STEPHEN PADDOCK AND THE WORLD
COMPILATION AND COMMENTARY
BY LUCY WARNER
OCTOBER 6, 2017


WHILE PADDOCK, WHO SHOWED NO SIGNS OF THE TYPE OF INSANITY WE NORMALLY THINK OF, LIKE SCHIZOPHRENIA WITH BEFUDDLED THINKING AND HALLUCINATIONS, SOME PATIENTS CAN MASK OUTWARD SIGNS. THE SIGNS THAT HE DOES SHOW, HOWEVER, ARE PART OF TWO PERSONALITY TYPES – THE EXCITEMENT SEEKING PERSONALITY AND THE ANTI-SOCIAL PERSONALITY. A CASINO MANAGER SAID OF HIM, “PADDOCK HAD A "GOD COMPLEX" AND EXPECTED QUICK SERVICE WITHOUT REGARD TO HOW BUSY THE STAFF WAS AT THE TIME. HE LIKED EVERYBODY TO THINK THAT HE WAS THE GUY," JOHN WEINREICH SAID. "HE DIDN'T BOAST ABOUT ANYTHING HE HAD OR ANYTHING. IT WAS JUST HIS DEMEANOR. IT WAS LIKE, 'I'M HERE. DON'T CROSS ME. DON'T LOOK AT ME TOO LONG.'"

THE PSYCHOLOGY TODAY ARTICLE BELOW STATES, HUMANS ARE BORN WITH A CERTAIN DEGREE OF NEED FOR VARIETY AND THRILLS, AND IT IS PARTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FACT THAT WE ARE SO DOMINANT AMONG ANIMALS AND PRONE TO EXPERIMENTATION, BUILDING STRUCTURES, EXPLORATION, AND TESTING OUR CAPABILITIES IN ALL WAYS. THE CAPABILITY OF KILLING IS A PART OF MOST HUMANS, RATHER THAN BEING TRULY ABNORMAL, BUT OUR CULTURE USUALLY MODIFIES IT. WE ALSO ARE LOVERS, NURTURERS, ARTISTS, THINKERS AND PERFORMERS. WE ADORE OUR CHILDREN AND EVEN OUR ANIMALS. LUCKILY A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE OF US, ALSO, ARE INNATELY AS GENTLE AS THIS MAN WAS APPARENTLY AGGRESSIVE. MOST OF US ARE IN BETWEEN.

SEE PSYCHOLOGY TODAY AFTER THIS NEWS ARTICLE ON THE THRILL OR SENSATION-SEEKING PERSONALITY TYPES, AND THE ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY. THE PSYCHOLOGY ARTICLE GIVES BIOCHEMICAL DIFFERENCES AND MEDICAL ISSUES THAT GO ALONG WITH THE CONDITION. FIRST, HOWEVER, THERE IS AN ARTICLE ON THE TANNERITE EXPLOSIVES. APPARENTLY SLAUGHTERING PEOPLE WASN’T ENOUGH EXCITEMENT. HE WAS INTO FIREBALLS AND “EARTH-SHAKING BLASTS,” ALSO.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stephen-paddock-las-vegas-shooter-hotel-security-rampage/
CBS/AP October 6, 2017, 10:30 AM
Stephen Paddock, Las Vegas shooter, called hotel security before rampage

On the night before Stephen Paddock carried out the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, he twice called security at the Las Vegas hotel where he was staying to complain about loud music, a law enforcement source told CBS News.

The noise was coming from the floor below his suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel casino on the Las Vegas Strip, CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton reports.

Albert Garzon of San Diego told The New York Times that security guards asked him to turn down the country music playing in his suite on the 31st floor at around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, a little over 20 hours before the rampage on a country music festival. When different security guards paid Garzon another visit about his music a half-hour later, he turned it off.

A staffer at the hotel also reported that Paddock acted abruptly with them over some other issue, Milton reports.

Photograph -- stephen-paddock.jpg, Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock in an undated photo. CBS NEWS

Paddock booked rooms over other music festivals in the months before opening fire on the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival, authorities said.

Paddock booked rooms overlooking the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago in August and the Life Is Beautiful show near the Vegas Strip in late September, according to authorities reconstructing his movements.

Fenway Park in Boston also came up during the investigation of Paddock, Boston police Lt. Detective Mike McCarthy said Thursday, though he provided no further details.

Play VIDEO -- Las Vegas gunman's girlfriend says she was concerned about his mental stability

It was not clear if he contemplated massacres at the other sites.

The details came to light as investigators struggled to figure out why the 64-year-old high-stakes gambler opened fire on a crowd of 22,000 Sunday night. He killed 58 and injured nearly 500 before taking his own life.

Investigators are tracing Paddock's steps and talking to everyone who may have had even the most incidental interaction with him or may have seen him in the days and weeks leading up to his shooting spree, Milton reports.

On Thursday night, thousands raised candles and surrounded the widow and two children of Officer Charleston Hartfield, who was killed in the shooting.

Hartfield, a 16-year Army veteran who served in Iraq, was known as "Charles," ''Chuck" and "ChuckyHart," but one longtime friend and colleague dubbed him "Captain America."

"Charlie Hartfield was the greatest American I have ever known," Sgt. Ryan Fryman told the crowd.

Las Vegas shooting victims

His was among the first memorials for the dead, whose identities have now all been released by authorities.

The victims killed ranged in ages from 20 to 67. Two of them, 24-year-old Austin Cooper Meyer and 61-year-old Brett Schwanbeck, had not been identified before the Clark County Coroner released a complete list Thursday night.

A federal official said authorities are looking into the possibility Paddock planned additional attacks, including a car bombing. The official wasn't authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Play VIDEO -- Behind the search for Las Vegas gunman's motive

Authorities previously disclosed Paddock had 1,600 rounds of ammunition in his car, along with fertilizer that can be used to make explosives and 50 pounds of Tannerite, a substance used in explosive rifle targets.

Police announced Thursday that they had found a Hyundai Tucson SUV they had been searching for as part of the probe while executing a search warrant at the home in Reno that Paddock shared with his girlfriend, Marilou Danley. It wasn't immediately clear if the car was found on Thursday or earlier in the week when police searched the home and found several guns and ammunition.

Paddock had an arsenal of 23 weapons in his hotel room. A dozen of them included "bump stocks," attachments that can effectively convert semi-automatic rifles into fully automated weapons.

In a rare concession on gun control, the National Rifle Association announced its support Thursday for regulating the devices.

Play VIDEO -- Will politics get in way of bipartisan talks on bump stock regulations?

Danley told investigators she was concerned about Paddock's mental stability, Milton and CBS News' Andres Triay report, citing a law enforcement source.

Paddock sent Danley on a trip to her native Philippines before the attack, and she was unaware of his plans and devastated when she learned of the carnage while overseas, she said in a statement.

Danley was interviewed by investigators for four hours Wednesday after she returned from the Philippines. Her attorney, Matt Lombard, said after the interview that she had no knowledge of Paddock's plans. Lombard said Danley thought a large amount of money Paddock wired her was to buy a home -- and that he was going to break up with her.

Investigators combing through Paddock's background for clues remain stumped as to his motive.

Play VIDEO -- First responders recount Las Vegas shooting

The profile developed so far is of a "disturbed and dangerous" man who acquired an arsenal over decades, Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said. But investigators have been frustrated to find that he lived a "secret life," Lombardo said, "much of which will never be fully understood."

A former executive casino host at the Atlantis Casino Resort and Spa in Reno said Paddock had a "god complex" and expected quick service without regard to how busy the staff was at the time.

"He liked everybody to think that he was the guy," John Weinreich said. "He didn't boast about anything he had or anything. It was just his demeanor. It was like, 'I'm here. Don't cross me. Don't look at me too long.'"

The weekend before the massacre, he rented a room through Airbnb at the 21-story Ogden condominiums in downtown Las Vegas and stayed there during a music festival below that included Chance the Rapper, Lorde and Blink-182.

Play VIDEO -- Las Vegas gunman may have scouted locations in other cities

Police were reviewing video shot at the high-rise to check Paddock's movements. His renting the condo was curious because, as a high-roller, he could have easily gotten a free room at one of the casino hotels on the Vegas Strip.

In early August, Paddock booked a room at Chicago's 21-story Blackstone Hotel that overlooked the park where the Lollapalooza alternative music festival was being held, though there's no evidence he actually stayed there, a law enforcement official said Thursday.

The official was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity after being briefed on the investigation.

The hotel confirmed a Stephen Paddock made a reservation but said he never checked in.

Lollapalooza draws hundreds of thousands of music fans every year to Grant Park.


WHAT IS TANNERITE? EXPLODING OR “REACTIVE” TARGETS -- THIS PARTICULAR EXAMPLE IS DESCRIBED AS A ONE POUND DEVICE FOR $7.99, SO A 50 LB. TANNERITE TARGET SHOULD GIVE HIM LOTS OF ADDITIONAL ANGRY FUN. ONE USER COMMENT DESCRIBED HIS 50 LB. EXAMPLE AS BEING “LIKE A MUSHROOM CLOUD.” ONE NEWS VIDEO REPORT YESTERDAY SAID THAT HE MAY HAVE WANTED TO MAKE AND USE CAR BOMBS, ALSO. I HAD THOUGHT THAT TANNERITE WAS A CHEMICAL, AND WIKIPEDIA SAYS THAT THE POWDER MIXTURE IS SOMETIMES REFERRED TO AS TANNERITE, BUT IT IS INSTEAD A COMBINATION OF SEVERAL MATERIALS WHICH ARE BOUGHT IN A KIT FOR MAKING A BOMB.

THERE IS A WHOLE WORLD OF AGGRESSIVE PRODUCTS OUT THERE –– AND UNDOUBTEDLY A SIZEABLE MINORITY OF MEN WHO WANT TO BUY AND WATCH THEM GO OFF. THIS REMINDS ME OF DONALD TRUMP’S RECENT COMMENT THAT THE NFL’S UPDATED RULES FOR GREATER PLAYER SAFETY ARE “RUINING THE SPORT.” HE WENT ON TO SAY “THEY WANT TO HIT!” THERE IS A VAST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALE AND FEMALE BRAINS, AND IF ONE IS “MORE INTELLIGENT” THAN THE OTHER, I THINK IT IS WE WOMEN. WHAT THIS TELLS ME IS THAT PADDOCK MAY NOT HAVE BEEN AS DIFFERENT FROM THE NORM AS I WOULD LIKE TO THINK.

YOUTUBE JOY! -- HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=RVSECWR5YGY
GIVES A GOOD DEAL OF INFORMATION AS WELL AS SCENES OF A TANNERITE PREPARATION AND EXPLOSION.

http://www.basspro.com/shop/en/sonic-boom-exploding-rifle-targets
Sonic Boom Exploding Rifle Targets
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TANNERITE WAS FOUND BY POLICE IN HIS CAR, AND MAY SHOW A GOOD PART OF THE REASON FOR PADDOCK’S EXTREME AGGRESSION. PERHAPS IT ISN’T “INSANITY,” PER SE, BUT THE ANTI-SOCIAL AND “EXCITEMENT-SEEKING” PERSONALITY. EXCESSIVE GAMBLING IS ANOTHER SIGN OF THAT PERSONALITY, WHICH CERTAINLY FITS PADDOCK. I WOULD FEAR THAT HE MIGHT HAVE HAD A TENDENCY TO ABUSE HIS MATE/GIRLFRIEND MS. DANLEY, THOUGH SHE SEEMS TO HAVE LOVED HIM. HIS MOANING AND SCREAMING IN HIS SLEEP COULD BE DUE TO DREAM FANTASIES SUCH AS KILLING OR BEING ATTACKED HIMSELF.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannerite
Tannerite
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tannerite is the brand name of a patented [1] exploding target used for firearms practice, sold in kit form and containing the components of a binary explosive.[2] The explosive comprises a combination of ammonium nitrate and/or ammonium perchlorate (oxidizers), and a fuel - primarily aluminum powder - that is supplied as two separate powders that are mixed by the user. The combination is relatively stable when subjected to forces less severe than a high-velocity bullet impact, such as a hammer blow, being dropped, or impact from a low-velocity bullet or shotgun blast.[1] It is also not flammable – an explosion cannot be created by a burning fuse or electricity.[3] Because it is sold as two separate powders, it can be transported and sold in many places without the legal restrictions that would otherwise apply to explosives.[4] The target system as a whole is the patented, trademarked product called Tannerite, although the term is often used to refer to the explosive mixture itself, and other combination explosives are often generically referred to as Tannerite.[4]


ON EXCITEMENT SEEKING AND THE ANTI-SOCIAL PERSONALITY TYPE

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200011/are-you-risk-taker
Are You a Risk Taker?
What causes people to take risks? It's not just a behavior. It's a personality.
By Marvin Zuckerman, published on November 1, 2000 - last reviewed on June 9, 2016

Do you drink and drive, gamble, or sleep with strangers? It's not just a behavior. It's a personality.

Rita lives for excitement. She dies of boredom when life becomes too predictable. She has a wide circle of friends but no tolerance for dullards. She likes meeting exciting new people, even if she knows that they are unreliable. She smokes tobacco and marijuana and drinks hard—and parties heavily on weekends with cocaine and Ecstasy, or any new drug that appears on the scene. She thinks nothing of going to bed with someone she just met, without obtaining character references or condoms. She has a Porsche that she drives...fast. She also likes to gamble at the casino—often losing more than she can afford.

Rita's behavior encompasses many kinds of risk. In the long term, the most dangerous of her activities are smoking and drinking. There are nearly 80 times as many deaths per year from tobacco and alcohol as from cocaine and heroin. But Rita thinks only of today's gratifications, not their associated dangers.

Rita is a fictional character, but she represents a kind of general risk-taker, one whose behavior encompasses many different activities. Such broad-spectrum risk-takers not only exist, I have discovered, but have a distinctive personality makeup that is the product of both genes and experience. It is important to identify such people because they create significant public health problems, for others as well as themselves. But for all the danger they put themselves in, they personify—perhaps magnify is more precise—a human trait that is very much responsible for our survival as a species.

Over the decades I have studied a personality trait called sensation-seeking—the pursuit of novel, intense and complex sensations and experiences, and the willingness to take risks for the sake of such experience.

Risk-taking is not the main point of sensation-seeking behavior; it is merely the price such people pay for certain kinds of activities that satisfy their need for novelty, change and excitement. In fact, many of the things that high sensation-seekers do are not at all risky. They enjoy high-intensity rock music, view sex and horror films, travel to exotic places, and party without drugs.

Sensation-seeking can also extend to the physical, involving unusual or extreme sports such as skydiving, hang gliding, scuba diving, auto racing, rock climbing and whitewater kayaking. An interest in participating in such sports describes one subcategory of sensation-seeking: thrill- and adventure-seeking.

There are other kinds of sensation-seeking that are expressed not through physical action but through the casting off of inhibitions in a social setting (disinhibition), through deviant lifestyles (experience-seeking), and through the pursuit of change for change's sake (boredom susceptibility). This variety of sensation-seeking has been related to such risky activities as smoking, drinking, drugs, unsafe sex, reckless driving and gambling.

Some psychologists have suggested that risk-taking is linked to neuroticism, a personality trait. They see it as an expression of neurotic conflict, a form of acting out or counter-phobic behavior. Our previous research on physical risk-taking refutes such an explanation; it suggests that risk-takers do not expressly exhibit traits of neuroticism or anxiety.

It has also been suggested that high-risk behaviors like reckless driving, an antisocial activity if ever there was one, are a vehicle for expressing aggressiveness and hostility. Or perhaps risk-taking might be just an expression of a generalized need for activity itself, as is the case with hyperactive individuals, who provide their own stimulation through activity to overcome boredom.

Yet many risky activities, such as drinking and drug use, are done in a social setting. So it is possible that these activities, particularly in a college population, may be related to sociability. In a study, my colleagues and I looked at college students, many of whom were currently engaging in some or all six kinds of risky activities: smoking, drinking, drugs, sexual behavior, reckless driving and gambling. We attempted to answer two questions: Is there indeed such a thing as a generalized risk-taking tendency, as our earlier studies had suggested, and if so, what type of personality traits are associated with this tendency?

Our prediction was that many or all of the kinds of risky activities would be related to impulsive sensation-seeking. But we also looked at the role of neuroticism-anxiety, aggression-hostility, sociability and activity.

We measured these traits using the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire (ZKPQ), a five-factor personality test that I developed with my colleagues.

We also assessed smoking, drinking, drug use, sex, driving and gambling on separate risk-taking scales related to each particular kind of risky behavior. The driving-risk scale asked about typical driving speeds, response to traffic signals and following distances at high speeds, among other factors. To assess risky sexual behavior, we asked about the number of sexual partners and whether or not a condom is used, and if so, how consistently.

The first question we sought to answer was whether the six arenas of risk are interrelated, pointing to a concept of generalized risk-taking.

As it turned out, smoking, drinking, sex and drugs work in tandem with each other. Among both males and females, students who did one tended to do the others. (We know from other studies that they also listen to rock and roll.)

Reckless driving, however, was related to only one other arena of risk: drinking. Unfortunately, this connection is often deadly.

Among males, gambling was related to drinking and sex. But among women, it was not related to any other kinds of risk-taking.

With the single exception of gambling among women, we felt justified in computing a generalized risk-taking score based on all six kinds of risk-taking. On the basis of their total risk-taking score, we divided the participants into high, medium and low risk-takers and compared these three groups on the five personality scales in the ZKPQ.

The results were similar for both men and women. The high risk-takers scored high on three of the five personality traits: impulsive sensation-seeking, aggression-hostility and sociability, proving them the most salient predictors of risk-taking personality.

Among the groups representing three levels of risk-taking, there were no significant differences on neuroticism-anxiety or activity, suggesting these traits play an insignificant role in risk-taking behavior.

There were, however, notable links between other personality traits and specific kinds of risky behavior. Heavy drinking was associated with all three of the personality traits related to general risk-taking tendency: impulsive sensation-seeking, aggression-hostility and sociability.

But smoking and drug use beyond marijuana were related only to impulsive sensation-seeking and aggression. That finding is interesting because in a previous study we found that the same two traits were also higher among prostitutes than among a control group. The combination of impulsive sensation-seeking and aggression was also related to antisocial personality disorder among male prisoners and to level of cocaine abuse.

Previous research has shown that the use of illegal drugs, even of marijuana, relates to a higher degree of sensation-seeking than is found among those who use only alcohol. The step from legal drugs (tobacco and alcohol) to illegal ones is one taken only by the higher sensation-seekers. The illegal drugs provide more novel and intense sensations and experience at the cost of greater legal and social risks.

In our study, as well as in others, men proved higher risk-takers than women. They also scored higher on impulsive sensation-seeking than women. When we analyzed the gender difference in risk-taking we found that it was entirely a function of the difference between men and women on impulsive sensation-seeking. This is only one of several pieces of evidence suggesting that impulsive sensation-seeking is a basic personality dimension.

Humans are a risk-taking species. Our ancestor Homo sapiens originated in East Africa, and within the relatively short span of 100,000 years or less spread over the entire globe. It turns out that explorativeness may be the key to the survival of the species.

The hunting of large and dangerous game by men required a type of thrill- and adventure-seeking that also contributes to the success of the human race. Over the millennia, men also found in combat and war an outlet for their need for adventure.

Mating, too, was a dangerous game that required risk-taking. The innate incest taboo drove men to seek mates outside their small groups, sometimes from unfriendly groups.

The fact that a trait like sensation-seeking characterizes our species does not mean that individuals don't differ in the degree to which they have that trait. Genetic assortment may maintain variation in a trait like sensation-seeking, which is most adaptive when it is in the middle range: Too much risk-taking leads to an early death, too little to stagnation.

Studies of the heritability of sensation-seeking in humans have used classical twin-comparison methods. Comparisons of identical and fraternal twins in which both siblings were raised in the same families show that sensation-seeking is about 60% genetic. That is a high degree of heritability for a personality trait; most range from 30% to 50%.

A study of identical and fraternal twins separated at birth and adopted into different families showed the same heritability. It also indicated that the environmental contribution to sensation-seeking (accounting for 40% of the trait, or less) is due not to the shared family environment but to the environment outside of the home, such as friends and accidental life experiences.

If children resemble parents or siblings in sensation-seeking, it is probably due to shared genes rather than the influence of the family. Friends and others outside of the home may provide behavioral models and reinforce the disposition carried in the genes.

Genes play yet another role in risk-taking: They influence two other personality traits associated with general risk-taking, including the traits of aggression, or its obverse, agreeableness, and for sociability, the main component of extroversion.

Molecular genetics has made it possible to identify major genes influencing personality and forms of psychopathology. A group of scientists in Israel were the first to find an association between novelty-seeking (a trait very highly correlated with impulsive sensation-seeking) and a gene that codes for a class of dopamine receptor, the dopamine receptor-4 (DRD4) gene.

Dopamine is an important brain neurotransmitter, active in pathways related to the brain's intrinsic reward and pleasure centers. It responds to stress, and enables people not only to see rewards but to take action to move toward them.

Two major forms of the dopamine receptor-4 gene exist, a long and a short version of the same base DNA sequences. The long form is found in a preponderance of those individuals who are high in novelty-(sensation-) seeking. The same form of the gene is found in a high proportion of opiate drug abusers, a high sensation-seeking group.

The particular gene accounts for only about 10% of the genetic variance. But now that the human genome has been defined, many of the other genes contributing to this and other personality traits may soon be discovered.

Genes, however, do not directly make traits. They make proteins that shape our nervous systems. Between a gene and a behavior stand, among other things, the structure and function of the brain and the biochemistry of neurotransmitter systems.

The greatest risk-takers are young males in their adolescent years—a fact reflected in their high rates of auto accidents, binge drinking, drug use and pathological gambling. The military has always preferred younger men for soldiers, not only because of their physical strength but for their willingness to risk their lives in combat.

Young men of this age are also at their peak on sensation-seeking. And, not surprisingly, they are at their peak in levels of the sex hormone testosterone. Testosterone correlates particularly with the disinhibitory types of sensation-seeking—those associated with drinking, drugs, sex and antisocial behavior. It is also associated with normal traits like dominance, sociability and activity. As testosterone levels drop, men's aggressive, antisocial tendencies begin to mellow. Sensation-seeking scores of men aged 50 to 59 are half those of males aged 16 to 19.

Women also have testosterone, but less of it. Still, the hormone is linked to behaviors in women similar to those in men, such as assertiveness, aggression and sexual arousal.

Another biological correlate of sensation-seeking is the enzyme monoamine oxidase (MAO), active in the brain. Monoamine oxidase functions as a regulator, keeping neurotransmitters in balance. It could also contribute to the gender and age differences in sensation-seeking and risk-taking.

A form of monoamine oxidase called type B is particularly related to sensation-seeking—and to regulation of dopamine. The link between MAO and dopamine is notable in light of the fact that the dopamine-4 receptor gene has been connected to sensation-seeking, and another dopamine receptor, D2, has been connected with substance abuse, a particular form of risk-taking behavior.

The enzyme monoamine oxidase is low in high-sensation-seekers, implying a lack of regulation. What is more, levels of MAO are known to be higher in women than in men, and MAO levels in brain and in the blood rise with age. Further evidence that MAO is involved in sensation-seeking is that low MAO levels are also found in forms of psychopathology characterized by impulsive tendencies to seek immediate rewards without regard for consequences.

Sensation-seekers who are drug users have found a direct pathway to activate the brain's pleasure centers. Others seek the same arousal through exciting stimuli and experiences. Risk is not a necessary requirement for sensation-seeking, although it does intensify the thrill for a high sensation-seeker.

Although risk-taking has negative aspects and can even prove fatal, it is a positive force as well. Without risky experiences, humanity would stagnate; there would be little impetus for discovery. Risk-taking was obviously adaptive in earlier hominids. The trait persists—but there is little left to explore. What is more, work is anything but exciting for many people.

Modern life, with its protected cultures and curtailment of war, has not wiped out the need for excitement. Some people find it through other people, in relationships and sex. Others need more of a thrill, and go hang-gliding or bungee-jumping, although the most common everyday outlet for sensation-seeking is reckless driving. My work has shown that people have basic need for excitement—and one way or another, they will fulfill it.