 Hello, weirdos! It's Darren, and well, if I'm yelling at you, I apologize. I really can't tell right now, because I'm partially deaf. So it's going to be a bit difficult for me to put together new Weird Darkness episodes. It's even going to be hard to put together archive episodes, because I still do some editing on those in order to make them not sound so dated. But yeah, I'm somewhat deaf. For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, I went to a skillet concert Friday night, and I forgot to bring earplugs. So you can consider this your public service announcement that you really need to wear ear protection when going to concerts, especially to metal concerts. We had a skillet, Theory of a Dead Man, and then a surprise band at the very beginning, St. Estonia. All three, of course, love to be loud. So I've got this feeling of clogged ears on both ears right now. At first, I thought maybe I had been exposed to COVID, and maybe this was a result of that. I've not had COVID yet, so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. But I looked online and one, a rare sign, but one sign of COVID could be clogged ears. I took a test. I'm negative, so I don't have to worry about that. But it does say that, yes, noise damage can definitely cause this. It sounds like everything is underwater right now, including what I'm saying to you right now. It's like I'm hearing myself talking on the other side of a door. It's really bizarre. I'm having a hard time hearing some of the upper tones in the audio sphere, which is going to make it difficult for me to do any real production. I can still maybe throw some music beds under my narration, but doing something a bit more complex like weirdling woods or micro terrors will be hard because I use sound effects for that. And I'm really particular as to what sound effects I use and the audio levels and everything. And I just can't hear that right now. From what I am reading online, it should take anywhere between two to five, maybe a little bit more days for this to go away. I'm really hoping that that's the case if I'm not feeling any better, or excuse me, hearing any better by maybe Wednesday, then I'll definitely be talking to a doctor. In the meantime, I've tried a couple of different things that you've all sent to me online. I appreciate the ideas and none of them seem to be working. But then again, that's probably because those are mostly for earwax or clogged ears in some other way. And this is actually noise damage. So all of this to say, I might be a bit sporadic when it comes to updating and uploading new episodes or even archive episodes for the next few days. And also, please, please don't listen to really loud music or go to concerts or anything like that without some sort of ear protection. It really does damage your ears. And if I were to find out that this was a permanent thing, I would be terrified because I'd no longer be able to work. I'm holding out hope that this is not a permanent thing. I've never had this before. I've listened to loud music all my life in headphones. And I've also gone to concerts, of course, as well, just like anybody ever has. But this was this is a whole new experience. And it is very unnerving. And I would really hate to find out that this was permanent. So by the way, thank you for those of you who recommended that one person in particular recommended a set of ear plugs online. They're called Loop. And I just looked at them real quick and thought, yeah, that'll work for me. I even bought a pair for my bride as well. So we because we're both going to concerts together. And so I want to make sure that both of us are able to hear each other say I love you for the next 28 years of our marriage, like the 28 years that we've already had. Love you all. Hope you're having a great weekend. And hopefully later today, you will hear an episode of Retro Radio, which fortunately, I don't have to produce too much. So hopefully it'll sound normal. Thanks. God bless.