
Ramen Profitable - cpach
http://paulgraham.com/ramenprofitable.html
======
dhouston
Having gone down both the ramen-profitable and the traditional-VC roads, here
are some pitfalls that deserve mention with the former. The two are not
mutually exclusive, and the angel/VC road has its own well-known brambles, but
anyway:

\- Your biggest fear should not be flaming out spectacularly, but rather
creating a zombie that neither truly lives nor dies. The downside of ramen
profitability is that (by definition) it's easier to waste years rather than
months on an idea that won't ultimately succeed.

\- In fact, you may lose your window of opportunity to someone who figures out
how to use cash to get further faster.

\- Outside investment forces you to get your head out of the day-to-day
firefighting every month or so to 1) think big picture 2) set long term goals
3) be accountable for your progress. The key is "outside"; otherwise it's easy
to meander along and procrastinate on hard questions.

\- The upside of ramen profitability is a culture of frugality. The downside
is it's easy to waste time on things you could be paying others to do. For
example, paying an accountant to do your company taxes might blow away the
entire year's earnings -- does that mean you should learn the tax code and do
it yourself? What about negotiating a contract, or even taking out the trash?
(These are real examples of things we did ourselves at the ramen-profitable
company.) Delegating is harder if it means losing your hard-earned badge of
profitability.

Joel has a good post on this topic (Amazon vs. Ben & Jerry's):
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000056.html>

~~~
joez
"Your biggest fear should not be flaming out spectacularly, but rather
creating a zombie that neither truly lives nor dies."

I think the pitfall you are alluding to is hitting ramen profitability and
then spending all day fire fighting rather than creating new features. But
that is the point to seek funding with specific goals for the money and new
plans of attack ($x will allow me to hire y who will write z feature). And
since you are ramen profitable, you can do so on your own time schedule with
better terms! This then allows you to flame out spectacularly :)

~~~
webwright
"I think the pitfall you are alluding to is hitting ramen profitability and
then spending all day fire fighting rather than creating new features."

I don't think that's what he's alluding to at all. He's talking about business
success, not how you spend your time. There are plenty of people who create
products for small markets and can't make the growth jump past that early
small market into a larger one. This isn't always (or even OFTEN) a feature-
creation problem.

Here's some cool math: If your acquisition is linear ("we sign up 3 paying
customers every day") and your churn is percentage ("we lose 8% of our paying
customers every month") you will eventually hit a point where your growth
STOPS (unless you can fix one of those two stats). The zombie state Drew is
talking about (I think) it where your revenue is largely not growing, you can
feed yourself but no one is ever going to buy you, and you've run out of
"move-the-needle" features/efforts that can improve acquisition or retention.
"Walking Dead" is what investors call it.

~~~
joez
That is certainly a scenario but if your startup has stopped growing and you
don't have plans for new features to change that then you are walking dead.
Then, as you pointed out, you know you have entered a market too small.

------
ramidarigaz
An awesome alternative to rice and beans, just to throw in some variety, is
rice and dal (lentils or split peas). The dal requires several spices, so it's
a good idea to invest in a good spice collection. Actually its always a good
idea to invest in a spice collection.

Anyway, my favorite dal recipe is thus (six servings, keeps forever):

1 1/2 c. dried lentils/split peas/etc...

4 c. water

1 1/2 tsp salt

3 tbs butter/oil

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp ground tumeric

a small stick of cinnamon (or 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon)

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp fresh/ground ginger

1/4 tsp mustard seeds

6 cloves

Cook the lentils. Cook some rice. Heat the butter in the pan and then fry all
the spices until the cumin and mustard seeds begin to pop. Pour the spice
mixture into the lentils and mix. Possible toppings include: plain yogurt with
dill (dried or fresh) diced cucumber, any variety of chutney. I'd add a recipe
for chutney, but the cooking and canning process is too long to put here.

This stuff is so filling and delicious (if you like Indian/Nepalese food), and
it lasts forever in the fridge.

~~~
thelonecabbage
The point is to spend all your time working on PRODUCT and not cooking.
Otherwise a pot does a better job of cooking rice than a rice cooker, and
dried beans beet canned hands down. But those things take time. Were talking
bare sustenance, to support that weak flabby life support system programmers
call a body until the attached brain has finished making a product.

~~~
aichcon
Sounds like a "recipe" for disaster (excuse the pun).

Part of success is learning to strike a balance that allows you to spend a lot
of time on your product but also leave time for maintaining your personal
health and sanity. You can't go full force, full time for very long without
burning out. The pitfalls have been discussed here a lot.

Cooking can be excellent opportunity to take a break from your work to refresh
and nourish your mind, and also learn a new and valuable skill in the process.

------
cperciva
_What keeps people from starting startups is the fear of having so much
responsibility._

I'm not convinced about this. I think if anything it's the exact opposite --
many people avoid starting startups because they're afraid of seeming
_irresponsible_.

I'm sure I'm not the only person here who has been asked the question "when
are you going to get a _real_ job?" -- as PG's essay points out a paragraph
earlier, a company which isn't making any money yet tends to feel rather
theoretical. At an age where the perception of being responsible is largely
tied to making the transition from education to employment, it can be
difficult to explain working at a not-yet-profitable startup to people --
especially in computing, where the default expectation is often that students
will graduate and walk into high-paying jobs with
Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft/Cisco/etc.

~~~
pg
We're talking about two difference senses of responsibility. You mean
responsibility in the sense of prudence; e.g. "He made a responsible choice."
I mean responsibility in the sense of something you have to worry about; e.g.
"He was weighed down by responsibilities."

For anyone who cares, the reason both concepts have the same name is that they
share the property that you have to be able to respond to someone. The
difference is that in the first case you're responding to people who are
judging or depending on your choice (e.g. your parents, friends, or
dependents) and in the second to people you've undertaken to do something for
(e.g. customers, employees, or investors).

~~~
cperciva
_I think we're talking about two difference senses of responsibility._

Well, yes. But they're closely related -- people with lots of responsibilities
have to be responsible, or else bad things will happen.

~~~
pg
Yes, they are related, but not in a way that makes your comment true.

When your parents think you're being irresponsible by starting a startup
instead of getting a job, they're thinking about the affect on your own
career, not the amount of work you're undertaking to do for other people.

~~~
cperciva
_When your parents think you're being irresponsible by starting a startup
instead of getting a job, they're thinking about the affect on your own
career, not the amount of work you're undertaking to do for other people._

I'm not convinced that is generally true. Note that I'm talking about
perceptions, not reality. I don't think many people avoid startups because
they're afraid of _being_ irresponsible -- I think they avoid startups because
they're afraid of _seeming_ irresponsible -- and I think a lot of this is
based on the perception that a startup which hasn't reached profitability yet
(especially if it doesn't have any paying customers yet) isn't a real company.

~~~
zackattack
Wait, who cares about _seeming_ irresponsible? Unless it's to one's family, in
which case pg's argument holds.

~~~
andreyf
_who cares about seeming irresponsible?_

The "students [expected to] graduate and walk into high-paying jobs with
Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft/Cisco/etc".

------
frossie
I realise this is probably the least relevant comment this essay is going to
get... but you can make good rice in the microwave - the only advantage a rice
cooker has is that it will keep your rice warm for hours.

Get a deep microwave-safe _covered_ dish (your grandmother probably has some
old corningware lying around, also easy to find in garage sales), put 2 cups
of water for every cup of rice (but don't fill more than half the dish), a bit
of salt, a bit of olive oil, cover and microwave. Some microwaves have a rice
setting, otherwise microwave on high for about 10 minutes _and then let stand_
for at least 10 minutes.

If you are making white rice, it will turn out nicer if you rinse it before
you start (that washes away the starch); a trick for doing this is using a
sieve and a bowl. In some cultures it is traditional to rinse the rice 7 times
- I find 6 is less symbolic but equally adequate.

I now return you to your normal programming.

~~~
nihilocrat
Someone please tell me how a microwave or rice cooker are better than just
using a normal old covered pot with a clear lid. I seem to be able to make
decent rice if I just very closely follow the correct rice/water/heat/time
ratios.

I figure the microwave is faster, but I don't think the rice cooker would be.
I guess if you constantly eat rice, not having to pay attention is a plus?

~~~
SwellJoe
If you cook rice more than once per week, and you're doing it with a pot,
you're a masochist. A rice cooker makes the process dramatically less error
prone, and the resulting rice is better: fluffier, more consistently cooked,
etc. A girlfriend bought me a fuzzy logic rice cooker (about $150, I think) a
few years back. Best kitchen device _ever_. It cooks brown rice, oatmeal, etc.
in addition to white rice, and it gets it right every single time. The pan
also has measurement marks inside so I don't even have to measure the water.

The big problem with a pot is that you'll often get the temperature wrong, and
end up baking the lower layer of rice onto the pot bottom, or not quite
cooking it fast enough and end up with mushy rice. I only get great rice from
a pot about 75% of the time. It's 100% of the time with a rice cooker.

So, yes, not having to pay attention to the rice while I work on other parts
of the meal is a huge bonus. If you only need white rice, you can get a basic
rice cooker that will work very well for about $25 (I've heard brown rice is
possible with the lower priced devices by giving it a bit more water, and
leaving it to "warm" for a few extra minutes, but I've never tried it).

~~~
indiejade
_A girlfriend bought me a fuzzy logic rice cooker (about $150, I think) a few
years back. Best kitchen device ever._

Single-use kitchen products are silly, not to mention space-inefficient. Even
if it makes oatmeal _and_ rice, that's basically just a bunch of starch. Might
as well just eat Ramen.

One can find a nice set of sturdy department-store quality cookware (with
lids!) at a discount retailer (like Ross or Marshalls). They'll go much
further in ensuring consumption of the variety of nutritional foods. Basics
one can get for about $60 for all three: a boiling water pot for the stuff to
be cooked in bulk, a saucepan (cause bland rice is boring) and wok-shaped
skillet. They fit neatly inside each other space-wise, as well.

My secret to rice cooking: add a wee bit of vegetable or other oil (I also
like to add a bit of cayenne pepper to the oil sometimes) in the skillet, and
let it warm, but not over super hot temp. Then add the rice, and kind of
"sautee" it for a little while, but keep the rice moving to make sure it
doesn't burn. You really just need coat it a little little bit, to prevent it
from going mushy and therefore cannot coat the bottom of the pan with the
black mush that happens when the rice is added to the water. After adding the
water and bringing it up to a boil, you can turn it down to the lowest temp on
your stove, cover it, and let it cook for the rest of the time on the package.

I guess the one prevailing great thing about the fancier rice cookers it that
they beep when they're done. So I guess if you use my method, don't forget to
set a timer.

~~~
SwellJoe
_Single-use kitchen products are silly, not to mention space-inefficient._

I agree, which is why I called it out as one of the few instances where it is
worthwhile. And speaking of pots and pans, Cuisinart makes a great set of pots
and pans, covering everything you need, that sells for $149 from Amazon. That,
and a good knife, and a few other bits and pieces, are most of what you need
to have a nice cooking kitchen for dinner for a group of up to about four (and
the two small ones are good for single and double meals).

To put things into perspective, I don't even own a microwave. But, I consider
a rice cooker absolutely mandatory if you eat rice regularly. If you don't eat
rice regularly, then obviously a rice cooker is not a useful expenditure or
use of space. I consider it a good investment of both, because my most common
meals are various kinds of Chinese, Indian, and Mediterranean foods that
include rice as a base.

 _Even if it makes oatmeal and rice, that's basically just a bunch of starch.
Might as well just eat Ramen._

I'm not a believer in the Atkins anti-carbs crusade, nor do I accept that all
grains are created equal. Oatmeal and brown rice are both quite reasonable
"slow" carbs, when combined with proteins and vegetables. Ramen is not a slow
carb by any stretch of the imagination, and is actually "just a bunch of
starch" (it also has _way_ too much sodium, if prepared as directed).

------
Mz
This may be a new concept for men, but I think women have long gone for "ramen
profitable". They very often bootstrap their businesses. They usually can't
get the same level of credit a man can get. They are often doing it because
they are moms who want to be home with the kids, so their first responsibility
is to their family, not their business. This means they can't put sufficient
time and energy into the business to launch something on a more traditional
male model of success (which means they often have no goal to expand from
their home office to a more traditional setting). They tend to be more risk-
averse than men, in part because they just don't have as much capacity to
recover from a big financial mistake as men tend to have. (If women make on
average 2/3 what men make, then men are making 1 1/2 times what women make.)

It seems to me business articles aimed at women might be a useful resource for
anyone wanting to start a "ramen profitable" business.

~~~
RobGR
I think your observations are probably correct.

When I was trying to learn basic accounting / bookkeeping, one of the best
guides I found was some State's "Women in Small Business" or something similar
commission, that had a very short down-to-earth guide to doing enough
bookkeeping to keep you out of tax court.

This also reminds me of the buzzword "lifestyle business" that was going
aroudn a while back.

~~~
Mz
I've read a lot about it over the years, some of it a very long time ago. So
no specific titles come to mind. But, in my experience, articles aimed at
would-be women entrepreneurs tend to take the bootstrap approach. It's
probably an excellent approach during a recession.

------
rarrrrrr
Sorry PG, but I have to nitpick the recipe in the footnotes. In general this
is a healthful meal. I was particularly pleased to see you recommended keeping
the heat low when sauteing, as heating oils beyond their tolerance is a common
mistake.

However I must take issue with the recommendation of Knorr beef bullion.
Ingredients: Salt, Monosodium Glutamate, Beef Fat, Partially Hydrogenated
Cottonseed Oil, Yeast Extract, Caramel Color, Dehydrated Beef Stock,
Dehydrated Vegetables (Onion, Carrots, Parsley), Turmeric, Disodium Inosinate
and Guanylate, Spices.

Monosodium glutamate should be avoided if you care about your nervous system.
Partially hydrogenated anything is no good. "Yeast extract" is just a food
industry trick for including more monosodium glutamate.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity>

There are healthful choices for beef bullion, so pick one of the alternatives.

Otherwise, bon appetit. :)

------
johnrob
Has anyone considered taking a day job that essentially involves loads of free
time and no intellectual property constraints? Perhaps some sort of support or
attendant role where your primary duty is to monitor and occasionally deal
with incidents.

Assuming such a job existed (I have to believe it does), would this have most
of the benefits of ramen profitability?

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Night security guard at an office building.

EDIT: I haven't done this, though I did a lot of standing guard in the middle
of the night overseas in the Navy, and you've got _lots_ of time and solitude.

~~~
jon_dahl
I had a friend who did this, with a goal not of starting a business, but of
reading a ton of literature and philosophy. He ended up just being tired all
the time.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
It probably really depends on the person...I'm a natural night owl, so once I
adjusted to the schedule, it wasn't a big deal. I got a _ton_ of reading and
school done during the six months I had that assignment.

------
mahmud
It's interesting to see highly skilled people with enough business-sense to
launch a startup, gathered around here embracing poverty.

At the risk of going against the tide, I say there is nothing wrong with
consulting on the side, perhaps customizing your product for a big-enough
client and making some fuck-off money on the side. Let's think of it, many
startups could actually benefit from brushing against a more established
business at a B2B level, they might even find a better market, not to mention
a better product idea, than their current social web-app that still lacks the
necessary "network effect" to pay for itself.

------
tokenadult
"If you want to save money, buy beans in giant cans from discount stores."

We much prefer to soak dry beans, which seem to be much less expensive per
unit of protein. Black eye peas have a particularly good nutritional profile,
although they usually need added ingredients to have an appealing taste.

~~~
pg
Hmm, yes. I was never able to do this consistently, even at my poorest. I
think the reason is that it requires you to decide in advance what you're
going to eat.

~~~
arohner
Needing to soak the beans is an artifact of cooking on wood burning stoves.
The water breaks down the beans before you cook, which is advantageous if your
stove isn't that hot, or you're burning something expensive, like wood.

If you have a gas stove or a decently powerful electric, you can just dump the
dry beans in the pot and start boiling. Cover the pot and boil for about an
hour, and then uncover the pot and continue boiling for about another hour to
let thicken (YMMV).

~~~
jonknee
Why would you need a "decently powerful electric"? It's not getting hotter
than the boiling point no matter how many BTUs you throw at it. You're right
that an increased cooking time is a bigger concern if you have to chop down
the wood, but you should be able to do it just fine on anything that can bring
a sufficient quantity of water to a boil.

~~~
philwelch
True: you just have to put the beans in quickly enough before you get to a
boil.

------
thunk
There's another beneficial aspect to not smelling of desperation beyond
avoiding being taken advantage of: projecting an "I don't need you" aura is
actually attractive -- occasionally maddeningly so. This also applies in
dating and job hunting.

------
jon_dahl
Another reason why ramen profitability is important: when you're working on
investment, and your revenues don't meet your expenses, you slowly (or
quickly) watch your bank account progress to $0. That is really distracting,
and occupies your attention when you should be paying attention to your
product.

My solution after experiencing something like this was to turn to consulting.
Which, as pg says, is a blessing and a curse - it removes the distraction of
the shortening runway, but it adds the distraction of getting paid good money
for something other than your startup.

------
nico
_Is there a downside to ramen profitability? Probably the biggest danger is
that it might turn you into a consulting firm._

I've seen this happen a few times to friends of mine, it even happened to my
first startup. We had a great idea, we developed the service, but we never got
around to selling it properly, after having invested so much time and effort
into it, and having fixed costs that we had to pay for (office, internet,
etc), we started doing custom software development for some clients and ended
up doing only that in the end. I finally quit the company. The company still
exists and it does pretty well, although there's only one of the original
founders left, it is a software consulting company, and it will never be what
we set out to do in the first place.

~~~
billswift
From my Amazon review of "More Joel on Software":

Anyone even considering working on shrink-wrap software, especially in a small
company, should read this book. (Anyone considering consultingware should
especially read the last chapter; it will convince you not to, unless you are
a masochist.)

The chapter mentioned is available at
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/SetYourPriorities.htm...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/SetYourPriorities.html)

------
philwelch
There's not much new here, aside from pg's (secret?) rice-and-beans recipe and
a few corrected misunderstandings from earlier essays. Of course, when you say
something once and concisely, everyone misunderstands you and you need to
repeat yourself, so don't take this comment as criticism or blame. I just
think a careful reading of some of pg's earlier essays yields most of the same
information.

But there's one point in here I'm not sure is factual:

"He believes it's a good form of discipline to get people to pay you from the
beginning. I think that's too constraining. Facebook didn't, and they've done
better than most startups."

I got into Facebook relatively late in the college-students-only era, but even
then they were playing with alternate revenue models that didn't work out. In
particular, they sold "fliers"--you could write up a little ad flier for your
university and pay Facebook some small fee to show it on your university's
Facebook for awhile. Now they've gone to traditional old boring web
advertising to a greater degree than ever before.

------
willhf
Someone should make a ramen-profitable cookbook. I'd buy it.

~~~
lacker
I was definitely surprised to see so many comments on here about recipes, when
the recipe was a pretty tiny portion of the article! Maybe it reveals a latent
demand for recipes specifically aimed at being as cheap as possible.

~~~
redcap
Personally I'd love to see more recipes that are \- cheap \- quick to cook \-
healthy \- tasty

As it is, there's a hell of a lot of books that presume you want to make
something fancy.

~~~
jlees
There are quite a few student cookbooks over here, and surprisingly most of
the stuff in them is fairly decent.

------
sanj
Is there any chance we could expand the conversation beyond "a couple 25 year
old founders who can live on practically nothing"?

I'd like to shake the sense that having a wife and kids and a mortgage
precludes participation in a minimal profitability trajectory.

~~~
arjunnarayan
Well it all depends on the wife/husband. If s/he is earning, and agrees to
give you a runway (say 3 years of you not having to pull your financial
weight), you essentially get 3 years in which to get to a higher level of
profitability. Of course, this all depends on your spouse's career and
willingness to enter this, but I know of many marriages that have gone through
intertemporal sharing of financial responsibilities.

------
jacquesm
"Another thing ramen profitability doesn't imply is Joe Kraus's idea that you
should put your business model in beta when you put your product in beta. He
believes it's a good form of discipline to get people to pay you from the
beginning. I think that's too constraining."

This is one of the best and for many startups non-obvious parts from this
essay. The business model _is_ the business, the product is almost secondary.
If you have a stellar business model and execution you can have mediocre
product and still succeed.

The very best product without a viable business model could easily crash.

Especially when you're going ad supported or freemium the business model will
need as many iterations and bug fixes as your product. And you need a backup
plan in case things do not go the way you planned for in your most negative
projections.

------
rjb
Couldn't help throwing my family's Armenian rice pilaf recipe into the mix.
Any spiced meat/chickpea/falafel atop is fantastic! Lived on it in college.

It's really meant to be cared for, treated much like a risotto.

The Ingredients

1 1/4 Cup Long Grain White Basmati Rice

1/2 Cup Vermicelli Noodle, Chopped (No yolk Kluski European Noodles)

2 1/2 Cup Chicken Stock

2 Tablespoon Clarified Butter

4 Tablespoon Cubed Butter

Salt & Pepper

The How-To

Add 2 Tbsp. clarified butter and the 1/2 cup Vermacelli Noodle to a medium
saucepan and put on medium heat.

Continually mix with a wooden spoon until the noodles are a nice brown (a
little past golden) - about 5 minutes.

Add the 1 1/4 cup rice and cook and mix for 6 minutes.

Add the 2 1/2 cup chicken broth, 4 Tbsp. butter and 1 tspn. salt.

Mix for about a minute.

Cover and simmer for 15 minutes until broth has been absorbed/evaporated.

Taste.

Not done? Add more broth, 1/4 cup at a time until so.

thanks!

------
seiji
I wish more articles would start that way.

"Now that the term "[vague term co-opted by people who don't know what it
means]" has become widespread, I ought to explain precisely what the idea
entails."

~~~
pjvandehaar
These essays are largely intended for start-up people, and the term is common
among them to my knowledge. (or at least I use it...)

------
herdrick
Paul, your second footnote is a surprising idea with huge consequences. How
about you expand it into an essay?

------
Goladus
If you can have the discipline to rinse and soak, dry beans are usually
cheaper and tastier than canned. (And lentils don't need to soak at all)

------
keefe
This is a great article that highlights one of the key changes of our times :
every day it becomes easier for a new software business to survive and
surviving changes the game. I think about the surfing metaphor I have heard
VCs use and imagine the ramen profitable company as a surfer who can paddle
out to more big waves or the poker player grinding out small pots waiting for
an opportunity at a big win. I think information technology is spurring a
fundamental cultural change and that just being able to survive with a good
infrastructure will lay so many opportunities in front of us in the years to
come.

------
mhb
Still advocating the bouillon cubes?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=526850>

------
Pinhole
My friends came up with a 5 level model for levels of success for a hobby
(photography) we had Ramen at level 3 -
[http://photoatomica.com/2007/10/16/the-five-levels-of-
financ...](http://photoatomica.com/2007/10/16/the-five-levels-of-financial-
success-for-a-photographer/)

------
nopassrecover
Minor spelling point:

"You may even be able to avoid having _the the_ round occupy your thoughts, if
you don't care whether it closes."

------
michaelneale
Definately one of my favourite essays. I am sure I wasn't the only one who got
hungry reading the recipe at the end !

------
gcheong
Damn, now what am I going to do with all this ramen I bought?

~~~
thunk
Ditch the seasoning packets, stir fry with garlic, vegies and spices =)

~~~
ivankirigin
mix in an egg and kale, and it is close to healthy.

------
BearOfNH
_"What keeps people from starting startups is fear"._

Fear due to lack of knowledge about how to start a business. Last I checked,
this isn't something they teach in school. MIT and Stanford should have
(undergrad) courses on founding startups that covers all the major steps.
Students can make rational choices once they have the facts.

------
Ardit20
So, basically, try and make $1000 first and then aim for 1 million. Why not go
for 1 million str8 away?

~~~
RobGR
So you don't have to borrow $1000 from a guy who will take $950,000 of the
million later.

~~~
Ardit20
Yeah I see that and I agree with much of what pg had to say. Sometimes however
it might be better to just shoot str8 for 1 million. He used the facebook
example and I do not think that was profitable at all before it gained
traction.

I can see scenarios where the start up is making profit, say $100, but needs a
lot of investment to move forward, or of course it can go slowly and take 10
years.

I guess what I am trying to say is that from the essay you get the impression
that you should not think about raising money at all before it hits the $3k
target, when sometimes perhaps you should.

~~~
kingnothing
The majority of your grammar and spelling is nice, but I have to ask: why did
you have to throw in "str8" in both this post and the original?

