Tag: ohgeorgia

Well this is going to make a real lean Christmas

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today, I got a ticket it in the mail.  When I saw the words “traffic violation enclosed” I winced because I knew that there was an extremely high chance that it was not me that was the driver at the time of the violation, seeing as how I barely get to drive my own registered vehicle these days, as my au pair uses it to do all of hauling of my kids to school and extracurriculars.  However, I was not upset with them because I’m sure it was an honest mistake, and it was more than likely to have occurred in the process of while they were taking my kids somewhere they needed to be.

Bringing the envelope into the house, my mind raced at what the possible fine was going to be, the last time I got a traffic camera violation, it was like $55, and when I got a school zone camera violation that was overturned on account of it not being a school day, I still saw that it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $125~ish.  I hoped it was closer to the traffic camera, and not the school zone.

Turns out that the violation was that of passing a stopped school bus on a multi-lane road with a center turning lane, which I’ll admit that I had to stop and think about the rules on that one, but I probably would’ve stopped out of doubt.  And the time stamp confirmed that it was at a time in which it was the au pair taking my kids to extracurriculars, so it wasn’t my own doing; but seeing as how the car is registered to me, that’s who the ticket is directed at.

As for the violation, I imagine my face looking as close to possible as Jim Carrey’s The Mask as humanly possible when I saw the comma in the number: $1,000.  One thousand (fucking) dollars.

My knee-jerk reaction was that, this most definitely had to be a fake, a scam.  Even with the accompanying photo evidence of my car before and after the bus, this fine of a thousand dollars couldn’t possibly be right, especially seeing as how I’ve never had a violation of this nature in my record before.

So searching for it on my own on the internet, I find the city municipal site pretty quickly, and sure as shit, it’s no fake.  It’s an actual program, that’s been softly rolling out since like 2022, and any semblance of lower first violations all flew out the window as of July 2024, where the program rolled into the territory where all first violations are one thousand fucking dollars.

$1,000 for a school bus is absolutely draconian.  This is some Commonwealth of Virginia-levels of extreme punishment.  I’m fortunate enough to be in a position to where I can figure this out, but it doesn’t change the fact that the timing of it, and the flagrant intention of it is going to really ruin my life a little bit right now.  I’ve spent all of 2025 in some of the worst financial standing that I’ve ever been in my adult life, and I’ve been digging and fighting and persevering all year long, and just as I’ve been able to clear some debts right in time for the holidays, getting this ridiculously large fine just feels like I’m being kicked while I’m already down. 

This just reinforces the feeling I’ve had most of the year that I’m just this gigantic fucking punching bag for life’s cruel scenarios sometimes.

I get the whole idea of the program, and I am all about increasing safety for children.  I’m not butt-hurt over the notion of buses having cameras equipped to catch and penalize those who don’t follow the laws of bus safety, I’m just in a state of being flabbergasted that the fines are just so astronomically high. 

While venting my shock at the high violation cost, I came across this news story that echoes my general concern, and this quote is the best/worst/most ironic part of the whole thing:

A fine needs to get people’s attention, yes — but it shouldn’t be so high it’s impossible to pay,” (State Rep and who helped write the law Don) Parson said.

Additionally, this same person was quoted saying:

What we’re doing here is trying to protect children —and it is very important — but I also think $1,000 is too high,” he said.

I’m just in a state of disbelief, honestly.  This $1,000 fine is going to absolutely kill me.  No, I’m not going to lose my home or anything, but it’s not something I can just shrug off.  In all likelihood, it’s just going to be put on my credit card, adding to the debt that has been going in the wrong direction over the last two years, and it’s going to live rent-free in my head for a little bit.

I’m not going to shirk off the accountability and put it onto my au pair, because she got it while in service of my family, so beyond a cursory discussion to be careful of stopped school buses, I’m going to eat the burden, because the last thing I want is this to lead to her visa getting revoked because America sucks and I’m sure there have been foreigners deported for less.

But a $1,000 fine, this time of year, due by Christmas, absolutely blows.  I already stress over the obligation to buy gifts, but this basically consumes the vast majority of my gift buying budget.  Nobody is going to feel sorry for me, and I don’t think it’s really going to be accepted if I just nope the fuck out of gift giving outright because of this, and I’m trying really, really hard to keep my composure in light of this, and not let it ruin absolutely everything in spite of its extreme efforts.

I want to ask the rhetorical question on when will life start to get any easier, but the real question is if it ever really will at all?

Only illegal because they got caught

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSB: North Georgia VFW post busted for hosting “illegal” gambling, including slot machines and table games

Over the last weekend, I took #2 to a birthday party that was at some Dave & Busters-clone type of joint, where they had bowling, laser tag, arcade machines.  Additionally, they also had a section of the place loosely cordoned off with some velvet ropes that had pool tables as well as, slot machines.

I don’t really care enough to find out the entire legality of the ability to have slot machines in the state of Georgia, but the point remains that at a place clearly geared up to be friendly to all ages, which is to say a place where you can bring young children to and not get judged too much by asshole bystanders, this place still had a row of slot machines, in plain sight for kids to see and potentially watch, along with the gamblers who could be playing them.

So it’s a little puzzling to read this story about how some VFW post up in the sticks of Georgia was busted and raided because they had gambling there, because there are a number of Kroger grocery stores throughout the state who also have slot machines, legally, in addition to the number of joints that have them in plain sight.

If I had to guess, the real issue is probably that it’s not so much the fact that the VFW post didn’t report their gambling activities, it’s probably the fact that they probably paid no tax on their intake, as well as any of their gamblers probably weren’t paying taxes on any of their winnings, even though I highly doubt that a VFW hall is going to be a place where guys are routinely clearing $10,000+, the general cutoff where one should expect a notification from the IRS for exceeding.

It’s just funny to me, because gambling is an ever-increasing problem in my opinion, throughout the United States, and as gambling has permeated through the internet, and states are relaxing their buttholes and pulling the anti-gambling stick out of them, and the act is hardly restricted to just Las Vegas, Atlantic City or indigenous lands anymore, it’s becoming really problematic, I think.

Underground gambling undoubtedly has been going on since the dawn of civilization, but if I had to guess, it has probably gotten absolutely worse throughout the last decade or so with the relaxation of gambling laws, and the increasing availability of gaming in general.  Like, people who weren’t gamblers to begin with have a greater chance of being exposed and introduced and apt to become them, and with enough drive and addiction, it’s only a matter of time before they’re pissing away their social security checks at the local VFW because they heard that they could play some hold ‘em for cash.

When Shohei Ohtani got busted for gambling and he and MLB threw his interpreter under the bus, there was a great meme about how the golden boy could have gotten into this gambling scandal.  And all Japanese guys being degenerate gambling addict jokes aside, there was this one meme that I always remembered and still refer to this day:

Welcome back to SportsCenter presented by ESPN Bet, for more on the Ohtani situation, we go to our FanDuel MLB Insider Jeff Passan at our DraftKings Studio in Los Angeles, brought to you by Caesar’s Sportsbook.  Jeff, how could something like this happen??

That’s how I feel about the VFW gambling hall that’s supposedly illegal.  Sure, they probably weren’t paying any taxes on the cash money circulating around the joint, but at the same time, I can’t imagine anything remotely close to a casino’s liquid was sloshing around the joint.

Plus, probably all of them are veterans who have served the country in some way shape or form, leave them the fuck alone.  I’m not saying they should get full-on Armageddon don’t ever have to pay taxes ever again, but for fuck’s sake, turn the other cheek on some casual entertainment gambling, they’re not hurting anyone.

Instead, Uncle Sam gets to fuck over these guys a second time around, by shutting down their social gathering spot, and being colossal assholes in going after a small pissant operation, in the grand spectrum of illegal gambling operations throughout the country.

Way to go, Georgia.  Way to go, ‘murica.  Sure is great here

Seems kind of ironic to me

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was driving home one day, and I decided to take an alternate route, because it might be a little longer as far as street distance goes, but there are fewer lights, and I was in one of those moods where I was over all the red lights that I seemed to be hitting.  There’s a point on this route where there’s this farm, that I’ve come to know as being owned by some obvious hard-right-wing nutjobs, as indicative by all the hard-right-wing signs that they plaster all over their property.

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
PRAY FOR AMERICA
LET’S GO BRANDON
KEEP AMERICA GREAT
AMERICA FIRST

And the list goes on and on and on.  There’s pretty much no matter, no election or no opportunity missed by the people who live on this farm to spout their views or automatic support for whomever is repping the right.  In one hand, I kind of respect and wish that the not-left had such devout, obsessed and dedicated to voting and supporting their cause, and perhaps every single political arena wouldn’t be so fucking one-sided.  But in the other hand, fuck these shitheads and their support of just about everything I disagree in.

Anyway, as I was passing by today, there was a sign in their primary viewing sign space, that said: WE ARE CHARLIE.

I scrunched my brow at this one, and at the next red light I stopped at, I whipped out my phone to google it because I was curious.  Of course it had to do with the fairly recent assassination of some right-wing nutjob who had the same name, and I felt a microsecond of embarrassment at not realizing that sooner but on that same note I actively avoid politics as if discussing them will give me COVID.

Unsurprising, his death made him into a martyr to the right, and I guess saying WE ARE CHARLIE is some sort of defiant solidarity, and basically the white people version of everyone else saying that they are George Floyd, Sandra Bland, or any person that dare ever stood on the other side of the fence.

However, I couldn’t help but feel that there was some severe irony in the phrasing of WE ARE CHARLIE, because the very first thing that came to my mind is that “Charlie” was the nickname/slang/slur that US soldiers used to describe the opposing Vietcong forces during the Vietnam War.

Every skirmish was, against Charlie.  Charlie ambushing US forces.  Fuckin’ Charlie all over the place.  Spraying Agent Orange in the jungle to weed out Charlie.  Etcetera, etcetera.

Charlie is a term that has some hard negative connotation, especially for those who served, come from military backgrounds, or were impacted or affected by Vietnam in some way, shape or form.

And now we have white folks all over the American landscape who are now defiantly and proudly proclaiming to be, Charlie.  Okay

The ironic thing is that the Vietnam War more or less ended in 1975, which is just 50 years ago.  Across America and the rest of the world, there are still living people who fought in it; there are people who have killed, are widows and fatherless children from the conflict,  in the name of war, still alive today.  I can’t imagine that a lot of these people are all too thrilled to be seeing the word Charlie being used in such pro hard-right-wing propaganda, especially those who have and still suffer the effects of loss, death and PTSD.

Or perhaps I’m being presumptuous and giving too much credit to right-wing supporters to have the morals that would put something like this into question, and even they have no problem dropping their stigmas over the word Charlie and are more than happy to take it back if it supports their idiot beliefs.

Given the nature of modern politics, it’s probably the latter, unfortunately.

Because like I said, I saw this sign on a farm.  Farms are usually family joints passed down generations, and I’m going to go out on a limb and take a guess that if the owner of this farm didn’t fight in Vietnam, they’re probably descendants of someone who did, and because politics are unfortunately often times practically genetic at the success rate of offspring buying into their parents’ beliefs, I’d wager that through the 80s, 90s, 00s to up until a month ago, the name Charlie was probably something that was probably spit out, with some resentment, as opposed to being a phrase of solidarity and left-wing defiance.

One thing that I thought about though, that would be ironically funny, but not that funny because the loss of life isn’t really a laughing matter in most cases, but piggybacking onto the recent termination of AOL dial-up service, I’m imagining a scenario where the elderly final users of the service, now without any real internet service to brainwash them any further, have no idea about the whole Charlie situation, and have no clue that being Charlie is considered a good thing among their right-wing brethren.

And then ‘ol Hershel is going down the road in his 1957 Chevy pickup, and he drives past a house with a big ass WE ARE CHARLIE sign in their yard, triggering his PTSD.  Naturally he is packing, and he parks his truck, grabs his double barrel shotgun that’s on a mantle behind the driver’s seat, and storms into the house, and blows the fuck away out of some right-wing family.  Took care of that fuckin’ Charlie.

Right-on-right crime, just like the actual Charlie incident, from what I’ve heard.

Like I said, the loss of life in any case isn’t really that funny under most circumstances, but I’m just being honest here, if I were ever to catch wind that a scenario like this actually happened, I have to admit that I’d be kind of amused.

Wow, I didn’t think they’d actually do it (AKA Oh, Georgia #560)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

ANF: Georgia to build a professional cricket stadium, in LaGrange

It’s been a while since I had an old-fashioned diatribe about a sports stadium, yeah?  I mean the Braves had pretty much run out of stadiums to build and fleece the local taxpayers over, Atlanta United already got their stadium, their training ground, as well as USA Soccer down in Fayetteville.  The purported temu-Battery in Forsyth/Dawsonville designed to attract an NHL expansion team still seems like there’s lots of room for failure to occur or for people to open their eyes and realize that they’re being swindled.

So it actually seemed like Georgia had hit somewhat of a saturation point as far as the necessity to build any more unnecessary sporting venues, and it actually has been a little quiet over majority of the last decade.

It was actually back in July of 2017 in which I first caught wind of there being interest in a cricket stadium in Georgia, and considering it didn’t happen immediately, I guess I let my guard down at thinking that perhaps, the state finally found their breaking point as far as not dropping what they’re doing in order to build some wholly unnecessary project in order for some rich white people to smokescreen a town into usurping public funds to line their coffers with.

But never say never, and never underestimate the tenacity of the greedy in order to pursue schemes in order to make a lot of money, but it seems that a decade later, Georgia will be getting its own fucking cricket stadium too because that’s totally what this state needs instead of improved infrastructure, mass transit, affordable housing, or even more chicken tender or bougie donut joints.

In one hand, I want to say that in all fairness, there are a shitload of Indian people in the Metro Atlanta area, specifically Smyrna/Vinings, where it literally feels like residential zones from India were plucked out of the ground like Sim City and dropped there, and at least in my observations, nobody loves cricket more than that specific demographic, so there stands to be belief that there could be a demand. 

However, that would be somewhere remotely near Smyrna/Vinings and not way the fuck out in LaGrange, where contrary to ANF’s reporting’s claims, is very much not a part of Metro Atlanta.  Without traffic, it’s like 75 miles southwest of Smyrna/Vinings and maybe 90 minutes, but given the fact that there’s never not traffic in the actual Metro Atlanta area, it’s probably more of a three-hour trek to get down to LaGrange, which is closer to the Alabama state line than it is to Atlanta, much less Newnan, the first bastion of civilization heading east from there.

I really can’t imagine that all the Indians and/or cricket fans that will undoubtedly spawn because there’s nothing whiter than glomping onto the new thing to pretend like you’ve been a fan all along, will still be willing to travel all the way to LaGrange in order to watch cricket matches, because the traffic will suck where I-85 chokes down from three lanes to two at Newnan, and if there’s any modicum of demand, then the shitty small town infrastructure will get their asses beat while they try to figure things out.

Not that I’m going to care enough in 2027 to keep my ear to the ground at the results, but I’d be interested if they were fed to me.

But in the other hand, Georgia just doesn’t need yet another fucking sporting venue, especially for such an L-tier sport like cricket.  Even if the construction of it will boost the local economy with probably a few hundred minimum wage paying job opportunities, studies have shown that in lieu of massive multi-million dollar projects like sporting venues, there’s more money to be had at building spaces that accommodate conventions and conferences, and keeping low-maintenance events churning on a regular basis actually feeds economies better than sporting venues do.

Whatever though, I thought I’d have a little bit more venom to spit in regards to this, but I don’t.  Perhaps because it’s being built in LaGrange, Alabama and remotely nowhere near the actual Metro Atlanta area, and doesn’t stand to impact my taxes whatsoever that takes a lot of heat out of my desire to be on offense.  But I still think it’s really foolish and unnecessary all the same, and if Georgia is gung-ho about building joints for shit like cricket, I guess it’s only a matter of time before they begin to start having talks about building sporting venues for shit like Ultimate Frisbee or professional Quiddich.

Phelps County probably smells delicious right now

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The Hill: tractor trailer carrying 40,000 lbs. of ribeye steaks catches fire on I-74 in Missouri

Normally, I don’t bother writing about trucks full of food stuffs catching fire or overturning unless they happen in Georgia, but every now and then there are a few examples that pique my interest to the point where I can turn the clock back and write about truck carnage at the expense of delicious foods.

But headlines talking about a truck full of steaks catching fire got my attention, and specifically the fact that they weren’t just any old run of the mill steaks, but forty thousand pounds of ribeye steaks specifically that caught my attention.

The devil is in the details.

Sure, there is a time and place for every cut of steak, and sometimes I’ve just been in the mood for a good New York strip, sometimes a big ass porterhouse.  Sometimes just the filet is sufficient, if I want to luxuriate in all the other sides and courses.  But for the most part, there’s seldom a time when a good ribeye isn’t a viable option for a steak, and learning of this truck disaster where several tons of ribeye steaks went up in flames definitely got my big back attention.

Naturally, I’m long past the first person to probably make the joke about how delicious I-74 in Missouri must smell at the idea of all this succulent beef going up in flames, but it’s probably not wrong.  The whole region with a multiple mile radius probably smells like an incredible barbecue is going on, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Missouri is that the state knows how to barbecue, apparently even on the physical highways itself.

However, I do have to question the quality of the steaks, if they’re in a parcel of 40,000 lbs of other ribeyes.  I have to imagine that they were probably of the frozen variety to begin with, and probably nowhere near high-end restaurant quality cuts that most people fantasize about when they’re thinking about a good steak.  As I said, the devil is in the details, and I’d be curious to know if these were like Dollar General hockey puck steaks, or if they were closer to like Outback Steakhouse steaks.  That’s the intel that separates a ho-hum run of the mill truck disaster from one that people talk about for years to come.

Either way, congrats to Missouri for having a truck catastrophe that sounded so grand and probably smelled so good, to where it warranted words to be spouted on my little slice of the internet.

What’s worse: leaving dog poop or leaving dog poop in a bag?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

These are the thoughts that go through my head when I go out for runs.  Because despite the snooty upscale environment my general area pretends like it is, there’s still a lot of white trash behavior underneath the thin skin of it all.  Like people who leave their dog poop, in bags, on the side of walking trails and sidewalks that inevitably never get picked up.  Which got me wondering, the title of this post, what people think is worse between leaving your dog’s poop behind out in the open, or taking the time to pick it up, bag it and then, leaving it behind. 

Saying you’ll come back for it later and most likely not, irrelevant to the query at hand.

And this isn’t even something that’s solely based on a single day’s exploration of the outdoors.  Whenever I’ve hit the Silver Comet Trail, I see bags of poop all over the sides of the trail.  Taking my kids on nature walks and mini-hikes, same deal.  It’s just disheartening to have seen such bullshit behavior now having crept into my own community, where I do my outdoor runs.

This is a case where no answer is right, and no answer is wrong.  Anyone who does absolutely anything other than picking up your dog’s poop, and relocating it into an appropriate receptacle, is frankly a piece of shit and if I were the lord and ruler of the world, this would probably be a three strikes and then the death penalty kind of thing.

Like, people who leave the dog poop are absolute cocksuckers in the sense that the act of them letting their dog poop on someone else’s yard or a public place, and then not picking it up and walking off is a combination of shithead behaviors – negligence, inconsideration, laziness and just plain being a shithead.  Few things get me fired up than finding an errant turd in my yard, because some asshole in my neighborhood was being an asshole, and short of setting up a camera to surveil my yard at all times, I have no idea who it is, no matter how much I want to return the turds to properties of the owners of the dog(s) who left them.

But I actually think people who bag up their dog’s poop but then leave the bags behind, are worse.  Because when they do what they do, they’re not only demonstrating all of the aforementioned shithead behaviors, they’re also adding deceit, lying, delusion and just plain being wrong, in thinking what they’re doing is somehow better than just leaving their dog’s poop out and open.  All topped off with the fact that these cocksuckers+ are making conscientious decisions to bag the poop and then leave the bags behind, where as those who don’t might sometimes actually be able to play negligence because most people who walk their dogs are also phone-addled zombies and may not have noticed a poop, but that’s a different gripe for a different time.

Let’s not even bother deliberating on the whole “I’ll come back for it later” bullshit – I don’t think anyone would believe a single person who claimed that they would come back for them later on the return leg of their walk, and even if there were paragons out there that did such, the world is so full of cocksuckers who don’t that shouldn’t be worth the fact that people are just going to assume you’re a cocksucking liar when you start bagging up your dog’s poop and leave the bag behind, regardless of your intention to, get it later.

At least when a dog turd is left out in the wild, it can and will inevitably break down, decompose, be food for some bugs, and be somewhat of a benefit to nature.  But if it’s left in a bag, maybe the bag itself might be biodegradable, maybe it isn’t, but the point is, the contents of that bag aren’t getting returned to nature any time soon, but the general stinkiness, grossness, and symbolic an asshole left this here message, remain as long as it takes for some superior Samaritan to take the bullet and clean it up.

What it all really boils down to is the fact that if people don’t want to do all the responsibilities that come with dog ownership, they simply shouldn’t have them in the first place.  If I were a dog, and even if my owner gave me steak and chicken tenders, played with me regularly, lavished me with fresh tennis balls, clean beds and all sorts of love and attention, there’d still be a ceiling to how much I could reciprocate my love if I knew that they themselves were still cocksuckers enough to be leaving my poop behind, and worse if it were still bagged up.

So frankly, I think it’s worse to be the assholes who bag the pool and leave it behind, versus those who don’t.  But make no mistake, anyone who does either, if it were up to me, I’d implement the death penalty for all y’all motherfuckers.  It’s not hard at all to bag up a turd to where the smell is minimal, and not so uncomfortable that it can’t be held until proper disposal.

Tin foil hat theory time

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Apparently, a home very close to my home was victim to a drive-by shooting last night.  0.8 mi from my house to be precise, but not in my subdivision.  This is the kind of thing that I would have expected to hear happening in my old neighborhood and most definitely not something where I currently live, where the crime rate is pretty low, and incidents like this occurring are extremely few and far between.

The good news is that despite there being gunfire, nobody appears to have been hurt, and the assailants have been caught by the police.  The article states that the victims of the shooting did not know the attackers, which it’s hard to know what to believe, because otherwise why would a car full of people come to a house in the middle of the night and just unload gunfire on the property if there were no connection whatsoever?

Either way, it’s disheartening to hear of such senseless violence and gunfire occurring in my generally otherwise peaceful community, but this is where the conspiracy theorist in me begins to come out to try and make sense of the incident.

See, unbeknownst to the news article, and what those who don’t live around the area are aware of is the fact that the home that was attacked, is also on the market.  I know this, because I drive past this house on a regular basis, going to and from the office, most of the time when I run errands; I drive past this home regularly and often.  According to Zillow, the attacked home was listed as pending, but I have to imagine that once the police report becomes public and the party who made the offer finds out about this incident, it probably won’t be pending for much longer.

Inevitably, the value of the home will most likely take a substantial hit in price, and the poor family who was probably hoping to capitalize on the still-seller’s market will have their hopes stepped on when they’ll have to drop the price in order to compensate for the fact that the property was just freshly involved in a drive-by shooting incident.

Additionally, across the street from this home, and within the next four lots are two properties also on the market, with one of them being under contract currently.  Granted, one of them is solely a plot of land, but I have to imagine that even land is affected by incidents of crime, since those whom might want to built a home on said land, would still might be unnerved building right across the street of a home that was shot up in the middle of the night.

So what I’m thinking here is that, in this day and age where big, evil, soulless property investors who go around hoovering up property and effectively cockblocking tens of thousands of Americans from becoming homeowners, one of the more nefarious and lacking in any sort of ethical practices investment companies, set all this shit up.  Set up some expendable fall guys to go shoot up an innocent home on the market, drive down its market value, as well as the value of any nearby properties, and then swoop in and pick them all up while they’re all forced to discount on account of fresh crime.

For all I know, the pending offers on the victim and the nearby unit were the same party, and they’ll pull out now that some big and bad albeit orchestrated crime has occurred, but they’ll wait in the wings for the prices to come down and then swoop back into the fray and make some lowball offers and get the homes at a deep discount.

Not very likely, but I also don’t think it’s entirely unrealistic either.  The real answer will be when inevitably when all these available properties eventually flip, if they’re bought up by actual human beings, or if they’re picked up by some ambiguously named entity that is code for asshole investor.

Regardless, this whole situation sucks, hearing of gun violence so close to my home, shattering the façade of peace and tranquility, especially after I left a real warzone to come to where I am now.  And of course, if the victim family really didn’t know the assailants, the fact that they were just picked to be target practice for a car full of psychos, regardless of if this was orchestrated by some shady shitty investors or not.