Fate. Normally he's pretty jocular but more and more recently he's been in a terrible funk over what to do about his daughter. She--and her fiancé--have been milking him out of money and lodging for years without doing so much as the dishes in return (I learn this from him as I do the dishes). He's torn between throwing them out and burying their bodies somewhere on the property, and I can only think what depths of madness he's been driven to by them both that he would rather see his own flesh and blood out on the street than deal with her a moment longer.

I've been to some dark, ichor-stained places within my own mind. I've entertained conscious thoughts such as "if I can only figure out a way to drive off this overpass and end up crippled for life." But I can't even contemplate the Hell that Mr. Benefactor is going through right now.

It would make me feel terrible for him even if I didn't owe him any money.