A little but nice party

Wentto Ville's and Leena's place today, and a few more friends were there. Considering how far behind I am on my sleep and how unsociable I felt before the party, it's amazing that I had a really good time there. I like partying but it tends to drain my energy anyway; it's very unusual for me to feel less tired after a party than before, but here it is. Maybe because it was small enough to qualify as "hanging out with friends" rather than "party".

A couple of friends who are writing a movie script told me that they based one of the characters on me, and let me read it. It was so funny! Especially since the friend who described the character's apartment has never actually seen my place, and still managed to describe it exactly. I was so touched...

Lasu's angels

On Wednesday Lynoure, Droidy and I went to Lasu's place and he gave us a lesson on Debian packaging. Did not sound too awful. The whole situation somehow reminded so much of Charlie's angels that Droidy said we should all get t-shirts saying Lasu's angels.

The job and sarge

They finally gave me a computer, and I installed Debian on it. The first installation with some prehistoric CDs did not go very well, but then I downloaded sarge installation DVDs and everything installed like a charm. Well, almost everything. My KDE still does not want to use a Finnish keyboard for some reason. The damn thing is a laptop, too.

I almost got an orgasm in the process, and my operating system updating instinct is calling me.

"Come here! We just raised our prices!"

The new Sitra report recommends raising the percentage of foreign students to 10% and charging them for tuition.

How exactly do they expect to accomplish that? Ads in the papers saying "Come here! We just started charging for tuition!" or what?

The new job

The second day at the new job. The scary people are not as scary as they were yesterday. There is not much to do yet. Met my new boss. She is not very scary either. I found some public-domain cookies but ate only one.

They have a nice big bookshelf. Also the lunch coupons (lounassetelit). This is something a lot of Finnish companies sell to their employees, you can buy restaurant food (but not booze) about 20-25% cheaper with them. I had almost forgotten that such a luxury existed. Probably should order a few for the next month.

The weekend and the new job

Had a busy and sociable weekend: a few friends came over for hot chocolate on Friday, went to a housewarming party on Saturday (was too tired to stay long but it was a good party, and I saw a few people I don't see often nowadays), had Killeri and Anu over for a Passover dinner on Saturday and went to Tallinn with Anu on Monday. Tallinn turned out to be a really good idea: for once we had no plans at all, just wandered around, had drinks and stared at the old city walls. The weather was beautiful, and the city too, and the drinks were good, and Anu showed me a really nice bar and then we found another one, too, and everything was perfect except maybe the karaoke that we heard of the boat, and even that was highly amusing.

Today was my first day at the new job (I hope my NDA does not forbid me from saying that they have a really nice selection of teas). Lots of new scary people, although they won't stay new and scary for long. One of them was even sociable in an unscary way. After work did some test shots for one company that makes TV ads, and then had a game session, which is kind of a lot for one day. Probably should go to bed now.

Civilization marches on

The lower house of Spanish parliament has approved a bill allowing both gay marriage and adoption (183-136, six abstained). The bill is also expected to be approved by the upper house, after which Spain will become the third country in the world to have gay marriage, and the first to have both marriage and adoption.

Goodbye Oliotalo

My last day here at Oliotalo. They gave me three really good books as a goodbye present, and I was pretty speechless (I knew they would give me a book, didn't expect three).

I'll miss the people but they promised to invite me for a picnic sometime when it is warm enough. i won't miss the Herttoniemi industrial area, or the customer who has teenage mutant singing employees.

Civilization is spreading slowly but surely

Connecticut has just legalized civil unions. It has become the third state in the US to give a legal status to homosexual relationships and the second state to legalize civil unions (Vermont has civil unions and Massachusetts has legalized marriage for same-sex couple). Connecticut has also become the first state to legalize the civil unions voluntarily, without a court order. The pro-marriage-for-heterosexuals only activists are all upset because they don't even get to complain about the judicial tyranny this time around.

"I have said all along that I believe in no discrimination of any kind, and I think that this bill accomplishes that, while at the same time preserving the traditional language that a marriage is between a man and a woman," said the governor of Connecticut after signing the law. What she forgot to say is that, unlike marriage, a civil union has no validity outside of Connecticut. Not even in Vermont, the other state that has civil unions. I am sure that a lot of states would at least try not to recognize the Massachusetts gay marriages either, but married gays are in a much better position to argue, what with that old little documant called the Constitution.

Connecticut senate has voted for the civil unions 26-8.

The new pope

The new pope has been chosen, and he is both conservative and old. For me it's a bit of deja vu from the time when Chernenko was chosen to lead the USSR's Communist party and the country - a timeout to prepare for a proper power struggle. We were betting on how long Chernenko would live, and talking about season tickets to the General Secretaries' funerals.

Much to the disappointment of a lot of people, myself included, the new pope named himself Benedict XVI, and not Palpatine I.

He said that he wants to unite all the Christians, apparently under himself. I am sure that all non-Catholic Christians are really thrilled.

WTF

According to Helsingin Sanomat, some part of TeliaSonera has fired women on maternity leave, or told them that their positions will be eliminated when they come back.

WTF? I can understand employers not wanting to hire women who are pregnant and about to go on a maternity leave, but what's the point of firing them after the maternity leave? Isn't it a bit too late for it then?

An interesting coincidence

I just got an email saying that there is an event on Saturday where Pentti Linkola is speaking. I have also just realized that I have a number of rotten tomatoes at home. Can't be just a coincidence. It must be a message from Lord.

No, I am not gonna really do it, for two reasons: first of all, throwing tomatoes at speakers is illegal, even if it's Linkola, and second, he might have a crateful of rotten fish ready for answering the statements from the audience. But hey, a girl can dream...

Katsokaa, olenpas fiksu!

Eräs työnantajaehdokas lähetti minut helvetin pitkään psykologiseen testiin. Nyt sitten tuli ne tuloksetkin. Ymmärrän kyllä että ne varmaan kirjoittaa yhtä imartelevia juttuja vähän kaikista kellokäyrän oikealla puolella olevista, mutta tuntuipa hyvältä silti, varsinkin kun juuri nyt ei ole mun itsetunnon parhaita hetkejä. Tässä on vain eka kappale:

Ongelmanratkaisu on hyvin nopeaa ja varmaotteista. kielellinen päättely on suomeksi pintatasolla vaivatonta ja myös käsitteiden jäsentämisessä tavallista oivaltavampaa. Suullinen ilmaisu on sanavalmista ja nopeasti ja melko suoraankin argumentoivaa. Numeerisella alueella ote on vaivattoman varma, eikä vaikeusasteen lisääntyminen ole monitahoisissakaan tilanteissa mitenkään vaikuttanut suoriutumiseen. Looginen päättely on nopeasti ja luotettavasti säännönmukaisuuksia tunnistavaa ja moniselitteisissäkin yhteyksissä hyvin helposti oivaltavaa ja olennaisen erottavaa. Ideointi on jäsentyneesti näkökulmia vaihtavaa. Monipuoliset yleistiedot viittavat laajaan kiinnostusalueeseen. Älyllinen mukautuminen uusissa tilanteissa onnistuu helposti tavanomaista nopeammin.

Ettäs tiedätte. :)

Feeling better

The personal crisis is starting to be over, although it is not quite over till it's totally over. I've been feeling better (as in happier) since Friday, but am still tired and could not sleep much. Better luck tonight, I think.

Saw Pia on Thursday, and she brought a friend who is a rather interesting person. Gotta see them sometimes soon, except that there is really no unsceduled time this week or the next. Saw Sini too, and we went to see Hotel Rwanda, which I liked quite a lot.

Saturday we had some sparkling wine outside with Anu and declared the beginning of the picnic season. Then we went to Antti's housewarming party but I was so behind on my sleep that I started passing out and went home early. Went to bed at 11, woke up at 5 for some dumb reason.

Saw Marja and Hannu yesterday. Was supposed to provide emotional support with packing but was just chatting and feeding them chocolate, although Marja said that this does count as emotional support. The place gave me a very strong sense of deja vu. They, on the other hand, fed me a little bit of really good ice cream. It's some Estonian caramel ice sream, and it is available, according to them, in Kannelmäki's S-market, and probably in some other S-markets (though not in the downtown S-market). We (the royal we here) declare this to be our favorite ice cream in Finland now. I feel like doing a thorough search of S-markets and looking for this ice cream, but cannot as do not have a freezer worthy of it (it is sold in 1.9 liter containers). OTOH have just got my salary today and therefore maybe can purchase a used freezer.

Made a chocolate cake and feed it to coworker. Every time I make a chocolate cake there is probably at least 100 nutritionists crying somewhere.

More pictures

I figured I'd put my Saunalahti webpage space to a good use and put the pictures of the world's cutest kittens there.

The new colors

Took some pictures of my new haircolors. All the pictures were taken in the sun and still did not come out the same. I have a couple of old red streaks in the front on the right, but all the other red in the pictures is some lighting effect from the sun.

The pictures are here.

Shock and awe

I finally did it. Went and dyed my hair yesterday. "Shock and awe" was the hairdressers' reaction.

I went to the same Hiusneito salon as the last time; the woman who did my color streaks the last time around wasn't there, but four other hairdressers were, and my appearance there impressed them almost as much as the appearance of Japanese planes impessed the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Not being accustommed to being treated like a hair goddess and a chemical weapon at the same time, I was trying very hard not to laugh, or at least not to laugh too much. They all rushed to me and started touching my hair, telling each other "check that out", asking me how long it took to grow it out (does anyone have a coherent answer to that, ever?) and telling me that I am the hairiest customer they'd ever had, which surprised me once again - there is a lot of people with hair longer than mine, so I can only conclude that they don't go to Hiusneito to color it.

My statement that I want it all colored caused even more panic, and an unbelievable amount of towels was used to protect the floor and everything else around me, apparently not very successfully. Every once in a while somebody brought more paper towels. Took them more than half an hour and four bottles of Elumen to even spread the stuff on my hair, and I am afraid the poor hairdresser has very sore arms today. Hope there was no permanent damage to the floor.

All the panic nonwithstanding they did very well. I have strong yellow highlights (a 1:1 mix of KB and GK) on top and very dark purplish-blue (a 2:1 mix of BB and VV) on the underside. Gonna post some pictures as soon as manage to take them.

Ydinvoima-asiaa, erittäin tärkeää

Anteeksi että lähetän tämän tälle listalle mutta kyseessä on erittäin tärkeä asia. Välittäkää eteenpäin. Teidän on lähetettävä tämä viesti eteenpäin ainakin kymmenelle ihmiselle, muuten teille voi tapahtua ydinonnettomuus.

Kuten kaikki tietävät, vaikka muualla maailmassa ja varsinkin Euroopassa viimeiset ydinvoimalat suljettiin jo vuonna 1066, Suomessa ylikansallisen pääomat edustajat ovat onnistuneet painostamaan hallituksen rakentamaan jo kuudettatoista ydinfuusiovoimalaa.

Tämä on kauhea tragedia sekä Suomelle että koko Euroopalle. Kaikki ydinjätteet aivan varmasti heitetään Itämereen, jossa tämän takia on jo kehittynyt lohia joilla on yksi pää edessä ja toinen takana, eikä yhtään pyrstöä. Sen lisäksi sähkö joka tulee ydinvoimaloista välittömästi aiheuttaa käyttäjilleen paljon synnynnäisiä sairauksia, sekä saa ihmisiä, mukaanlukien miehiä, synnyttämään kaksipäisiä lapsia, päinvastoin kuin puhdas sähkö joka tulee töpselistä.

Meidän on heti vaadittava laajamittaista investoimista uusiutuvaan energiaan, esimerkiksi ikiliikkujan kehittämiseen tai sähkön tuottamiseen polkupyörien avulla.

Meidän on toimittava nyt - muuten Suomesta tulee energiapolitiikan takapajula keskiaikaisine ydinvoimaloineen, ylikansallisen pääoman villi länsi ja atomijätteiden hautausmaa!

Marja Buggeroff, Spämmääjät Atomivoimaa Vastaan
Matti Rivomieli, Naiset Ikiliikkujien Puolesta
Anna En-Anna, Kukkahattuihmiset Kaiken Hyvän Puolesta ja Kaikkea Pahaa Vastaan

Antinuclear spam

Got a piece of spam thought Aspekti's mailing list. It starts:

"Anteeksi että lähetän tämän tälle listalle mutta kyseessä on erittäin tärkeä asia. Välittäkää eteenpäin."

Don't all the spammers think that their own thing is important?

The spam is about an antinuclear campaign. Signed by three people, one from Edelleen Ei ydinvoimaa, one from Naiset Atomivoimaa Vastaan and one from Naiset Rauhan Puolesta.

My favorite quote:

"Meidän on toimittava nyt - muuten Suomesta tulee energiapolitiikan takapajula ja atomijätteiden hautausmaa!"

I've heard many times "you can't parody them", but I'll probably try.

The mystery of Eric Rudolph's motives revealed

Eric Rudolph, who has pleaded guilty to two bombings of women's clinics, one bombing of a lesbian nightclub and one bombing of the Olympic games, has finally revealed his motives. He did it because he is against abortion and homosexuality.

Gee, who would have thought?

He had no regret or remorse about the clinic and nightclub bombings. He did apologize for the Olympic games bombing, saying that he only wanted to blow up stuff, not people (1 killed, 1 died of a heart attack, more than 100 injured). Don't know what was his problem with the Olympic games. Probably confused Olympus with Lesbos.

Eric Rudolph has plea-bargained to 4 life terms in prison without parole. He will be serving the first life term of his sentence in a "supermax" federal prison in Colorado, where he is probably likely to have some explosive colleague of his for a roommate. (Richard Reid the shoe bomber is there, and Ramzi Yousef of the WTC fame, and Unabomber.) The other three life terms he will serve in Heaven as one of Mohammed Atta's and Osama Bin Laden's 72 virgins, concurrently.

Allergies and people who don't believe in them

What is it with people who immediately start doubting other people's allergies as soon as those allergies inconvenience them in any way? I mean, I can understand people saying - or thinking - "I would like to do X, and I don't give a flying fuck if somebody is allergic to some product of it", although I don't generally approve of this attitude, but what a lot of people actually say is "I would like to do X, and the person Y who claims to be allergic to some product of it is surely not really allergic and is probably just a hysterical attention-seeker". Do people really think that saying the latter makes them sound less like assholes than saying the former?

This particular rant is inspired by several people whose friend was having her hair colored with henna, which caused one of the people present there (not their friend) to open the salon's door in order to avoid an asthma attack (their argument was along the lines of "how can he be allergic to henna if he is not allergic to ammonia"), but I've seen this kind of attitude many times. I've had my allergies to tobacco smoke, marijuana smoke, and cats questioned many times by people who smoke tobacco, marijuana and own cats (luckily a rather small percentage of smokers and cat-owners), and my allergy to onions questioned by relatives and restaurant staff who tried to feed me onions. I've seen people say that nobody could possibly be allergic to their cat since people don't usually notice a concealed cat. I've seen an awful lot of people claim that nobody could possibly be allergic to peanuts enough to have a reaction without ingesting any, in the face of rather overwhelming evidence to the contrary. (No, I am not allergic to peanuts in case anyone is wondering, but many people are.)

Funnily enough, I have never seen a person doubt my or anyone else's allergy to birch pollen. Or any other pollen, for that matter.

Andrea Dworkin died

The famous radical feminist and anti-porn crusader Andrea Dworkin died. I won't write an obituary here since I am not sure what I can add to the million obituaries already out there, but I must say that my first impulse on reading the news was a desire to read and watch some porn. OTOH, I usually felt like reading and watching porn every time when I heard about Dworkin, even while she was still alive.

I've read some of her writings, but not a lot. The ones I've read were fairly boring and could be summarized as "Women good. Porn bad. Sex mostly bad too."

News of the stupid

Through Finland for Thought and World Net Daily:

A guy comes into a Best Buy store in Cockeysville, Maryland, and tries to pay a $114 bill with 57 $2 bills. The cashier disapproves, threatens not to take the money, then takes it, marks it with a pen, the employees call the police, the police arressts and handcuffs the guy, takes him to the police station and, mind you, calls Secret Service.

The Secret Service agent arrives and tells everyone that everything is cool. 'Commenting on the incident, Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey told the Sun: "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."' - comments World Net Daily.

A little nervous? Yeah, and the late pope was a little Catholic. We all already know that some police departments have an upper limit requirement for IQ, but do they have to limit it to 70?

I still wonder what the police were thinking. Did they think $2 bills are explosive, at least when there is 57 of them? Did they think The Great Al Qaeda Fake Money Press broke down and is only issuing $2 bills now?

The weekend

I was quite tired by Friday and just wanted to stay home and vegetate there in a coma, but Meira and Mikko had a party and I decided to drag my old bones there on general principle, because their parties are usually good and one shouldn't miss a good party if one is still capable of dragging oneself there. I rarely regret going to parties, and I did not regret this one either. There was a lot of strange people there but they were nice strange people and not scary strange people and I even talked with one of them and she was very nice and did not bite me.

On Saturday was guy's party, which was very good too. It was also full of strangers at first, but they were also nice strangers and not scary, and I talked with some of them. I wonder whether I am becoming sociable (even with strangers) in my old age. Quite a few friends were there too but most of them came later. Guy makes good sushi and painted his apartment in pretty colors. I think I am gonna plagiarize the colors when I get my own place, although there is no much point in it since I don't tend to notice any kind of decorations at home.

Made some chocolate drink there, and then had a fairly long talk about politics with Orava, which was very good even though we didn't agree much on anything, and helped clear some of my misconceptions. Should've probably done that ages ago, but I mostly just see him in irc and this is not as conductive to long political converstations as a good drink is.

Was still tired, had to leave on the last bus. Bugger. I am sure that by the next weekend when I am finally rested and full of energy nobody arranges any parties. Sniff.

On Sunday Killeri came over. Besides our usual activites we went to see Be Cool. It's a funny movie but it's full of the most atrocious music.

Cut my hair. It's funny how short hair feels after it's cut even though I only cut about 3 cm out of more-than-waistlength hair, and even though nobody ever notices when I cut it (not that I intend them to). I think that's what some people like about haircuts, but I find the feeling annoying. OTOH it does not get stuck in my jeans now, which is nice.

Finally saw most of Angel's season five. Two episodes to go.

The Pope

The Pope was buried today. Since he was the Pope pretty much forever as far as i am concerned i have no idea whether he was a good one or a bad one. He was a very old and sick one, though. I think they should have retirement benefits for Popes. Does Vatican have no law on working hours and retirements and suchlike?

They are going to elect the new Pope pretty soon. I am thinking of sending my CV to Vatican. My election campaign will be under the slogan "Sex for every priest". And no, I am not planning to provide it personally.

The new passport requirements

The Departments of State and Homeland Security in their infinite wisdom have announced that by the beginning on 2008 the number of documents that can be used to enter the United States will be strictly limited. This will not affect travel between the US and Europe, only travel between the US and the countries where Americans can currently travel without a passport, which are currently Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and most or all of the Carribean.

Passports will be required, both for Americans and for the citizens of those countries. The Departments are also considering allowing Border Crossing Cards, SENTRI, NEXUS and FAST program cards instead of passports. (The BCCs are what Mexicans traveling in the US use now, I have no idea what those others are.)

On one hand, I personally think that a passport is not a lot to ask for at a border crossing. On the other hand, tens of millions of Americans who don't have passports but travel to passport-free countries, and probably a similar number of the citizens of those countries, as well as their travel agents, probably think otherwise. They are gonna be pretty inconvenienced, and, knowing my fellow citizens' tendency to read fine print, most of them probably will not figure out that they need a passport in 2.5 years' time. Expect wailing, lamentations, threats to sue everyone, and passport lines that would hopefully dissipate by the time my own passport is up for a renewal.

Can't say I am actively for or against the new measure, I am just marveling at the futility of it as an antiterrorist measure in a country that has two very long and rather badly guarded borders.

Stressed

Haven't updated the blog in a few days. There have been tiring and stressful things going on in my life and I don't have much energy right now. If I've been unsociable to anyone IRL I am sorry, and don't take it personally. I usually try not to take stress out on people around me.

I think that in general if I suddenly seem distant, cold and laconic to the people to whom I am generally friendly, chatty and sociable, they can safely assume that this is nothing personal and has nothing to do with them, I am just tired and stressed. When I am pissed off at people I express it in other ways, mykkäkoulu is very much not my thing.

I guess this was a public service announcement.

Makeovers

Talked about the Queer eye for the straight guy show with Kristiina. I found it difficult to understand why anyone would go on a makeover show. If five lesbians (or gays, or heteros) showed up at my door with a camera and an intent to redecorate I'd send them running so fast they'd make it to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Kristiina said that they don't necessarity riducule the people on the show, but that's not the question - why would anyone let somebody else redecorate themselves or their home? In me the whole idea just causes an aggressive reaction - anyone who tries to "bring out a whole new me" is likely to get his or her ass kicked by the old one.

I can understand people wanting something new. What I can't understand is wanting something new without having any vision of what it is. Do many people really want a new wardrobe/hairstyle/wallpaper without having any idea of what (approximately) they want? This is not a rhetorical question, I am really curious.

I sometimes do ask other people's opinions, but only on very specific things.

The last time I met with an unsolicited professional opinion was some 15 years ago when I was buying an eyeliner in Filene's and the saleswoman tried to convince me to buy a gray one rather than a black one. I told her in no uncertain terms that I was not interested. After I got out of the store and opened the bag I saw she put the gray one in there after all. I went back there, and instead of apologizing and saying that she put the gray one in by mistake the woman actaully confessed to putting the gray one in because she still thought I'd look better in it. I gave her a rather stern lecture about exactly how little I value her opinion on this matter, got the black eyeliner and got out of there. She got off easy - if I were in less hurry I would have talked to the manager, too.

I also wonder what makes people want to watch makeover shows. I saw the Queer eye for the straight guy, and the gays there were quite funny, but there was nothing interesting about the makeover itself. There is at least some entertainment value in watching a friend try out a new lipstick, but I don't quite get what is the fun of watching a makeover show where total strangers do something new with themselves or their homes.

The weekend

My weekend was extremely social, but I needed it.

Anu came over on Thursday; on Friday Ville and Leena invited me over and I dyed their hair in fearsome colors, but they seem to be satisfied.

On Saturday Killeri took me to a fashion show, which was quite surprising and an exotic experience all over, I'd never been to one. The clothes varied from horrible to beautiful, with everything in between. It was funny when they were modeling the kind of clothes that one would wear in a street with the kind of shoes that one normally wouldn't. I understand that it's better to use very thin and fairly tall people as models, because most clothes fit well on them, but what's the deal with huge high heels?

In the evening went to a very good party. Then on Sunday Kristiina came over and we had some hot chocolate and talked.

Shit, and I thought I'd seen everything

"North Carolina cities and other government agencies are pursuing the authority to sue citizens who ask to see public records."

Why, why didn't we get rid of the South when we had a chance?

Be afraid, be very afraid

To scare everyone on the first of April, here are some of my very old pictures. The number in the filename does represent my age at the time. Anu found them cute, but I find only the number 15 cute.

The bottle deposit man

When I was a kid in Russia we used to have bottle deposit people rather than bottle deposit machines. They were supposed to take empty bottles and give you the deposit. Since most of them were the kind of people who earned their money elsewhere they did not actually want to take the bottles and tried to avoid it.

He was about 40 when I first saw him. I was 13. We moved to a new place, and I came to the store with the empty soda bottles. There was a slow and sad-looking line of several alcoholics and one bodybuilder-like-looking guy."Oh," - the bodybuilder sighed. "He sometimes accept bottles from men, but a girl has no chance." "Wanna bet?" - I grinned.

Of course the bottle deposit man did not want to acceptthe bottles. I went to the manager of the store, and told him about it. "We don't have space for them," - he said. "That's not my problem," - I said and started putting bottles in a row on his table. "OK, you've made your point," - he said, - "let's go and I'll make him take the bottles".

We went to the bottle deposit man and the manager made him take the bottles. That was not surprising. That's what had always happened everywhere. What was surprising was that the bottle deposit man did not learn his lesson immediately. Or ever.

I lived there for three years and he has never agreed to accept the bottles. Ever. Every time I went to the manager's office, and every time upon seeing me the manager said "OK, let's go downstairs", and went there with me and made the man accept the bottles. A couple if time I asked the bottle deposit man whether, since he knows already that rape is inevitable, it would be better to relax, but he just smiled at me enigmatically.

Three years later I started to bring a lot of bottles very often. "Are you leaving the country?" - he asked once. That was very surprising: not many people knew that a lot of Jews suddenly started leaving the country, and he had no way of knowing that i was Jewish, except maybe my face. - "Yes, we are." - "Thank god, and godspeed," - he said, and smiled to me for the first time ever. But he still never agreed to accept my bottles without the manager.