This guy in DR is known for cutting a slice of Dominican Arepa/Torta which is pretty much a type of cornbread to an exact weight. Someone challenges him to cut exactly 2lbs but if he is over or under its free, if it's exactly 2lb it'll cost double the price.
You can see the scale bounce past 2lb momentarily when he set it on there so definitely not set to 2lbs
It was a joke, Melvin
SMH need to type /s or /j otherwise it's not a joke lol smh smh smh
/🗿
they typed "lol" which should be sufficient, it's not on OP.
I agree that “lol” is sufficient. This is a pass.
‘Lol’ is just punctuation by now. Used instead of the period.
Smh head
What
You heard him, Melvin. Your love of Dungeons and Dragons won’t help you here.
What the fuck. My current DnD character is named Melvin...
They Melvined me
Station!
You're the 4th whoosh I upvote today, what's happening?!
Uh yeah thats what happens when objects have inertia.
Magical i know but the tin foil hat is not always the answer.
Give him a break. 12 year olds are too young to have ever seen a physical scale before.
Must be a fun person who understands jokes
Is a gravity scale so of course it read higher when you drop something on it before it set.
ackchyually
Here is him cutting 1lb 1/2 https://youtube.com/shorts/hhMAL88w2qc?si=Gj5U8akzWBZtzhJS
This video is longer but he cuts a 2oz slice , 2 lb slice and 1lb.they ask him how long his been doing that and says since 1974 https://youtu.be/xWlFZOeII34?si=VPSDSJDGI3MoJ0ZF
Edit. Found another video of him cutting 5lbs https://youtu.be/EkaxT5y5iY8?si=J95mjZoy3oOSdAq6
But this means he's just skilled and experienced and doesn't have a digital scale under the cutting board...!?
The rest of these comments are embarrassing
Insanely incredible muscle memory. That's it! Decades of experience!!! People are so used to getting shafted by sheisters with no skill nowadays they have to come with an excuse to make being professional seem unobtainable.
This is correct. When you handle something of a set weight for a long time your body remembers. Bank tellers can sense the correct weight of a stack of bills for example. Or it you handle bottles of drinks one that’s over or under feels wrong instantly,
It's like how bartenders can free hand pour to the exact ounce. Sure we learn with jiggers but after a while you can pour it exact 99.9% of the time. Hell, I worked at one place where we had to pass pour tests every few weeks/months and if failed you'd have to use a jigger during service, if you failed too many times you were just gone.
Muscle memory is a real thing y'all.
Coffee roaster here, can confirm. After bagging like 100kg of coffee beans every day I could bag 1kg, 500g and 250g to the exact weight almost every second bag.
One time I got 1kg perfect like 9 times in a row.
I used to cut dough for a busy pizza shop. We had 3 sizes, large was 1.8lb, medium was 1lb, small/calzone was 0.6lb.
I was good enough at a point I could chop a 250lb batch all into 100 larges, 25 mediums, and 75 smalls, which was about our selling ratio. Then we'd weigh them out before kneading into balls and placing on the proofing trays. Probably 80% were dead on, and the other 20% were off by under 2oz each.
But the thing is, I might have done this twice per day, six days per week, for a few years.
ou just reminded me how much I used to hate folding pizza boxes
People are so uses to getting shafted by sheisters with no skill nowadays
No, they do have skills, they just use it for their own profit instead of being honest. A successful Shyster is usually required to be more skilled than an honest person. If you suck at your trade, how are you ever going to be able to successfully shyst?
For real
You can see the scale bounce past 2lb momentarily when he set it on there
my brother in christ, have you never used one of those types of scales before?
ALSO I used to work at a deli for a year~ out of high school, after a few months I was pretty good at knowing how much to slice given how much a customer wanted. I can imagine after almost 50 years of cutting bread you can get it on the money pretty much every damn time.
A split second before the cornbread was applied to the scale, it had been calibrated by top members of the state and federal Department of Weights and Measures to be dead on balls accurate.
dead on balls accurate
Yes, it's an industry term if I recall correctly.
Aaaaay, Vinny, I see you there!
dead on balls accurate
That's pretty accurate
I hope he has a digital scales under the counter he's cutting it on. Weighs his whole counter section and so he keeps cutting small bits and rearing it back on the counter. Quick look down, chop a lil more, hand some out, get some good will. Bang, charge em double!
Lololol do you know how little they have in the Dominican Republic? I doubt many there have ever seen a digital scale, let alone have the money to set that up
That was my thought haha. Like some little old shop owner in Bani is buying large digital scales just to mess with people. Not a chance haha.
To be fair, my digital scale was $2.95 on Alibaba.
That's 2 month's rent there
That’s not. Not even close bro. For the record, digital scales are common over there just not AS common as in the US.
Everyone's acting like the DR is some kind of wasteland lmao
Welcome to how Americans think the rest of the world looks like.
My best friend asked me if my tribe in Lebanon stayed in one place or moved often…
…I was like, dude I have dsl in Lebanon. Blew his mind.
Woah, so does your tribe just drag the DSL cable across the desert when they migrate?
Gave you seen Costa Rica in Jurassic Park? I despise that movie just for that, never could enjoy it because of that.
People see analog equipment in a third world country and assume everyone is scrapping for cents, no dude lmao he ain't buying a digital scale because the mechanical one has been around for decades and it's not going to fail anytime soon. Besides, it's easier to just find a street mechanic or repairman to fix your stuff than to order digital that has a shorter lifespan anyways.
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13d
i knew it, he's got 25 scales
No, it's not???
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13d
I doubt many there have ever seen a digital scale
How out of touch are you with the world?
They're literally filming this, he doesn't seem too spooked by the cameraphone
phones are EVERYWHERE
People without running water, electricity or stone walls have smartphones.
How out of touch are you ?
Exactly, and you think a digital scale is just a out-of-the-world crazy thing to have?
Can confirm. I’ve been to the furthermost parts of third world countries. Everyone has a phone lol
yeah, phones are so much more common than digital scales. you're right.
Is this sarcasm? Because they absolutely are lol
You've never been to latin america lol.
Love when people can't admit when they are wrong. Hilarious.
im not even the same dude.
You're not the same dude who sarcastically said "yeah, phones are so much more common than digital scales. you're right"??
100% never seen a digital scale or things like cash registers while in haiti right next to this country, phones were 100% more common
Phones are certainly more widespread, but using Haiti to gauge what may or may not be commonplace in the DR is probably not useful. The DR is way ahead in terms of development.
I'd bet money that there are at least ten times the amount of phones on this planet than digital scales.
Yes, they are.
One is a communication device, calculator, camera, internet browser, entertainment center, flashlight, GPS, etc. etc. etc. It's the greatest value for your dollar out there, because providers typically sell them at a loss or at cost to make a profit on apps and phone service. Shit, thanks to developed nations obsession with upgrading phones, you can get a later generation used phone for CHEAPER than cost.
The other is a battery consuming bit of crap that can be replicated with a few cents worth of metal that lasts a lifetime with no upkeep expenses.
ITT, people who have never been to a developing country lmao.
K that was an exaggeration, but I've been to the DR, no shop owner has the time or money to do that
-redditor who has never left his country and who's entire world view is TV and movies.
Digital scales cost substantially less than analogue scales.
Much cheaper to just have a llifetime of experience in knowing how much things weigh.
yeah, people are acting like they make $1 usd a year and cant afford anything..meanwhile the people are holdings $1000 phones lmao
Not to mention the DR has a pretty healthy drug trade, so plenty of them digital scales about lol!
You think kids in the Dominican Republic have chairs? No. They sit on big piles of garbage
This is the stupidest comment I’ve read in a long time. They definitely have digital scales in DR.
Lololol typical redditor talking out of his ass.
Ah, and the video just came into existence without a smartphone.
Phones, Cars and Hats but no Digital Scale, sure buddy.
Hats?
He does not, and it would serve no purpose as this is not a standing bet he has with everyone.
here he is doing it at different parts of the counter, and not looking under the counter.
https://youtube.com/shorts/hhMAL88w2qc?si=Gj5U8akzWBZtzhJS
https://youtu.be/xWlFZOeII34?si=VPSDSJDGI3MoJ0ZF
He has just being doing this for a long fucking time. When I lived in Panama in the interior, there was a guy that sold beef and he also was dead center. I was curious how many grams he was off by so I weighted it on a digital scale I had. 5 grams. He was off by 5 grams.
Lol is no one on here good at anything?
Once you've done something like this over and over, you get a sort of additional sense. It's not magic, but it is very fucking cool in a way
LOL I like how you went through the trouble to refute the hidden scale theory. Its pretty obvious he has the muscle memory to know when he's holding 2lb.
In a very short time as a cashier, I got pretty good at being able to grab stacks of 50 bills. But if I'd been doing it for decades I'm sure I'd take some bets to prove it.
I can't believe you think this is more plausible in a dirt poor country than simply being skilled at doing something all day every day for 50 years just to make an extra few cents
Or he did the job for a very long time and got good at it.
Why do you hope it’s some elaborate ruse instead of them just being good at something they’ve done for decades?
when I was younger and briefly into cocaine, I discovered I was able to tell the weight of baggies of coke to the 1/10th of a gram. My buddy kept testing me arranging different size baggies and handing them to me and I would feel it for a few seconds and then say what it weighed and he'd put it on the scale and I was right every time.
this man's skill seems a lot more useful and wholesome though lol
Yeah I was unnaturally good at eyeballing and hand weighing product when I was in a former line of work as well. Practice and repetition can really build some impressive skills.
former LINE of work?
Former restaurant chef here. Could cut tenderloin steaks in a 150g - 400g range without a miss. Im sure this is basic for professionals in the kitchen industry. It really is about repetition.
The comment above mentioned coke so I did a druggie reference.
They were a chef... I bet they knew their way around cocaine too.
I'm another chef - there's a reason some of us are called "line cooks" haha
Seriously and similarly, I had to portion 5oz bags of cooked penne so much I hit a range of 4.8-5.2 consistently, by feel.
I once met a Master Gunnery Sergeant who was the " Master Baker for the Marine Corps" come through our dining facility.
Guy could take any dried product, seasoning, sugar, or flour, and just drop an accurate measurement on the scale with his bare hands. It was insane how good he was.
I was my ship’s baker, I could do that with bread dough
I got to where i could do perfect 2oz cookies and biscuits since i made them every single day for 2.5 years.
I worked with a chef that could eyeball fish filets within a decimal. What was funny to me about that was she was never show boaty about it or even acknowledged that it was a neat skill. It was all about efficiency and trying to break down the fish so she could prep it for service. Loved watching her work
Worked kitchens from 13 to 21 with a brief stint at a deli. I was deadly accurate by the end.
Yeah I work as a chef at private school and make tons of burgers by hand. I can pretty much slice a 10lb roll of beef into 40 1/4lb burgers pretty efficiently.
Back when police officers actually enforced speed limits, it was my understanding that many of them didn't need a radar gun, they could assess the speed of most vehicles within 1mph accuracy. Again, just based on repetition of using radar guns to check speeds.
Imagine trying to fight a speeding ticket and losing because the officer is really good at eyeballing speeds
His career hit a few bumps, but he's got things back on the rails now.
Someone who wanted to buy some hash once got sent my way by a shared friend. It was quite late at night and, when she arrived, she only wanted £7.50 worth. It was fine, I was happy to do a favour for our shared aquantaince, but I wasn't exactly going to retire off this slightly annoying transaction.
Because it was such a small amount I just eyeballed some hash off the piece I had in the living room. I gave her slightly over as I was feeling generous towards someone I figured was broke, given what she was buying, and bagged it up. The woman then got pissy and insisted I weigh it, which I entirely understand in principle. But she was also a stranger buying 1.75g at an unsociable hour, and was now accusing me of trying to rip her off for a pretty tiny amount of money.
I told her a few times, "Honestly, it's fine, it's definitely over," but she kept insisting. So I schleped all the way up to the top floor of the house, came back down with my digital scales, weighed the hash up, cut about a quarter off, and then handed it back to her.
For some reason, she seemed even more annoyed with me after I did exactly what she asked me to do.
Sounds like she was someone with limited experience of drugs and too much experience of shit people. She was probably just annoyed with herself because eventually you realise your experience with shitty people jades you and pushes good people away.
I can tell when there are 9 nuggets in a 10 piece at work
I can eyeball .25 of H like I was born for it 😭
I used to portion 1# bags of various things like chocolate, flour, corn meal....I eventually got it right every time. You lose it after a while, but it was a fun party trick lol
Had a former painter working as QC at a former work, he was running his finger tips over the finished work and could tell if roughness was out of spec. It was always verified by a precision tool, but he was on the money every time.
We are talking differences that should not be distinguishable by hand on aerodynamic parts.
Our failure rate was about 3%, so it was not like he was shooting fish in a barrel.
I'm really good at guessing the exact time
Ever since I read Stephen King's Dark Tower series I kind started teaching myself as a lark. And it actually works.
Oh man it's been over a decade since I read that scene and I still try and fail to count 60 seconds perfetly in my head
I’m really good at this too but it’s part of my OCD lmao, time is my thing
Used to be into for a couple years when I was a chef (I know, cliche right? Lol) anyway, it wasn’t the weight that I got used to but chopping up and laying out lines for everyone? That shit was my jam—it was like a show sometimes. My friend would have the rock, he’d give it to me and I’d Benihana the lines out for everyone while making jokes and chatting them up. I imagine that’s how a bartender in a tourist heavy town feels laying out 12 lemon drop shots for a very drunk crowd
Haven’t used in 15+ years yet every time I am chopping something when cooking at home, or when I bake and have to scrape flour off my board…I get this little itch to chop really fast and make a fast line out of whatever is in front of me
Crazy that people think this is a scam. This guy does this all day, presumably for years, obviously he can do it to some degree of precision.
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13d
Right? Like, the cost of installing a secret digital scale is somehow more important than adding a door? A better building? lol
It's ridiculous that people think this guy is using a digital scale. Don't you understand it's all part of the disguise. Along with being an old guy. Nobody will ever suspect this exact circumstance to actually have a 3D scanner hidden in his hat that renders the cornbread and calculate it's exact density to figure out how much it weighs. See how his hat is slightly off his head? That's the gap for the 3D scanner to laser the cornbread. It's all hidden in his hat. Then it feeds him the information directly in to his brain through Elon Musk's NeuralinkTM
I'd be more worried about the laser rays contaminating the cornbread than anything else. I'm also more surprised nobody is calling in to question the certification on the scale. I don't see any stickers traceable to NIST on the scale. Must be on the back.
He’s a human scale with years of practice. We can see him picking up the bread repeatedly weighing it with his arms and feeling the weight. It’s not a digital scale. It probably wouldn’t read exactly 2.0 if it was. The whole “pays double” title is likely added by OP to increase entertainment value of the clip. This man is putting on a performance for his customers.
Nah they do discuss in the video that if he’s right, then the guy has to pay double but I completely believe this guy can feel out the weight. He looks like he’s been doing this for decades.
Right at the beginning the guy says basically "okay but if its 2 pounds you pay double."
Omg dude I cringed so hard almost gonna call all of them out...
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13d
These guys never done any work that isn't just sitting on their asses. If you do something everyday for hours at a time, you're gonna pick up some skill or 2.
Redditors hate when someone is talented.
nah the last 2 times there was a talented guy who went viral it ended up being fake. aka the guy the who could mix paint to match any colour.
That was fake? WTF man.
It is not
Was about to say. Most people at the meat area of the supermarket can hit meat cuts to a <100g precision after a few months. Do it for years, and yeah, you can get that precision.
Yup, most chefs can do this. Thats what happens when you have to portion fish and meat 5 times a week
Worked at a steakhouse once, doesn’t take you long to be pretty consistently within +-10grams when you cut steaks.
This is still pretty impressive because it’s not straight cut pieces of the bread, and he adjusts by feeling the weight. That’s takes way more practice.
Agreed. Family owned a sandwich shop. After you've been slicing meat regularly for a few years and checking it with a scale, you can weigh to the ounce by feel. People commenting just aren't used to doing manual tasks with lots of feedback.
its peak reddit behavior, gotta think they are outsmarting everything sitting at home on their computer
I think people in developed countries these days have a hard time conceptualizing how good you get at doing the same menial task day in and day out for decades. We have so much automation, very few people have jobs like that anymore. So many of the videos like these where someone is doing something seemingly impossible come from less developed countries because people simply had to do them over and over until they got insanely good at it.
I used to work in a kitchen and the chef was cutting fish one day and he joked around saying he could cut perfect 6oz portions. Every single filet he cut was 6oz, it was pretty wild.
Yeah, people in grocery shops who weigh out food, learn to eyeball the necessary cut in just a few years. Quite a well-known phenomenon, or it was when people interacted more with such workers.
It has to be a scam since he's a brown man. Also not in Europe or Japan. /s I've seen more videos of this old man, sometimes he misses the mark and the people recording just laugh and mess around with him. He seems like a chill guy.
the reason it's most likely not a scam is because it's easily verifiable once you get home
I used to cut meat in a grocery deli. You can get very precise with experience. I got close in months. This guy seems to have been doing it for many years. No scam here.
*
People think, "Well I can't do that as a complete amateur, so therefore neither can this guy who has been cutting cornbread for his whole professional life."
Many, many moons ago my friend and I were watching TV and a commercial or show flipped on with some dude in a kayak going through some rapids and down some waterfall (nothing huge, but not small). My friend breaks the silence with, “if I was a professional kayaker I could do that”.
While it was completely fucking hilarious, we need some more of that thought process going on here.
Of course it’s healthy to be skeptical on the Internet, but also if you train/do something for years then of course you too could be great at it/a professional.
Seriously, you could legit call this man a cornbread master and not be exaggerating at this point. Some people just love to hate.
Because this is the internet and it's full of inexperienced people. I'm pretty sure this won't surprise anyone who has worked in a skilled labor job for any length. For example, experienced carpenters that can cut specific lengths by eye aren't all that rare. Bakers can pull off pieces of dough for things like bread rolls that are all the same weight by feel. Butchers can get accurate cuts by feel. Heck even supermarket deli slicers can get real accurate by slicing onto their hand.
Do the same thing every day for 20 years and you'll pretty darn good at it.
I sell products by weight (colored glass, not drugs) and after about 17 years doing it I can eyeball just about anything on the shelf within 2-3% and I get lucky sometimes and hit a pound of this or that dead on (my scale reads to 1/100th of a pound)
Dang that bread looks dense. Does it taste like cornbread?
Not quite. It has coconut in it and is absolutely fantastic!
My wife is Dominican, and I absolutely love it, it's super tasty. Gluten free, too, and very easy to turn vegan with barely a change in taste.
I miss this stuff! I would go get some every morning at the colmado on the corner. Does your wife have a recipe?
For an authentic Dominican coconut arepa, you'll need the following ingredients:
- 2 cups of cornmeal (preferably fine-ground)
- 1 can of coconut milk (about 13.5 ounces)
- 1 cup of sugar (adjust to taste)
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1/2 cup of raisins (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons of butter (for greasing the pan)
- Zest of 1 lime (optional, for added flavor)
These ingredients combine to create a sweet, dense cake that's distinctive to Dominican cuisine. Remember, the consistency should be similar to a thick batter. Enjoy your cooking!
It’s more like a cake! It’s sweet and made with cornmeal and coconut milk, sometimes has raisins in it.
It looks moist.
Because it is!
It's a cross between corn bread and corn pudding.
Anyone saying it's trickery of some sort, you're wrong.
I'm only a bit over 30 and still I've sold enough weed for me to be able to weigh buds in my hand to ~0.1g accuracy. I'm not 100% correct obviously, but we did about 20 runs last time a dude doubted me and I got to within 0.1g range in >85-90% of them.
And that scale is not that accurate.
I can easily believe a man like this who's done this for decades can do this with high accuracy.
I’m a pastry chef, and I do it to the gram on a number of recipes. If you weight enough things enough times it really does become muscle memory.
I'm a butcher and I agree completely. I've been doing it for almost 10 years and I know a pound when I hold it
Yeah, it really is amazing.
Like I wouldn't believe I can do it, but then the guesses just are right for some reason. It doesn't feel like I can feel it, I just know my hand does.
Epic, didn't even look back
Like putting up the three and turning away before it swishes through.
He just set it down like, "Read it and weep!"
Scales is set to centre on 2lbs within a certain range
You think he only accepts 2lb requests?
People come from all over the country to buy from him, and specially dominican citizens returning to the island for vacations. Highly doubt they'd walk away with JUST 2 lbs.
I can see why though. That torta looks exquisite.
I doubt many ask for 2.05 pounds. But sounds most unusual to me
When I travel and go buy arepa, I ask for 10-12lb to bring to my relatives. The dude is spot on every time. Same with the chicharrón guy… It’s the same thing with my bud guy, he knows what 14 grams is on the dot. Why is arepa different, this man has been doing it longer.
Tell me you've never done a repetitive task without telling me. If the guy has 40 years doing it, he'll know the measurements by heart.
Nah man, if you practice weighing anything, you'll get used to it eventually. I weigh my food and ingredients every day, and I can pretty much eyeball exactly what I need now. This guy has decades of experience.
People keep talking cheating and hidden scales. I think the real trick is doing the same thing for 50 years.
I'd rig the scale to stop at 2lbs as long as it was close, and it looks to me that is what he did.
A normal scale has a free-swinging motion to the dial hand as long as the weight is still bouncing, which it is.
If you look closely it does still bounce a bit
I doubt it as the customer was the one who requested the amount and he kept asking how many pounds and never suggested to keep it at 2
And if the next customer comes and ask for a different amount?
Like in the two examples below?
https://youtube.com/shorts/hhMAL88w2qc?si=Gj5U8akzWBZtzhJS
https://youtu.be/xWlFZOeII34?si=VPSDSJDGI3MoJ0ZF
What happens if someone goes home and weights it out of curiosity to see how far off he is?
You don't understand.
I can't do this, so therefore what he has is two guys in a basement pulling strings to make sure the weight comes out to what the customer requests.
It's definitely not 50 years of experience cutting this stuff to very even increments 5+ days a week for 8+ hours a day to equal out to about 640,000+ hours of experience.
Are weights and measurements not a thing there?
grampa been hustling the tourist since the 60’s. this is like that famous michael jordan ‘no look’ free throw, you’re surprised at first but then realize it’s his craft. he’s been making/weighing/selling bread for atleast a quarter of his life
They are not tourist, you can hear them talking. They are Dominicans.
I know people who can't cut even slices of white bread
to be fair, the stuff is basically a loaf of marshmallow, it's hard to cut. A nice loaf of sourdough on the other hand...
when you are doing it long enough to know your weight products and key board warriors here in the reddit comments still said that you rig the whole process. smh.
Mr. Miyagi!
There’s a YouTube short of him doing it exactly to 1.5 lb
Here is a longer video where he weights 2oz, an does another of 1lb as well. They ask him how long his been selling he says since 74' https://youtu.be/xWlFZOeII34?si=VPSDSJDGI3MoJ0ZF
Haha... very cool.
The guy's secret... the scale doesn't even go beyond 2lbs. LoL.
It bounced to 4 when he set it in
You should take a flight to DR and ask for 5½ LB. See if for yourself if it is fake..
Worst case scenario you get 5.5lbs of cornbread for double the price. Still not a bad deal. Lol.
How if the customer was the one that asked for the two pounds?
Top six nextfuckinglevel incoming. I love this.
It's fascinating to see people who cannot believe he does this. If you do something dozens of times a day for years, you become an expert.
This guy is the Steph Curry of cutting cornbread.
KLK
Dimelo, aqui tranki, lla el video esta en el front page oritq Don Luis se hace viral el post
Este tigre sabe de las cosas
Some of the comments here are a goddam disgrace, coming from people who have never been to other countries. I live in DR. You're bound to see people who've been doing Arepas, all the kinds of local Dulces, cheese, etc. for decades. The guy has been using traditional scales for as long as he's been doing this, why would he switch to a digital scale?
Digital scales aren't the norm in these small old school businesses not because we don't know what they are, rather because they have so much experience that all they need is a traditional scale, if at all. I know that there are scams out there, but man sometimes y'all need to stop looking for the 5th leg to a cat.
Some of y'all have never worked with your hands and it shows. I see a long time pro here. Dude has been cutting bread for decades
I love how he gives the little bits he cuts off to others
Tricks on them, it's set to only go to 2lbs lol