This meeting was held in exciting Las Vegas, Nevada from July 9th through the 11th, 1999. This is video tape number 6, Firewall appliance brand number 4. I'm Deramo. I'm from Columbus, Ohio, 614, and I'm the alpha doll to the wolf pack up there. We just completed a comprehensive review. It took about six and a half months of some 23 appliance firewalls. And we're going to talk about that today, some of the things that we found. If you were at Black Hat, you covered, we covered what we found as successes and failures. Today, we're going to talk about a little bit more about the failures and some of the things that we found kind of hard to believe. So go ahead and next slide. I guess right off the bat we should talk about what is an appliance firewall. When we started this whole process, we went out to the web and just did a search on the keywords appliance and firewall. We came up with several hundred products and what we immediately determined was that our definition of an appliance firewall and vendors definitions of appliance firewalls very greatly. So we're going to talk a little bit about what we kind of thought about an appliance firewall. We'll talk about some of the technologies that these products used. And we'll talk about how you in the field can know these devices when you see them and why that's advantageous to you. And theoretically, we'll talk about what weaknesses they possibly might have. And yeah, the lights would be good. You can, yeah, that's great. That's even better. Let there be like fantastic ambiance, ambiance. And following the weaknesses part, we'll talk about how you can test yours or others firewalls and where you can find out more about these types of appliances. Next slide. First of all, we talked about what appliance firewalls are. And we were looking for devices that were integrated hardware solutions. We wanted all the software, including the OS, to be preloaded on the platform. Early in this process, we came up with a term that we borrowed from the MS folks again. We kind of took on the plug and pray attitude with these firewalls. We were looking for something that was easily deployable. We didn't want to have to hold hands to a bunch of folks who weren't skilled administrators in the field once these were deployed. And we were looking for something that could provide dual home network access. That's pretty much where we started with this whole process. We weren't really looking for something to firewall off a modem connection or something like that. We were looking for something with dedicated network access. And immediately what we discovered was most of these, the majority of these products, the 23 that we actually reviewed, and there were about 34 to 37 that we tried to review. Quite frankly, when we told some of the vendors that we were doing the review for Defcon, they just kind of laughed and didn't want to give us any products to review. So you guys might kind of carry that around with you. Maybe they're a little afraid of you. You can drop that in some interviews and stuff. There won't be any names, unfortunately. Attorneys have been already knocking. Yes, there will be a white paper available, and I'll talk more about that at the end. Okay, the very first thing we discovered is the majority of these little devices are based upon packet filtering technologies. And they were very simple access control lists based. They simply compared the source and destination IP address as well as what protocol you were speaking, and then decided whether or not to let it pass through the firewall and into the network. Some of them were active state or I guess they called it active content types of devices. And so we looked at some of those. And what that did is it built a state table in memory and it said okay, I shouldn't be getting a SIN or an AC from this area or this IP address speaking this protocol because I haven't initiated a session. I don't know how much that bought you, but it was a little bit better, I guess. There were a couple of them that did application proxies. Most of them were basic services only, with basic web, FTP. And those kind of fell apart as soon as we started talking about real audio, real video or anything else that a real company might be using. And a couple of them allowed you to create custom proxies on the fly. You could do your own proxy from this address to this address speaking to this protocol. There were a couple that were combination. And the last thing all of these devices do is network address translation. In fact, in some of them it wasn't even an option to allow or disallow network address translation. You simply were netting whether you liked it or not. Next slide. Some of the things we discovered is that we looked at these for some cable modem type devices and some did support DHCP on the external interfaces. Also, you might want to notice that DHCP on the external interfaces makes for some interesting types of spoofing attacks. And the ability to possibly convince the firewall to release its IP address mid-stream. We kind of played with that stuff. All of them did port and address redirection. And there were two or three of them that had a possible DMZ deployment with a third network interface on the device. Many of them offered offloading of the logging. And that was a good feature that let you move all the log files to some other device. Of those that we tested, the majority of that information was passed in the clear between the firewall and the logging device. The interesting thing is the ones that didn't give the offloading of the device. Because these are solid state machines, they only had a limited amount of memory to store those logs and support flooding this thing would cause it to run right through the log files and hide all your earlier attacks. And many of them also interesting to notice. A lot of them did alerting via email, paging, SNMP, and just basic protections against spoofing. Basically it wouldn't allow you to, many of them wouldn't allow you to have internal IP addresses on the external interface because of the NAT. Now comes the good stuff.  This is how you recognize them in the field. Right off the bat, because of the nature of the way these folks deployed packet filtering, you will find many open high ports, ports above 1024. And these are not usually prevalent or existent in proxy based firewalls. So if you find those above 1024's open or filtered VNM map scan, you'll know for example that this is probably a packet filter. You can also, many of these systems identify themselves via the web browser. Simply connecting to port 80 or port 8080 on the devices would pop up this great little banner telling you how to buy the product. Fantastic. By the way, if you're in marketing and you think that this is a great way to market a product, stand up because we all love you. Tell that in SSH. We're also in recent use devices and amazingly once again, marketing, marketing, marketing, tell that in and it tells you what kind of device it is. Many of these were solid state as I mentioned. So you couldn't even change or disallow those banners. Gotta love that. The basic services may identify the types of devices. In this case, we were able to actually guess which holes or excuse me, which filters were in place. And we would use that to identify the devices that were being punched through to the backside of the firewall. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. Also, NMAP and CASO, we use those quite extensively in the testing process. And on many of them, we were actually able to identify the underlying operating system that was laying under the application. Amazingly, most of these are based on this thing called Red Hat Linux. You might have heard of it. Next slide. The real weakness is that we're going to talk about today. First of all, the general lack of logging. Firewalls in general, most platforms, do quite a bit of logging. So we were kind of amazed at the general lack of logging that was taking place in these little devices. Possible holes in the filtering rules, we'll talk about those and how to figure those out. DNS problems, address spoofing, some session hijacking. By the way, this is a great form of attack. This is fantastic in this case. Possible exposure of internal systems and denial of service. Right off the bat, almost all of these firewalls, all they did was log some type of connectivity. In many cases, they didn't even log dropped packets, only successful connections in and out of the firewall. Well, this is fantastic. We can port scan these devices all day, they won't notice, the admins never know. We can all kinds of play with some of these. The problem was, a couple of them did. They did record port scans, but when we looked at the dropped packet logs, unless you were a skilled administrator and saw that there was a series of packets from this port to this port, and every period of time, you wouldn't realize that it was a port scan. None of these devices just came out and said, okay, a port scan just happened. So we kind of liked that feature. You might want to know if you are going to play with one of these devices and you don't want your core administrator to know that you've been doing that, you might want to use some type of stealth attack or stealth port scan, like an end map thing scan or something like that. Be careful out there. Few log repeated connection attempts. In fact, we couldn't find any of these devices who would log the repeated connection attempts such as in a brute force against a telemet prompt from a system that was exposed to the outside world. They just seemed to ignore it. The traffic was going there, so it must have been okay. So that's pretty useful. The brute forcing is kind of lame, but at the same time, it is kind of nice to know that you can go ahead and play those games. None alerted against attempts to overflow exposed processes. And the big thing here that we discovered is these are like half firewalls and they aren't really intrusion detection devices. Again, part of this reporting process is that there was no clear way to identify what attacks had occurred and we kind of liked that. That was pretty fun. Almost none of them, maybe with the exception of two out of the 23, made any log at all of our attempts to denial or service the box. We hit these things pretty hard. And of the two that did, many of them only just dumped basic Linux log files which you would have to go through and grab to pick out. Now, how do we take advantage of some of this stuff? Well, the first thing right off the bat are these filtering holes. If you were at Black Hat and caught the extreme hacking from E&Y guys, you learned a lot about how this packet filtering stuff can help and hinder you. And I've got just some words for you there. Netcat is your friend. Got to know Netcat. FireWalk is a great tool as well. And it can be used to help determine what filtering is in place as well as locate possible holes in the filtering holes that allow you to map devices on the inside of the firewall. And that's very useful. NMAP will display the ports open by status as far as are they open, are they filtered or are they firewalled. Got to know NMAP as well. It is a great tool. Most of these devices, as I said, allowed some thin scanning of the internal network. And a couple of them, we also noticed some things like ARP leakage where the device would, for some apparent reason, start to ARP addresses on the external interface that belonged to devices on the internal interface. Also could be useful. Once holes are discovered and you've found ways to touch those internal systems, just exploit them using normal packets with forward source ports to reach the internal apps. And you won't even have to do that for some of them. Some of them, like I said, expose systems to the outside. The next real fun one for discovery were DNS problems. And because of the state of these devices and the way that they are created, they try to get these to market as a pretty cheap price. And I'll answer that question right off the bat. They range in value anywhere from $600 to $20,000. And it seemed to be that the cooler the case was in the outside, the more expensive it was. So the mileage may vary. But misconfiguration of these solid state DNS servers was very common. And here we showed a kind of a little example of using NS Lookup where you set type to authoritative, set the devices, your DNS server, and then just simply do an LS minus D with the domain name. And voila, usually it would dump out all of the internal IP addresses. Thank you. That's always fun to play with. Address spoofing. Spoofing the source address may allow you to pass through the specific packet filtering rules. And spoofing addresses on the internal interface may allow you to access to internal hosts. Now, what you have to be careful of here is that the folks on the inside are not using non-routable IPs. If they are, obviously you're not going to be able to spoof those internal addresses in the Shana local segment. So keep that in mind. Spoofing the addresses of other perimeter systems may allow you to access host applications. We found in some cases that as long as you were in the same class C as what the external interface in the firewall was, there were some inherent rules that weren't defined in the ACLs that applied to you. And you might want to be able to play with some of that stuff. My personal favorite here, session hijacking. This worked really well against these appliance devices. And all we did was we gathered connected users, in many cases, simply by fingering the device, finger just at the IP address. And it would tell us many, many times how many or what users were logged in. So we would wait until we saw somebody connected to the firewall and we would use a tool like Hunt to grab their session. And voila, we've already authenticated, we're through. We don't have to hack anything else. We've already taken control of sessions. This is probably the big one here. Those that didn't deploy proxy-based traversal of the firewall just simply said any connections on this port, such as port 80, route to this internal device. And what that did was it allowed us to carefully probe and examine those systems that were exposed. For example, we could look at banners of the systems and oftentimes we could query them such as send mail or other types of systems to find out exactly what those operating systems were on the inside. Obviously, if you scan the firewall and it comes back, NMAP determines it as a WinxBax or a Winx-based OS and you see this fantastic email system called Exchange, well, you know what's going on there. You know, it doesn't run on the same platform. So query those applications for system and version information and you'll be able to figure out exactly how to exploit those devices while passing through the filter. Next was denial of service or DOS attacks. And right off the bat, I want to tell you these are pretty lame unless you have something to gain. And so all of you folks who are DOSing all these servers around the country, I say thank you because I get to travel and see the world and they write checks and that's very cool. We did run into a few things here. Obviously, historically, there's been this problem where if you could DOS a firewall and sometimes in some rare occasions those older firewalls in some moment would fail in a completely open state. And the application would simply crash and it would start to route traffic between the interfaces. We couldn't get that to occur in any of these devices that we tested. However, just be aware that that sometimes does exist. Also, we talked about and we weren't able to exploit but we really think that this is the case in some of these devices as well as other firewalls in the market where you could DOS the box and wait for it to reboot and as it started to reboot it would load routing before it would load the ACLs. So there was a period of time there where you could route traffic across the device without passing through the access control lists and that could be very, very fun to play with at some point. Again, we couldn't find any time frames in those devices that we tested but we have heard that they are out there and so we might play with those. Typical denial of service rules apply. Malformed packet attacks. We were able to DOS a couple of the firewalls that way just simply crash the stack. Normally what would happen, the firewalls wouldn't reboot simply the external interface would just stop functioning and stop responding. Bandwidth socket attacks.  Very lame but I guess it might buy you something if you're really pissed. Floods and smurfs. That just general kind of stuff. Go ahead. Some of the other issues that we kind of discovered in this whole process was that some of the appliances passed management information in the clear and we discovered in some cases that you could actually remotely manage the firewall once you caught those sessions and intercepted passwords. That's very, very useful and some of these packages came with browsers or custom applications that you would load on your system and it might be possible to spoof management information whereas you might be able to change the ACL remote way. What percentage of those devices allowed you to have managed those scenarios? I know some of them. You can't configure the external interface. I'd say about half. About 50% of them allowed remote management from the external interface. How many of them have fun by default? On by default. Off the top of my head, I'm guessing maybe another half of that so maybe a quarter of the total deployment. Do you repeat the question? Yeah, I'm sorry. The question was how many of those devices allowed external, or excuse me, management from the external interface and then how many of them allowed that on by default and about 12 of them out of the 23 allowed you to manage the firewall from the external interface or remote device and of that about six of them had that on by default. In fact, there were two or three of them that you had to manage from the external interface when you first plugged the device in. You couldn't manage it from the internal interface of the firewall. The other question, the other issue that we ran into is the same as in any other firewall.  The ACL rules are oftentimes pretty difficult to understand and even harder to figure out how to deploy in the order of significance. We ran into some that read bottom to top, top to bottom. It wasn't documented anywhere and half the time we'd call support and they wouldn't even know. So if you're dealing with software vendors too, the one thing I have learned through this process as I explained at Black Hat is I really pity you guys. The vendors and support people and it's just... I couldn't believe it. I'll get off my soapbox now. The misconfiguration issue, we found out that some of them allowed all the interfaces to be set to the same devices or the same IP address. Think about no sanity check. Here it is. These things would become bridges and route traffic everywhere. All three interfaces. So we kind of like that too. Now, if you own your own appliance and you want to test it, here's how to do it. First of all, take a sanity check on your access rules. Take a look at what you're doing. Figure out if you're going to pump data from the external interface to the internal interface. Where's it going? What's it doing? That's right off the bat. Use some of the mentioned tools that we talked about to test your own firewall. If you have this appliance firewall you deploy these without testing them yourself. Hey, all we can say is come to DefConn again next year and we'll give you a beer or something. We thank you. Use an automated scanning tool if you can find those out on the net. There are some commercial products if you have a budget. And lastly, I had to mention this one just for all my friends who are doing this. Hire a security professional to audit the firewall for you. We'll be happy to do that. Next slide. If you want to know more about these there's going to be a white paper that we will put out. It will be on www.microsolved that's slved.com We're hoping to have that up by the end of the month. We had meant to release that here but we've been having some problems with attorneys and getting people to sign off on some of the NDRs. Search. Can you repeat the domain? Yeah, www.microsolved that's slved.com Yes, and here's how. The question is if support can't help you on that on the question of importance of the ACL order how can you do that yourself? The first one is don't reinvent the wheel check with the firewall wizards mailing list some of those folks out there have used these devices. If you want to test it yourself though set up a couple of rules such as the first rule in the set allow access to port 80 on this device the second rule would be deny access to port 80 to this device and then see if you can access it try switching them around and you'll figure out which one is in order of importance so do that in your testing phase Did that answer your question? Yes Hopefully by the end of this month if the attorneys get everything done www.greatcircle.com we'll have a lot of the information about the firewalls the appliance firewalls there's some folks out there that are working on that stuff and there were several security and networking magazines that have done a couple of reviews on these so check those out and lastly if you have other questions ask me and I want to thank you guys for coming I'll answer any questions that you guys have Do you classify the Nokia device as a firewall appliance? Yes, yes we do and we did look at that device and there will be information about it in the right paper Yes sir We did everything from just pick two firewalls from Sonic Wall the question was what firewalls were included and I'm not going to go into a specific list but we went everything from Sonic Wall all the way up to $25,000 appliance firewalls such as the PIX and things like that And most of you have questions about the PIX The only thing that we could figure out price correlated to was how cool the case was I mean literally some of these devices that we looked at were $600 and they did a much better job than some of the devices that were $15,000 So, yeah and I want to answer another question that came up at Black Hat right off the bat before I take another some other folks have asked me what if there were a number of devices that were $15,000 and the folks have asked me what if there will be a current another review or an intended review to this and if we will continue this process and the answer to that is probably not and what we want to do is turn this over to the community and we want to hear from folks who are testing these firewall devices and if you want to add stuff in we'd like to create a living document to let you do that so that will be coming up as well How many devices it took us about six months to test all the firewalls the question is how long and how many it took about six months to do that we tested 23 we started with a field of 34 some vendors were long cooperative we only included in the white paper whether or not they included VPN technology the question was what did we do about the VPN technology did we test that do we not do any crypto analysis or any type of other application analysis of the VPN stuff if you see a reason why this couldn't be done right and if you think somebody will good question well the question is do I think someone else could do this right and do I think someone else will I think that there are folks out there who are testing firewalls I think we needed to do it in a manner that these folks can understand and that suited our needs so as far as that is I think we did it right but beyond that if you guys want to do it go out and test some firewalls do the appliance firewall right yes yes I think after looking at these 23 firewalls I think what we did find was that there is a future here these plug and play devices that are incredibly robust for what we were expecting and I think in the future you will see that I'd say within the next year or two years you'll see a very robust application proxy based appliance that is affordable for folks that are using small and home offices and cable modems so yeah I'd say you can reference it in the packet inspection techniques for quality did we notice I'm sorry one more time did you notice any difference in the packet inspection techniques the question is did we notice any difference in the packet inspection technologies whether it was stateful or not stateful inspection did help a little bit we weren't able to do some of the less ankle biter attacks against them but otherwise we really didn't see too much benefit from it and obviously there are some cases out there where it will help some attacks and it will halt some attacks so as far as performance went we didn't see any implication of any problems either from that as you know a lot of sophisticated firewalls pose a lot of problems and keep the accesses how many of them actually matter do you push the denial as I meant the average the question is encountered by firewalls and firewall administrators so how many of these came with an initial deny all state that was at the end of the rule set the answer was less than half yeah did any of these firewalls have like certification from ICSN and if they did did it relate to how good it was wow the question is did any of these firewalls have ICSN certification and did that correlate to how good it was yeah I'm going to answer that no some of them did have ICSN certification and I couldn't honestly tell you how some of them determined if that was ICSN certified and if they're ICSN folks here in the audience I'm sorry I'm just calling it like I see it the question is do I care if it's ICSN certified because they just simply write a check and along comes a certification is what he's implying and I would say no I don't care if it's ICSN certified in fact it means absolutely less to me if it's ICSN certified if it's ICSN certified if it's ICSN certified it means absolutely less to me if it's ICSN certified when I deploy a security device for a client or for my own use I want to know how it works and then it does what it's supposed to do and I could care less about any of the other stuff another misconfiguration question I do a lot of work at the checkpoint and there's just a few things you get to know that you're leaving by default we're not even in the rule base we're in the legal properties if you don't change them you leave aside from that it's pretty good the question was that the gentleman works with a certain X brand of firewall and that there are things that you inherently must know in order to secure the device did we find things like that yes we did we found some ACLs that were just completely unexplained as to how to configure them correctly and the whole thing is I heard my little rant there that I got off on and I'm not going to do that today just about how bad support sucked on these products we call up and ask folks that didn't even seem to know what packet filtering was let alone what to do about it so I apologize so go ahead that's perfect the gentleman was just letting you folks know that you can find the default admin passwords on 4point.com thank you thanks yes sir I got a question excuse me is there a firewall right if I have certain lines between the firewall and I left my CPU on and I left work now somebody point to me the question is if he leaves his device his computer as he goes home and he leaves himself logged into the network and his computer is turned on and he's protected by one of these devices is it possible for someone to access data on your device the answer to that is yes determine how to determine these folks out here in the audience are so those of you who have some of these data could you give it back he just realized what happened great question the question was did we see any open BSD based appliances there were two out of the 23 the open BSD can't name any names I'm sorry they did pretty well actually the question was how did they do in the process they did do pretty well and the question was that many of the devices that were UNIX based or Linux based amazing and BSD based were much more resistant to denial of service attacks than those that were using custom implementations for some of these folks they still if you're writing an appliance firewall and you're still using a proprietary like operating system we like you and you are a friend keep coming and make new revisions that you mentioned some of them are doing application proxies what's the level of content inspection and then if that brings stuff up to like viruses and stuff like that the question is if they are doing content inspection across a proxy how deep is that and are you able to offload virus scanning and things like that we didn't find any of them that allowed you to offload virus scanning we found a couple that some toys that you could kind of place in a DMZ situation that would allow virus scanning of content as far as the actual checking of the data content within the proxy that seemed to be fairly robust although we didn't find any that were configurable in that manner anything that was in a configuration issue kind of fell under that content blocking filtering I'm keeping you from going to xyzsite.com kind of stuff so are you going to be listing the names of the virus in the the question is are we going to list the names of the devices that we tested in the white paper the answer is yes for those whose attorneys will sign off and allow us to do so that's what we're dealing with now the whole end of this process turned into a big nightmare is like some of these vendors freaked out when they found out we were coming to DEF CON and you guys about it the question was how robust was the creation of the proxy process and what could you specify what data signatures or data loads you were looking to prevent we didn't find any that were configurable to that manner they simply said you could build these custom TCP's that were kind of like packet filters and it would make sure that the originating service was indeed you know xyz and this target so yeah it was a little more than graceful packet filtering any other questions one for you the question was some of these we've heard that they would possibly use stripped down versions of linux as code and how would we find out we were not able to determine that in fact some of them our favorite one seemed to be a full implementation of linux in this appliance device with a really cool front end and it did some really awesome things and we'll see some of that in the white paper the question is were any of them any of the appliance firewalls that we dealt with capable of handling H323 and I'm not sure we didn't we didn't test I want to mention to you to you guys as well while talking about some of these appliance firewalls that we discovered some things here that you really had to play with and I'm not sure that you were able to find things here that you really had to play your cards pretty close to the vest when you were talking to the vendors we found some that were significantly less than what we would classify as even a firewall a couple of them were simply NAT devices that did no logging or anything it just simply NATed your internal and external addresses and then we found this one which I'll kind of read about again that when we asked for the firewall to test they sent us too and we couldn't figure that out until we set them up and realized they were just point to point encryptors they were not firewalls so one more here the question was did we test throughput in capacity of the firewalls almost all of them came with either 10 megabit ether or 10100 megabit ether we tested those we didn't test any of the others we asked for some token ring implementations and we got back like what's a token ring you have to keep in mind that the majority of these devices are for small and home office users outside of this room not many people have T1s hanging out at home that could happen here I really want to thank you guys I'm sorry I can't take any more questions my time's up thanks for coming out to DC7 we'll see you soon


say that hello hello all right so it's watch me work and it's um what day is it anybody know it's tuesday april seventh it's april seventh that's it thank you i think that was audrey six see how we can't do it without you uh it's april seventh it's watch me work it's a tuesday and um uh i'm gonna do a little blurb for anybody who's new to watch me work is anybody new to watch me work or or is at some point the one of you guys could just do the blurb for me because it's pretty much the same thing every day um this is watch me work i'm susan lory parks i've been doing this show for 11 years um in the lobby of the public theater and of course all around the world but mostly in the lobby of the public theater where we have uh done it live with an audience of writers and artists um courtesy of the public theater big thank you to them also today for helping it happen also howl around it has come on in recent years to help us livestream um and they are here today and they have been here all last week and they will be here forever helping us bring it to you guys so big thank you to both of those organizations um watch me work it the title is tricky because the the me in the title is you it's all about you and your creative process what we do we create this play if you will together the first 20 minutes we work together and then the remainder of the hour i take your questions about your work and your creative process so um you get to ask me questions about your work your creative process process and not product so if you've written something very beautiful we won't have the bandwidth of the time to share it here um i'm just interested in talking about your work and your creative process okay so we can have conversations that really will involve everybody um who's who's tuned in um i think i forgot like 12 things today Audrey what else do i have to say you sounded great so um um so if you want to ask a question and you're in the zoom what you need to do is um click on the raise your hand button it should be in a participant tab i think likely on the bottom of your screen if you're on a laptop or on the top of your on an ipad um it'll pop up a little icon so that we can see that your hand is raised and i will unmute you when it's time to speak um if you are watching on howlround.tv you can ask us questions on our social media channels uh at the public theaters uh instagram and twitter um and then you can also tweet at us at at watch me work slp uh with the hashtag howlround h o w l r o u n d and that's it well one of those days people i'm talking with my mute button on um we're going to work for 20 minutes and then we will have time to talk about your work uh your creative process okay so here we go oh yay yay all right all right so um that was the uh action part of the show and now we're going to do the dialogue part of the show where you guys are going to ask me questions about your creative process or your work so anybody have a question yeah we've got brian i'm right brian brian here we go hello hi hi we hear you um oh so nice um i'm calling in from vancouver canada so hello um it's always been nice the last couple days seeing my other van um canadian friends is elaine in in uh do you know elaine avila no okay okay anyway i'm just asking all your neighbors know each other about okay okay well you'll probably meet like tomorrow at the grocery store six feet apart okay awesome um thank you thank you so much for for doing this um my question i'm i've been trying to develop a writing practice i usually work not as a as a writer i'm a very reluctant writer um but i feel like a lot of that has been me telling that myself as opposed to someone else and um when i've been trying to put in the work in terms of coming to writing doing my 20 30 minutes a day um sometimes that ends up feeling like i'm i'm journaling or i'm writing about personal things that ends up being like i don't know what to write i don't know what to write i don't know what to write just to try at least generate something and i feel like sometimes that's um at the end of it that i haven't done the work because i've written the same thing the last four or five days um it's not all the time but but sometimes i feel like i have this um this obstacle and i'm feel like i feel like i didn't end up putting in the work because what came out was was a journal or a diary and that's not necessarily um what the intention was so i mean i think i totally hear you so you're you're you're putting the time in to your writing practice right um you're doing 20 30 minutes a day right um and for you brian it feels like you're you know i'm just paraphrasing you're journaling you know you're you're just writing personal stuff you're journaling and you don't feel like you're doing the work is that kind of a yeah right um because you feel like doing the work would what would doing the work feel like or look like to you sometimes when i'm when i have like a specific piece that i'm trying to write uh um day to day it changes what i'm when i'm trying to do um it's about at least trying to generate some form of content that is related to that uh and so to to leave that time with at least something that's somewhat related as opposed to um something that feels a little a little more like a journal right okay okay so i mean there are two there you know there there are many answers to every question you know i mean one answer is you know you are doing the work by putting the time in that's one answer right okay that's one answer but because doing the work would look differently for you i would suggest being a little do you know turn turn you know uh do you work you have a sweatshirt a t-shirt on do you work out do do you ever go to the gym or run or okay great have you ever used um a treadmill yeah okay uh great okay so say you just you know run flat or walk flat on a treadmill right that's your workout and you've been doing this for like every day you're like i'm not really seeing the fitness results i want right what would you probably do try and run faster try and run faster or you would they have you know those buttons where you increase the you know you know right you what is that incline right so you kind of increase incline a little bit so let's try increasing the incline a little bit right instead of saying you're doing great brian you go to the gym every day what's your problem okay that's journaling's fine brian right you're doing the work let's increase the incline by saying if you have something that you do want to work on and you say it changes from day to day okay why don't we say pick one project and stick with it for let's just say one week okay and every day your assignment is not just to sit down and journal not just to go to the gym and walk on the flat treadmill but to go to the gym and walk on a slight incline sit down and when you write stick to that subject see what i mean so when you find yourself varying off of the subject right come back to it so say your subject's about you know i don't know it's a romantic comedy involving two awesome people living in a city okay when you find yourself just writing about something that's not that right wait a minute i bring yourself back to it do you understand is that i mean does that sound weird you i can't no i think i think i think i'm afraid i'm afraid sometimes they'll come to that obstacle and then my my mind will blank and so in an effort to just put in the work is to put in whatever is coming to mind and then that ends up being the journal okay that's okay okay so so let's say in an effort to put in the work put in things that in some way relate to the topic at hand so if you're writing along you say okay i'm going to try to figure out the specifics of this i'm imagining a rom-com about two wonderful people in an urban you know in a city right and you hit a wall now you start thinking okay what are 10 stupid things that could happen between them right now you see so i'm asking myself a question i'm giving myself a prompt a writing prompt that is directly related to my chosen project right but by me asking myself to write down 10 stupid things i am lowering the bar you should i mean i'm keeping it manageable you see so you're you're you're encouraging yourself to stay on the path but you're also uh you know kind of keeping it loose a little bit you know what i mean so when you hit that block i don't know what to write right i don't know what to write about my two characters in my romantic comedy so the next line is it well let me just think about what happened to me today none of that's getting off the subject right i don't know what to write about my two characters in my romantic comedy so let me just think what are their names what could their names be here are 10 stupid names for one person and they're 10 stupid names for the other person okay now how could they meet i don't know i don't know what to write about how they could meet okay here are 10 stupid ideas they have to be stupid because by saying stupid you're giving yourself you're lowering the bar right and you're giving yourself you're giving yourself a chance to just be loose with it and i i guarantee one of those ideas is going to make you smile and once you're smiling and you're like i like that idea they could meet at starbucks they're both wearing masks and they talk about robin a bank or something that's good okay i'll go with that like that you see and you're charming yourself and you're charming your story or your play or your song or whatever to you right right yeah you see what i mean so you're kind of you're encouraging yourself to stay on the path that's the thing okay for someone just so you know for someone who couldn't pick up their notebook every day right you know i want to write but i have trouble picking up my notebook and sitting down and writing then we would just say journaling is fine but you're you're past that point brian so we're going to give you we're going to we're going to increase the incline a little bit okay great i'm definitely still afraid but i'm going to try okay just try just remember 10 stupid ideas they have to be stupid they have to be stupid and when you get to know i don't know what to write next word about next word my next phrase subject that you've chosen for the week right i'm definitely good at stupid so i can do that see we all are welcome to welcome to the squad yo thank you okay thank you brian thanks brian um all right the next person we have is adam adam hello hi hi um my question is about scope um i feel like one piece of writing advice that i've gotten a lot uh that's actually been really helpful it's specifically um building character and realizing making character drive the story in the plot um and the struggle i'm having with that is that i'm building i'm getting very generative about building these characters knowing their back stories and i'm i feel like i'm at a point where initially i wanted to tell a story that was set um in one year between two people and now i'm very invested and interested in everything that has led up to that and i feel like my play if i write it with everything i want to happen in it right now will be like 17 hours long and so i'm thinking about scope and specifically how to create structure amidst the chaos of like creative energy right right cool cool so so um you're doing you're writing a play about the year in the life of these two characters two characters did i get it right i would say two protagonists yes two protagonists great and you you really let character drive the story that's sort of been a great note that you've gotten and so now your let character drive the story has encouraged you to do a lot of not research but discovery about the back stories of your characters i call it research because it is almost like research even though you're making it up yeah yeah and a lot of us get lost in research yeah it's like it's like if it were a historical character um and historical character you you might be spending all your time you know online or whatever you're researching all this yeah right right so you have to know when to stop right yeah yeah i suppose the one way to put it is that i feel like i i'm interested in these characters because they're helping me drive towards this theme or this idea that i'm trying to explore a question but then as their stories build up i feel like everything feels integral or part of the plot and i don't know where what is backstory versus what is the story that i'm telling right right and this right and the backstory is the stuff that it's like you know mulch and the tree or you know what i mean so what and what we i quote i give this roomy quote i think it was you know wisdom is knowing what to what to ignore and what to pay attention to it's not that i want you to ignore parts of your characters but i do want you to focus again like kind of like brine you got to focus on what is is the most important thing and you're going to focus on aspects of their character that are going to actually drive your story so if i sat here and start talking about you know i was i was born in you know that's not going to answer your question right even though it might be really interesting or maybe not um but it's true and it's part of my life it's not going to help drive this conversation right it's going to help get this conversation off track right what i'm doing is i am focusing on what's going to drive this conversation so the fact that one of your characters might um i don't know have uh no toes or something might be interesting might drive the story that's a random silly thing i just chose but um you have to think which details are going to drive the story which details tell you something about what the character wants because it's not just historical stuff that we're interested in as uh writers as dramatists it's it's stuff that helps you generate action right so the fact that hamlet likes potatoes right it's interesting maybe you know what i mean right but the fact that he has a real problem with his uncle is the thing that we're really wanting to focus on right you see what i'm saying you see how we were so we're not going to have him give a speech about potatoes necessarily even though there might have been in the earlier draft we are going to give have him give speeches about his uncle you see the difference so we just have to choose um also your play might be 17 you know whatever you know and you can write that play too i'm not saying don't write that play but if you want to write a short if you want to write a play that's a certain thing then you have to choose that doesn't mean it can't be very rich in detail right okay yeah um thank you yeah okay thank you thanks so much um all right next we have Hannah yeah we can hear you cool hi s lb um thank you so much for doing this it's really Hannah Hannah hi hi hello how are you i'm good um now i can do i can come to watch me work from england so it's wonderful yay we're in england aren't you girl huh we're in england are you um in hampshire yeah how are you parents yeah i hear you um you too um my question is about a kind of problem i think i've had for like as long as i've been writing and it feels like i kind of immature writer problem um which is that um my supporting characters i.e like not my central antagonist and protagonist um kind of fizzle out halfway through the script um and so i'm just i i feel like i don't know how to give them a suitable arc or if they even need an arc but i just don't know how to keep them keep them in there and keep them meaningful um and i end up kind of either cutting them and making it a two-hander or making kind of a jumbly ensemble piece even if that's completely not what the play is um and yeah uh huh yeah writing the that's a great question writing those um those you know if you will smaller characters um can be tricky and do you even if you you know you give your big character sort of a big fat arc right a big fat storyline yeah nice and rich and full of all kinds of things and then you give your smaller characters maybe a thinner storyline you know um do you do you um spend any time sort of detailing out the beats of your smaller character storylines not so much i have sometimes but i feel like they when i do that i end up i don't know if it's like i'm focusing too much on them and then i like feel guilty then but they're not a big enough character i try and make them the main character oh oh well okay but but now you're gonna trap now you're gonna trap no i would say go ahead and and i mean for example it depends you know say it's a character about a woman and her mother will just say a woman and and her spouse and the mother is one of the less smaller characters right and we're going to put her like this is the mother character right so in this version of the show the daughter is the main character and the daughter's spouse or the daughter's child they're up here and the mother is back here right so this version of the character of the mother is you know kind of you know right but she still has a storyline right she's still doing she still wants things maybe for the daughter maybe not maybe for herself you know now that's one version of the story that's one version of the play you don't have to feel guilty because in another version that someone else might write or you might write at a later time you might do this yeah you say to me so it's not like you're sort of giving the mother character the short shrift you know yeah because she's kind of in the background if you will you just right now you're focusing on this i mean it's like it's like a hamlet again i mean you know it's it's it's Gertrude isn't you know Gertrude isn't up here right Gertrude back here but she's doing some cool shit you know claudius isn't really up here claudius is kind of back here but he's doing the ghost right yeah they're all kind of back here and that's kind of cool you know in a way um Shakespeare does that really well he does give his his smaller characters you know some cool story lines yeah i mean lady mcbigh right she's got that oh she's our she's our she's our patron saint folks yeah he's washing her hands she's washing her hands uh anyway okay but but you know what you see what i mean right you can look at some of those smaller characters and know that it's only because you've decided to focus on the character you've decided to focus on yeah and these other characters gladly let me tell you how happy they are to be in your play and how happy they are to help right and they don't mind that they're not the main character they're happy doing this shit that's cool right that's some cool shit to do back there whoo whoo look how much fun they're having doing their look journey next time around they know it's going to be them in another incarnation if you look at it from another angle it is all about them the mother thinks it's all about her lady mcbigh thinks it's all about her doesn't she whoo look at me in the background okay so put in the time to these minor characters um and and really know that they're very happy to be included okay okay because if you can develop a major character you can develop a minor one i know i know you i know you can do it okay hi thank you thanks and um all right up next we have tammy great thank you um and thank you so much for being here i really really appreciate it it's the first kind of week i've been able to attend all right um so i have been writing a sort of multi character solo show from other people's perspectives if that makes sense and the way that i've been able to try and get into those characters is sort of making them amalgamation of you know real people and and making them fictional and i'm really stuck on one particular character and i'm having a lot of trouble writing their their piece i can't seem to get into their head um and i don't know if it's because it's too personal and i'm kind of it's someone that i have a lot of dislike for and i wonder how you would advise kind of opening up to that character or sort of finding a way to to find their voice without that judgment and making them human and finding out what they actually need to say mm-hmm wow that's pretty exciting sounds like an exciting project tammy thank you um so this this character you don't like you don't like them so they're and correct me from they're based on someone you know no yes yes aha they're based on someone you know inspired by sure sure sure i'm inspired by them a little bit too much okay okay great what can you what can you change about them can you change their you mean you know what i mean so inspired by a little too much so how can you step back from that person that you know into more of a person that you're creating is there anything that you can change about them that you you'd kind of enjoy like if they're a if they identify as male could they be someone who identifies as female if they you know if they're tall could they be short if they're could you you know you see what i mean is there anything about them you could change up to create some distance or that you'd want to or you want them to be i'd love to change some things okay and then they i somehow get stuck and it doesn't seem true and i i think because all these different character monologues are in relation to this main character um who is i guess inspired by my own life and so maybe i'm getting too caught up in what he means to her that i i it for some reason this one feels really rigid and i uh i don't know what to change well pick choose something maybe just and i'm not saying to to be final about it i'm saying to give yourself a way in you know what i mean like is he is this character really smart no then make them smart okay you see what i'm saying give yourself a way in change it up a little bit um you know so make them they're really smart make them um how smart could they be could they be i mean you know in a real way university educated maybe very well that's interesting okay just kind of change it a little bit to give yourself again we're creating distance and whether you after you've sort of started hearing their voice you can change it back to the way that you if you want it the other way or whatever are they are they uh handsome in real life in real life are they handsome no no make they're in their handsome okay are they funny do they make jokes um really off-color jokes like really like inappropriate jokes inappropriate jokes and do people laugh at these inappropriate jokes he does he does great you can make this person be very witty and everybody laughs oh my god he's the life of the party he's the kind of person who goes into the party and there's a piano and they play and everybody loves them or something i don't know i'm all i'm saying is you can change up things about the character so that you can meet them in a fresh way so that maybe you can like you can not like them but you can sort of be interested in hearing what they have to say i like that thank you you know let's see if it works okay because you're smiling now this that's something thank you thank you all right up next we have viviana whoa i didn't actually think i'd be chosen okay uh oh and now i'm nervous i actually got picked i did for fun okay hello um okay i guess um so my question is very i guess personalized to me and my particular circumstances um that um my current relationship to writing is like super weird um just because i like i've been a part of writing programs since i was 13 um i'm one of those kids um i actually think it's kind of messed i think writing programs are kind of messed up now um but anyway um and like i've written a book and i've written a play and like blah blah blah blah and like i have like cool accolades and like cool um but um my like relationship with my writing has just recently gotten very like anxiety inducing um like to the point where like i it's like it's like i've been in a long marriage and i'm kind and like and i wonder sometimes if i should get a divorce um and like i don't have an everyday writing practice and i've always like termed myself a project person um but i don't have a project right now um so like i feel weird and i like think about starting projects and then like like but then they let months go by and then i'm like and and mine um and right now actually i'm having lots of like the random thoughts i have are about theater projects instead of writing projects which is interesting but yeah i'm just like wondering if you have any advice for like finding joy in it again and like making it stop being a scary thing for like someone who used to find joy in it and now finds it scary yeah and you've been while you've been in writing did you say you've been in writing program since you were 13 yeah i went to like a magnet school um and then i go to columbia now um and i did creative writing as a major and then i switched to theater with acting as a concentration oh yeah and then i've like fell into playwriting uh like two years ago um yeah but like i'm very genre all over the place but yeah right well it's all writing i mean that's cool that's cool but finding fun in it i mean what would getting divorced from writing look like to you i mean so like it's very scary for me because i've like conceptualized of my identity as writer for such a long time um like i like i'm getting anxious even now like saying that i'm not a writer anymore um but like i have like had the thought of like this thing makes me so anxious that i wonder if it's even good for me um but i don't think i don't know it's yeah so i like getting divorced would mean like it's no longer like a pressing issue in the back of my mind that i don't write all the time or don't have a project right now um and like i've i've like given myself units of time where i let like i studied abroad in morocco a year ago and i was like and it was journalism thing um and i let myself like not be a writer that semester and it was so easy and so nice but then i also knew that i would like start thinking about writing again and yeah um and then after that i had to write a play for a a theater company and i kind of slogged through it and then later realized i don't think i actually wanted to write that play but it was good i guess um yeah do you have any um any bills that need pain because of your writing no i i mean i'm about to graduate this semester and money job but so but so it's not like if you took a breather from from writing it wouldn't you know put your household in in financial jeopardy no i'd probably just feel weird though no it wouldn't no it wouldn't i i would i would feel weird come back to i mean because it's like it's like what do you do you don't you want to take a break from it so uh you could you know double down and write every day and see what happens but you've been writing since you were 13 you're like you know i gotta say when you're talking i was like john benet ramsey those three words came to my mind you know i'm like oh um a couple of months just chilling you know um enjoying yourself doing something that you really want to do you know think of things that you really want to do um you know i mean sure writers write but there are plenty of writers who take you know hiatuses you know you can take a hiatus for take a hiatus for like a week and just say i'm not going to write this week i don't feel like it it when sometimes we get into things like john benet ramsey does everybody know what i'm talking about when i say john benet ramsey you know a lot of times we get into things when we're young and we identify attach our self-worth with these things when we're very young uh not very young but you know 13 is pretty young and we get accolades and appreciation and approval for certain things and we think who am i if i'm not that if i'm not doing that anymore right i'm not to diminish the quality of your writing or your commitment to the craft but if you're feeling that way now the way you're feeling now i would say a week off just you know seeing what else there might be out there where do you live do you live new york where do you live i'm i'm dorming at columbia right now i don't know where i'm going to live after this okay no no but what i mean is where are you living right now so right now you're at columbia university right and on the upper west side so what i'm saying is you could uh if it's you know if you feel it's safe and appropriate you could go outside wearing your mask and washing your hands after you come inside you could go outside for a walk and just breathe and look around you know why don't you see what else where your mind wanders you know what i'm saying it's a also it might be in response to graduating and maybe you don't want to be a professional writer you know you know you can take a week off take a week off see what happens you know i mean um you know i don't i don't know a lot of people get into writing for different reasons some people have to pay the rent some people have to you know prove themselves to their parents or all kinds of things um you know you just have to sort of give yourself the space especially these days it's very we're under very stressful times these days and a lot of things are uncertain you know and and weird you know and different and you can't even go outside without wearing a mask and do you even have a mask i made one out of a cloth i got in Cambodia you know you know i'm saying so it's a lot of it's a lot of uncertainty right now and confusion and people are worried and people are dying you know of of complications of this thing so it's okay to take a week off and just say i'm just going to breathe and meditate maybe you know and maybe listen to music you know do you like listening to music i like dancing well there you go so put on some music and dance you know instead of sitting down at your desk and writing and doing working on a project that you really don't want to work on put on some music and dance for 20 minutes a day and let that be your writing practice do you see what i'm saying yep oh my god i'm crying what the heck well it is it is a time for tears people it is a time for tears and crying is is a sign of strength you know there's nothing there's nothing wrong with weeping a lot of people take you know crying and tears is a sign of weakness i i am i do not believe that i think tears are a sign of strength you are feeling things that's good we need to feel things so take a week off but you know i tell you what take a week off but why don't you come back here to watch me work we do it five days a week you know Monday through Friday just come back here you don't have to write you can just go we're all working you know you can just go maybe you want to write that's cool then then write if you want to but if you don't that's fine just sit here and hang out with us okay because we're your squad and we're gonna hang out with you we'd love to hang out with you yeah i'm trying to make this my Tuesday thing there you go then let it be your Tuesday thing okay okay thank you thank you so much all right we've got about three minutes left should we do one more all right we've got crystal hi hi again crystal how you doing i'm good good to see you how's jersey it's so jersey um so i i have been on every day since since we started and um i think i told you i was having trouble like just finding inspiration finding anything to write about and um so i just tried to find time to just just think and i did the letter thing to like trying to find that creative voice again i gave her a name and wrote to her um and didn't hear anything then i had like a not a voice but like a person sort of a person and then like a set of people but no story just like a person and and i'd like it was an asian girl and then like four four or five black girls and and it was in brooklyn and it was asian black relations and that's all i have and i kind of was like okay i have this now but i don't know where to go with it i feel like it's like writing 101 like i i've written plays but i feel like i don't know what i'm doing anymore um and how to get back into like trying to find a story and trying to find them again um so i guess i i guess what i'm saying is even writing i've done also the letter thing where i'm trying to hear it for um but it's just very general so i guess i guess i'm trying to figure out what's next what where do i where do i do next that's cool okay crystal we can do again our our 10 stupid things you know what could these people be doing you know mm-hmm um you could do some character biographies but like i said too was it bright who was it in the beginning uh whoever was in the not to get too yeah not yeah there's bright not to get too uh uh adam not to get too sort of not to overdo it with your character biography right so you want to do some character biographies on them and get some specifics about these characters okay and then start thinking about where these characters might intersect are they roommates do they live in the same building do they live on the same block do they go to say the same school you know mm-hmm what's their story do they work in the same place or you know yeah they live they live well they live in the same neighborhood and one it's like a beauty supply store that's that's next to one of the girls houses okay great okay okay so just get specific on who these people are right okay i mean and then what are they doing and what do they want each character this one wants this this one wants to do that this one and then where are the intersections of their stories you know yeah okay okay and see how far you get with that and your ideas that you come up with don't have to be good again they can be they can be stupid okay just because you just want to turn out a lot of ideas and then you want to look at it you go and go okay um i like this idea i like this idea okay yeah and then start telling yourself the story so there are these four women and this one's this and this one's this and this one's this and this one's this and then they do this and this and this and then this one does that and this one does that and then the end they do that you see yeah you want to start telling yourself the story of your play novel you know whatever you know theater piece film tell a play, right? Yeah. Yeah. Does that make sense? It makes total sense. Yeah. Just ground yourself in the story as much as possible. I would say, instead of thinking so much about the the issue, you know, Black-Asian relations, okay? Dig deeper now. Dig deeper. You know what I'm saying? Tell me the story, you know? Because I mean, you could say, okay, Hamlet's about father-son relations. Oh, geez. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. A lot more than that. You know, right? So we want to dig deeper than that. We want to give me something. Give me something that I'm going to go, wow, cool. I'm leaning in now. You know? Give me some stuff about characters, okay?  That comes from just thinking about your characters. Okay. No. This character wants this. This character wants this. She's doing this. She's doing this. Okay. Okay. And how and telling yourself the story of your play. Practice by if you want read a play that you like and and then quote, you know, read a play, right? Yeah.  That's really good practice, right? So if you like, I don't know what, but I'm looking around to see if I can haul these plays themselves. But read a play and then tell yourself the story or even type it out. This is the story of Hamlet. This is how it goes. Get in the habit of telling yourself the story. Okay. Okay. Because the issues can be kind of summed up like, you know, like a thumbnail. Like what? Like a thumbnail sketch or, you know, telegram from Western Union, right? Yeah. You want something more than that. Right. Okay. I can work on that. Yeah. Awesome. Well, it is 6.04. Shall we come back tomorrow? Yes, let's come back tomorrow. Amazing. So as a reminder, if you want to sign up for a class, sign up by 3 p.m. each day on the public theater website. Today we had an issue. It seems like some people didn't get the link. So if you don't see an email tomorrow and you signed up, check your spam folder just in case. But other than that, I think we're here Monday to Friday, 5 p.m. Thanks. Thank you guys. Thank you people. See you tomorrow.


Okay, you are very welcome back to the Carygalley Business Park at the Artisan Markets here in Lettricenny. I'm looking forward to going in and seeing what's on offer. It's the idea, brainchild I suppose you could say, of Derek Walker. How are you Derek? I'm good. Greg, thanks. Now, how long has this been running for now? Well, it's been running nice since the 1st of August 2015 and it's really grown from month to month. We started off with 11 stalls and we're up now to about 30 to 40 stalls every Saturday, so it's really grown something serious for us. And why did you feel it needed to be established? Do you think there was a gap in the market? Well, I started off with a wheatgrass business myself and I was going to different markets all over the country but we just noticed that there was nowhere really in Donegal for us. For me to have a nice place to go to sell, I was seeing what people were doing in our counties and I thought that we were missing it in Lettricenny, especially Donegal. So, myself and my fiancé decided to set one up then and it kind of just grew from there. I think the word artisan might scare off some people, if you know what I mean. It sounds like it's kind of a loo for, I don't know, so what is the theory behind artisan food? Well, really, the definition of artisan is basically handcrafted without the use of mass production or big machinery, really anything that falls into that category. So everything here is hand made, locally produced, all the vegetables is grown locally, the meats, all local and you're talking to the actual person who produced it. So the meat there is Matthew, he's an actual farmer and rears his own beef, Bally Holey, John grows his own vegetables. All the hand crafters, all hand made, all the bakers, baked themselves, so you're talking to the person who made it themselves. Yeah, tell us about your business, what do you produce? Well, I produce organic wheatgrass and I produce it here, so we do fresh and frozen ready-made shots and we kind of wholesale, down and retailed. All our wheatgrass is grown on site. And what do people use wheatgrass for? Well, the benefits of wheatgrass are massive, really, for energy, any type of sonus in the body, a large amount of business is done with people involved with sports, for recovery, for energy levels, for getting them through the sporting season. I get you. And I mean, obviously, as you say, you distribute it widely, but when you're starting a new business, and you're going through the production aspect and all the other things that you have to worry about when you're establishing your business, where to sell it once you've produced, I mean, that's one of the problems you fix for a lot of people, I suppose. I know there's people that already have established markets, but you know what I mean? It just gives that way to market for people. Yeah, certainly. That's what I want to myself. I mean, somewhere to go to meet the public, just to get started up, to develop some customers, to meet the public. I wasn't used to it. I wasn't used to talking to people, selling products, and I gained a lot of experience firsthand for meeting customers, talking about my product, and hearing the feedback which really helped me get confidence to grow the business further. When you hear, see people coming back here in a good feedback, and the interest in the products, and it's the same for everyone in here, like those people started off with no business at all, and they grew something up. And it's really nice to see. And I suppose from the perspective of the market, the market is made of producers that make the market. I had an idea as producers and the public that made it happen then. So we just wanted to say thank you to everyone. Yeah, exactly. It's kind of a bit like you build it and they'll come though and you established it and they did.  Everyone benefits really by coming together. Yeah, that's it. And it's a real community spirit. When you go in there, you know, you can sense the sort of camaraderie everyone has. It's a real community effort. And you see the same faces coming back every week with their shopping baskets buying the produce. And you know, it's nice with a crack in there. Do you have to pay a little bit more for sort of a premium quality product? So people need to expect that coming up or? Well, I mean, the prices can vary from from time to time. There's loads of great offers in there too. But I mean, the quality of the product, that's what you're getting. Like the amount of feedback you get from the taste of the flavors, the quality, the time the text to make and produce what what's there is, it's not mass produced. So it's that you're getting a really high quality product. Super. We're going to go in and have a walk around a little later on and see what's on offer. But give us an idea of what people are an idea what people could see if they call up and visit us today. Yeah, so you can get a wide range of from your weekly produce from meat, fish, vegetables, home baked French breads. Then you got handcrafts. You got barista style coffee, got hot gourmet food, produced on site by a man who actually rears the beef that he's selling. And burgers and you've got spacey curries. So you can sit down under the heater and have a bite heat. You've got your crafts, becks, loads of stuff, everything you expect to find on market juices as well. Now my my math got me into trouble in the past. So I just want to speak honestly, right? Yeah, when I was first coming up here, I thought it was a little bit out of the way. Yeah, right. And then now my mind has completely changed because firstly, I didn't realize the scale of it. The amount of space that would be required to provide this service that you guys do. And then the convenience of the parking. Yeah. So it's a little bit out of town. But the benefits of it are actually huge. You know, once you actually come out here and see the scale of it. And as I say, you don't have to worry about someone coming and sticking a ticket on your car. That's exact. That was our vision from the start. We kind of when we were scouting around for places to have the market, we looked around very close to town. But we were also very conscious of the race that we have to charge people and the vision that we had for it was people to come relax for the day, park the car, not have to worry about rolling on and on and out. They can sit down, have a coffee, buy a tea. It is about it. But we feel that the benefits outweigh the cons. No, I would agree with 100%. And it's well signposted to you. Yeah. If you're at the bottom of the letter, Kenny Tan, you go over the bridge at Old Tan and it's a two turns but there are two, three turns. But it's all signposted. And as I say, there's tons of parking here. So get up here if you haven't been up here before. Because there's a broad content here. And it's not necessarily that you'll do all of your shopping here. You may wish to. But you can call here, get some stuff. And then if you want to go to your regular retailers, you can as well. They're not mutually exclusive either. One can complement the other. Yeah, we try and go for a sort of, we're trying to make it a bit of an event to people to come and sit down. And it was a kids activity area. We've got just as an experience, a place to come, talk. I think the benefit that we can give people is that you're meeting the person that met it, that grew it, that reared it, that caught it.  It's real farmed to fork field that we're looking to achieve here.  An alternative for people to go to on a Saturday. Now you don't rare wheatgrass, do you? I grow it. I was going to say that would be a very interesting relationship with your products. If you started naming it and what have you. But I know what you're saying because those, the meat producers obviously that they, it's literally from the, the, its inception to the, to here. They know every single step along the way. Fantastic. So tell us when the market runs just for those who may have missed that at the start. Yeah, so the market runs every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at unit one and two, Cary Golly Business Park. It's just up this morning, up beyond CEM and Brodery, everyone can go to that area. It's on every Saturday. Yeah, so. What time did doors open, did he say, sir? At 10 o'clock. 10 o'clock. 10 o'clock. Start the day. Listen, fantastic. It's brilliant. And I think people that may not have been aware of it before but may call it will be and for a really pleasant surprise, particularly with the space and the parking and the convenience of that. Yeah, definitely. All right, Derek will be going inside and having a look more closely at it. But for now, Derek Walker, thanks very much for joining us on the show. Can I just say again, Greg, I just want to thank everyone, all the producers and all the public that's been coming right to us from the start. Really meaning that from the bottom of my heart, because it wasn't for the people that's coming out and making the market happen and we wouldn't have a market, so I can take the credit for it. It's everyone in there and people who come up that make the market happen. And isn't it kind of nice to very finely that, you know, a lot of the produce is organic and this whole concept is organic, isn't really to some extent, and that it's grown from an idea. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, thank you. All right, Derek Walker, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Greg.


Hi everybody, Joe for jaspyscasebrakes.com coming at you with 2021 Panini Noir basketball four box pick your team number eight Big thanks all of these folks for getting to the action buying your team straight up, which I appreciate Now there were three teams that we pulled From the break Hornets warriors and Timberwolves and we turned it into a serial number break for just these three teams So each of these numbers represents a block of numbers for those teams specifically for pick a team number eight. I'll keep that next to me right here. Here's a fresh case of Noir Terminator one or Terminator two Probably Terminator two that might be one of those rare occasions where the sequel is more entertaining than the more entertaining than The original box number one. Good luck. And we have a have a silver frame in there All right, then I'm gonna use this blank card To slow play some of the hits a little bit. I Don't get surprised too early. Let's go. We got Devon vassal 87 out of 99 Spurs that's the spurs were picked up by miles BAM on a bio 76 out of 99 BAM Chris with a Miami heat frame is Kauai Leonard One out of 25 There's like a little dent. I don't know if you can really see it. There it is Little corner issue right there. I guess when they were trying to put this in the frame This is Clippers. That's gonna be for miles and the clip show one out of 25 feature length Got rookie jumbo material Jalen Smith. That's for Tyler and the Phoenix Suns Jalen Brunson 10 out of 99 That's for Dallas. That's gonna go to Chris Lombardo with the Dallas Mavericks Actually grabbed a thin card back there. Here's New Wave Jersey CJ LV 9 out of 25 for the trailblazers That's gonna be for miles and we have Private signatures Peyton Pritchard. That's gonna be for Wayne and the Celtics We have Dino Raja 23 out of 99 another one For Wayne and the Celtics We've got spotlight signatures the Iceman George Gervin Gold ink auto that looks really cool Miles with the spurs it's a cool photo And down here is Whoo, nice gold ink autograph Luca Donetsch 15 out of 49 Spotlight signatures another cool looking card and that'll be for Chris Lombardo and the Dallas Mavericks. Congrats All right good start to box one this box two There you go. Congrats, Chris. You've been on quite a streak with this noir stuff. All right, another silver frame in here Allergies making a little sniffle here Kyrie 27 out of 99 Shane with the Nets Thanks, Chris Next up is 65 out of 99 on Yakka a Kongu Lance with the Hawks Silver frame vintage art Damien Lillard 25 out of 25. That's miles with Portland New Wave Jersey's Theo Maladon 40 out of 99. That's for Chris and okay. See here's Isaiah Stewart 99 out of 99 Eugene We got rookie jumbo material James Weisman Golden State's a number block team So here's how that works. We go by that digit right here By four so if you got randomized for you get four out of whatever 14 out of whatever 24 34 54 64 74 So on and so forth for the predetermined number of teams So Golden State four will be for David Green got randomized number four and we got Grant Riller private signings autograph and that's For Charlotte and I think that's not numbered So we'll randomize that to one person in that number block group that has Charlotte. So we'll set that over here Gold Inc. Hato Turcaloo Three out of ten. I like the gold Against the the white card there Hato Turcaloo going to Orlando That'll be for four twice Nice love these sneaker spotlight signatures Showcasing their sneakers. There's PJ Washington's autograph. That's 56 out of 99 Charlotte six is Sean. Oh and for the Knicks. Oh be topping 57 out of 99 Nice on-card autograph for the Knicks Sean. Oh picked up the Knicks straight up and Gets the OB topping. That's really cool Two boxes to go halfway through this break We have another full case of Noir up on the store right now if you're watching live And no number blocks or anything like that yet another frame in this one have all Both the first two boxes first three box. I've had frames Looks like there's a redemption in the middle So let's see what we got Got a fox in the box 86 out of 99 deer and fox Sean with the Kings Yeah, Cole Anthony 99 out of 99 Orlando Tobias with the magic the frame is precious a chew up 11 out of 25. I like that that sort of sunburst background Going out to Chris Lombardo in the Miami Heat New Wave jerseys Tyrese Maxi 81 out of 99 Wayne with the Sixers New Wave jerseys Devon Vassal 50 out of 99 For miles in the spurs Elegant decor precious a chew a three color patch 13 out of 25 Chris in the heat there. Oh the redemption. Let's see where the redemption is going to be freeze frame signatures card 34 m a Mark No, Malachi Malachi Flynn Toronto Steve Wright with the Raptors All right, a few more to go in this box in the final box. We got Miami Heat's Avery Bradley 89 out of 99 Another one for Chris RJ Barrett sneaker spotlight signatures Made in Canada 12 out of 99. That's awesome The sneaker photography is always cool RJ Barrett in the Knicks starting to look good too and Last spot mojo is looking good for Sean O'Leary Sean O Last spot mojo 70% of the time Hits 100% of the time And then we got we got Anthony Davis For my Lakers three color patch and autograph 22 out of 25 who? Got my Lakers Sean has the Lakers nice. I can just stay healthy Final box. Good luck everybody. All right. Last box has a redemption right there Good luck. We've got Kauai Leonard 15 out of 99. It'll be for Miles Carmelo Anthony 58 out of 99 Portland miles BAM out of bio to 25 It's gonna be for Chris Jumbo material Bradley Beale 71 out of 99 Miles with the Wizards Icons memorabilia Isaiah Thomas Old Piston 62 out of 99 Eugene with the Pistons. Oh a Nike swoosh One out of five is a Coro Nike swoosh Chris Lombardo with the Cleveland Cavaliers Cleveland this is for you and out of 5s and under get the train whistle All aboard the Big Hit Express Nice Few more to go We got a Willy coli Stein 44 out of 99 Dallas Chris also has a Dallas Mavericks There's a thin card in here. That is artist Gilmore for the Bulls Nice looking card for Hilmer and the Chicago Bulls And the final hit is gonna be oh, there's the final is not bad. There's a redemption on the bottom That's right. Alexi Pogoszewski 68 out of 99 Chris with the Thunder. He's on fire All right, and what do we got here redemption we got rookie patch autographs color card 374 s a Sadiq Yeah, it's Sadiq Bay Going to Detroit Eugene with the Pistons. All right, there you go Thanks, everybody for making this break happen. I appreciate it Now let's randomize that non-numbered Charlotte card the Grant Riller private signings autograph.  Well that noir Let's go back to this list right here. Let's grab everybody's names Let's copy them here and the name on top. We'll get it after five minute three eight times one two three four five six seven And eighth and final time after eight we got Sean on top You'll get the the extra Charlotte autograph that wasn't numbered The Grant Riller auto. Thanks for watching. Thanks everybody. I'm Joe I'll see you next time for the next break on jaspyscasebreaks.com


Finland starts building a fence on the border with Russia. Finland says it has begun construction of a 200km fence on the Russian border, as Helsinki fears Moscow could use migrant flows at the frontier for political purposes. Terrain work was set to begin with forest clearance and will proceed in such a way that road construction and fence installation can be started in March. The Finnish border guard said, the pilot project at the Imatra border crossing is expected to be completed by the end of June it added. Construction of a further 70km mainly in southeastern Finland will take place between 2023 and 2025. The announcement came as Finland's parliament progressed with its bid to join NATO, increasing the likelihood that it would leave its neighbour Sweden behind to rapidly enter the transatlantic defence pact. Fearing that Moscow could use mass migration to exert political pressure on Helsinki, Finland in July passed new amendments to its border guard act to facilitate the building of sturdier fences. At present Finland's borders are secured primarily by light wooden fences, mainly designed to stop livestock from wandering to the wrong side. The three kilometre pilot project at the southeastern border crossing in Imatra is expected to be completed by the end of June it added. In total Finland plans to fence 200km of its border with Russia at a cost of around €380 million. The fence will be three metres tall with barbed wire at the top, with particularly sensitive areas equipped with night vision cameras, lights and loud speakers. Although the Finland-Russia border has worked well in the past, Brigadier General Jari Tolpanen told Agents France Press in November that the war in Ukraine had changed the security situation fundamentally.


First question is from Nate Fagan. How effective is power building power building? I haven't you know It's popular now, right?  No, so okay the first time Give us the the history of it. Yeah, so the first time I heard of the term power building I heard do you guys remember skip liqour think is his name skip liqour? He was a natural we'll do quotations bodybuilder in the 90s kind of jacked no Kevin Lavroni Sometimes would talk about power building and there were other bodybuilders that weren't necessarily high-ranking bodybuilders But they were popular in flex magazine and muscle and fitness that would talk about Power building. There's one guy in particular. I can't remember his name. It'll come to me But he would do these insane looking lifts where he got like seven plates on a bench press And then there's like two spotters on each side and he never really competed But he called the way trained power building the way it tends to be used today is I like to bodybuild But I like to use bad form and heavy weight Thanks for clarifying that that's the way it tends to be used And that's also the way that it was kind of used in the 90s It was like heavy bodybuilding and looser form now the question is that reminds me Who's the who's the bodybuilder that trains that way Texas guy white branch warm. Yes, yes, yes, exactly Okay, now Michael Hearn talks about power building all the time Michael Hearn has good form Yeah, he trains with good form.  He'll do incline presses full-range emotion four plates I think he's in his late 40s now if I'm not mistaken.  You're gonna build great muscle. I think they both are extremely complimentary Now if you power build like I talked about earlier With just loose form and bodybuilding exercises where you're swinging things and you care more about the weight Then then your technique in form.  I think you just we just gave two great examples, right? So branch Warren versus Michael Hearn and I think branches had all kinds of injuries and issues Like he's always battling all kinds of stuff and he's the kind of like, you know Push through it type of guy who cares and then doesn't isn't really particular about his form And then you have somebody like Michael Hearn who's into his late 40s still lifting still strong as an ox and looks amazing So perfect example of what what you get if you if you take it to the extreme, right? If you take it as a way to just get away with sloppy form versus no There's some value in training this way, but it doesn't mean that technique goes out the window So what is the actual programming of a power build look like? I mean, obviously they're incorporating power lifts within that So it's like basically just compound lifts, but also like the accessory work. Is that am I off? It's so it's usually I'm looking to go heavy. I I'm doing curls I'm gonna swing a little bit more curl the hundreds instead of the 60s more English involved. Yes Or you know, there's also cases where people started out as power lifters and then moved into bodybuilding Ronnie Coleman is an example this right? I so I don't find it that much different than that way we write programs, right? So when I think of like bodybuilding like the typical protocol as far as programming used to be like this 8 to 12 rep range You know or even like you may be going down to 6 to 8 reps, right? But I and I see having a power building routine with singles doubles and triples or having like a 5 by 5s And which is more of your power lifting type of protocol, but I mean if you look the way we write programs We've that's incorporated and almost every single program in different phases But I'm wondering if they're combining that like they're merging them together So you do like ones, but then you also do fit sets of 15 like within that same set Well, I mean maybe I mean I'm sure there's somebody who's wrote programs with that But I mean I think we would sit here and argue that it would be way more valuable Come on, run it like a mezzo cycle where you have you know, a you're focused on power lifting for a month or so And then you move into a more bodybuilding hypertrophy type training and then you move into a more Strength or endurance type of training. So, you know, that's what's so funny is a lot of this to me is is is marketing You know, it's just it's just a new a new term or a new way to look at it But the truth is I think both that both bodybuilding type, you know training protocol power lifting type training protocol Belongs in most everybody's routine. It's just you know, we tend to think of extremes of it all the time And it's like no, I think everybody even some some lady who comes to me that wants to lose You know 50 pounds and she's 45 plus years old She should go through a you know bodybuilding and a power lifting type of routine Where which is we're talking about tempos and rest and sets and exercises that fall into that category that person still greatly bit appropriate technique and you know, like weight that's like appropriate for them all that stuff They're gonna get great benefit. They are they you know, the training for hypertrophy connecting the muscles getting the pump versus training for strength training the movement rather than feel You know focusing on the big core three lifts Step it in they compliment each other quite a bit and it's if you're if you really want to develop a great physique And you do it smart and you train smart You want to do both you want to train in one phase and then move into another phase You're gonna get tremendous results now as you get older The risk with lifting heavy might increase a little bit in which case you'll probably do more bodybuilding than power type lifting But for the most part they're both extremely beneficial And look, you know back in the day even now before the 90s when I was when I'm talking about what the power of the builders All bodybuilders trained For strength. That was a thing like in fact it was almost embarrassing Especially in the 40s 50s 60s the 30s those days of bodybuilding it was embarrassing to lift weights just for looks nobody admitted that it was silly It was like, oh, no, I'm actually really strong and then all the cut and it became okay to say I just lift for for looks but you know Arnold used to do power lifting cycles all the time him him and Franco Colombo