TheZot

Heh. Sounds like a scene from Rodney Dangerfield's "Back to School" (Hey, I was working in a theater, so sue me). I'll admit, I couldn't take literary criticism too seriously after that, at least not the bits where we're supposed to delve into what The Author Thought. Speaking as an author, what we're often thinking is "Are there any donuts left?" -Dan

Heh. He's not hopelessly straight. He's just hopelessly a guy.

Getting new people into a community's a tricky thing. There'll always be a constant trickle of people just joining in because they fit in well with the current tenor of the group (or don't notice that they don't) which is usually sized proportional to the community, but that's often not enough to keep things going. (Depends on how many people come, and how many go) People, generally, are loathe to join a community all by themselves. What does help is to have new projects, things people can get in at the beginning of. For GA, that'd mean new authors and to some extent new stories for existing authors. (The community overlap on a story-to-story basis for an author's pretty significant, since most authors write pieces that strongly resemble previous things they've written) For example while Dom, Comicality, and dkstories all have some fan overlap, each of them has a relatively unique tone to their communities, and each has attracted people who wouldn't otherwise be here. Some of the folks who've come for a particular author end up spilling over into the general GA community. Myr laying on new authors (like CPL or Dio -- if not new per se, at least new to here) is the single biggest thing that helps the community grow rapidly, since each new author will, at least initially, bring in a good-sized lump of new people. They'll each help widen that stream of people who just join in, since each author's got his or her own tone, and that just gives more potential hooks to catch people's iinterest enough to participate. Another thing that can help, though it's less likely (especially here) is for people to bring other folks into the community with 'em. It's not as common, since odds are you're not chatting with your friends about the latest sex scene in one of Dom's stories. (And if you are, you're probably hanging around more in the Real World than here ) The official greeter folks, and everyone in general, can actively reach out to new people, but that requires folks to have posted at least once, which is a pretty big hurdle, one that most of the GA members don't ever get to. -Dan (Who's done this community building thing before)

For some reason I'm thinking he just tacked it onto the end of Discovering Gregory rather than releasing a new story, but I'm not 100% sure of that. It does seem like a completely separate, second story starts near the end of chapter 36. (One which, honestly, I like better than the first half of the story, but that's just me) -Dan

Not obligated, no, but I hear it's real fun to try...

And here's part 3, the last of what's written. Past the end of this (and yeah, it ends in the middle of a scene) there are some sketched out bits, including my first shot at a tender sex scene which really didn't work, but that's about it. It does kinda peter out and not wrap up properly. I've always had a problem with endings... And yeah, I'm still arguing with the rich text editor. Strangest Places <h1 style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;">Scene: Back to school</h1> [Justin] This was the moment that I was dreading. I'd gotten a few days off from school, and Tristan had stayed with me the whole time, but that couldn't last forever. I was basically OK, at least enough to head back to class. And today was the day. At least it was a Thursday, so things couldn't be too bad for too long. What made it worse was that the whole school knew what had happened to me, or so Scotty said. That was the one downside to what Mr. C had done, though he probably saved my life. Now everyone knew I was gay. Tristan, though, was his usual cheerful self, and that did help a lot. Tristan stuck his head in the doorway for a moment. "'Kay, Justin, time to get going!" "Almost ready!" I had started getting dressed the way I always did for school, but I stopped myself. I'd changed, and I didn't need to hide behind the clothes. Or so I hoped, at least. I had on a grey pocket T-shirt, a pair of cargo pants, and white leather tennis shoes. And I was wearing the bracelet that Tris had picked out for me on my good wrist. The cast was still on, of course, but it was thin enough that it wasn't really getting in the way. I still felt almost naked without my boots, jeans, or leather jacket. "You look nice," said Tristan, with a kiss, when I walked into the kitchen. "Thanks," I said, kissing him back. They were just little kisses, but they made me feel better somehow, knowing that Tristan loved me. Tristan grabbed both our books and we drove off to school in silence. Once we got in we took our time, which was OK with me. My arm was still pretty sore, and I didn't really relish the thought of pushing through the hordes to get to class. "You look nervous," said Tristan, as we walked. "Yeah, some," I replied. "Scotty said that everyone knew what happened. It ain't gonna be pretty at times, I think." "Why?" asked Tris. He sounded puzzled. "Geez, Tris, you're dense sometimes. Everyone in school knows that my dad beat the shit out of me because I'm gay. Which means that everyone knows that I'm gay. I'm not one of the popular crowd anyway, and there's not going to be a damn thing stopping anyone from f**king around with me. The world's not all that gay-friendly if you hadn't noticed." "I think maybe you're overreacting. Besides, you've got me." "You can't be around every minute, though. Sooner or later someone's gonna take a shot just because they can. I mean, look at how you reacted when I kissed you in the park, and you love me. What do you think everyone else is going to do?" Tristan looked like I slapped him with that last remark, but it was true. He was the nicest guy in school and he still pulled back. "Just remember your center," said Tristan. "If you can keep that, everything'll work out." Tris was silent the rest of the way to class, looking like he was deep in thought. Which he probably was, though who knows over what.. "Well, here we are," I said as we approached the classroom. The door was open, and I could hear Mrs. Finney taking roll. We were a minute or so late, but I didn't really care. I took a deep breath and tried to center myself. A little serenity before it all hit the fan wouldn't be a bad thing. "Tris, my books," I said softly as we stood in front of the door. The whole class could see us, though Finney couldn't. Not that it'd matter much, as she'd give me hell anyway. I think she liked being miserable to me, and my better grades had just pissed her off. "Uh, Tris?" He was looking at me with this funny expression. While I was expecting several things, including a period of harassment, what I wasn't expecting was what Tristan did. He grabbed me, and kissed me. Passionately. A full-body contact kiss, the kind people do just before they start ripping each other's clothes off. I melted into it and kissed back with vigor. I'd wanted our first real kiss to be special and, damn me if it wasn't. Can't get more special than having the captain of the swim team kiss you full in front of a classful of stunned folks. I could hear the gasps from the room, but I didn't care right then. Tris broke the kiss, a dopey grin on his face. "See you after class," he said. He tucked a photo in my t-shirt pocket, then turned and loped down the hall. I just watched him go. The lovable doofus. "If you'd care to join us, Mr. Wright?" The class' reaction must've made Finney notice I was there. "Oh, right. Sure," I said. I practically floated into the room. Damn that man could kiss. The room was buzzing softly with hushed conversation, but I just didn't care. I'd found my center, and Tristan was it. I went through class in a lucid daze. I felt like it was all a strange, sorta surreal dream, but I was in control, or at least moving the right ways. Finney tried to trip me up a half-dozen times, but it didn't matter

Mmm, high school drama, what fun! Anyway this: really sums up the problem. Your best friend isn't a football, and you're not playing capture the flag with Lorena. Treat it like some sort of competition and you're guaranteed to lose. For whatever reason he's hung up on her and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Which, I will freely admit, sucks, but there you go. Having said that, stop playing the damn game with her. From what you've described she's getting off on it as much as she is twisting your friend around her finger. So... stop playing. Be nice, be polite, and when she gets involved leave. And make it (politely!) clear you're going because of her. Sitting in the cafeteria and they come over? Say hi, and ask her politely to go sit somewhere else. If she doesn't, get your stuff together and leave. At a football game or whatever and they stop by? Be nice and ask she goes somewhere else. If not, get up and move. If you don't want to go, ask them both to go sit somewhere else. Do that especially if she starts enjoying forcing you out of places. If you're out with him doing stuff and she calls, get him to bring you home first and if he won't then bug out yourself and call someone else for a ride or walk home or whatever. At some point he will clue in that something's up (likely the first time you ask them both to go away) and get pissy about it. You will get, in one form or another, a "you're making me choose!" accusation, if he doesn't just go missing entirely. When it comes, be clear that you're not making him choose. You don't like Lorena. You're not obligated to. Since you don't, you're not going to spend time around her. That's your choice, not Justin's. You aren't forcing him to choose -- he can do whatever the hell he wants. You're the one choosing, and you choose to not spend time with someone you don't like. And yeah, you may lose him over this, but I'd bet not. If he's as good a friend as you say he used to be, at some point he'll clue in to the fact that he's been yanking you around to cater to his girlfriend, and you've chosen to not be yanked around any more. He'll either accomodate you, or he won't. If he does, great, and if not then it's better to get it over with now. It's possible you may have to decide whether you're willing to make some accomodations of your own for him. Basically you need to draw your boundaries and make it clear you want him to respect them. If you can manage this without heat (which will be very tough, but try as hard as you possibly can to be calm and not get upset whenever this happens) you've got a damn good chance of this all working out relatively well, and if it doesn't work out you'll at least have tried and will ultimately be spared the hassle of having to deal with her. Getting into pissing matches with a friend's SO always dooms you to misery. That's what you're doing with Lorena. So... put it back in your pants, there's no way to 'win' this one, and playing just gets your shoes wet. -Dan

Yep, more of the story I'm not gonna finish (I think). Again, more viewpoint shifts and missing sections, so it's mildly but not entirely comprehensible. And I still seem to be freaking the rich text editor widget out. Strangest Places <h1>Scene: The kiss in public</h1> [Justin] It was a nice day. Spring was coming, and the weather'd turned warm early. Tristan and I had met at the park by the library, and were just sort of hanging out. "So you planning on going to college?" "Me? Dunno. Never really thought about it before. Doubt it." "Why?" <h1>Scene: The beating</h1> [Justin] {Should this even be in the final version? Might have more impact if it isn't. Hard to say} <h1>Scene: Aftermath</h1> [Tristan] <Ring!> I jumped when the phone rang. I'd been dozing in my bedroom, US history putting me to sleep again. It'd been hours since I'd heard from Justin, and I was starting to get worried. I felt kinda bad, since I'd freaked him a little at the park. But we were supposed to be studying for a test next week. I reached over and snagged the phone before the second ring, in case Dad was in the middle of something. "Speak to me!" "T-tristan?" I could barely make out the voice on the other end. It was badly muffled and sounded like whoever it was had a mouthful of cotton. Sounded kinda familiar, though. "Yep, that's me." There wasn't any response, though I could hear what sounded like ragged breathing. "Hello? Who is this?" I was starting to wonder if this was one of Scotty's pranks. "t-t-tristan." The voice came again. It still sounded awful, and was really hard to make out. There was pain in it, though. "help?" I wracked my brain trying to figure out who it was. They sounded in a bad way, though. "Sure. Who is this?" A painful sob came from the other end. "n-n-never mind." That's when it hit me who it sounded like. "Justin? Is that you?" "y-yeah." "What happened, man?" Justin had to be in pretty bad shape if I couldn't even recognize his voice on the phone. "You in an accident?" I had a picture of him leaning up against a phone booth, all bloody from a car wreck or something. Smashed up because of me. "Dad. Hit me." I went cold then. I'd met Justin's dad a few times, and I didn't like him at all. He was a nasty bastard, and built like a brick. If he'd beaten Justin up he could be in real bad straits. "Where are you?" "h-h-home." I knew where Justin lived. It was on the other side of town, but it was late and I could get there in five minutes if I didn't hit traffic or get pulled over. "Will you be OK until I can get there? Should I call the cops?" "No!" I could hear the pain in his voice. "n-no cops. I'll be OK." Like hell, I thought, but I didn't say it. "Hold tight, then. I'll be right over." I hung up the phone, grabbed my jacket off the bed, and ran out of my room. I took the stairs in three steps, and almost skidded into the wall when I hit the throw rug at the bottom. "Dad! Gotta go! I'll be back in a bit!" I yelled as I careened through the living room and hall towards the garage. "Hey, hey!" Dad popped his head out of the kitchen. "Slow down, you'll get hurt that way!" "No time, Dad. Gotta go." I ran past him, but he grabbed my shoulder as I went past. Once he's got a grip on something it won't move unless he wants it to, and I wasn't any exception to that rule. "Tris! Stop. What's going on?" He looked worried

I think you're handling this pretty much as best as possible. You can't and shouldn't press David to have a relationship with his family, but his little sister was awfully young when all the crap went down, and it's been a very long time, at least for her. Acting as a screen for him, checking her out first, seems like a reasonable thing. What you oughta do is bring Chaz and Selene with you. Have Selene sitting off in the corner somewhere, and make it a point to lay a good solid kiss on Chaz while you're there. Her reaction ought to tell you a lot. (Plus there's the excuse to kiss Chaz -- I can't imagine that being a hardship ) After that David can decide what he wants to do. I can certainly understand him not wanting to have anything to do with her, but family is nice to have if they're not people whose bodies you want to leave in a ditch somewhere,

I think everyone's got it right -- Green's got it for you bad, Chaz, and it's not going away. You're safe there. On the other hand, I'm not sure you should be entirely worry-free. Given the tendency of drama to happen around him, you may find you're going to get a call from the police about an unfortunate incident involving Green, Julio, the Latvian midget snowboarding team, a donkey, and two tons of coconut custard. That's an entirely different problem, though...

Who's not posted can be found by doing a search on the members list. You can sort by number of posts, and it's just a quick bit of math to see how many pages of people have zero posts plus the stragglers on the last page where some do and some don't.

Heh. Sitting on my hard drive. It'll probably end up being two or three pieces -- I'm not sure how much can get slung into a blog post at once, I just know that 100K is too much. I'll probably post the next piece in a day or two.

The stuff I've actually written and released is at http://members.gayauthors.org/zot/, so far one multi-chapter story and one short piece. There should be some more coming reasonably soon, as time permits. (Hopefully within a week, but we'll see how that goes. I'm a programmer, time and deadlines are such fuzzy things... )

Yep, another partially finished draft that I think will go nowhere. This was the first real gay romance I wrote, done over the course of a month when I was coming out to myself and really working things out in my head. It was therapy of a sort, though it's always a tossup how well that worked. It's got all sorts of problems, the biggest being it switches first-person viewpoints and even throws itself into third person occasionally. Hey, what can I say, I was reading a good chunk of Nifty at the time and thought it was OK. I know better now. There are a lot of themes running through this that come out in a lot of the other stuff I've poked around at, including the martial arts competency of two of the characters. Yeah, yeah, I know, but I'm of the opinion that, while violence is usually the wrong answer, if you're in a situation where asses are being kicked you should be in a position to make sure that at least some of those asses aren't yours. The entire draft's almost 20K words, but that's too big according to the blog software, so here's part one of possibly no more. (Which, if so, would be a mild pity. I've always wanted to see "Why, feeling insecure in your homosexuality" in print...) The formatting is a little odd. I think I've confused the rich text editor. Sorry 'bout that. Strangest Places "So she just up and dumped me!" "Really? What'd you do, Tris?" "Nothing, that's what she said was the problem. She said I wasn't paying enough attention to her." "Well, you didn't notice the day she had her hair cut." "Yeah, well, it was only a haircut." "Dude, she'd cut it short, spiked it, and bleached it blond. You'd have to be blind to miss it." Scotty eyed his friend for a moment. "Or stupid, I suppose." "Thanks," replied Tristan sarcastically. "I knew I could count on you. Tell me again, why are we best friends?" "Because without me you'd have an ego the size of Montana. There's only room in this school for one ego that big, and I don't want any competition." Scotty gave his friend a playful punch in the shoulder. "Now, where did you say you parked again?" Tristan looked around the school parking lot for a minute. "Dunno. Around here somewhere." The lot was about half full of cars, with mounds of snow and bare trees scattered through it. There were a few other kids around, and a knot of leather-clad guys milling around the motorcycles. "Geez, how can you lose your own car in a half-empty parking lot? I was wrong, you are blind." "Well, there's all this snow. Maybe they buried it when they plowed the lot." "Your car's not that small. Well," said Scotty, "maybe it is. But still... Whuf!" Whatever he was going to say was thumped out of him as a leather-clad shape darted out from between two cars and ran right into him. They both fell to the pavement, backpacks and books flying everywhere. "Ow! Hey," said Scotty, "watch where you're going!" "Sorry," mumbled the stranger as he scrabbled around, gathering scattered magazines and books and shoving them into his backpack. He was dressed in a black leather jacket, torn jeans, and a pair of work boots. He looked sixteenish, about the same age as Scotty and Tristan. "Here," said Tristan helpfully, handing a few books over. The stranger snatched them from him, stuffed them in his pack, and ran off across the lot. "What was that all about?" asked Scotty as he grabbed the last of his stuff off the ground, brushing the damp sand off the book covers. "Beats me," replied Tristan. "Hey, look, there's my car!" "Hey, you!" A shout came from the next row over. The biker horde had made their way over. "You see a punk go by here?" "Yeah," said Tristan. "He went that way." He pointed down the row cars, the opposite way that the kid had run. [Tristan] It was four o'clock by the time I got out of school. I'd run late tutoring, so I was late to swim practice, which meant an extra twenty laps around the pool, so now I was really late. And it was pouring rain on top of it. It was cold and wet and nasty, like you'd expect from a January downpour. At least it'd melt some of the snow, though we'd end up with ice in trade. I stood by the parking lot exit under the canopy, looking out at the lot. The rain was coming down in sheets, and the wind was kicking up a storm too. We had a real nor'easter going, though luckily for me the entrance faced away from the wind. At least it was keeping things a little dry. I had an umbrella, but I knew the wind would rip it to shreds if I tried to use it. There was another kid waiting under the canopy, smoking a cigarette. He looked kinda familiar, though I couldn't place him. He was looking at me looking at him, which was fair enough. "Hey," I said. "Hey," he said back. The voice sounded real familiar. That's when I realized who he was

As a little bit of trivia, of those 1668 users (1676 now), 1005 of them haven't ever posted anything. And, not counting Myr, Snowy's posted the most.

Dunno if anyone else is following it, but ArtisticBiGuy (who co-wrote "The Conquered" with DW Simon, and wrote a bunch of other really nice things kicking around Nifty and Literotica) is working on a fantasy novel, "Torch Song". It was apparently the NaNoMo winner for last year, and while not yet finished it's really good. He's posting a chapter a week, with chapter 16 just posted. It's on his yahoo group as well as on livejournal at http://mybistories.livejournal.com/. It's darned good for a first draft, and well worth following.

Ah, but remember the rule for group chat -- the probability that someone enters the chat goes up with the number of people in the chat. (I've yet to decide whether it's a fixed constant per person or not) The more people in it, the more likely someone new'll show up. That means if you want someone to chat with, even if the chat room's empty go pop in and hang around for a while -- there's a good chance that someone else who feels like maybe chatting will drop in because they see there's someone in already. The room speaks a "Welcome" when someone new shows up, so you can minimize the window and still know that there's someone else who's arrived, assuming you've got sound turned on in the chatroom (which is the default) and your computer's sound is enabled. -Dan

Yeah, well... me too. Apparently we were both wrong. I've gotten a number of pieces of criticism about the last two chapters of Yankee. They boil down to two main points: 1) I didn't like the ending 2) The ending was weakly written #1 is something to be coped with -- the plot's not going to change. #2, though... unfortunately that second point is a lot more valid than I wanted it to be. The ending of Yankee could have been really strong, but intsead it had Rob kind of wussing out and squeaking away very mouse-like. It just lacked any sort of impact, and it could have had a good one. Not sure I'm up to another chapter with the intensity of chapter 8, but the characters certainly deserve more than what they got. Yeah, this means the ending's getting rewritten. It'll probably be a little while, but it'll get done, possibly interspersed with chapters of the sequel. No promises on exactly when it'll get done -- I've a half-done piece I want to finish first, and a romance novel I have to write for work -- but it will happen.

There seem to be a few reasons for it. Like someone's already pointed out, a lot of straight women do get off on seeing two guys go at it, the same way that a lot of straight men get off on seeing two women go at it. (Though it's not just straight women -- I know one lesbian couple with quite a stash of gay male porn. Go figure) I think there's a generic "seeing two people of my preferred gender making out is hot" reflex in people. If you take a good look at the yaoi stuff, as well as some of the written stuff (though not generally the flat-out pr0n), there's usually a big difference between the stuff drawn/written by men and the stuff done by women. There's crossover (as the recent discussion here about underthehoodster's stuff has shown ) but the stuff done by women tends to be a lot more touchy/feely and the guy stuff is more action oriented. Not always, certainly, but often. The men in yaoi done by guys are a lot less effeminate, too, and in general the guys in stuff done by guys are more... guy-like. Anyway, often what you'll find in the yaoi stuff is guys who behave the way many women want guys to behave rather than the way they actually behave. The gender stereotypical behavior of the guys (one acting very much in a feminine role, the other in a kind of softened masculine role) is kind of interesting when you look at it that way too. Thirdly, and this one is a total hand-wave, I think there may be some escapism in there too. Gender roles seem pretty strictly delineated, and some of the stuff I've seen falls into the "I want to do X, but only guys can do X, therefore I'm there as a guy" category. I dunno, maybe not. Personally I think it's mostly just "watching two guys go at it is hot". And who am I to disagree with that? -Dan

The tragedy's ultimately Bobby's, and Justin and Bobby's relationship. I'd had the first draft of the story mosty written before I started getting things edited, so I realized how things worked out by the time the first chapter went out. It wasn't meant to have a streak of tragedy running through it, but it ended up with one anyway. Yep, that's pretty common from what I can tell. I know how things are supposed to be, while the readers only know what I've written. It's the mismatch that causes the consternation. Those three are biggies -- the first two are problems in the plotting, the third is a problem in the execution. Justin's parents never figured into the story and they should have, and Melanie and Rick just faded away and they shouldn't have (or if they did it should've been made clearer why) Rob's breakdown was fully motivated, but the problem is that I didn't make the motivation clear -- even though Justin wouldn't understand it, he would've seen what was going on and that should've made it clear to the reader. Now I'm tempted to go back and rewrite the last three or four chapters, and the three or four chapters I should've written but didn't.

Okay, I threw the liner notes onto my blog. They're at https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/blog/thez...?showentry=1478

I started Yankee in a fit of pique

I've got to admit -- I don't like the ending either. Given the character backgrounds and motivations it couldn't be any different, and it was the ending I was intending (sort of) from when I started writing Yankee, so it was absolutely the right thing, but... I still didn't like it. Couldn't do anything else, though, not and keep the story's integrity. Didn't make it suck any less, though. Changing the ending wouldn't have worked, so I didn't. I briefly considered continuing on, but that didn't really work either. Where Yankee ends really is the end of this particular story, and I didn't want to fall into the "endless serial" trap so many other stories on the 'net have fallen into. When I decided to start posting stuff I'd written I knew I'd have to do it as a professional, and while I didn't necessarily have the resources available that I'd have if I was doing this for actual money (mainly in time to work on things -- Kitty did an excellent job as an editor, and I'll be forever grateful for what she's done) that didn't mean I was gonna get lazy if I could help it. The ending itself does have some technical issues that I wish I'd have caught before I'd released it. The story stops, and is at a conclusion, but it doesn't quite end, at least not with definity. Or something like that. There are other problems in other places inside it that could use addressing if I revisit the story at some point. It's 80K words, and patched up it'd probably hit 130K. Who knows, maybe I should and see if any real YA publishers would be interested -- there's no sex in or anything, and if they can throw shelfloads of angsty suicidal teens battling flesh-eating zombies out, I should be fine. (Well, I may have to add in some zombies, but I can do that) But that's neither here nor there. Heh. I already am, more or less. A member's page is just fine. Maybe if I have more stories then something else would be in order, but I'm cool with the way things are. I think I'm going to put together some liner notes of sorts and toss 'em onto the blog. There's a part of me that's thinking that if the story needs explanation then it's a sign it's got some issues, but then it's my first try taking one of these to a conclusion so I'm OK with that. -Dan

Yeah, yeah, I know -- I promise, they'll drop the soap in the shower more in the next one, honest! More on the way. This "writing" thing is kinda fun... -Dan

Having watched all sorts of unpleasant dynamics and regrets in my own family, I'd have to say... go to the wedding, and if it doesn't make you horribly uncomfortable be the best man. Right now you're sounding really ambivalent, and as much worried about what others think as what you're feeling. No real surprise there. You also seem pretty ambivalent towards your dad in general. No surprise there either. (It's both fairly common at your age, and you're carrying around a good case of clinical depression) If you go through it, you may, at worst, feel a little uncomfortable right now. That's fine. The real question is how'll you feel next year, or next decade? You've got two potential things that could happen. He could be a manipulative bastard, at which point down the line you'll be able to say "I did what I thought was best, and you disappointed me." Hardly the end of the world, and you'll likely have a pile of other disappointments to throw that one on. Or, it could turn out that things get better with your dad, in which case going and being the best man would be a good thing. If, on the other hand, you pass... If he's a manipulative bastard, you'll still have a big pile of dissapointment, so there's no difference there. If he's not, then you're going to have a big regret for not having gone to the wedding. I can't say for you, but looking back for me, I can say that I've regretted not doing something far, far more often than I have doing something. I'd go, and stand for him. Feeling bad for not going when you should have will linger a lot longer and feel a lot worse than feeling annoyed that you went and it turned out to be a bad idea. -Dan