Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Michael's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
9:37 pm	Crack Coke-Caine bruddah! Alright, school has once again started for me, and with it comes new vigor to drive me through this coming semester. It really feels different here in Toledo, but so far I'm thinking its going good. Settling in to our apartment, our new schedules, and just adjusting fire as need be. Our new neighbors are...fairly interesting to say the least. A same sex couple live next door, and as the chibi described them, they have the appearance of a professor/student duo. Seem to be interesting people, and we're hoping to clean up the apartment of its moving clutter to get together with them. Ended up meeting the people downstairs as well, when they locked themselves out of their apartment and we played host until they were saved by maintenance (for 20$, those stingy peeps). The girl down their instantly oogled over our stuffed book shelf of manga, and fell in love with the fact that we were both final fantasy followers. Can't go wrong with that at all. New people, new friends hopefully. Gonna have to brush up on my people skills once again. Military news. Looks like i'm in a decent unit, i like my fellow soldiers, and i'm enjoying having some lil' privates to do my bidding. Yes, my little peons, i have peons! Alas, the unit is down in hamilton which is about 3 hours away. Convenient when i was still in the dayton area, but not so much as of now. Anyways, must remember this page and continue posting on it. It maintains my memories, yep yep. (penny for your thoughts)
Sunday, January 7th, 2007
12:29 pm	Occam's Razor hmm...never really knew what the saying was for this common scientific principle so I thought to write it down. Entia non sunt multplicanda necessitatem." translation: "One should not make more assumptions than are absolutely necessary." -William of Occam- (penny for your thoughts)
Saturday, January 6th, 2007
6:22 pm	a difficult choice made easy Well, the family drama comes down to an ultimatum. You change your name, and your no longer welcom in our household Well, guess what folks? My name is Dursch, its not Hall. It was made official when I got married, and put down on the marriage certificate. My whole debate on whether or not I keep trying to patch things up with my parents like I have been trying to do for so long is finally over. With that ultimatum, it was made for me, and i'm not changing their decision. I'll get to be the black sheep of the family like my aunt was, disowned for marrying someone of "the wrong color". I guess i married someone and got the wrong name. According to my parents, a name is not like a change of clothes, its binding. But my sister is getting married soon...her name will change...but i bet you she won't be disowned. What about my mom? Her name was not formely Hall, but Haag. Hell, at one time it was Peters, my biological father's last name. Way to go, a name means so much obviously. Way I look at it...i'm dropped out of an unsupporting family, and I've adopted a lot of people who actually care for me more so. I don't see any loss in this. (1 penny | penny for your thoughts)
Monday, December 4th, 2006
7:57 am	progress well, i've finally gotten all the name change stuff done since the wedding...as far as the military goes. I haven't been able to start on the stuff back home, but thats what happens when i'm overseas. So, my military ID, my base ID, my paperwork and finances for the military are now all in my name. we're sitting at around 65 days until we hit Bagram, where we prepare to leave country for a few days, head to Manas (in one of those 'stan countries) and do one more theater exit preparation, then its boots on ground in Camp Atterbury by the 13th, 14th of February. God I can't wait. It's been a long deployment, and its quickly coming to its end. Just need to make sure I keep my head in the game until then. It'd be silly to fuck up at the last stretch. I think we've got a good bunch here, and any fuck ups we've had, they've been sent away (that was only 1 person) so I think we're in good shape ^_^ (penny for your thoughts)
Saturday, November 18th, 2006
6:22 am	Comments on PS3 launch Okay... just wow. I guess I can look past the fanaticism of waiting in line for a week to get your hands on one of the PS3's, hell if I could take off work (and get back to the US) for a week and just camp out, why not? But god damn, what is wrong with people? Robbing? Shooting? For a fucking console? My god, you're just going to go on E-bay and sell it to the rest of the frenzied populace who didn't want to die getting it in line. Speaking of E-bay, I just checked out the sales going on there. One of the units about to go to someone is selling for $2,250... You bought a system to simply sell it, great job ass hole. I feel sorry for the parents of children that can't say "no" to their children and end up shelling out that kinda cash. I will just bide my time, and have to wait like everyone else for the system to come out in Spring at a better distribution then just 25 units per store. I looked at the notes on a unit selling for $1,800 and here is what they said about acquiring their units: Here's the Deal When my friends and I heard that PS3 preorders where being taken October 10 at Gamestop and EB Games stores, we took action. We woke up at 5am and each drove to different store locations around the Atlanta area. We came home with a total of six Playstation 3 preorders, all paid in full. Recently the number of Playstation 3's available at launch in the US was cut from 400,000 down to only 200,000, making it the smallest launch in video game history. As a result, many preorders were cancelled. But not ours. As of today, November 15, We have received six calls in the past two days from EB Games and Gamestop to confirm that each of our preorders are still in tact and gauranteed to be there. They will be available for pick up on Friday, November 17. We were lucky enough to have been near the front of the line the morning of the preorders. Of our six Playstation 3's, we are keeping two and selling the other four on ebay. That means we will have two backups, if any problems arise with one of the preorders. After you win the auction, I will send you an email with my telephone number, so we can speak in person and I can address any questions or concerns. -shakes head- so sad, so very sad. (penny for your thoughts)
6:03 am	Bring on the Chaos {just half of an article involving incidents for the PS3, and someone with a smart alternative...jeezus} Found at The Washington Post Elsewhere, two men wearing black ski masks and sunglasses made off with five consoles after holding two employees at gunpoint at an Englewood, Ohio, video game store Thursday night, police said. A Pennsylvania teenager was also robbed of his new PlayStation by a man who tapped on his car window with a handgun in Allentown, police said. In Lexington, Ky., someone fired BB pellets from a passing vehicle at people waiting outside a Best Buy store, according to WKYT, whose own reporter said she was among four people grazed while she interviewed buyers in line. Police fired a talcum powder ball at the ground outside a Target store in Henrico, Va., to get the attention of an unruly crowd of about 350 people who were waiting to buy one of the shop's eight consoles, police said. In McLean, Va., police fired pepper pellets Friday morning to subdue a rowdy crowd of about 200 people outside a Circuit City store at Tysons Corner Center mall. One person complained of shortness of breath after the pellets were fired and was taken to the hospital, authorities said. A Best Buy store in Boston, aware it had only 140 of the consoles, got smart about the big sale _ its employees gave out tickets to the first 140 people in line so everyone could go home until the store opened. (penny for your thoughts)
Friday, November 17th, 2006
7:22 am	Jesus must have had a hell of a reflex bonus... "Jesus Saves, the rest of you take damage" was the saying on this shirt I saw, funny stuff. "Of all that has been said and written about the life of Jesus (whether as a man, a prophet, or a messiah) it's almost never mentioned that he was a Lvl 10 Monk, Lvl 5 Ranger, Lvl 5 Cleric. It's true." and because it was on the internet, it definitely must be true. (penny for your thoughts)
Thursday, November 16th, 2006
4:27 pm	Fast Times at Ridgemont High...er, i mean Camp Eggers Wow, i get back from leave and things are going fuggin nuts. I've been so insanely busy it's not even been funny. I took full time primary position as the, well...to put it simply "Larry the Cable Guy" around here (no no, no visuals of mario or luigi hon =P). Anyways, the guy I replaced evidently never did his job, so i'm playing catch up. It's taken me a week to fix all the stuff he's procrastinated from doing. And there is now all the stuff from this week that's occured that I'm just now getting to. And guess what, no funds! I have no more supplies to make coaxial cable, no splitters, no power inverters, no amplifiers, and certainly no more receiving antennas...so I've exhausted what little supply I had. This blows, but hopefully we get more financing next month (shrugs shoulders), it'll take the General's cable going out for a week before we see that money I imagine. Whatever, stupid bastards. Anyways, things are moving fastly, I've got less the 90 days now till I'm boots on ground in the states. I can't wait, i really need to get home and be with my new wife. Screw the military, screw afghanistan, i wanna go home. This place sucks, and I don't see any good happening with us being here. Less than 2 1/2 years before I can get out, thank god. Please let it come sooner. Halo 2 nights have resumed at the Post Office. 4 tv's and 4 xboxes all equipped with the map pack make for excellent entertainment. Beware my Halo skills. The game I had forsaken at one time is now awesome due to being played in a group environment. It took getting used to, but in reality I think I like it better then Halo 1. The sword is rather gay...but you can get around it. Then you have my setting that I love, "Whackem Jackem" where you have no shields, no grenades, no weapons but a magnum. You run around and bitch slap each other to death. Takes only one hit to kill someone like that, and its fun with 16 players, just fucking nuts XD the bodies, the bodies!!! Current Music: A.F.I. December Underground (penny for your thoughts)
Thursday, October 26th, 2006
4:28 pm	go rain go! Wow, the wedding sure was touch and go, but it went through and turned out great. All manner of problems showed up while trying to go through with it. The reverend (revvy barry as we call him) was a hard person to get a hold of, including on the day of the wedding. We couldn't get much information unfortunately from him on just how the ceremony would break down. Pooper head, whatever. Anyways, we ended up having the choice of going to Baby Beach for our wedding...hmm, let me see, how bout hell's no. Baby Beach just isn't the kinda beach you think of for having weddings. Its just known for its small waves and flocks of small children that swarm to that beach. just...no. Anyways, our second spot that we were recommended was Napili Bay. We went and checked it out. Basically as you walk down the path, you could go right where it led you off to the beach and the large crowds. If you went left, it led you to lava rocks that lined the shoreline, where you could watch the tide come in and out. We ended up choosing this location since Christina loved the rocks, the surf, and the 'pretty colors' of the sky at sunset, and I easily agreed that it was the perfect spot. So now you know our location. Um...lets see. So, i dropped Christina off at her parents so she could get ready and talk to her parents before the wedding, besides its customary for the groom not to see the bride in their dress until the wedding. So I left with Brian and just toured up the coast in his rental convertible Sebring. Very nice, loved the views, and found some new beaches to investigate later on. Definitely lots of picture taking. Needless to say a perfect day so far. Well, as we're heading back, we see some clouds heading our way and we just start to wonder how the evening is gonna go. After us guys got dressed up and headed out to Napili Bay, it starts to downpour. Oh christ on a crutch -.- It rained for all its worth. We even got there a half hour early to be there on time and talk to the Revvy Barry. Well, while we're waiting on him, we're all thinking "...shit" as the rain doesn't let up, and our revvy barry doesn't show up either. Its supposed to start at 5pm, and here it's 5 now, and he's not here -.- We call him, nothin, call him again, voice mail. Just...wow. The rain lets up a little, but it continues to sprinkle. The reverend doesn't show up until 5:30...her dad was about to kill the guy, with me right behind him. Looking back, that guy never did tell us why he was so late -.- He asked us if we wanted to do the wedding on another day. Yeah, right...her parents are leaving soon, Christina was getting upset since her day seemed like it was crashing around her feet, and we couldn't get the photographer for a different day if we followed that goober's advice. We said screw it, rain or shine, we're getting married =P There was a small lul in the storm right then, so we all trooped down to the beach, where the rain picked back up. We went through the whole ceremony though, doing the exchange of Lei's (if you didn't know, individuals never exchange their leis once lei'd except for during a wedding), we said the vows that we had come up with, and exchanged ringies...All in the rain, heh. It actually turned out great as the rain just turned to a mist by the end and completely stopped by the time he said "You may now kiss the bride". After all that stress about the wedding, it was finally over, we were laughing because of all the rain, and by the end of it, the evening was now just perfect. We spent the next while doing the photos with the photographer (which all turned out great, the sky was very colorful at this time). So despite all the minor things, in the end, all was well, and now we're finally hitched ^_~ Oh yeah, he called me Richard in the ceremony XD I was like "...buh? Richard?" Now all christina mentions is the line from the Fugitive, "Richaaaaaard, you wanna get shot?!" XD He referred to us as Mr. and Mrs. Hall as well...he really didn't do his job i'd say. We kept telling him our name is changed, not evilness!!! We are now Mr. and Mrs. Dursch, but i'm thinking that I won't be able to officially change my name with all my SSN and bank accounty stuff till I get back since we have to wait on the official license to be sent to us. Anyways, that are my legal last name as of now. Now off to spend the rest of my time on vacation =P (yes, this was definitely a back log, i did not leave my honeymoon night to come right this XD) (penny for your thoughts)
Thursday, October 5th, 2006
3:50 pm	hurry uppppppp and wait! 8 days till my flight to the states, woo woo! (penny for your thoughts)
3:07 pm	sugoiiii Oh god, had fun little trip to the nearby compound. A normal 10 minute trip took us 25 minutes to navigate as we kept getting re-routed by the Afghan National Police (ANP) or the Afghan National Army (ANA). Oh, you can't go this way, no no no, can't go that way either. We finally found a way through but all is good. It didn't help it was the busiest time of day so we had fun playing aggressive driver ^_^ Go go GTA 3 driving skills! iiiiiiiiiku! Needless to say, when I get back to the states, I'll have my stick shift driving skillz pretty damn smooth. I get to practice all the stuff I didn't wanna do with my own car here =P Anyways, the good part was getting to the other compound and being able to actually order some food, other then whats in the dining hall. Ended up getting what is called a Kiffla, basically dough wrapped around mozzarala cheese and ham. Yum yum. Ended up getting a Blizzard as well from DQ, the banana split kind -munchies- So, i broke my diet today, but it was worth it...yummy. But other then that, I've lost 20 lbs and thinned down considerably from what I was when I first got here. It's a good feeling, and one that I hope I never find myself needing to return to. (penny for your thoughts)
2:57 pm	better habits I'm trying to write more in this damn thing =P I know I tend to post moody crap from time to time, but seldom seem to find anything good to post. Well, i take that back, i do, but i don't post it...so it's almost the same thing. Anyways, played some halo 2 last night. The game mode my roomie and I came up worked out great. It's basically no shield, no grenades, no weapons on the map. You have to use your own will power to not shoot someone in the head. The goal? Bash your opponets to death. The name of this insanity? Whackem Jackem. Ah, so much fun picking the smallest level, and proceeding to go against 10 others XD I ended up winning each round to 25 kills. I'm a much better halo player when I am fighting multiple people at once, my head-to-head skills are just mediocre. It's not quite as skill based as Halo 1 was in my opinion, but i've been converted to playing it more than Halo 1 thanks to the help of my roomies back in college and here in afghanistan. (penny for your thoughts)
Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006
10:17 am	Decisions, decisions I think its finally dawned on me that I will not be doing my 20 years in the military. I figured I would, but that was when I was single and didn't know what to do in the future. Now that i'm soon to have a wife and I've figured a major that I wanna run with, things just are rather different then they were before. I used to be able to deal with all the crap we dealt with, but now its just simply like...why? Why put up with the crap? I can at least say that i've put my time in the military, and been deployed and all that. I can say that the military paid off my car and has given me a decent amount of money to start my new wedded life off. But I don't want to do more time away from Christina. In our relationship, half of our time together really has been spent away from each other, with me at some military base here or there. I'm done, I know i still have another 2 and a half years left in my service, but 6 years seems like it'll be the magic number for me. So much for the Army retention services, you know? They don't really do a very good job on getting people to wanna stay in. Bleh the only reason i'm doing 6 years is because my job required a minimum of 6, bleh. It's been an honor to serve the military, not many get to say they've done anything for their country like that. But at the same time i'm just not gonna be able to make a career out of it. Anyways been making arrangements to get into school at University of Cincinnatti in Ohio. I'm going to go with the school of Pharmacy. It seems to have all the points of interest that i'm into, and I believe i have the skills needed for that. All will be good I hope, and yes we'll be living poor, but we'll be happier not being seperated a year at a time. I'm not pushing our relationships chances by doing it. She is okay with it...but I just can't stand being away. Something good finally happens to me, and i'm sent away from it. Enough of that. (penny for your thoughts)
Friday, September 29th, 2006
6:38 pm	ecstatic its like only 12 days until I get my flight out of here. I can't wait to get the hell outta here so I can go to hawaii. Much needed time away to see chibi. I neeeeeed it soo badly. I miss her incredibly. I keep getting excited more and more every morning as I wake up, counting off the days before my flight out of here. This deployment is highly boring, and it doesn't even feel like we're doing anything to change anything. The only thing that is going on is that people are being put in siutuations to get them killed. I mean seriously, even the president (Kharzai) of this country is worthless. I talked to several of the locals that work here with us, and all they talk about is how the guy does nothing for the people. What kind of leader is that. Not to mention the guy's brother is the most notorious drug trafficker in the country, that makes a lot of sense I'm sure. In this country, people are to family oriented, there is no way that Kharzai is as clean as he makes himself seem. I feel kind of sad for the locals that are here. The one good thing I do see though, is that we're putting good amounts of money into the country. The people are making mad money off of us. Ah well, gotta run. (penny for your thoughts)
Wednesday, September 20th, 2006
8:28 am	You dropped the bomb on me... Yesterday was interesting...Ended up having a SST truck (shit sucking truck) come to one of our gates here on post. Evidently on the routine check by K-9, the dog sat on it. Hmmm, maybe a mistake. Send in another dog...this dog sits on it. When the dogs sit on something, that means they smelled an explosive or the residue of one. This caused quite a panic you can imagine. These SST trucks are huge vessels for storing shit, okay? Could you imagine the whole inside being laced with explosives? Yeah...thats what our command had to plan for. If it went off, it would easily have leveled half our camp at least. So, after a little big of frenzied discussion, they send everyone and their mothers off post to some of our safe houses and coalition buddies out of the area. Do I go? no, because i'm part of the headquarters unit, woooo! I wanna blow up too =P So anyways, i end up being door bitch, and just limiting people who get to come in to only personnel on our access roster, and even that job doesn't last long since we evacuated everyone. So, i picked up a new job, I ended up raiding the local DFAC (dining facility) of their loaves of bread, lunch meat, and condiments and chips. I ended up making a shitload of sandwiches for the base defense, and that was my sole job for this whole incident XD Woo, if we get blown up, at least we'll be well fed. Anyways, the truck ended up not having anything in it, and we were all safe. woot. Anyways, i have once again had the metrosexual side in me jump out. Ended up completely removing everything from my room, and then replaced it in a more efficient fashion. I more then doubled the open floor space that we previously had, i'm no longer performing acrobatic moves trying to not kill myself to get to my wall locker. I even have my tv hiding now behind the wall locker in a self made entertainment containment area. I broke my drawer just enough so that I could slide a ps2 in it and be able to put my games in there with no problem. I also placed my oversized black box in the center of the room for an ottoman/table. it are good, goooooood. I'm gonna have to work on uploading my pictures to my yahoo pictures albums and put in a link for people who want to view what i've taken since being here. I maybe also placing stuff on a server so that i can put some pictures on here for once. The military really limits just what I can and can not access -.- Damn you websense! (penny for your thoughts)
Sunday, September 3rd, 2006
3:53 am	memory like an etch-n-sketch... Was reading www.ctrlaltdel-online.com, when the perfect description of my memory system came up...an Etch-n-sketch! Brian: I like to think of Ethan as an Etch-N-Sketch. No matter how intricate a drawing is, one fall down the stairs while chasing something shiny and its gone. Wow, thats the best way for me to describe my memory system XD I tend to not stay mad at anything for too long before something else catches my eye and I start to forget why I got mad in the first place. But not just for that, unfortunately that goes for things i was supposed to remember. No wonder i rely on post it notes and not an etch-n-sketch to remember things XD (penny for your thoughts)
Friday, September 1st, 2006
6:50 am	Habits So, i got in a discussion with someone this morning (go figure, its 2 o'clock in the morning, what else is there to do?) about parenting habits. How many times have you heard, "When i have kids i wouldn't do that" or "i'd let them do that"? Hell, i'm sure most of us growing up have thought about that. Maybe even been some form argument with a parental unit when they wouldn't let something go your way. Right? Yeah, well for anyone thinking that, they're mostly full of crap in my mind. I think thats always been what's always frightened the bejezus outta me. Why would I want to relive some dysfunctional family circus? I wouldn't want to put any child through that situation, he really would need some form of physchiatric help to aide his messed up brain meats. For example, take my parent's 'hard work' in me. They ended up with a smart child, though very sheltered, and very bitter. Rule with an Iron Fist, if you will. In my opinion, if it were anyone else, i'd swear they'd drive that kid to rebel most harshly, getting in far more trouble then they should have. I lucked out, i kept with friends that had a lot of freedom, but didn't abuse it. Seemed their parents actually had some trust in them, wow! New concept. Lack of trust. That's it right there. Lack of trust in the decisions that their kid would make, even after all the life lessons taught to them. Even well after the child had left home to make a path for themselves, they can't think that child would be able to last without their control in their life. Past bad decisions. Maybe that's it, knowledge of how things could of been if only they hadn't gotten knocked up young, went to college, or found a better living then they currently have. Wanting the best for their child only leads to pushing them away as they push too hard. Everyone has to learn from their mistakes, hell, maybe they'll learn from the parent's mistakes so they don't get put in the same situation. So anyways, to work off of this and drive on into a general direction, or point if you will, I'd have to say that if I were to have kids, i'd only have my parent's form of parenting behind me. No matter how much i despised it, that would be what would strongly be in mind...how i was parented when i was a kid. Funny enough, when I asked my buddy how he raised his children, he remarked that he scared himself when he realized looking back how close he had raised them as he was raised. This was mainly the reason for my comments about the only kids i'd have would be kittens, and I still want to stick true to that. Besides, kittens are better anyways =P (penny for your thoughts)
6:34 am	Journal Color change Randomly felt like changing my page's colors. It started since LJ fucked up and lost the color for my background, and i couldn't remember what it originally was, so i just went ahead and changed it completely. Randomness, sue me =P But in case i ever wanna go back to the old colors, this is just a reminder of the colors: page bg: #180030 page text: #6a7db6 page link: #CEB758 Page visited link: #CD478f Page active link: #CD478f Page emphasized text: #3B37D9 Page title: #4E3166 Weak accent: #240042 Text on weak accent: #99CC66 Strong accent: Text on Strong Accent: #2C238C Stronger accent: Text on stronger accent: (penny for your thoughts)
Sunday, August 27th, 2006
11:05 pm	do the family problems ever end... Email response to my email nearly half a month later, one which i'd spent most of the night writing, and this is what i get back? Dear ????, WHAT IS IN A NAME? Michael Joseph Peters / Hall JESUS THE CHRIST Kathleen Marie Haag/Peters/Hall Wow! I thought I could write you how I felt on this but... I guess I'm not quite ready to do so... Later! So will my family problems end? Yes, they will. The only way this will happen is if I just finally up and leave. I'm done with it. I'm starting my own family, now in only a month and half away 'officially' at my wedding. I'm not dragging past family problems into this one. As Christina said, " that's ok dude man, you can just communicate a lot with me instead ^^" Which will definitely be true, and I enjoy the company better. God, i swear i'm only gonna have kitteh's (kitties for you uneducated folk =P) for kids in the future, though I doubt i'd allow the drama to go on due to my intolerance for drama and chibi's complete no-nonsense attitude towards it. Straight to the point is the way to go, get it out of the way, and be mature about it. (penny for your thoughts)
Saturday, August 19th, 2006
11:40 pm	Tool of the Devil Michael Joseph Hall (11:08:30 PM) >> still can't wait for my xbox to come in XD Christina Dursch (11:11:58 PM) >> you are such a whore =P Christina Dursch (11:19:05 PM) >> video. game. whore. Christina Dursch (11:19:13 PM) >> you give it up to any system that'll have you (11:29:12 PM) >> Christina Dursch is now idle (10 minutes and counting...). Michael Joseph Hall (11:32:15 PM) >> video game whore indeed =P (11:32:18 PM) >> Christina Dursch has been idle 13 minutes. Michael Joseph Hall (11:32:21 PM) >> and i'm a chibi's whore, so sue me Michael Joseph Hall (11:32:30 PM) >> hey i at least admit i'm a game whore Michael Joseph Hall (11:33:13 PM) >> it only took me this long for an xbox since the system is cheaper, and there are enough games to justify bying it, just barely ^_~ (11:33:35 PM) >> Christina Dursch is back. Christina Dursch (11:33:42 PM) >> 6 games justify buying it? Christina Dursch (11:33:46 PM) >> ha ha ha ha ha Christina Dursch (11:33:48 PM) >> riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight Michael Joseph Hall (11:34:26 PM) >> plus enough people for playing halo =P Michael Joseph Hall (11:34:33 PM) >> yes, it justified it =P Michael Joseph Hall (11:34:44 PM) >> i bought a psp for less promising games ^^;; Christina Dursch (11:35:14 PM) >> halo is the spawn of satan Christina Dursch (11:35:24 PM) >> xbox is the tool of the devil Michael Joseph Hall (11:36:17 PM) >> lol XD (penny for your thoughts)