...just bit me in the "fuzzy posterior". The best I can come up with is the hideous lol = [[] for _ in xrange(500)] Is there something better? What did one do before comprehensions were available? I suppose in that case one would have to go all the way with lol = [None] * 500 for i in xrange(len(lol)): lol[i] = [] Yikes. 10 miles uphill, both ways... kynn