dumbbellThe owner of our local gym is an awesome bloke, but I find it strange that he seems to be working at every given hour of the day.

He’s more dedicated to his job than Natalie Bassingthwaite is to hypnotising the nation via TV with her crazy eyes. If I rock up to the gym first thing in the morning? The owner of the gym’s there. If I’m dashing there for a late night workout on my way home from work? He’s there. Even if I pop in at some strange time on the weekend? He’s still there!

This is just a small, independent gym with a small, dedicated set of (mostly meathead) clients. The interiors resemble a crumbling recreation room from Battlestar Galactica. There’s autographed photos of famous bodybuilders across the walls who’ve visited the gym over the years. Most of the equipment is cracked, warped and clearly has a history of decades of muscle-building.

But it’s totally awesome! There’s a real community atmosphere, and the owner is an awesome bloke. He could completely sell out and chase the local market who’d otherwise march robotically into their nearest Fitness First gym, but he’s happy with his loyal regulars and a humble word of mouth campaign. He doesn’t even have a website!

Lately, though, I’ve been getting really suspicious about the owner’s omnipresence and have begun seeking some answers.

Considering the number of clients he has, he doesn’t have the gargantuan budget afforded by most other suburban gyms. So what better way to reduce the costs of the gym, than… BY LIVING THERE!

There’s a mysterious storeroom which he frequently slips into during gym hours. I’m utterly convinced he’s got a bed, a TV, a bar fridge… everything he needs in there. As for showers and toilets, they come built into the gym!

So it’s not that he’s working long hours at the gym – it’s just that all his clients are invading his living room.

Adam thinks I’m being a little overly inventive and the storeroom simply stores drinks for the gym’s fridge, but I refuse to be swayed. Anyone who’s dedicated enough to live in their own workplace deserves my custom.

You wouldn’t see those grinning, suspiciously tanned Fitness First employees living in their gyms, would you?

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While I was researching my recent car purchase, I came across some car names which are terrible enough to knock the wind out of you. Although most of them are likely due to language barriers, they all sound like expressions of enthusiasm from the 1970s or children’s cartoon characters.

This list only covers cars sold in Australia, to the best of my knowledge – there’s plenty worse that have been sold overseas, such as the AMC Gremlin – so buckle in.

#10: Isuzu Wizard

Not the worst offender on this list by far, but it still conjures up images of sad old men with suspiciously spectacular sewing skills and a complicated interest in white magic.

mitsubishi-townbox#9: Mitsubishi Townbox

Although appearing to be the title of a children’s toy set at first glance, this stupid car name is at least accurate. Check it out on the right – you really could compress the entire contents of Geelong into that oversized cube of metal.

#8: Mitsubishi Cyborg

AAAARGH! OUR DYSTOPIAN FUTURE HAS ARRIVED! MITSUBISHI IS SKYNET! Perhaps better known as the Mitsubishi Colt in Australia, which has a slightly nicer ring to it than the Mitsubishi Humanity Faces Imminent Robotic Destruction.

#7: Toyota Windy

My mind is notoriously welded to the gutter, but doesn’t anyone else think about an inescapable stream of piping hot farts when they hear this car name? I’m sure the Windy was delicately beautiful in a hiaku-esque manner in the original Japanese language. In English, however, it doesn’t necessarily communicate the, ahem, burning of fuel in a positive way.

#6: Nissan Homy

This conjures up nothing other than images of some sort of over-researched anti-drugs cartoon character from the 90s, during the MC Hammer/Vanilla Ice happy-pants peak. Suffice to say, I think we can all be assured that genuine homies would not be seen driving a wack Nissan van around their hood.

Holden Avalanche#5: Holden Avalanche

Is it truly such a wise idea to name your utility vehicle after a natural disaster? Then again, I guess that’s what really switches on some bogans. “Destroy your natural environment with the insatiable appetite of underground eruptions from the Earth’s very core! Presenting the Holden Volcano Tectonic Earthquake Ute!”

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You like free stuff, right? Then next time something goes wrong with something you’ve bought from the supermarket, I demand you let the manufacturer know.

After a recent messy packaging explosion, I was so irked by a product splurging laundry detergent all over my chest (no, it’s not hot – there’s a reason that’s never been introduced into adult movies) that I angrily spat out an email to the manufacturer. Lo and behold, they were genuinely apologetic, and sent me a $20 Coles-Myer gift card to make things right.

It also never hurts to let companies know when they’ve done something awesome – customers hardly ever go to the effort to do this, and you may find yourself equally rewarded.

It only takes two or three minutes to contact a company via their website – so why not? You’d only have spent that time gawping in front of MasterChef or mindlessly clicking through a photo gallery of Lindsay Lohan mouth-breathing anyway.

Here’s five examples of mine.
allens
1. Allens

Discovering that my gigantor bag of lolly snakes had an expiry date well into the past was probably nature’s way of telling me that I shouldn’t be putting such crap into my body. Nonetheless, I had a little whinge to Allens. They told me that they’d be checking up on the expiry date process at the supermarket involved, and sent me a gift card. Which I think I actually used to purchase sultanas and healthy snacks instead, mostly out of guilt.

2. Menulog

menulogMenulog is a great idea in theory – you can order home delivered meals from local restaurants online. There are some annoying flaws in the business which I’ll discuss another time (mostly communication problems between Menulog and the delivering restaurants). I tapped out my complaint about a delivery which never eventuated due to a miscommunication, which they duly took on board and rewarded me with enough credit to partially cover my next order. I’m unlikely to use them again, but I appreciated the gesture.

3. Schweppes

This example’s a little older, but some years ago, I’d purchased a bottle of soft drink which exploded like a geyser when I opened it. It ended up permanently ruining some nearby curtains it had splattered. After contacting Schweppes with my sob story, they not only covered the cleaning repairs after I provided a receipt – but also sent me a gigantic gift basket of chocolates. Diabetes be arsed, I was a happy customer once more!

4. Coke Zero

coke-zeroThis one’s a little more of a spiritual reward, but still a nice example. Coke Zero’s current “Win a Playa Lifestyle” promo really bugged me. It was clearly targeted towards young men, but the imagery of babes in bikinis alienated me from the promo. Without getting too screamy and political, the fact is that a substantial portion of the targets for this promo happen to gargle scrotum, so Coke were hardly hitting the mark for everyone. That’s why it pleased me to see the imagery for the promo changed halfway through the contest – the “babes” were replaced with boats, jewellery, cars, Vegas – something every young dude could relate to (well, if they’re deluded nutcases, granted – but it was much more inclusive).

It was probably coincidence – I’d say marketing the actual prizes instead of generic ladyfolk would result in more entries – but it was still a change that pleased me. Enough to contact Coke via their website and give my positive feedback. One of their marketing folk sent a warm, genuine reply – and who knows, maybe I’ve put something in their heads about future marketing campaigns? Never hurts to give positive feedback like this.

5. Mrs. Mac’s Pies

On the opposite end of the scale from spiritual warm and fuzzies, we have fatty pies. During a recent carbohydrates binge, Adam and I bought some Mrs. Mac’s pies only to discover they’d completely disintegrated in the packaging (think Mark Holden’s face with too much plastic surgery and you get an idea of the appearance). I took a quick photo and emailed it off to the manufacturer. Shortly afterwards, they phoned me wanting to deliver an entire box of replacement pies as an apology. Laughing, I had to decline, but how could I continue to be irked about the original problem? Besides, I could never stay angry at a cartoon logo of a harmless nanna.

So there you have it. If you’ve got any tips or similar experience, leave them in the comments. Giving feedback to companies can be worth the hassle! Also, ENTIRE BOXES OF PIES!

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We haven’t owned a car for the last 10 years. My preferred illusion is that we’re environmentally conscious, when the quiet reality is that my last experience owning a car was like being married to Pete Doherty.

Sure, sometimes it’d start if it was feeling perky. Other times it’d lie drooling in my driveway in an engine-flooded coma. Its habit of randomly conking out while I was on the highway also made life just a little too exciting.

Did I mention it was a Datsun Sunny? Because it was, and there’s limited methods of revealing that’s the brand of your car to your mates without resorting to a Mr. Humphries impersonation.

After Adam and I moved into inner Sydney, it was almost pointless owning a car, so we got rid of it, and haven’t really driven a car since – but lately we’ve decided we’d like to get around a little more on the weekends. That, and I’ve bloody well saved up enough carbon credits over the last 10 years by not driving, so I intend to pollute the roads as irresponsibly as possible.

Last week I concluded it’d be a wise idea to book a refresher driving lesson – just to make sure I’ve still got a grip on moving a vehicle around. Alarm bells went off when the fellow at the driving school who answered the phone sounded like the squeaky-voiced teenage Simpsons character pictured to the left – but we’re keen to get a car, so I booked him in. He was the first guy that was available.

Sometimes you should trust your instincts. The first sign of trouble began when he rang to advise he’d be around 25 minutes late due to traffic. Perhaps bad judgement on my part for booking a lesson at 5:30 PM, but surely he’d have the experience to recognise this could be a problem?

Thus began my driving lesson with someone more highly strung than Jack Johnson’s twee acoustic guitar. He seemed constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown, despite the bumper-to-bumper traffic we were plodding our way through slowly. Still, at least I got the experience in – I’m planning on test driving a car to buy tomorrow, so we’ll see how I go.

One important thing I realised during my driving lesson – pedestrians are bloody unsafe beings! I’m equally guilty of it myself, but I’d forgotten how freaking unpredictable and dangerous stepping out in front of a car can be. Especially when it’s me behind the wheel, you targets-in-waiting.

I’m sure there’s a few other things I’ve forgotten since I was last driving regularly, too. Bloody hell, I haven’t even used a petrol pump in years, and I’ll have no trouble building up my anxiety about that one to a point where I’m recreating the petrol station scene from Zoolander purely by accident.

Wish me luck.

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  • Mark Latham
  • The Queen
  • Andrew Bolt
  • Gretel Killeen, whenever accompanied by a toy boy
  • Sam Newman (with pauses in the music whenever he opens his mouth)
  • Anyone who appears in a Zoot Review
  • Danni Minogue, whenever confronted with cameras
  • Any metal singer, whenever they tap or punch their own chest
  • Todd McKenney
  • Anyone working in a clothing store in a fashionable part of town, attempting to combine ironic facial hair with a cardigan
  • Ian Turpie (c’mon, this actually would be awesome)
  • P. Diddy
  • Billy Corgan (homeboy may actually crack a smile)
  • Ben Cousins, but only if he’s erratically swatting at the air around him, trying to kill the music

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Despite my childhood fear of the Village logo as mentioned in my last post, Adam and I overcame adversity and saw The Hangover at our local Village cinema this weekend.

Buying cinema tickets online has always seemed like a no-brainer to me, mostly because you can choose your own seat when the cinema has allocated seating. Certain human behaviours have always irritated me in cinema audiences, so if I can select my designated seat away from most of the other booked seats, all the better.

Probably the worst culprit: the tittering group of friends who parrot every punchline on the screen, then descend into a second round of laughter at their own repetition of a joke everyone else has finished laughing at.

Then there’s the hassle of being caught next to someone with Cinema Bladder, and enduring an exercise in calisthenics every time they need to dash to the bathroom.

So it suits me fine to purchase my tickets online. When you arrive at the cinema, you can either pick up the tickets from the box office or from one of the cinema’s ATM machines.

When we visited this weekend, we decided to quickly grab our pre-booked tickets from the ATM machine. When I swiped my credit card, not only did the machine print the tickets for our session, but it also printed tickets for every booking I’d ever made over the last three years. On and on it went, barfing out reminders of my ill-advised cinematic visits over the past few years.

After this concluded, the ATM shuddered to a stop, then abruptly displayed an “Out of Service” message. It actually felt like a judgement on my taste in movies, if I’m honest. Rather depressing when even machines crumple in shame at your taste in entertainment…

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Writing about IMAX yesterday reminded me of one of my biggest childhood fears. It wasn’t the dark, it wasn’t monsters, it was… Village Roadshow’s ominous, creepy cinema logo from the 1980s. Just hearing the opening sound effect -- which I imagined to be the noise of an undead rapist grinding a steak knife against the skull of an orphan -- was enough to start me screaming as a child.

It’s the first logo on this video:

Ever have one of those lucid memories as a child that you carry through to adulthood? Every time I was forced to sit through that creepy sequence, certain that it was the soundtrack to my imminent death, I clearly remember thinking “How can they show this to CHILDREN??!

In my mind, the logo now appears unintentionally comedic. Why advertise the glory of your film studio with something that sounds like music for pall-bearers to solemnly march to in 2080?

That construction of bad animation and creepy synths always sent me absolutely batshit with fear. At the 8 second mark where the “Village Roadshow Corporation” is shot into the screen with weapons constructed by robotic overloads from a dystopian future opening up a portal to hell -- that’s the point where I was never able to hold myself together.

Usually I had to flee away from the screen, cowering behind a seat for fear of whatever was about to sacrifice my fragile mortality and splice apart my sanity. The closing synth strains always sounded like nothing other than an off-hand apology from a cyborg that was only doing the job it was programmed for, right before it tore my face apart with lasers.

Got any ads that gave you the creeps as a child? The “bowling for AIDS” ad doesn’t count, we were all collectively petrified by that.

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IMAXimum Disappointment

by Jeb on June 1, 2009

In recent months, Hoyts cinemas have been retrofitting selected cinemas into what they’re advertising as large-scale IMAX cinemas. Around the time Watchmen was released, my mates and I figured those famous blue appendage scenes would be best propelled into our faces via IMAX, so off we drove.

We were expecting a cinema screen of the precise gargantuan format you’d regularly expect from an IMAX screen. Instead, by my reckoning, Hoyts’ interpretation of an IMAX screen was only 25% of the normal IMAX size you’d expect. It was a bit larger than your average cinema screen, but certainly didn’t have the IMAX wow factor you’d expect for a $25 ticket.

The experience left us rather jaded – we’d been charged the equivalent of a Gold Class ticket price, plus we’d driven out to Highpoint to visit the special IMAX screens. I used to live near Highpoint when I was at university, so I feel qualified to promote the local nickname of “Knifepoint” as an appropriate summary of the area. Had we visited a regular cinema in the city, we could’ve strolled out to enjoy the nightlife afterwards. Instead, we had our wallets scraped out by IMAX’s new policy of whoring out their brand name willy-nilly, then driving home through suburbs which appeared to be based on a Grand Theft Auto expansion pack.

When I returned home, I discovered IMAX are licencing out their name to these comparitively smaller screens around the world. It seemed only fair to let Hoyts have their say, so I emailed them with my complaint. Their response didn’t completely address my concerns – just threw a lot of “IMAX is awesome!” facts at me – but the crux of their message was:

“Although screen size is an important component it is more about the screen geometry, aspect ratio and the enhanced viewing angles that provide every patron with the same experience regardless of seating position.”

On this basis, I’m stacking some milk crates on top of each other in a semi-circle 20 centimetres away from my TV screen, rebranding the experience as IMAX and charging my mates $25 to enter my living room.

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There are many lessons to be learnt from our nation’s blunderings through TV game shows. For every Sale of the Century and It’s a Knockout, there’s still fecal dregs like Keynotes and The Up Late Game Show With Hotdogs lurking under the televisual toilet bowl rim.

So, onwards! Let our future game show concepts learn from the many mistakes we’ve made from the past, as I count down 9 lessons from Australian game shows of the past, who’ve pinned us down and wetly farted on our faces via the medium of television.

Lesson #9: If One of your Team Captains is a Puppet, This Spells Trouble

The Main Event was a celebrity panel game show, which appeared to take place in an alien spaceship where Larry Emdur was irrationally deciding which trifecta of Channel 7 personalities would become his serving galactic lords into the future. Playing on behalf of a set of home viewers who always appeared confused as to how they ended up on the show in the first place, one of the regular team captains was a children’s TV puppet named Agro. Which says a lot, frankly.

Lesson #8: Don’t Let Kerri-Anne Kennerley Out of your Sight or She’ll Start Hosting Game Shows, THEN WE’LL ALL PAY THE PRICE

Kerri-Anne is in her element restraining drug-addled celebrities and dancing with politicians on morning TV. Where she absolutely isn’t in her element is cackling her sinister laugh and flashing her harbinger-of-doom eyes around, fronting game shows. The nation was unlucky enough to experience a string of Channel 10 Kerri-Anne game shows (Greed, Moment of Truth, Who is Willing to Permit Kerri-Anne to Inhale Their Soul in Exchange for Homewares?) until we all drank ourselves to sleep to forget it ever happened.

Lesson #7: Anything You’d Normally Play While You’re Pissed at the RSL Probably Won’t Work as a Game Show

This is one of the more recent lessons, but what did we actually learn from National Bingo Night? That we’re happy to annihilate entire forests by printing an endless stream of auto-generated bingo cards from Channel 7’s website for almost no purpose? That we’ll gladly sit agape in front of the idiot tube inhaling Doritos, while a ridiculously over-sized bingo machine evacuates its bowels, and the drawn numbers are screamed out in a manner that suggests an army of T-1000 model Terminators are marching down the corridor towards the studio? Or did we instead learn that Tim Campbell looks like he’s on the brink of physically exploding if he’s restrained from belting out a song-and-dance number for more than an hour at a time?

No, we just learnt that pub games don’t usually work as a game show. Unless you’re talking about a nation of stoned uni students staring at someone playing a large-scale pokies machine on their behalf, in which case Deal or No Deal seems to be doing quite well for itself.

Lesson #6: If Your Host is a Prat, Don’t Expect Anything to Change When They Begin Hosting a Game Show

All I need to say here is that if you were unlucky enough to endure Vince Sorrenti hosting Let’s Make a Deal, I’ll personally craft you a war medal.

Lesson #5: When Your Prize Models Are Required to Wear Cowboy Costumes, Something’s Gone Wrong

Larry Emdur’s quickly-forgotten wild-west themed game show (you read that correctly) Cash Bonanza appeared to be the result of a retired Movie World stage set quickly recycled into a cheap game show opportunity. The entire experience was quite bizarre -- although the set was Wild West-themed, the audience was split into colour-coded red/blue/yellow stripes. Kinda felt like the United Colours of Benetton were having a right-wing hate rally against rising wheat prices in the Wild West. The games were more painfully crude and random than your younger brother drinking Strongbow Sweet for the first time -- in fact, the over-enthusiastic audience seemed to have been plied with that very beverage.

On the plus side, if Larry Emdur grinning at you toothily while striding around in a pair of chaps is the only thing that gets you off, you were in luck.

Lesson #4: Travel-Themed Reality Game Shows Aren’t Permissible When They Don’t Venture Outside a Single Australian State

Radio’s Matt Tilley seems to suffer from Dannii Minogue syndrome, in that he’s relentlessly pushing against the membrane of mainstream success, but managing to piece through all the wrong places. An extremely forgettable gameshow experience of his was titled The Great Chase. In what seemed to originally take a leaf from The Amazing Race’s book, the show largely took place with four families aimlessly driving around their cars in the back streets of New South Wales’ most skull-numbingly boring towns, apparently searching for pieces of a map to find… oh, I don’t know. I’ve long forgotten the prize on offer, but from what I remember, they’d be hoping it was euthanasia. Memorable for Matt Tilley acting as some evil doctor barking out clues from his evil lair via mobile phone, which didn’t quite work (when was the last time something exciting happened in Echuca?)

Lesson #3: It’s Only Enjoyable to Watch Pricks Yelling at Each Other if There’s Some Redeeming Factor Involved

There’s always a nasty streak in today’s reality game shows, but usually something to bring the mood back up at the end. Even The Weakest Link at least offered a sizable prize after the nauseating verbal scraps which the show became famous for.

But it was Red Symon’s incredibly mean-streaked game show Shafted which got the entire ordeal so wrong. Populated by a nightly bunch of contestants who seemed to have been phone-voted in by their local communities as the resident most deserving to be deliberately set on fire in public, it was downright disheartening to watch. In most cases, the contestants were such dicks to each other in the final round that they both triggered a game rule which meant neither of them won any money. There was not one pleasant thing about the damn show, which is probably why it was cancelled so quickly. The entire experience felt like a high-art game show interpretation of US foreign policy with a sneering, disgusted Red Symons lording over the entire experience like an octopus choking your subconscious into irretrievable depths of misery. I’d rather live as a resident of Kyle Sandilands’ colon than see this return to the screen any time soon.

Lesson #2: Don’t Let Your Show’s Prize Be Won at the Expense of Total Privacy

In the 90s, a short-lived game show hosted by Rob Elliot (later host of Wheel of Fortune) by the name of Talking Telephone Numbers flapped its way on-screen. The basic premise of the show involved a number of in-studio ker-razy games played by celebrities, each of which would result in a number from 0-9 being selected as the outcome. After six games, if your phone number contained all six digits, you were able to phone into the studio to claim a prize. In the pre-internet days of interactive television, you’d have thought this would have blown the country’s psyche off like a dislodged wig after a particularly farty curry -- but it didn’t actually last many episodes.

Quite a simple concept, and it was inoffensive enough. What causes this program to stick in my mind is that when each contestant phoned through, they were introduced by full name and suburb of residence. In the days of six-number telephone numbers in Australia, this made it pretty goddamn easy to track down a winner via the phone book knowing someone’s surname. Just wait a few weeks until the lucky winner had begin inevitably stocking their home with brand new consumer electronics, then go nuts with a crowbar and a balaclava.

Actually, in the age of everyone worrying about privacy, this sounds like exactly the kind of game show we’re about to see: how much of your privacy are you willing to sacrifice in order to win a cash prize? Kind of like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, but with genital exposure instead of puzzling geography at the top prize tier.

Lesson #1: Never, Never, Never Adapt a Children’s Game Show for Adult Consumption

It’s so quick to forget that Larry Emdur’s debut appearance on our TV screens was a prime-time version of the kids’ game show Double Dare, threateningly titled Family Double Dare. Quite how Channel 10 ever figured that sliming adults during Physical Challenges and having them desperately clamber through an obstacle course largely compromised of balloons and shaving cream seemed like ratings gold is unknown, but it only ever lasted three episodes.

As much as I wish I had YouTube footage of this particular game show, I don’t -- so I’ll reward you with Larry Emdur having a rap battle with Vanilla Ice, which is equally as painful.

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For many years now, I’ve subscribed to Kerrang! magazine. If you’re unfamiliar with the subject matter, it was recently described as “the metal equivalent of a teenage gossip magazine” by the host of my favourite music podcast. He’s bang on the money.

There’s been a few things that’ve started bugging me about the magazine in recent times. Perhaps it’s the fact that the editorial focus oscilates wildly between dissecting the nuances of black metal and identifying which emo singers have a new haircut each week. More likely is the fact that it’s starting to remind me of reading Smash Hits at age 14 and running down to Brashs to buy a cassingle.

This afternoon I began the process of renewing my subscription, only to discover the cost has doubled. There is no bloody way I’m paying over AU$500 when I can’t even remember why I subscribed in the first place – maybe it was for the interviews? Even boisterously yelling “KERR-RANGGGG!” when the mag arrives in my mailbox has lost its appeal.

But if it’s serious interviews I’m after, I’m not sure why I’m still reading the fucking thing. After flicking through the last few issues, the following are all Kerrang! interview questions that high profile bands were recently asked, without any context whatsoever:

  • Do you believe in life on other planets?
  • Is there one hair product you can’t live without?
  • Have you ever been caught in a genuine fist fight?
  • Are you much of a handyman around the house?

For Hetfield’s sake, this is a supposed heavy music magazine, not a Facebook quiz! “Are you much of a fucking handyman around the house”?! I’d love to see Andrew Denton adapt this scattered approach if Enough Rope ever makes it back on air. Who cares about delving into the mechanics of what makes high-profile personalities tick, when we can find out what their favourite Subway sandwich is and who they’d most like to be from Toy Story? (Then again, Sunrise seems to be doing a pretty bang-on job of this anyway).

Goodbye, Kerrang!. My subscription won’t be renewed, but I look forward to you interviewing me when my metalhomo band goes platinum, so we can analyse my favourite pancake topping.

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