If I could only use the word "EPIC" once this year, this would be the time.
Posted Jan 18, 2010, 3:15 PM UTC
948454
Blowing your epic load for the whole year on January 18th? You should probably get checked out. They have pills to take care of premature epiculation, you know.
238
Eh. No regrets 2010.
55
But what if you have to take a Greek literature class?
27
Thank you. I think I might just hurl my laptop at the wall if I read one more description of something only vaguely interesting or even offensive being described as "epic!" or "awesome!". What's with Redditors' fancy for hyperbolic descriptions? It's more annoying that reading "sir" ever other comment.
8
[deleted]
47
this is an epic comment.
8
That was one epic commentary, sir.
7
upvote for you, sir
5
My little sister uses "insane," as in "My friends and I spent over 3 hours at Barnes and Noble and no one bought a book. It was insane!"
I'm not kidding. This was her Facebook comment.
4
Hyperbolic descriptions are the best thing in the world. Ever.
3
Language is dynamic, not static. (Some might say organic.) "Epic"'s pejorated; you can rail against it all you wish, but you cannot drown out the Voice of the People.
3
You have used your one time.
2
That is an awesome username.
1
Yer a Hyper ball lick...description with yer big words and yer fancy book learnin. whatever...yer moms a hyperbole
0
I think this is the first time I've actually laughed in my cubicle this year reading a coment. Nice work.
3
Blowing your laughing-in-cubicle load for the whole year on January 18th? You should probably get checked out. They have pills to take care of premature lolulation, you know.
-2
You've used it twice. You can use it again next year but a note has been made in your file.
3
100
FUCK THAT WHERES THE FITZGERALD TRANSLATION
6
Traduttore, traditore.
4
What's the appeal of Fitzgerald over Fagles and Lattimore?
3
(Oh my goodness... I get to do this in-semi-context)
I'm with you: Fagles' translation is epic!
2
Your factual relevancy will be noted by LiteralBot. You may use it again in 2011.
1
-2
EPOCHLY EPIC
-6
-17
[deleted]
-22
Cats take no shit. Pound for pound, they are the most awesome predators on land.
64
Ants are better.
65
True. Pit a pound of ants against a pound of cat, and the ants will win every time.
65
I'd take wasps over ants.
Edit: To the mindless ant cunts who are downmodding me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMG-LWyNcAs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctAXcBxHdCg
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071206-roach-zombie.html
Wasps will fuck you up and then make you thank them for it while you have their babies.
Ants suck, wasps forever!
88
Who the hell likes wasps? That's like liking rapists. Tiny annoying stinging rapists.
108
Upvoted for mindless ant cunts. Great band name, that.
13
30 Giant Hornets versus 30,000 Honey Bees. It takes the Hornets 3 hours to wipe out the entire colony. This is a video showing what I am talking about.
This is the most bad-ass insect on the planet. Make no mistake, gentleman, make no mistake. The hornets literally decapitate the bees.
It's like schoolchildren defending their playground from Master Chief.
9
Honey Bees . They'd fry wasps
6
Obviously there is only one way this argument is ever going to get resolved and I'm quite shocked it hasn't already been done…
I'm talking about a little something I like to call INSECT DEATHMATCH!!
MATCH
MATCH
MATCH
match
we make a little octagon terrarium, put in the most bad ass insects from all over the world and let them fight to the death. Last one standing gets to be crowned World's BadAssingest Insect and we shall toast him as he feasts upon the corpses of his vanquished foes…
Then we kill the shit out of the little fucker because fuck me if I'm going let the most BadAssingest insect fly/walk around free. No, sir. Fuck that noise.
6
Ant Cunts
Is that a real thing?
4
Ahem
Hercules beetle > everything else
edit: formatting
1
From the root comment...
...they are the most awesome predators on land.
Wasps aren't fair.
1
Especially the 'you have their babies' part. For being small, wasps have giant-sized balls.
1
Wasps have no heart.
1
Let's see how the wasps will fare after the world is covered in ice-nine.
1
god I hate fucking bugs
1
I would argue that people beat everything, pound for pound. Mainly because we are highly skilled with machine guns.
Unless if you count microscopic organisms, because it's likely we could all die from one of those some day...
0
Wasps? HAHAHAHAHA... aah.... AHHAHAHAHAA!! Two words: honey badger. Yeah, look at that... goes straight to the larvae of that beehive. Where pussy wasps wouldn't even make it past the first line of bee defense!
0
Ants aren't predators.
1
The hundreds of species of army ant beg to differ.
Most ant species are at least part-time predators. The leaf-cutter species are the only ones I'm aware of that aren't, but I'm not a myrmecologist.
1
I'll just leave this here.
1
An ant the size of a cat wouldn't stand a chance. Exoskeletons don't scale.
23
A cat the size of an ant would get its ass kicked.
20
Only because the ant would bring his friends.
9
Cats take shit from other cats though. I know these two cats - one big and white. He's called Snowman. The other black, muscular and called Panther.
Often when Snowman is just hanging in its own basket, minding its own business, Panther will come by and slap him over the face. Just to show him who's boss. Damn that cat will even slap humans if he thinks, he needs more petting.
I found a solution for the latter. If you brush him against the hairs, he automatically thinks you will brush them back - that's your window to getting away without claws in your eye.
Panther is awsome.
16
Upvoted for marginally relevant story with lots of unnecessarily detailed information.
17
Upvoted for summarising my thoughts on the above comment almost verbatim
1
[deleted]
4
ever heard of a wolverine? those things are psycho! cars are pussies compared to them.
3
I bet my car could take him out.
16
pound for pound? i doubt it. either both die, or the wolverine wins.
thats like hitting a moose with massive teeth and claws and a pissed off attitude, or trying to take out a wolverine in a toy car.
4
upvoted for the mental image of a 3000lb wolverine tearing shit up
3
Upvoted for the mental image of a pissed off moose with sharp teeth and claws.
Actually, I don't think I can do it. They're so.... dumb. And slow. Almost as bad as caribou...
1
Upvoted because I'm a Spartan fan and I wholly endorse this.
2
no. no one on reddit.com has heard of wolverines.
6
useless if i'm carrying a couple neodymium magnuts
1
useless if i'm carrying a couple neodymium magnuts
I cannot battle against the failure of your grammatical ways.
4
lieing down in a funny position
:)
saw it afterwards and figured "meh, it'll make for a good joke"
0
maybe but my money is on the dog. Cool picture though.
2
Dogs are slower, stupider, less springy, and far, far more blunt. No fucking chance.
-1
Just a few months ago I saw a dog get into a fight with a stray cat and it had no problem killing it within a minute or two. It wasn't even that big either, maybe 30-40 pounds. It just kept grabbing the cat by its neck and shook it till it snapped its neck or something. The dog got scratched in the face a few times but other than that, it was relatively unharmed after the fight.
Judging by the size of the dog in that picture and how pissed off it looks, I don't think that cat stood a chance.
1
Virtually any member of the mustelidae (weasel) family is, pound for pound, more baddass than any cat. I give you the wolverine as one especially impressive example.
2
So you don't think a 50-lb cat could take a 50-pound weasel?
1
Only if the cat did 50 lines of coke, first.
2
I bet I could do 100 lines of coke.
1
Not even close. A healthy and mature male North American wolverine weighs between 40-55 pounds. The same is true of the North American lynx. In the wild, without exception, what's been observed is that a lynx will not willingly get close to a wolverine and will basically run as soon as it catches the wolverine's very strong scent. Wolverines on the other hand, have been known to regularly take on North American mountain lions who outweigh them by several times. It has also been documented that a 50-pound wolverine who is hungry will readily attack a 500 pound black bear, often with detrimental results, but the point is that like all members of mustelidae, the wolverine doesn't know much about fear and will cheerfully fight just about anything to the death. There are also reports of wolverines facing down and eventually chasing off grizzly bears. That's 50 pounds against 800. Felidae, as baddass as it admittedly is, is simply outclassed on every pound-for-pound level of badassery by mustelidae. The weasels are far and away the most ruthless, fearless and relatively strong members of carnivora in contemporary existence, end of story.
0
Ever heard of ermine?
I heard that an ermin once ran up to a guy and bit him in the balls just for sitting on his beach.
Mean.
edit: for teh dur dur
1
I rest my case. Ermine (Mustela erminea), is a small predatory mammal of the family Mustelidae.
You make my point for me and I appreciate it.
1
Lord knows I love the kitties, but pound for pound I'd have to go for the Mustelidae.
It's hard to compare animals in an arbitrary way tho, what it being evolution and all.
1
A much more fair comparison would be something along the size of a wildcat vs the dog.
1
Depends on what you're comparing. On a one on one fight, that cat pound for pound vs that dog? (I would say the cat.) What if we change the dog to a fighting breed? What if we pit that dog vs a cheetah, which is about the same size? But then, what if we had a wolverine or honey badger of the same size?
Then, violentacrez said, "most awesome predator," so do we judge them on their predation skills? Dogs are pack hunters, using numbers and/or stamina to chase and harry a prey, so generally they are not meant for a one on one brawl. African hunting dogs have a better hunting success rate then the other large prey hunters in Africa, including lions, which are cats and pack hunters.
2
http://imgur.com/6JSSb.gif animated GIF version
50
I'm upset you took the time to do this.
4
I am a Time Lord, don't stress.
6
Dude I just started watching Doctor Who yesterday. And now this comment. Baader-Meinhof strikes again!
0
I'm upset that I didn't.
1
ANIMALITY
2
kitteeeehhhhhh boom!!!
0
I've had both dogs and cats, but I have to say that my cats could have kicked my dog's ass a thousand times over.
Cats may look all cute and cuddly, but they're some badass motherfuckers if you piss them off.
39
Dogs get their asses kicked because most reasonable people will encourage meekness in mid-to-large sized dogs to minimize accidents. My antisocial German shepherd would embark on regular campaigns of genocide against feral cats, skunks, raccoons, and occasional coyote that would wander through my back yard.
8
[deleted]
1
The German Shepard of my uncle actually had several sheep on his account.
1
Did you get the cats before the dog?
My dog (140 lbs, 34" at the shoulder, bred to kill bears and to protect sheep) is a serious cat hater. The last cat to wander through our land got hit at about 30 - 40 mph. Poor thing was dead before it had a chance. I'm not trying to say that my dog is "bigger" than your dog - he is big but he's just insane towards cats.
I've found that dogs that get beat up by cats usually live with cats and haven't been in the home as long as the cats, or, for some laid back reason they're not that into getting beat up by a cat.
Now, if the dog in the picture was of the 'psycho cat hating' kind that would be the last thing the cat did...
4
Forgot to add:
http://www.cheetah.org/?nd=tour_conservation_panel83b_guarddogs_1of2
They're used to protect flocks from cheetas...
2
Cute and cuddly, but with 20 claws and I don't know how many teeth.
With reflexes to match.
Cats are awesome! (now, that's another word we should not use more than once per year)
1
The words "Back the fuck up" come to mind, when seeing that.
1
Cats have 18 claws. =)
1
ever met a dogo?
edit: I've had two cats and one dog. My vizsla would get his ass kicked, but I simply inquired about a dogo and got downvoted pretty fast
http://www.clipser.com/watch_video/1321343
I'm not here to have a dog vs. cat argument with anyone when a dogo puts a puma on its back.
? Any comments with those tasty downvotes or are all you cat owners biased against reddiquette as well. I'd rather talk about it ?
-5
Yes, a full grown dog versus a puma pup. I'd be interested to see it go up against a full grown one.
2
notapuma (your name made me laugh) you are right. That is not a full grown puma and if it was a full size male I don't think anything would be fucking with it. I was just pointing out that you can't say small cats will just "fuck dogs up" when that's just a little absurd. While proving my point about small cats, I disrespected large cats and feel pretty stupid in that sense.
I will retract part of what I said and restate that "A full grown puma would not be put on its back like I might have suggested; stupid, stupid me"
edit: Grammar Nazi's are not invited into this conversation. I also didn't realize you made that account 15 minutes ago. Your name isn't as funny you tricky bastard.
-1
I see your point, and there really is no reason you should be downvoted so much, but I think it's still fair to say that pound for pound (or even pound for two or three pounds), cats contain more whoop-ass than dogs.
1
I upvoted you cuz purists are generally hypocrites anyways.
2
If you have ever actually seen a Dogo, it's basically muscles with Teeth, I've grown up around dogs my whole life, and hands down a Dogo is intimidating and more than a bit crazy. Which is why they are restricted or banned in most places with any sense in them, they're illegal to import in Australia, banned in NZ and you need an exemption to have one in the UK.
A Dogo can kill a Puma, but they are pack hunters so it's going to be two or three that will do it, however they'll probably all make it back.
1
Several months ago my 7 yo cousin caught two middle size dogs try to "eat" a cat in the backyard of his house. At that time my little cousin always bought his plastic gun with him -- with plastic bullets of course; so he yelled "dogs eat cat! dogs eat cat!" and shoot the dogs with the gun. The good part was the dogs was run and not bite him, the bad part is it is a little bit too late, the cat already got pretty bad injured and cannot stand up anymore.
I try to approach the cat to take him up but he always make a sound like "Sssshh" with his claws pointed at me. Even if i can take up the cat, who can patch the wound from bite of dogs? from what i see it's really bad. So i chicken out and leave the cat with his dignity. My little cousin said he will stay for a while to see if the dog will come again.
The next day my cousin said the cat was gone.
tl;dr: do not let cat fight with a dog, it's end bad, really bad.
29
What is your first language?
11
Not English. Is it that bad ?
20
No, it's perfectly understandable and 99% correct.
Just a few small mistakes and an unusual grammatical style that make it obvious you're not a native speaker.
21
Result of 16 years watching Hollywood movies with, sometimes horribles, subtitles.
You should hear me speak English, way... more obvious. ;)
13
Your Minangkabau is probably better than my English, so I'll forgive you
3
It's actually pretty good - better than my Minangkabau, that's for sure. Your verb tenses are a bit off, though. Corrected (as best as I know how):
Several months ago, my 7 y/o cousin caught two middle-sized dogs trying to "eat" a cat in the backyard of his house. At that time, my little cousin always brought his plastic gun with him -- with plastic bullets of course -- so he yelled "Dogs eat cat! Dogs eat cat!" and shot the dogs with the gun. The good part was that the dogs ran and did not bite him. The bad part is that he was a little bit too late. The cat was already injured pretty badly and could not stand up anymore.
I tried to approach the cat to pick him up, but he always made a sound like "sssshh" with his claws pointed at me. Even if I could pick up the cat, who could patch wounds from dog bites? From what I could see, it was really bad. So, I chickened out and left the cat with his dignity. My little cousin said he would stay for a while to see if the dog would come again.
The next day, my cousin said the cat was gone.
tl;dr: Do not let a cat fight with a dog; it ends badly, really badly.
11
Thanks.
So, you know how to speak Minangkabau ? wanna trying it out with me, just for fun ? :)
6
It isn't that bad. You conveyed your ideas with (it appears) no misunderstandings. That is all that matters.
10
Just some writing feedback if you're curious, I'm genuinely not trying to be a grammar Nazi. It's actually completely understandable and very very good for English as a second language.
Several months ago, my 7 yo cousin caught two middle-sized dogs trying to "eat" a cat in the backyard of his house. At that time my little cousin always brought his plastic gun with him (with plastic bullets of course); so he yelled "Dogs eat cat! Dogs eat cat!" and shot the dogs with the gun. The good part is that the dogs ran and didn't bite him; the bad part is that it was a little bit too late, as the cat was already pretty badly injured and could not stand up anymore.
I tried to approach the cat to pick him up, but he made a sound like "Sssshh" with his claws pointed at me. Even if i could pick up the cat, who could patch the dog bites? From what i could see, it was really bad. So i chickened out and left the cat with his dignity. My little cousin said he would stay for a while to see if the dogs came again.
The next day my cousin said the cat was gone.
tl;dr: do not let cats fight with a dog. It ends badly, very badly.
9
Thank you, sir. I will do my best next time!
6
Thanks to you and stave for correcting him without being dicks! As I was reading the first replies to his post, I was thinking I should go through and edit it for him. Nice work!
4
Not at all, it's pretty damn good.
4
A few verb errors. For example:
- try should be trying.
- shoot should be shot.
- 'was run and not bite' should be 'ran and didn't bite'.
- 'chicken out and leave the cat' should be 'chickened out and left the cat'
But still was understandable.
2
Oh no, I'm just curious. Kudos to you sir for speaking more than one language. That's more than I can say.
1
Yo, dawg, dat's fucking good.
-1
No, but it was mine.
Now it's dead. :(
-1
[deleted]
1
[deleted]
1
Probably not English. What is yours?
-1
English. I was just curious. I can't speak more than one and have much respect for multi-lingual people. It's fun to figure out where other redditors come from.
1
[deleted]
-1
[deleted]
1
[deleted]
1
The good part was the dogs was run
But then, who was phone?
-1
Cool story, bro.
-3
Thanks. Just filling my empty night =)
6
Cat knows what it is doing. Hitting a dog's nose is like a kick to the balls.
22
Or is it?
5
If it's done right, the cat claw will actually hook into the nose flesh of the dog, who will commence a side-to-side head swinging action to shake the cat loose.
3
Then there's the twhock!!! noise that a well-placed cat pawswipe to a dog's nose generates. It sounds kind of like the noise you get when you hit a tennis ball with a racquet...
1
See that? That's Guantanamo Bay in the background.
Those badasses escaped and are back at large.
15
[deleted]
1
note to cat: throw grenades faster and lower
15
I can hear O Fortuna when I look at this picture. How the hell does that work?
14
I immediately thought of the fight music from Star Trek TOS.
5
I heard "Duel of the Fates," that song off that John Williams album a while back full of Star Wars-inspired music that never made it into any movies.
5
Here, this will ruin that song for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b7DKQx5SCw
5
It's just like the Jaws theme for sharks
1
I came on to reply exactly that. Well played sir.
1
mortal combat
1
I hear the music from this US Marine recruitment commercial, wherein the hero (a Marine) slays a lava demon.
0
Ugh. Now I'm hearing the music from the recent National Guard recruiting ad that they've been playing in front of movies... It's a hilarious self-parody the first few times you see it, then the novelty wears off.
3
Oh yeah, I know the ad you mean. It's usually louder than the movie!
I'm not sure what slaying a lava beast with a sword has to do with being in any modern branch of military either, but the imagery of the cat standing down his mighty foe was similar enough to call up the audio memory.
1
High five!
13
"Don't leave me hangin' dawg!"
3
Yea, my cat does that every time the dog comes near him, right before he shits out a few Milk Duds and skedaddles.
12
True. When I was a kid, I remember watching my tabby cat face off against a rottweiler and win.
EDIT: I forgot the word "remember".
7
Make sure to remember it next time.
5
My cat attacked and had to be pulled off a pitbull. It was in a leather harness and its female owner was screaming. All it did was walk past my garden and that was all my cat needed. Ballsy bastard also chased a German Shepard down the road while its owner joked that i should "put a lead on it".
RIP Spearmint. Your were a twat till the end.
2
I can definitely see the psychology behind that -- the cat knows that if the dogs spend any amount of time near that yard it's going to be a nervous wreck, and lunch a few days later if they catch it napping.
So the only option is to take on the dogs so viciously that the dogs stay the heck away from the yard, thinking 'that mofo cat's CRAZY!!".
Think 'jail psychology' or a kid finding the best way to deal with schoolyard bullies.
1
Not really.
9
creepy. Is that narwhal stalking them and fapping behind those rocks?
12
Looks like he is getting ready to fire his magic missile.
4
You can use it again next year.
1
i think i'll save my epic for a new meme thank you
8
you just wasted it for this comment.. haha!
15
oh that was an epic fail on my part
EDIT: DAMN!! thats my one gone for 2011 asway
2
It is a good pic, but not epic. Upvoted anyway.
7
[deleted]
7
...without MY permission!
0
As both a cat owner and a dog owner I have seen huge dogs take those wicked claws to the snout and run away like a 13 year girl with her first period. Cats are wicked quick and unless that dog is willing to takes several gashes across the nose the cat will get away. Cool pic though.
6
Are you from the North? Never heard so many "wicked"s before.
9
Most likely Boston area. Everything is "wicked there".
7
Most likely? But are you not talking about yourself?
5
WTF? I have never heard anyone reply to the question of "Where are you from?" with a "most likely" before.
3
[deleted]
1
My dog used to love cats and tried to play with them all the time. One day, she suddenly started growling and baring her teeth at the sight of a cat and I noticed she had a fresh scar on her nose. She never let the hatred for cats go since.
I would say she felt cats were just evil. The growl seemed to say "You goddamn psycho SOB! All I ever did was try to be cool to you and freaking scar my nose for no reason. Dont even think about hanging around here because I am this close to coming over there and..this close! Your dead to me. Deader than your dead mom!"
The cat's reaction was "WTF? WTF? Well fuck you too then! I dont know you from Jack Squat but whatever..Ill take you on now!"
8
[deleted]
1
Thanks for the Istanbul image ^^
5
Is that what it is? I was going through the answers to find if someone knows the location. That tower in the background could be either a minaret or a lighthouse.
1
Not every tower in Turkey is a minaret :)
I haven't been back home in a year, but that looks like the European side of Istanbul (the 4 antenna's in the back right are a big landmark in Asian side), I think this is somewhere between Besiktas and Karakoy, of course, the OP can testify :P
1
I was just thinking the same thing. There is a mosque in the background and the dog looks like Kangal
1
It is a Kangal yeah, but there are no mosques in this picture (I found it surprising too :P)
2
who won?
4
Vultures
20
Scavangers win every battle.
7
But it takes patience. I once saw a cartoon where one vulture was saying to the other: "I'm tired of waiting, let's go and kill something".
2
When it's fuzzy on fuzzy violence, no one wins. :(
9
When it's furry on furry violence, everyone wins. :)
13
The vet.
7
I would greatly appreciate if you really did use the word "epic" once, and only once, this year.
new reddit rule: "Epic" once per year per user.
you just used your amount of the "e"-word for the explanation.. haha!
second new rule: using the 'e-word' counts as your one time.
Looks like you just used your one time.
First rule of "e"tool: do not talk about "e"tool
New rule! The "e"- word can be used as many times as you like for 10 minutes after you do the one foot dance while singing the G.R.O.S.S. honorary anthem.
The rule is retroactive.
use/mention distinction!
This will greatly complicate my career as a Homeric scholar.
This will greatly complicate my career at Epic
I would go even further and say that epic should be used once per generation or once per life. (DAMN, I just used mine.)
I don't want mine. Can i trade it in for something?
OR! you could buy everyone else's muwhahaha no one will be able to say it without paying an enormous fine to me! 90% of reddit's commentors will be crippled!
Can we extend this to "x DESTROYS y" as well?
[deleted]
How will you enforce this rule?
[deleted]
Congratulations. You have used your one time quite effectively.
Oh? Sorry, I forgot to use that word in the last 20 years.
EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC. EPIC.
There! Now I'm ready for 2010! Where is that Homeric context where I could use it? That heroic poem, the narrative, the legend, the saga that deserves such a word? That brave, champion, bigger than life, bold, classic, courageous, daring, dauntless, doughty, elevated, exaggerated, fearless, fire-eating, gallant, grand, grandiose, gritty, gutsy, gutty, high-flown, impavid, inflated, intrepid, lion-hearted, mythological, noble, stand tall, stouthearted, unafraid, undaunted, valiant, valorous, brave, occasion to use the word?
Please, I'm anxious to use that wonderful word again in 2010!
TMEFTL
Excuse me, NoveltyAccountPolice? This person needs a badge.
[deleted]
How do you remember all those words?
[deleted]
AND YOU SHALL SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES.
[deleted]
BURN FOR IT!
It is a pretty good action shot though, you have to admit. Some photographers are just in the right place at the right time.
...or aren't ashamed of throwing kittens in front of big dogs...
I feel like my vocabulary was just cut in half.
Awesome, that should cut the planetary total down to 6.8 billion times per year.
I was just thinking that before I clicked to go to the comments.
indeed
And while you're limiting yourself, could you impose a zero times per year limit on the word 'FAIL' as well?
Your sacrifice has been noted. You may use it again next year. I trust you will use it wisely.
Dude, no way I'm abiding this guideline. I play Civ IV all the time and their are 2 National Wonders which contain "Epic" in the name. (National Epic & Hero Epic). Also, there's a speed between Marathon and Normal called "Epic". If I agreed to your request, I would be able to discuss my games.
FUCK MAH TITTIES AND SANDBLAST A VAGINA