Heroes: "The Line"

A little change of pace this week, instead of doing a long recap, I am just going to what I felt was the highlight of the show: the finding of the paintings and Peter teleporting.

The idea of someone with Peter's powers having no memory and no idea how to use his abilities really excites me. Plus, the idea that he had this adventure and now must piece his way back to his life is really cool. Adam Monroe, who may be the bad guy out killing the oldschool folks, somehow connects with Peter.

Anyways, he and Caitlin teleport to the future, one year to be exact, and it is deserted. All around them are biohazard signs and pamphlets. Some kind of outbreak that wipes out NYC?

Which now brings us to the paintings. The images were kind of brief, but most of them were recognizable. Mohinder firing a gun, and the last one of Mr.B dead from a bullet. The question is, did he actually shoot Mr.B? Also, the painting of Peter behind bars with the biohazard symbol in the corner could point to some kind of outbreak (most likely due to the companies experimentation on the virus) which starts to kill regular people (remember, Mohinder warns against this) and the government starts rounding up people with powers since they are not affected.

Okay, just an odd theory. Anyone have any ideas what the Company is up to? Do they have a plan?

24: Season 7 Preview

Yeah, I did not like Season Six all that much. I complained about it. But, after seeing this preview, all is forgiven.

Heroes: "Fight or Flight"

Late once again. I am starting to fall behind on these things. What can I say? Can you forgive me? I hope so.



Peter
By far, Peter's story interests me, and probably everyone else, the most. Veronica Mars comes looking for Peter. When Ricky hears about it, he sends Peter up to Caitlin's flat (nice protective brother he is, sees his little sister making out with a guy and then tells them to go back to her place...I guess the Irish are finally starting to get progressive about sex...anyways)

Elle, that's the characters real name played by the always hot Kristen Bell, shows up at the bar the pub and questions Ricky on the whereabouts of Peter. Ricky lies and Elle pretends to leave, but instead uses her cool electricity power to weld the door shut. She then proceeds to blast Ricky.

Anyways, back at Caitlin's place, Peter decides to open the box. He finds his passport (he learns his last name), a plane ticket from NYC to Montreal, and a photo of Nathan and himself. He does not recognize Nathan. The two love birds then talk about Caitlin's painting skills, and Peter goes into his Isaac-mode and starts painting the future.

When he is finished, it is a picture of Caitlin and Peter at a street corner in what appears to be Montreal (the French names are a clue). Apparently, that corner is the location of the Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal.

They hear about Ricky and they rush down to the bar. Peter blames himself, and tells Caitlin that he will stop hiding from his past now. Elle talks on the phone to someone she calls daddy. She says she killed someone, but that it was no big deal, she is close to finding Peter. She gets upset because daddy orders her to come home. Hmmm, who is her father? Could it be Bob?

Nathan and Matt
These two team up to confront Maury, Matt's father. When they get to Philly, Matt arrests Maury, and they question him. Nathan suggests reading his mind. Maury is surprised that Matt can read minds because that is his power too. He says that it starts with mind-reading, but it can turn into so much more.

Maury leads Matt into another room, and when Matt turns around he is in a prison cell. There is a baby and then Janice is there telling him that he walked out on her and the baby, and that he will walk out on Molly too. The guard comes in and they start to fight.

Nathan goes through the door after Matt and Maury and ends up on a rooftop looking at the NYC burning. He then faces the horribly scarred version of himself. They start to fight, and then the scenes flip back and forth between fights and we can see that they are fighting each other. Matt finally cracks through, and helps Nathan come out of it, but unfortunately Maury is long gone, and the only clue is the picture of Bob, with the same symbol on it.

So, I guess that Maury is the nightmare man, but he must not be the same guy killing the other old timers.

Mohinder
Easily my second favorite character on the show right now. He calls Mr.B, who is in Odessa with the Haitian, about Molly. Mohinder wants to take her to the Company, but Mr.B warns him against it.

Well, Mohinder eventually takes her in, and Bob is quite happy that he did. He says they want to help her. Bob gives Mohinder a taser and says that sometimes he will have to use it on the people he is trying to help because they may not be able to control their powers. As he says that, Niki comes out of nowhere and throws Mohinder against the wall and starts choking Bob. Mohinder wisely tasers the bitch and they get her back into her cell.

When she comes to, she is calm and thanking Bob for helping her. Bob mentions that she has Multiple Personality Disorder and how tough that can be for someone like her. When Bob leaves, Mohinder offers to help her escape, but Niki says she came there because they were the only ones who can help her. Bob then sends Mohinder out on his next assignment.

Monica and Micah
Micah shows Monica his powers and tells her that she is a muscle mimic. She starts watching some Bruce Lee movie and can do most of his moves. There is a knock on the door, and Mohinder is there offering to give Monica the answers she is looking for.

Ando
Ando has some scientists look at the scrolls in order to read the damaged parts. We learn that Hiro is setting time right and that Kensei and Yaeko are falling in love. They are close to White Beard's camp and about to rescue Yaeko's father. When the get to the point where the camp should be, there is instead a massive army there.

The scroll is too damaged and the scientist says it will take some time for him to figure out what it says. Ando wants to know badly.

I want to take a moment to discuss my thoughts on "The Company." At first I was convinced they were a group of regular people trying to control the people with powers, but now it seems that they were originally people with powers trying to save the world.

What happened? How did they go from saving the world, to abducting people with powers? I guess they are trying to prevent a person like Sylar from happening.

Anyways, what do you guys think?

Heroes: "The Kindness of Strangers"

Sorry everyone for not posting this sooner. My life has been a mess and I apologize for not getting this up earlier.

Matt and Nathan
Nathan shaves and decides to see his kids, but then the teacher tells him he has to leave the premises. He then goes to see Angela, who has just confessed to Kaito's murder. Matt does not believe her, and she says in her mind for him to drop it or none of them will be safe.

Matt confronts Nathan and tells him that he knows he can fly and that he too has powers. Matt shows Nathan the pictures of Kaito and Angela, Nathan recognizes the photo and finds Matt a full copy. All sorts of familiar faces on it: Angela, Kaito, Ned, Linderman, Arthur Petrelli, and a guy that Matt says is his father, Maury.

That night, Matt asks Molly to find his father. She tries to and then says that he is the nightmare man. Matt and Mohinder argue about using her again, and then she volunteers to find him. They find his place, it is in Philadelphia (all bad people live in Philly, everyone knows that)and then Molly screams that he is coming. She goes into shock, and Matt can her in his head screaming help.

Sylar
Sylar runs into our new pals Maya, Alejandro, and Derek. They rescue an almost dead Sylar on the road and they talk to him. He sees Dr.Suresh's book and tells them that he knows the man and he can take them to him. Maya thinks that Sylar is a great guy, a gift from god, and she asks his name. He looks at his broken watch and tells her Gabriel.

Later, at a rest stop, Derek notices a paper with the pictures of the two fugitives. He shows Sylar and wants to turn them in. Sylar follows Derek and grabs a brick. He then gets in the car and tells them that Derek wants to turn them in, but he wants to know the truth from them. Maya tells him the truth, and then starts crying. Her power kicks in and Sylar starts to die, but Alejandro turns it on and saves the day. Sylar can hear talks ticking away. He says he will help them, Dr.Suresh has helped many people. Later they show Derek dead with a wound to the head.

Claire
Claire and West go on another date, this time to the Hollywood sign. He says that she needs to trust him, and that she should just jump. When she does he swoops down and catches her.

He asks her what her story was to her dad, and she says about going to the library. That night, when she gets home, her dad wants to know where she was, and she says that she lied about the library, and instead she joined cheerleading.

When Mr.B goes outside, the Haitian meets up with him. He says he has a lead on the paintings and that they must go to Odessa, Ukraine. Mr.B says that he will come up with a good excuse.

Monica
Micah wakes up to a nice bucket of water from his cousin. At breakfast the annoying kid wants $65 to watch PPV Wrestling. Granny and Monica both say no, but then Micah tells him he can get it for him. That night he uses his powers to get the wrestling match.

Monica works at a fast food restaurant and she wants to become manager. She took the test, but her boss says she did get into the program. Apparently she has a power, since twice we see her copying something she saw on TV. Kind of like Echo from Daredevil.

Anyways, here are my questions for discussion:
1. Did Derek have a power? I think so, it sounded like when he and Sylar were talking that Sylar could hear the ticking again.
2. Is anyone else fascinated by the fact that the parents of our heroes, also had powers? But, it does not seem to be an automatic thing, since Simone did not seem to have powers, or did she? And if so, can Peter use them?

Okay, that's it. I promise next week will be a better post.

Ghosts

It's that time of year again. Halloween will be upon us soon and that means ghosts, goblins, and monsters everywhere we look. The other night while driving I tuned in to "Coast to Coast AM" on the radio (thank you Imler for the recommendation) and listened to some guy talk about his books on ghosts.

He goes on and on about all of these experiences he has had and whatnot and then finally gets to one really good story about a haunted place in Boston. He gets a call from a woman who says her studio is haunted and that she has video evidence. When he goes there he is in for a very nice surprise. The studio is for exotic pole dancing and the video's are of women performing on the pole. Apparently you can see these weird things in the video and the instructor likes to think they are the ghosts of men who enjoy watching the women.

My only question about the whole thing was: there are professional pole dancing instructors? Can I sign up for that class? To hell with yoga or ballroom dancing.

Anyways, the ghost thing always fascinates me. I watch all sorts of shows this time of year about ghosts and definitely enjoy watching Ghost Hunters, but must say that as an atheist I really have a hard time believing in ghosts.

The idea of there being souls who are left behind here on earth just seems rather silly to me. Why then do I love to read about these things or watch anything about them?

Well maybe I like the idea that maybe there is a scientific explanation. What if the "soul" is really just some kind of energy that every living creature contains and since energy cannot be created nor destroyed, maybe some of that energy just happens to manifest itself after people die.

I think the Buddhist and Hindu religions both say that basically there is a lifeforce out there and when you die depending upon your karma and whatnot you either come back worse off, or you get infused back into the collective lifeforce. It has been awhile since I studied either of those religions, and do not feel like looking anything up about them, but you get my point.

Eh, I definitely have not slept enough to think through this one, so I will just end it here. You guys tell me what you think about ghosts. I would be interested to know who believes and does not believe.

Heroes: "Kindred"

Last year when the series started, it seemed to start a bit slower and allow us to get to know everyone. Remember, the threat was Sylar and the priority was "Save the cheerleader, save the world."

Well this season, we do not need to get to know these characters, we already know and love them. We have our threat, the mystery man who haunts Molly Walker and kills the old timers. However, we have yet to find the mission, what do we need to save? Tonight we got that. More on that in a bit.

Peter
Ricky and the gang want Peter to help them knock off the bookies, after the big soccer match, I hope that Tyrone is the getaway driver (I hope someone gets the reference). They rob the place, and as the guards start to shoot at them, Peter uses telekinesis to push a truck in front of the shooters.

Earlier, he heard one of Ricky's brother's thoughts about killing the rest of them and taking the money. Peter accuses him, but no one believes him. Well once they were back at the bar, Will (the bad brother) decides to pull a gun on Ricky. Will shoots Peter in the chest, but Peter gets up and uses his telekinesis to plant Will into the wall and choke. He is about to kill him when Caitlin stops him. Will runs away, and Ricky now likes Peter.

Caitlin gives Peter a tattoo of a Celtic knot on his arm, and Ricky tells Peter that he is part of the family now and then gives Peter the box. Ricky leaves Caitlin and Peter alone, and she urges Peter to open the box. He does not want to because he is afraid of what he might find. He says that he wanted to kill Will, but she stopped him. She thinks he is a good person, and that if he is happy as who he is, then he does not need to open the box. They kiss, and we see a closeup of the tattoo, which fades, and we get the image of the helix, and then it disappears completely.

Who else thinks Caitlin is hot? She has a bit of a plain look to her, but I find her attractive. I dig the accent, and figure it's about time that Peter get some action.

Sylar
Sylar wakes up in Malibu, next to a hot chick. That never happens to me. She says her name is Michelle and that she fixed his wounds and rescued him from Kirby Plaza. She also tells him that her name used to be Candice, but since she is wanted by the cops, she changed her name and appearance (or that Missy Peregrym is now on Reaper). He wants to see where they really are, and she shows him, and also shows him his wounds.

Unfortunately for big, bad Sylar he cannot use his powers for some reason. He gets upset, and she explains that she can help him. She then offers all sorts of sexual fantasies to him, which he responds to by hitting her upside the head and trying to take her power.

We see the real her, which happens to be a fat chick. He tries to create illusions, but realizes he cannot use any of his powers, or just his original power. I am sure we will learn what is wrong with him very shortly.

Niki and Micah
Their first few moments of the season and naturally it was a suckfest. Just kidding, it was not that bad. I am trying not to be hard on them. Niki tells Micah they are leaving Las Vegas, and that he can come back to see his dad anytime. Micah then puts flowers on a grave of DL. So apparently DL really died, or did he? I bet he comes back somehow, maybe as a ghost.

They head on down to New Orleans, where Micah is going to stay with DL's mother. She welcomes them (I bet she has powers, or maybe she's just creepy) and Niki tells Micah that she will come back. She goes outside and makes a phone call. She calls Ned, and asks if they really have a cure for her and he tells her yes, but she will have to do something for them first.

Mohinder & Parkman
Parkman wakes up in the middle of the night and grabs his gun. He goes out to the kitchen and finds Mohinder getting something out of the fridge. Parkman does not like that Mohinder is playing spy. Molly comes out and gives Mohinder a hug. Awe, how cute. Two men and a baby or something...

Mohinder meets Ned at his new office, which just happens to be Isaac's old loft. They have a very expensive lab set up for him, and Ned says they will be monitoring him round the clock. Later Ned comes in with a new sample for him and then goes out to take the phone call from Niki.

Mohinder calls Mr.B and is afraid that they might get caught. Mr.B tells him not too worry and to look for the paintings. Mohinder finds one, the 8/8 of in the series. He takes a picture and sends it to Mr.B's computer, who looks at it and then closes it when Claire comes into the room. Do not worry, I will get to the image in a moment.

Maya & Alejandro
Alejandro gets arrested for attempting to steal a car. He gets put in jail next to some American kid who says "dude, you look like ass." Maya comes to the rescue by trying to give the cops $14. When they won't let him out, she uses her power and makes everyone die. Alejandro gets out and takes it back, and when the American kid comes to, he says he has a car, so they take him with them. How will he be connected to everything?

Hiro
Ando gets caught playing video games at work, and he decides to look at the sword and think about Hiro for a minute. He notices that on the handle it says "Ando open" and he opens the handles base and pulls out some scrolls, which are letters from Hiro describing his time in 1671.

Hiro tries to get Kensei not to freak out, but Kensei thinks that Hiro is some kind of devil. Later Hiro is with Yaeko and she is going on about how Kensei seems like two different people, sometimes he can be gentle and other times he acts like a brute.

When Hiro catches up with Kensei, he finds him cutting himself with a knife. Hiro explains that Kensei has powers and that Hiro does time. He shows him how he can teleport. Kensei realizes he can make tons of money as a swordfighter, but Hiro has other plans.

He teleports them to a temple which is home of the 90 Angry Ronin, who guard the Fire Scroll. As they charge Kensei, Hiro teleports away. Later Kensei joins Hiro and Yaeko and has the scroll.

Kensei thanks Hiro for his help and for showing him the right path. He won the Battle of the 90 Ronin, and will now continue on his quest. He is sad when Hiro says he must return home. As Kensei and Yaeko leave together, Hiro realizes he loves her and does not want to leave. He stays and says that his time with them is not over.

Claire
Claire confronts West about what he saw. She says it was a pedicure and that he just mistook the whole thing. He makes fun of her and then when they are in class, he asks if a lizard girl could cut off an appendage and grow it back.

Claire runs out of class and West follows her. Outside she admits that she is a freak and that she has powers. She freaks out for a little bit, and then West tells her to shut up. He picks her up and flies her to a nice little beach.

They talk about who has a cooler power for a bit, then start making out. Claire notices a scar on his neck (the same as Parkman's and Sprague's) and asks what it is. West does not know, but he knows that he was riding his bike one day and he saw a guy, with horned rimmed glasses and the next thing he remembers it's the next day and he is at home. It appears that Mr.B and the Haitian got to West awhile ago. West says that HRG looked at him like he was some kind of animal that belonged in a cage.

That night, as Mr.B stares at the picture of Isaac's painting, Claire comes in and says goodnight. It's obvious she wants to ask him about it, but does not know how to bring it up. Probably a good thing considering what might be going on in his mind. Mr.B just received a very disturbing picture.

The picture is of him with a bullet through his head, through his left eye to be exact. He is clearly dead in the picture. In the background is a blond girl, but it was not clear who she was (first guess is Claire, but sometimes those things can be deceiving).

So, now we have the priority: we do not want Mr.B to die. How weird is that to say? After the first few episodes last season, when we were convinced he was this sinister bad guy, who we should absolutely hate, and now he is probably one of our favorite characters.

Heroes: Part One

What? Part One? Again? I know you are asking those questions. No, I have not lost my mind, nor have I developed Hiro's powers and jumped back in time. Instead, I want to talk about the DVD (which my brother got me for my birthday, thank you so much Adam) and the original first episode that never aired.

For the most part, it is the same story as the original, but there were a bunch of things changed. The main thing being a character named Ahmed, who was captured by a Muslim terrorist cell. They called him the Engineer and they wanted him to build a bomb. He shows them that he is the bomb. At first he would not help them because he had killed his wife, she died of cancer. Sounds a bit like Ted Sprague.

This is how we meet Parkman, and see him use his powers. He finds one of the terrorists hiding, which eventually they redid as him finding Molly. Later he finds the cell, and when he confronts the Engineer, they recognize each other.

The first target of the cell had been a train heading to Odessa, Texas, where they were able to steal some Plutonium. That is the train wreck that Claire runs into to save the guys life.

Also, Parkman's wife is played by a different actress. Not a big deal, but odd.

At the end of the episode, Micah steals $300 from Tina and heads to Utah to get his dad out of jail, who was put in jail by a prosecutor named, Nathan Petrelli.

Also, Suresh meets Sylar at the end of the episode. His name was Paul Sylar. I am glad they changed Sylar to an alias. And that they left us debate about him for awhile.

When Peter goes with Simone to help Isaac, they find him like before, but instead of having overdosed, he had handcuffed himself to the wall, and used a saw to cut his own hand off.

Those are just a few of the interesting differences I noticed. Something I did pick up, and I might throw this stuff out here from time to time whenever I finish watching an episode is this: have we ever learned what Charles Deveaux and Angela Petrelli's powers were? Peter came into contact with both of these people when his powers developed.

Fantasy Football Week 4

Ugh. Dropped to 2-2. Lost 81-58. Not a very a good week.

This week I take on the first place team, and right now I am projected to win, but that is only because some of his starters have BYE weeks, which probably means his bench will go in and still destroy me.

I am starting Brees this week. If he does not have a good game, I am kind of screwed at the QB position. I will definitely have to look at a trade. I picked up Michael Pittman to go in for Peterson who is off this week. I hope that Lee Evans has a big game, maybe I can use him in a trade, or one of my other receivers.

Heroes: "Lizards"

This show just gets better with each episode. So much is going on, and we are only into the second episode, very exciting.

Peter
The Irish thugs interrogate Peter the old fashioned way: by beating the crap out of him. They want to know what he did with the iPods (apparently Irish thugs are not too smart, why would Peter, or anyone for that matter, steal the iPods and then leave themselves inside the container), and naturally Peter has no answer for them. Ricky, the leader and guy from Fight Club, sends his sister, Caitlin in to clean Peter up.

As she wipes up his blood, she notices that all his cuts are healed. Some more thugs come into the bar, and they are planning on roughing Caitlin up. Peter phases through the ropes holding him down and uses the blue energy on one guy, and telekinesis on another. He then punches a guy with a dose of super strength. Why can't I wake up with superpowers and no memory? That'd be pretty cool I think.

Ricky returns and he is very upset that Peter hurt the guys that came over, since the one is the son of some gangster that they were stealing the iPods for. He did not seem to care that they were going to rape his sister, but whatever, apparently no one interferes with Project Mayhem, sir...sorry, had to throw in a Fight Club reference. And yes, I realize that he did not actually say anything like that, but whatever.

Ricky wants Peter to help them on a heist, and in return, he will give Peter a box, which contains all of Peter's information he had on him when they found him. At least it has his driver's license and they started calling him Peter. It seems to me that Peter still cannot figure out how to access his powers, or he would have just mind-grabbed the box from ol' Ricky's hands.

Mohinder
To me this was a very funny part of the episode. Ned (let's just agree to call him Ned, not Bob, not Mr.Midas, but Ned) wants Mohinder to go to Haiti to check on a patient who may have the virus. Mohinder gets there and it is the Haitian, who thinks God is punishing him. Mohinder convinces him that maybe God sent Mohinder there to help him and the Haitian allows Mohinder to cure him.

Later, Mohinder tells the Haitian that the company he works for will be happy and the Haitian realizes who he must work for and the next scene we see is Mohinder sitting at a desk and Ned is there. Ned asks him about the Haitian, and Mohinder is confused and cannot remember finding him. Ned says that the cure must have worked, since the Haitian got his powers back and that they will chalk that up to a rookie mistake.

First off, Mohinder was very amusing in his whole memory loss thing, but later he is on the phone with Mr.B and he says "they bought the whole bumbling professor act." And when Mr.B asks if the trip was productive, Mohinder replies that "you should have the answer very shortly." Just then, the Haitian walks into Copy Kingdom and both Mr.B and he are smiling.

So, Mohinder has become quite the secret agent. How long can he keep it up though?

Maya & Alejandro
They go to a friend of their family, who will sneak them into Mexico. She has other people there and one of them says she is a healer. When she touches Maya to see what is wrong, she says that she is cursed and that they will not travel with her.

The lady taking them across leads them to an old pipe, and as she and Maya cross, a truck comes separating them from Alejandro. As they get through the pipe, the lady sees that Maya has black eyes and black stuff coming out of her eyes. The lady then gets the same thing, and apparently dies.

Alejandro catches up and grabs Maya. He then starts doing something that causes the black stuff to disappear, which then causes the old lady to wake up. They are happy she is alive, but she curses them and says they are the Devil. Now they are alone in the woods of Mexico, with absolutely no clue of where to go.

Parkman
Matt investigates the Kaito death. They find Angela Petrelli's fingerprint at the scene and bring her in for questioning. As they question her, Matt hears her think about revenge, so he asks her about it. She realizes he is reading her thoughts, and thinks very loudly "Get out of my mind!"

Nathan stops down to pick her up, and Matt says that they met in Texas. All of a sudden they hear screams and see her being attacked by nothing. Matt breaks the two-way mirror and as he goes in, there is nothing there, but Angela's face is all cut up. On a side note, it was lame that Matt broke the glass with a chair. I wanted Nathan to fly fullspeed into the glass and break it.

Hiro
Hiro decides to take TK's armor and save Yaeko. He disarms the eleven bandits she is fighting with and embarrasses them pretty easily. I enjoyed when he is threatening them and the one guy asks why TK keeps referring to himself in the third person.

Yaeko is grateful and is obviously in love with TK, or at least with this new and improved version. When Hiro returns to the bar, he tells Kensai (I will refer to the white version as Kensai, and to Hiro pretending as TK, just for clarification) that he can make Kensai great. Kensai does not believe him until Yaeko comes in and is all in love with him and wants him to save her father. Kensai agrees to go with Hiro and as he walks out the door, he is shot with arrows by the bandits.

Hiro removes an arrow and the wound heals, and Kensai recovers from "death." The two of them could make quite the badass pair.

Claire
Speaking of people who can heal, Claire sits in class listening to a lecture on lizards and how they can regenerate. She gets excited and starts to ask questions about whether humans could do that. The teacher says someday it may be possible to grow new limps from stem cells. West just stares at Claire and later wants to know why she hides the fact that she is interested in biology.

At home, Claire tells her dad that she wants to help people, that maybe they could use her blood to grow people limbs. She also starts to ask questions, specifically questions that fans have asked over and over, such as "if she loses a limb, does it grow back, or would she have to reattach it and let it heal itself?" Mr.B says that if the company found her, they would test her limits, by putting her in more pain than she can possibly fathom.

Later that night, she is watching TV and she decides to give it a shot. She takes a pair scissors and cuts her little toe off. At first nothing happens and she realizes that it hurts like hell to cut your toe off. Then, it starts to grow back, and after a few seconds, she has a brand new toe.

As she looks out the window, she sees West staring at her. She runs outside to confront him, but he is gone. Or is he? Mr.Muggles jumps and barks towards the sky. If Claire dates West, it would definitely complete that old saying that girls tend to go after guys like their father. Only in this case, she would be dating someone who shares the same power with her real daddy, Nathan. By the way, does anyone else think of Family Guy when they see Nathan's beard? I am ready for a bird to pop out of there.