On Thu, 19 Nov 2015 21:19:25 -0800, "Bob F"
wrote:

Dan Espen wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" writes:

I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news
client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not.

As other posters have already mentioned,
there are plenty of free Usenet clients.
I'm using GNUS, (part of Emacs).

There's even "Google Groups". Not really a Usenet client,
but it will get you here.

Anyway, I've always looked forward to your posts and you never
disappoint.

If you find something online that you like better, please
come back and tell us about it.

Sorry, that kill files are all that we have.
I'm sure the guys at Bell Labs that dreamed this up never
anticipated the spammers and trolls, or the idiots.

No kill files available on most online forums I've seem.

Is that English... do you mean no kill files 'are' available?
Usenet does not supply killfiles, killfiles are available on
newsreaders, typically the free news readers do not have killfile
ability. However there's really no need to use a killfile at
rec.gardens, spam is very rare, and posts are rather sparse, often
days pass with no posts... and it's pretty easy to not read posts from
those posters you'd rather not read, just delete those posts unread.

Brooklyn1 wrote:
On Thu, 19 Nov 2015 21:19:25 -0800, "Bob F"
wrote:

Dan Espen wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" writes:

I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a
news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or
not.

As other posters have already mentioned,
there are plenty of free Usenet clients.
I'm using GNUS, (part of Emacs).

There's even "Google Groups". Not really a Usenet client,
but it will get you here.

Anyway, I've always looked forward to your posts and you never
disappoint.

If you find something online that you like better, please
come back and tell us about it.

Sorry, that kill files are all that we have.
I'm sure the guys at Bell Labs that dreamed this up never
anticipated the spammers and trolls, or the idiots.

No kill files available on most online forums I've seem.

Is that English... do you mean no kill files 'are' available?
Usenet does not supply killfiles, killfiles are available on
newsreaders, typically the free news readers do not have killfile
ability. However there's really no need to use a killfile at
rec.gardens, spam is very rare, and posts are rather sparse, often
days pass with no posts... and it's pretty easy to not read posts from
those posters you'd rather not read, just delete those posts unread.

Pretty clear english except for one typo. Show me a couple online forums that
offer kill files if you disagree. Obviously, I don't mean online repetitions of
usenet forums, but even there kill files are not an option I've seen.
\

Brooklyn1 writes:

On Thu, 19 Nov 2015 21:19:25 -0800, "Bob F"
wrote:

Dan Espen wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" writes:

I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news
client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not.

As other posters have already mentioned,
there are plenty of free Usenet clients.
I'm using GNUS, (part of Emacs).

There's even "Google Groups". Not really a Usenet client,
but it will get you here.

Anyway, I've always looked forward to your posts and you never
disappoint.

If you find something online that you like better, please
come back and tell us about it.

Sorry, that kill files are all that we have.
I'm sure the guys at Bell Labs that dreamed this up never
anticipated the spammers and trolls, or the idiots.

No kill files available on most online forums I've seem.

Is that English... do you mean no kill files 'are' available?

The above reads fine to me.

Usenet does not supply killfiles, killfiles are available on
newsreaders, typically the free news readers do not have killfile
ability.

I can think of at least 3 free news readers with kill files.
Just so happens to be all 3 I've used.

However there's really no need to use a killfile at
rec.gardens, spam is very rare, and posts are rather sparse, often
days pass with no posts... and it's pretty easy to not read posts from
those posters you'd rather not read, just delete those posts unread.

The signal to noise ratio hasn't been bad lately.
But that could be my kill files in action...

--
Dan Espen

"Bob F" writes:

Brooklyn1 wrote:
On Thu, 19 Nov 2015 21:19:25 -0800, "Bob F"
wrote:

Dan Espen wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" writes:

I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a
news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or
not.

As other posters have already mentioned,
there are plenty of free Usenet clients.
I'm using GNUS, (part of Emacs).

There's even "Google Groups". Not really a Usenet client,
but it will get you here.

Anyway, I've always looked forward to your posts and you never
disappoint.

If you find something online that you like better, please
come back and tell us about it.

Sorry, that kill files are all that we have.
I'm sure the guys at Bell Labs that dreamed this up never
anticipated the spammers and trolls, or the idiots.

No kill files available on most online forums I've seem.

Is that English... do you mean no kill files 'are' available?
Usenet does not supply killfiles, killfiles are available on
newsreaders, typically the free news readers do not have killfile
ability. However there's really no need to use a killfile at
rec.gardens, spam is very rare, and posts are rather sparse, often
days pass with no posts... and it's pretty easy to not read posts from
those posters you'd rather not read, just delete those posts unread.

Pretty clear english except for one typo. Show me a couple online forums that
offer kill files if you disagree. Obviously, I don't mean online repetitions of
usenet forums, but even there kill files are not an option I've seen.

Investorvillage offers the equivalent of kill files.

--
Dan Espen

"Bob F" wrote:
Brooklyn1 wrote:
"Bob F" wrote:
Dan Espen wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" writes:

I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a
news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or
not.

As other posters have already mentioned,
there are plenty of free Usenet clients.
I'm using GNUS, (part of Emacs).

There's even "Google Groups". Not really a Usenet client,
but it will get you here.

Anyway, I've always looked forward to your posts and you never
disappoint.

If you find something online that you like better, please
come back and tell us about it.

Sorry, that kill files are all that we have.
I'm sure the guys at Bell Labs that dreamed this up never
anticipated the spammers and trolls, or the idiots.

No kill files available on most online forums I've seem.

do you mean no kill files 'are' available?
Usenet does not supply killfiles, killfiles are available on
newsreaders, typically the free newsreaders do not have killfile
ability. However there's really no need to use a killfile at
rec.gardens, spam is very rare, and posts are rather sparse, often
days pass with no posts... and it's pretty easy to not read posts from
those posters you'd rather not read, just delete those posts unread.

Show me a couple online forums that
offer kill files if you disagree. Obviously, I don't mean online repetitions of
usenet forums, but even there kill files are not an option I've seen.

I already said that newsreaders offer killfiles, the ones you pay
for... the freebies generally do not. I read Usenet with Forte Agent:
http://forteinc.com/agent/
A one time copy costs $29, then $2.95 a month for support:
http://www.forteinc.com/apn/contact.php
It's well worth the 10¢ a day for a newreader that's hassle free.
It's trouble free and has excellent killfile capability, actually has
many features I don't use, there's not enough time in a day to use
even half their features... you'd need to pick, choose, and refuse.
There are many others if you search newsreaders:
http://www.newsreaders.info/recommended-newsreaders.htm

Dan Espen wrote:
Brooklyn1 writes:

On Thu, 19 Nov 2015 21:19:25 -0800, "Bob F"
wrote:

Dan Espen wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" writes:

I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a
news client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it,
or not.

As other posters have already mentioned,
there are plenty of free Usenet clients.
I'm using GNUS, (part of Emacs).

There's even "Google Groups". Not really a Usenet client,
but it will get you here.

Anyway, I've always looked forward to your posts and you never
disappoint.

If you find something online that you like better, please
come back and tell us about it.

Sorry, that kill files are all that we have.
I'm sure the guys at Bell Labs that dreamed this up never
anticipated the spammers and trolls, or the idiots.

No kill files available on most online forums I've seem.

Is that English... do you mean no kill files 'are' available?

The above reads fine to me.

Usenet does not supply killfiles, killfiles are available on
newsreaders, typically the free news readers do not have killfile
ability.

I can think of at least 3 free news readers with kill files.
Just so happens to be all 3 I've used.


I've never used a newsreader without killfile capability.
Not that I've used them all.


However there's really no need to use a killfile at
rec.gardens, spam is very rare, and posts are rather sparse, often
days pass with no posts... and it's pretty easy to not read posts
from those posters you'd rather not read, just delete those posts
unread.

The signal to noise ratio hasn't been bad lately.
But that could be my kill files in action...

On Sat, 14 Nov 2015 10:46:37 +1100, "David Hare-Scott"
wrote:

I have been using usenet for decades now and regularly on these two NGs for
about 12 years as far as I recall. I have learned much and I hope sometimes
taught something useful. At times it has been real fun and I felt a
comradeship with people who I will never meet in the flesh. There has
always been some noise, a background of posts that were a waste of time and
some posters who were always or nearly always a waste of time. On the whole
it was worthwhile.

But usenet is dying. The number of posters reduces every year. It seems
there are too few good ones left to maintain critical mass. There has
always been the ignorant the foolish and the arrogant but now the proportion
has grown in the population and so the signal to noise ratio has declined.
For those who say you can always plonk the idiots and the terminally toxic,
the problem is by the time you do that there isn't much left. I have been
reading and posting less and less.

Aside from the general decline in numbers the core problem is those who want
to abuse the system for fun or profit. Spammers and the selfish are with us
in every medium and you need to cope with that somehow. In this respect
interfaces where users must be identified and can be banned by
administrators for either reason have an advantage but clearly this
winnowing is never completely effective. Nonetheless most NGs survived a
long time without resorting to moderation - but no more. Smaller groups (eg
aus.gardens) have shrunk to the point where they are pretty much useless and
the energy isn't there to amalgamate or reorganise to groups with sufficient
mass to continue. The medium has had its day, Sadly.

The sad, the sick, the crazy and the selfish are sometimes amusing but often
just annoying and time wasting. Their common characteristic is they have
no appreciation of their own behaviour. In real life there are consequences
to bad behaviour in society, nobody will talk to you if you go far enough.
The medium to some extent enables the socially ill by providing real-life
anonymity, allowing nymshifting and seeming like people are not actually
real, they are just streams of electrons out in the ether.

If you are sick enough to spend all your efforts getting attention by being
a turd then usenet will make it possible. If (however well meaning you may
be) you feel it your bounden duty to jam your politics, religion or
wackiness down the throats of an international audience then you can do it
here. If you are 15 years old (in years or attitude) you can perversely get
an ego massage wasting the time of good people who just want to talk about
plants. It no longer seems possible to agree to disagree, you must have the
last word and go over the same ground again and again. The dead horse is no
longer getting beaten but a hole in the ground where the dust of the horse
used to be must be assailed daily. The extremists of the left and right of
US politics are both blind the fact that around the world NOBODY ****ING
CARES about your sectarian poison. You are both safe and warm in your
respective blankets ( red and blue to be sure) of national, social and moral
insularity - a plaque on both your houses.

I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client
so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is
to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC
gets retired.

Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge,
experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always
germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over
your life.

That's one of the more cogent comments on the current situation that
I've seen. I'm rapidly losing interest as well, there's very few
groups with posters that are worth reading or communicating with any
more.

Of course, this has been going on for years now, but lately... for me
Usenet hasn't never been at such a low point as it is right now.

When you think about it, there isn't a better venue on the Internet
for those purely into conflict, trolling or just plain arguing. So as
long time genuine posters bail, the signal to noise ratio has
deteriorated.

And any new blood finding their way onto Usenet is coming from
technically inept google group users... enough said there.

It ain't looking terribly good at this stage.

On Sun, 22 Nov 2015 07:36:10 +1100, Jeßus wrote:

On Sat, 14 Nov 2015 10:46:37 +1100, "David Hare-Scott"
wrote:

I have been using usenet for decades now and regularly on these two NGs for
about 12 years as far as I recall. I have learned much and I hope sometimes
taught something useful. At times it has been real fun and I felt a
comradeship with people who I will never meet in the flesh. There has
always been some noise, a background of posts that were a waste of time and
some posters who were always or nearly always a waste of time. On the whole
it was worthwhile.

But usenet is dying. The number of posters reduces every year. It seems
there are too few good ones left to maintain critical mass. There has
always been the ignorant the foolish and the arrogant but now the proportion
has grown in the population and so the signal to noise ratio has declined.
For those who say you can always plonk the idiots and the terminally toxic,
the problem is by the time you do that there isn't much left. I have been
reading and posting less and less.

Aside from the general decline in numbers the core problem is those who want
to abuse the system for fun or profit. Spammers and the selfish are with us
in every medium and you need to cope with that somehow. In this respect
interfaces where users must be identified and can be banned by
administrators for either reason have an advantage but clearly this
winnowing is never completely effective. Nonetheless most NGs survived a
long time without resorting to moderation - but no more. Smaller groups (eg
aus.gardens) have shrunk to the point where they are pretty much useless and
the energy isn't there to amalgamate or reorganise to groups with sufficient
mass to continue. The medium has had its day, Sadly.

The sad, the sick, the crazy and the selfish are sometimes amusing but often
just annoying and time wasting. Their common characteristic is they have
no appreciation of their own behaviour. In real life there are consequences
to bad behaviour in society, nobody will talk to you if you go far enough.
The medium to some extent enables the socially ill by providing real-life
anonymity, allowing nymshifting and seeming like people are not actually
real, they are just streams of electrons out in the ether.

If you are sick enough to spend all your efforts getting attention by being
a turd then usenet will make it possible. If (however well meaning you may
be) you feel it your bounden duty to jam your politics, religion or
wackiness down the throats of an international audience then you can do it
here. If you are 15 years old (in years or attitude) you can perversely get
an ego massage wasting the time of good people who just want to talk about
plants. It no longer seems possible to agree to disagree, you must have the
last word and go over the same ground again and again. The dead horse is no
longer getting beaten but a hole in the ground where the dust of the horse
used to be must be assailed daily. The extremists of the left and right of
US politics are both blind the fact that around the world NOBODY ****ING
CARES about your sectarian poison. You are both safe and warm in your
respective blankets ( red and blue to be sure) of national, social and moral
insularity - a plaque on both your houses.

I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news client
so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My decision is
to not. I will probably stop reading here within a month when my old PC
gets retired.

Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their knowledge,
experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May your seed always
germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers waft their perfume over
your life.

That's one of the more cogent comments on the current situation that
I've seen. I'm rapidly losing interest as well, there's very few
groups with posters that are worth reading or communicating with any
more.

Of course, this has been going on for years now, but lately... for me
Usenet hasn't never been at such a low point as it is right now.

When you think about it, there isn't a better venue on the Internet
for those purely into conflict, trolling or just plain arguing. So as
long time genuine posters bail, the signal to noise ratio has
deteriorated.

And any new blood finding their way onto Usenet is coming from
technically inept google group users... enough said there.

It ain't looking terribly good at this stage.

That's because most of the dimwitted/non contributers are now
facebooking. I've always found it ironic when some say they have
learned here but those are the information takers who rarely if ever
have contributed. They flap their gums about gardening but seem to
have nothing to contribute, not even a single photo of their garden.
Perhaps it's best they depart and create a vaccuum that will suck in
real gardeners, who talk less but demonstrate more. Imagine, someone
types over a thousand words about why they are leaving because it's
other's fault but hasn't spent nearly that much effort in meaningful
contributions. The truth is facebooking requires much of ones time,
facebookers don't have time for usenet... facebookers really enjoy
that inane soap opera. I spent a day looking around at facebook, all
BSing morons out lying each other.

On Friday, November 13, 2015 at 5:46:40 PM UTC-6, David Hare-Scott wrote:

But usenet is dying. The number of posters reduces every
year. It seems there are too few good ones left to maintain
critical mass.


I agree that usenet is dying, but some groups are closer to dead
than others, and of course some groups are like zombies since they
are active but swamped with unrelated spam. In rec.gardens.edible
I have not seen too much spam and I don't even bother with filtering
other than whatever google.groups may do without my knowledge.

Once upon a time on usenet David Hare-Scott wrote:
I have been using usenet for decades now and regularly on these two
NGs for about 12 years as far as I recall. I have learned much and I
hope sometimes taught something useful. At times it has been real
fun and I felt a comradeship with people who I will never meet in the
flesh. There has always been some noise, a background of posts that
were a waste of time and some posters who were always or nearly
always a waste of time. On the whole it was worthwhile.

But usenet is dying. The number of posters reduces every year. It
seems there are too few good ones left to maintain critical mass. There
has always been the ignorant the foolish and the arrogant but
now the proportion has grown in the population and so the signal to
noise ratio has declined. For those who say you can always plonk the
idiots and the terminally toxic, the problem is by the time you do
that there isn't much left. I have been reading and posting less and
less.
Aside from the general decline in numbers the core problem is those
who want to abuse the system for fun or profit. Spammers and the
selfish are with us in every medium and you need to cope with that
somehow. In this respect interfaces where users must be identified
and can be banned by administrators for either reason have an
advantage but clearly this winnowing is never completely effective.
Nonetheless most NGs survived a long time without resorting to
moderation - but no more. Smaller groups (eg aus.gardens) have
shrunk to the point where they are pretty much useless and the energy
isn't there to amalgamate or reorganise to groups with sufficient
mass to continue. The medium has had its day, Sadly.
The sad, the sick, the crazy and the selfish are sometimes amusing
but often just annoying and time wasting. Their common characteristic is
they have no appreciation of their own behaviour. In real life there are
consequences to bad behaviour in society,
nobody will talk to you if you go far enough. The medium to some
extent enables the socially ill by providing real-life anonymity,
allowing nymshifting and seeming like people are not actually real,
they are just streams of electrons out in the ether.
If you are sick enough to spend all your efforts getting attention by
being a turd then usenet will make it possible. If (however well
meaning you may be) you feel it your bounden duty to jam your
politics, religion or wackiness down the throats of an international
audience then you can do it here. If you are 15 years old (in years
or attitude) you can perversely get an ego massage wasting the time
of good people who just want to talk about plants. It no longer seems
possible to agree to disagree, you must have the last word and go
over the same ground again and again. The dead horse is no longer
getting beaten but a hole in the ground where the dust of the horse
used to be must be assailed daily. The extremists of the left and
right of US politics are both blind the fact that around the world
NOBODY ****ING CARES about your sectarian poison. You are both safe
and warm in your respective blankets ( red and blue to be sure) of
national, social and moral insularity - a plaque on both your houses.
I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news
client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not. My
decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a
month when my old PC gets retired.

Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their
knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May
your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers
waft their perfume over your life.

David that is such a damn eloquent post about not just what is wrong with
usenet but society - in fact society moreso. Thunderbird is a free email /
newsgroups client and Eternal September a free NNTP server so I for one hope
that you'll reconsider. I'm seeing this first in aus-gardens as I've been so
busy in my own (NZ) garden I haven't had time to check the groups for a
while and aus.gardens is alphabetically superior to the two rec. groups
(both of whch I read) and is in the same hemisphere as me. Also I see a lot
of posts for the first time in ages....

I have copied your post to my saved folder where it joins several similar
posts from over the years from other decent rational people. Good people who
are worth 'reading' and the loss of whom is a blow to this medium. Some of
those people reconsidered and I hope that you do too (I see a bunch of posts
in this thread hopefully entreating you to stay).

If you don't go then you give in to the arseholes - and leave me (and I'm
sure many others) with less of a reason to check these groups. I've been
trying hard not to give in to the exodus to advertising sponsored on-line
forums where petty dictators get to control who can and can't say what they
want to say.

Your presence if you do decide to go will be sorely missed me me at least.
I'm more of a reader than a poster and your posts are always worth the time
taken to read them. Whatever you decide I wish you all the best - may your
life be filled with love and laughter.

Sincerely,
Shaun.

Once upon a time on usenet Brooklyn1 wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote:

I have just got a new machine that doesn't natively come with a news
client so I am faced with buying and setting one up on it, or not.
My decision is to not. I will probably stop reading here within a
month when my old PC gets retired.

Most will not care which is fine. To those who have shared their
knowledge, experience and goodwill, thanks and fare thee well. May
your seed always germinate, your tomatoes be tasty and your flowers
waft their perfume over your life.

For someone who claims to be subsribed for as long as you claim you
are demonstating an exceptionately shallow intellect... usenet is no
different now from how it's always been. All anyone can hope to get
from any Newsgroup is as much as they contribute. Perhaps you are
simply too full of yourself because over the years you've contributed
very little, nothing meaningful other than your self absorbed
claptrap. Adios and don't let the door hit your ignorant ass.

He may well post less than you but quantiity is certainly no substitute for
quality. I always read Davids post entirely but with 95% of yours I don't
persevere past the first line.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

Once upon a time on usenet Brooklyn1 wrote:
On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 17:16:22 -0600, adule wrote:

On 11/15/2015 4:58 PM, SG1 wrote:

"adule" wrote in message
...
On 11/13/2015 5:46 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
I have been using usenet for decades now ...snip...]

I've been on usenet for many years. I usually post in the group
alt.narcissists.text. BTW, are you leaving because of something I
said?

ADule

It is what you did not say...

I knew that.

Not to worry, people leave Newsgroups, and have to announce it yet,
because they have very thin skin... usenet is much better off without
them.

As it's always been - the wrong ones leave.

What you call thin skin I call not being an arsehole or wanting to deal with
them.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

Once upon a time on usenet SG1 wrote:
"Fran Farmer" wrote in message
...
On 16/11/2015 9:58 AM, SG1 wrote:

It is what you did not say...


Hello SG1! Good to see you again :-)))

Unlike many I post only when I have something to say.

Amen!
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

(Oh the irony!)

Once upon a time on usenet Fran Farmer wrote:
On 17/11/2015 7:13 AM, Drew Lawson wrote:

I still think it is a medium superior to web forums, and for exactly
the same reasons that Facebook and such don't like it -- no one owns
Usenet.

Agreed. FB is a PITA.

I'm with you there. Signed up years ago at the insistance of overseas family
who prefer to post there than write emails and now only visit once a month
or less for maybe five minutes just to see who's hatched, been matched or
dispatched.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

On 11/22/2015 8:09 PM, ~misfit~ wrote:
Once upon a time on usenet Fran Farmer wrote:
On 17/11/2015 7:13 AM, Drew Lawson wrote:

I still think it is a medium superior to web forums, and for exactly
the same reasons that Facebook and such don't like it -- no one owns
Usenet.

Agreed. FB is a PITA.

I'm with you there. Signed up years ago at the insistance of overseas family
who prefer to post there than write emails and now only visit once a month
or less for maybe five minutes just to see who's hatched, been matched or
dispatched.

Yeah, I have kids and grands after me to sign up for Facebook but it
isn't going to happen. I ride a gardening group that is mastered out of
the U of Kentucky, been on it since around 1990. Otherwise UseNet for me
is rec.food.preserving, very low volume nowadays, and
rec.gardens.edible, which until lately, has also been low volume.

Used to run a gardening group on Yahoo Groups but people just kept
leaving it so I left too. I think a large part of the internet
population has no idea what gardening and talking about gardening is all
about.

Supposed to be a light freeze tomorrow morning so we picked sweet chiles
and eggplant, probably for the last time this winter. Winter garden is
coming along nicely, looks like the broccoli is starting make heads and
the cabbage is heading. Lots of salad mix and Swiss chard out there,
that was our dinner tonight. We're trying to eat better and lighter at
dinner time.