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Okay, check this out. Halo 2 is finally out on PC, but guess what...
That's right folks, the wonderful people at Microsoft have decided that Windows XP users will have to upgrade to Vista for around 300 bucks before they can play. THe question is...
Why? THere are dozens of games out there for PC with much greater graphic quality than Halo 2 that are fully capable of running on XP and do.
So why is Halo trying to make us shell out even MORE money? What if we're happy with XP and we don't like Vista, or have experienced enough problems with Vista to want to stick with XP at least until all the bugs are worked out?
I don't know about you, but I'm not too fond of the idea of shelling out 300 bucks for a plastic disc and some readin' material to begin with. Much less being forced to (if I want this game that badly) buy an Operating System I don't even like....
I've seen Vista at work and I must say it's s**t. PEripherals don't work, A creative webcam install disc made the computer not recognize the CD-Rom drive without having to do a full GAteway Restore, Printers weren't compatible.
I dunno about most of you gamers, but I play Halo PC with a Joystick in my left hand and the mouse in the other, and I've gotten used to it. Unfortunately, my controller wasn't recognized by Vista at all.
SO there are some folks who are pleading to get this game set up for Legitimate XP gameplay by Bungie and MIcrosoft and they've set up a petition.
It's got a little over 6,300 votes by now and I've already signed it in the hopes that it will do some good.
PRoblem is, I don't think the petition has been advertised anywhere. I stumbled upon it quite by accident while trying to find a copy of Halo 2 for PC by searchign google.
Now, I implore anyone who is a fan of Halo, or at least someone who likes pc games, to sign the petition themselves and even pass along the word, share the link with others, and hopefully get a good game ported to a decent (And highly capable) Operating System.
http://www.petitiononline.com/H2XP2000/
 TypoKing · Sun Jul 22, 2007 @ 04:41am · 0 Comments |
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A Struggling Artists Cry for Help. |
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I don't know where to begin with this...
I guess it started a few months back, after Josh died...He was one of my primary inspirations, and was always there to motivate me...Witty banter, rude comments here and there..always added up to some intriguing image that I could at least TRY to push out of my head and onto the paper..
When josh died.....part of me died with him...he was my brother...My best friend...
All of the idea's we shared together...I'll never be able to show these things to him, I'll never be able to ask him what he thinks of this idea, or that idea....
My own idea's are few and far between, and anything I have tried to put to paper has turned out like crap.
I've got several commissions sitting at home...one of which I am trying to work on tonight, and it's not turning out well at all...
I don't know what to do....I have the idea's in my head..but bringing them to the page...it's becoming increasingly difficult...I sit int he shower...for hours...thinking..staring at the clean white shower walls, trying to imagine the things I want to draw..trying to make them stick long enough in my head that they commit to my long-term memory, so that I can see it on the page and draw it....all to no avail....
I sit in the shower and try to imagine these things because the water, cascading down the oddly textured glass of the door creates shapes, faces, characters....The white walls are like a blank canvas, solid white...large enough for my eye to see what it is I want to draw...
The water, running, creates a sense of solitude, definite peace and tranquility..something I don't get much of...
My friends think I'm strange for sitting in the shower for so long all of the time...
It's the only place I can think clearly..the sound of the water drowning out everything but my own thoughts...
(So now, some of you whom I've known for a while know why I like water so much)
I'm Bi-Polar and have a severe case of ADD....These two things, working together, can really ******** up your thought process...and they only work together when they want to sabotage your work..
I want to go to college in January in order to start working with graphic arts, designing video game and comic book characters....I want to, someday, see my work displayed in an ad for the world to see on television... I want people to see my work and enjoy it as much as I do...
But I am at a loss...
As I said before..my idea's, as of late, are few and far between...
I'm an artist...I guess that means I'm a bit eccentric...
It's like losing a part of yourself.....slowly....you try to grasp it, but it begins to slip through your fingers...and it's slow to occur...it takes an eternity...but it does happen... You lose touch with the one thing that makes you unique, the one thing that sets you apart from everyone else...
I have a vivid imagination...but the transition from thought to page is a difficult one..
I've been drawing steadily since I was 15. I started out drawing the pictures from my favorite Comic books, to great detail, and almost perfected my ability to copy exactly what I saw....
Then I began to grow....to let my imagination guide my hand when I drew....I was drawing all kinds of things....animals, anthropic, robots, vehicles....if it was sci-fi or fantasy, i tried my hand at it, and I did my best work, I believe, around the age of 17, when I began to mimic the art styles of others, trying to find something I could relate to..trying to find something that would spark my own style, something that would begin to set me apart from everyone else...
But I never found it...
I watched as those around me, whom I'd known online, became better and better...
Mimic T. Moonrat had a style all her own from the git-go... I remember how she used to tell me how much better my art was than hers. And I always told her that if she kept at it..she'd go far...become far better than she was... When her art was featured in a Sonic the Hedgehog Issue, I bragged about her and showed her work to everyone.
"I know her. She's going to go far."
I remember when Alex Daragon would come to me for idea's for pics, and I always had a good one for him...Always had motivating words for him...Back then, we were all at the same level...
And over the years, I've watched every one of my online friends surpass me...
I've watched them achieve their own individual styles and escalate to new heights...
Whereas I....Well...I'm still here....10 years later...and I can't understand how everyone could have just...passed me by...
My style ....is very flawed..and unoriginal...Everyone draws anime and manga...It's nothing special..it's not unique...and my style...Well, my style is not my style...I...do not have a style of my own...and that's the worst part of it all....
I'm fighting a losing battle...I've gotten nowhere in the past couple of years...In Fact, compared to some of my earlier works, even my best new stuff pales in comparison...
I can't ink..My color work is mediocre at best..and I can't use traditional coloring tools to save my life...Put a colored pencil in my hand and I'll probably ask something stupid like "Uhhh..What the hell is this thing?"
I'm 25...and nowhere near being what I wanted to be growing up...I want to be an artist so much...but something is missing from my life to give me the motivation I need to continue doing what I love....
I guess you could call me a dreamer...A dreamer who has yet to realize his dreams...
I guess what I'm saying is...I need help...I can't do this by myself anymore...I don't know if I need encouragement...I don't know what it is, exactly, that I need...but I do know I need help...
And I'm asking you all...anyone who reads this...I'm begging you all to help me somehow...
Sincerely,
William Luke
TypoKing · Sat Oct 28, 2006 @ 07:49am · 1 Comments |
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The celebration of ones coming into existence is very special. It signifies that we acknowlege the life of a fellow human being. It is a day in which people show their appreciation with gifts and lots of warm hugs.
My birthdays, however, over the past few years, have been anything but happy.
They, in fact, have been quite mundane lately. last year I got one Happy Birthday said to me. and that was AFTER I reminded the person it was my birthday.
The year before that, I worked my a** off all day.
The year before that is pretty vague...My 22nd birthday, I spent money on other people and left myself broke (That's what I get for being generous and kind on the one day of the year that should have been reserved for myself...) and unable to pay my rent.
So, here I am today, sitting here and typing, and owndering if my own mother will even show up or even send me an e-mail to tell me happy birthday.
Last couple of years have been rather shitty as far as birthday's go..but this is my 25th birthday...25 is supposedly a big thing in the comic, game, and movie industries...
TypoKing · Fri Oct 06, 2006 @ 08:37pm · 2 Comments |
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Well..it's been a while since I posted a journal entry here. I have a lot to tell you...
My last entry was on April 24th, and so much has happened since then that I'm surprised I've made it through it at all....
April 29th, Josh came over to my place for a visit. He knew I hated being at my place alone and had been coming over steadily for quite some time. We chilled out most of the time cause it was too hot to go anywhere, really, and we did all of our running around at night. Sometimes we'd practically watch paint dry, or play on the computer and laptop, or play games, or even watch a movie.
Josh knew I was a bit of a strange one from day one. And I often told peopel when we were hangin out together that I was certifiably psycho. And he'd pipe in with "Yeah, and that's why I like ya. I wouldn't hang out with ya, otherwise." Which was his way of saying, "Hey, I like you because you are an individual, and you don't comform to what other people are like."
I often asked Josh for advice on my clothing, if it looked right on me. I remember finding an outfit to put together out of random bits of clothing and accessories at my house one night and I put it all on and Josh came in and was like "Whoa, dude. Trippy outfit. I like it."
And so it has become my mainstream outfit of choice..
Anyway...after the sun went down that night, we walked over to Alex's house.
Alex is another oen of my goofier friends..and when I say goofy, I mean goofy in a rather abnormal, yet cool way. He was a misfit, like the rest of us, and we all got along great. He had a job, however, that ran him ragged, so the night we came over, he was already out like a light at around 8 pm.
So we sat there, tryign to wake the dude up now and then, but he would just swat at us and turn over and make the weirdest annoyed noise I've ever heard in my life...like a cross between a grunt, a growl, and a groan all rolled into one.
So, at about 10:00 P.M., Josh and I left when we couldn't wake Alex up.
We went back to my place that night and settled in, playing Tekken, or Killer Instinct.
Josh loved Killer Instinct..mainly because one of the characters in it was the product of his brothers mind. His brother James died suspiciously during a recreational trip at Job Corps. He had drowned. But Josh knew him to be an avid swimmer, and so suspected Foul play. Anyway, About the character I was talking about. The character Fulgore in the Killer Instinct game, was the result of a contest Nintendo had put on about creating a video game character that woudl be featured in their next game. Although, the original sketch did not have the pony-tail or the beam claws. His brother had won the contest and so his character was put to use in Killer Instinct.
Anyway, after about an hour of kicking each other's heiny's at KI, we decided to play the Playstation. We played Driver 2 and Tekken 3.
After that, we sat for about two hours and just talked... We talked about religion, astrology, and meteorology. We had decided to go to College together and take courses in Art and Meteorology because Josh wanted to be a proffessional Storm-Chaser AND an artist. I wanted to be an artist, and had some minor interest in meteorology and storm-chasing. So we made the decision and were getting prepared for college...
about an hour and a half into our conversation, we turnd to our own problems, as we liked to tell each other practically everything we were thinking about. I told him that despite my good nature..there was somethign dark inside me..something malevolent and violent...There was an inner rage and anger that I couldn't deal with on my own...I remember telling him..."Josh...there are things that go on in my mind that would get me thrown in the Looney bin...things they would never let me see the light of day again for...and I feel that if I were to tell you...You'd see me differently..."
And I remember his response as clear as day..."Will, You're my best friend. There's nothing about you that you could tell me that would make me think any different of you than I do already. Nothing you could tell me would make me think otherwise."
And I was glad....but I still couldn't tell him what it was that was on my mind for some reason...maybe my own inner fear and paranoia....
Well..at about 5 AM I got on the internet and was searchign for help for my mental issues when I ran across a Gaian who was very helpful in my search, and even tried to help me out. At 7, I went to take a shower and I remember telling Josh "See ya when ya wake up, bro." Cause he was going to go to bed after listening to some music for a bit on his laptop.
I got out of the shower and got back online. Josh was asleep on the couch. at around 9 A.M., Josh had his first siezure of the day. He had Gran Mal Siezures, which only occur when you are asleep. I stayed by his side during the siezure to make sure he would come through it allright. And he did, but he wound up on the floor, despite my best efforts to keep him from flailing too much.
I do not have a lot of upper body strength, and so I could not lift him back onto the couch, luckily, he had fallen off the couch and onto a blanket that, for some reason, was laid out across the floor. When the siezure was ove,r I waited about ten minutes before I woke him up, so that his muscles would have time to relax, and told him to lift his head for me. I helpe dhim lift his head and placed a soft pillow under him so he wouldn't have to rest his head against the hard tile floor.
After about 2 hours, checking on him now and then, I went to bed myself...I woke up again at 3 P.M. and checked on him. he was fine. Sleeping like a baby.
So I went back to bed and woke up at around 5 P.M. because of something that was missing from the atmosphere I was used to with Josh around...I didn't hear the playstation going. So I sat up, soemwhat bewildered at the silence, rubbed the sleep from my eyes and checked the clock. When I saw what time it was, and made the connection to the lack of playstation noises, I figured Josh had either left, or was asleep still. I opened up my bedroom door and steppe dinto bright daylight, as my bedroom window has a piece of cardboard over it to keep out the sunlight, and looked aroudn the room at the TV, then toward the front door of my apartment, and blinked when I looked back down and saw Josh still laying in the floor.
I was confused. Josh ~never~ slept this long, even after a siezure. So I went to shake him to wake him up with my foot..when that didn't work, I knelt and shook him by the arm. But the moment I touched him, I felt cold flesh. Stiff, rigid...
I immediately grabbed hold of his arm and turned him over, speaking his name worriedly. "Josh? Josh, Wake up dude!" I touched his stomach, which was still warm, then felt his face, which was cold. I noticed he wasn't breathing. I began to panic in an odd, unbelievable way.
The thought was creeping into my mind that my best friend was dead. But I held it back.. There was a sort of mucus all around his mouth form where he'd been laying face down. I quickly cleane dit off and began performing C.P.R..
The taste I got in my mouth was just...aweful...I continued to perform CPR to the best of my ability, trying to breathe life back into m best friends lungs...but deep down I knew he was already gone, but was denying myself this fact.
Not ten seconds after my attempt to save his extinguished life, My friend Johnny knocked ont he door and came in. "Hey Will, Jim and I wanted to....What's wrong?"
"I think Josh is dead..." And the tone of my voice was strange, almost disconnected from emotion at that moment, as if my body were there, but my soul had retreated into the very depths of my mind.
"What?! Have you called 911?!"
"No...I don't have a phone..."
And he ran to call 911. I stared at my best friend, laying dead in my livign room floor, and felt every ounce of energy I had leave my body. I could barely stand. I was banging my head against my bedroom door in frustration, in agony, but no tears would flow out. I felt like the entire world had just come crashing down around me...
I heard the sirens, as I had so many times before, but they sounded so much louder...so much more frantic...piercing... Because I knew where they were going...and I headed into the hallway and sat down against the wall two apartments down from mine. I was shaking, I was running what had occured through my mind..
"My best friend...My best friend died in my living room floor...."
"how...?"
"Why...?"
I originally thoguht myself to be to blame for his death, as, when I found him face down, I'd found him face down in the massive kitchen light globe with a plastic bag in it.
I remembered having taken it down during cleaning and hadn't put it back up two days earlier...It had somehow migrated into the living room floor.
THing was, when he had wound up on the floor after his seizure, I made absolutely sure that everything was out of his way, so that he was out of harms way....It was unbelievable to find him face down in it...I thought that that was what had killed him..
I thoguht he had had another siezure and rolled into it and suffocated...I felt so wretched, so sick...and was beginning to break down completely by the time Jom, another good friend of mine, and Johnny showed back up.
Jim is a dear, dear friend of mine. He is in his late fifties and has been in a couple of wars. He has long silvery-gray hair tied up in several hairties in one long pony-tail. He was a biker of sorts, and a Musician..and was always acting his shoe size rather than his age..which is why I liekd him.
Jim asked me what had happened, and when he heard me say that Josh was dead, the color left his face. He looekd as though he had aged ten years and he looked me right in the eye, a truely sorry, appologetic and understanding look in his eyes.
He knelt and hugged me and I jsut broke down and started sobbing into his shoulder.
I'm a very emotional man. Always wore my feelings on my sleeves and never harmed anyone...I am a man of love and compassion for my fellow man, even those who have wronged me. I've always been kind and gentle to everyone.
I remember crying into Jim's Shoulder and him holding me comfortingly, telling me to just let it all out.
We sat in the hallway and when the police department arrived, we waited outside patiently, and I was going into shock, chain-smoking cigarrette after cigarette and becoming increasingly agitated by the voices I heard coming from my apartment..
The officers inside my apartment were laughing and carrying on, as if the 20 year old in my apartment were just another body to tag...
I told the officers outside that I wasn't happy about it...
"Would you pelase inform your...co-workers...that I do ~not~ appreciate that they are laughing and carrying on when my best friend is lying in their midst, dead!"
And she did so and started to try and appologize..
"We have to keep an open mind and distance ourselves---"
I interupted her. "That is no excuse. Show a little more respect than that and keep your personal lives at home. This is your 'workplace'. ~Act~ like it. You wouldn't want people laughing and carrying on around ~your~ dead best friend, now would you?"
She was silent afterwards, embarrassed by the actions of her colleagues...
Needless to say, that night was hard for a lot of us...It was especially hard on Alex when he saw the body, as he knew we'd been by the night before, but he had been too tired to chat, and he knew that he would never get to talk to Josh again.
The entire "Brotherhood of Sith" was there that night at my apartment building.
The brotherhood of Sith is a group of my friends that decided to stick together through thick and thin, and we became a brotherhood. Not your typical brotherhood, but a brotherhood devoted to helping those in need, and helping one another through troubled times....This was most certainly our most troubled time yet..
There was Alex, Josh's trainee's for Tai Kwan Do, Patrick, Michael, and Rayray.
There was RJ, who was also one of Josh's best friends, Ray, who is just a big teddy-bear and big-hearted man, Jeremy, Another member of the Brotherhood, and Kitty, Josh's Ex-girlfriend, who still deeply loved Josh but believed she had hurt him too much in the past to ever think of having a chance with him again.
All of us were there, in our black trenchcoats. About ten minutes after everyone arrived, it began to rain.
RJ was.....upset....and pised....He had been talking to josh just the day before.
RJ is a fighter, plain and simple. He is young, brash, and always looking to get into some trouble, but always there to help a friend.
We all went up to Paul's for a while. My apartment felt too....painful..to return to just yet...but, that night, we all eventually walked back to my apartment...
The hall seemed so long, and the door to my apartment seemed so far away. When we got there, I hesitated. I didn't want to go in...but I also did want to go in...
SO we entered....I didn't have to show them where Josh had been laying, as the spot ont he floor was clear enough...I have a shag carpet in my living room, and the imprint of where he was layign when I found him was there.
Afte about ten minutes, everyone settled in, but no one dared walk in the place where Josh had been laying. Kitty layed down beside where Josh's final place of rest had been, and she sobbed quietly, running her hands over the pillow he had used.
BUt....we had all decided that we would Honor Josh's wishes to be remembered for how he lived, not how he died. and I did my best to cheer everyone up.
A tender, heartbreaking moment occured when I found Josh's favorite outfit in my bedroom closet. As well as his TrenchCoat, hat, and boots...
I was hanging them up and trying to remain calm and not cry. Where I was hanging them was in plain sight for all to see. to Bear witness that a friend had passed on and would always be remembered.
The following night..I was aloen for a while inside my apartment, and I lay where he lay when he died, and I cried....and cried...and cried.
I felt so lost...so forlorn, like a lost lamb that the Shepherd had forgotten and left alone in the valley. I felt angry...here I was...24 years old..and God had taken my best friend from me...My best friend..who was only 20 and hadn't really begun to live yet...I began asking the same questions many christians ask themselves when faced with impossible odds.
"Why, Lord? Why did you take him away from me?"
"Lord...Please...take me away from here...do not make me go through this again..."
Much the same had happened in 98 when my grandfather died....and I had shut the world out after that, only to open up to it again and hope for the best.
a week later, we had his memorial Service..he had been cremated.
many people showed up to say their last goodbye's. All of which held a warm place in their hearts for Josh...Some of whom had barely known him, but he had touched them deeply in the short span of time that he knew them.
two weeks later, My ex-girlfriend dumped me. She wouldn't tell me why, only that "It's not you, It's me..."
Joshua's cat had had kittens...so two weeks after I got dumped, I got one of them, the runt of the litter, which I had chosen personally, and named him Joshua.
He was a white, gray, and black striped tabby. he was rambunctious and a troublemaker from the start, but he liked to play.
about a week after I got him, Something terrible happened...
I needed to move some cords out from under my couch, so I had lifted it to move the cords... It was one of those heavy recliner couches, with the recliners on the ends and two steel support beams that ran across the bottom of the middle section.
20 minutes pass before I realize the kitten is nowhere in sight...
I found him under the couch, lifeless and still warm...
I tried to recuscitate(sp?) him and gave him mouth to mouth, but again, I was too late...
The kitten was gone, just like Josh was gone...I sobbed as I wrapped him in an old antique cloth....I cared more for the animal than I did for the fabric, which was some 30 years old at the least...I placed him in a shoe box, and spent a week tryign to procure a shovel in order to bury him...
I hadn't thought about putting him int he freezer to keep the smell away....so he sat, in a box that was too big for the freezer anyway, in my bedroom witht he door closed...
When the day finally came to bury him (Cause I had finally gotten hold of a shovel) we took him to Turkey Mountain, a place Josh and I visited frequently to hang out on the rocks that overlooked South Tulsa, and buried him beneath a tree that I know I will never forget for as long as I live...
I call it "the Human Tree" because of the way it looks. it looks like human beings had been stacked in sitting or upright positions (Just the trunks) in a very artistic manner that made it look as though the tree had swallowed people (It even had a knothole in the top between two armlike branched).
It was a tree I had wanted to show Josh but never got the chance to.
I'v eharboured guilt for so long about Josh's death...but a couple of weeks ago, I had a dream....
I dreamed that Josh and I were playing video games in my bedroom on the tv. When the game was over, we turned it off and got to talking...
"Ya know, I've missed you so much, bro.", I said to him.
"Yeah, I know....I've been worried about you..so I've stuck aroudn and kept an eye on you...and I want you to know that I'll always be here, and there is nothing you should feel guilty over. You're my best friend, Will...You always will be."
And we hugged.....for the first tiem in all of my life..I dreamed of a hug.....a completed hug, I should say...
FOr I have often had dreams about lost loved ones that ended as I was going to hug that person...
I awoke with tears in my eyes....I was crying...crying tears of joy and release from the guilt I had felt for so long...
I now have a job working Part time at Burger King. It's not much, but it pays the bills and also allows me time to work on my passion...Art.
I, unfortunately, missed the deadline for college for the fall, so I have to wait until the next semester starts...
BUt..things are well now...The girl who would have been Josh's if he hadn't died, is now possibly my girl...we talk, and keep each other going, keep each other sane...
THings are starting to look up now...
TypoKing · Fri Sep 01, 2006 @ 11:34am · 1 Comments |
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Man..I've been posting to Gaiaonline's LAJ for a while now..About a year...I'v ehad 2 pictures colored....2... I've even taken the time to clean up several of my linesets and no one has offered to color them...I'd ask, but then I'd be frowned upon for it.
Is tate, many a time, that I can't do color work for s**t..it turns my lines into a disgrace to my talent.
so I post them for other people to color...if thye want to..and no one seems to want to...I see them color some really...shitty...lines from time to time, and I KNOW my lines aren't half as bad as osmeof the s**t I've seen actually obtain color in LAJ....
TypoKing · Mon Apr 24, 2006 @ 06:58pm · 0 Comments |
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...You aren't Arian...you'd be killed alogn with the rest of the people who didn't fit the true Nazi regime's impossibly high standards...and I'll bet more than half of you have some disability or another, mentally or otherwise, which means you'd still be dead...
Therefore, neo-Nazi's truly are ignorant, stupid, and need to be thrown into a really large pit full of spikes, so that they can be anally reamed by said spikes, since they so oftenly deserve it.
TypoKing · Sun Jan 16, 2005 @ 12:58am · 0 Comments |
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What is it with elitists? |
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I am so SICK of Elitists in this place. Sick of seeing bannners that say "We're better than you..and no, you can't join"....Why exactly does Gaiaonline accept such behavior?
I, personally, wouldn't WANT to join a group of stuck-up stickybeaks for any reason other than to sstematically annihilate each and every one of them...
They're hateful, they b***h about the smallest thigns, like typo's....It's a ********' letter..George Carlin would have a field day with the Elitist bastards in here, if he ever decided to come in here and see the BS that occurs...
I think he'd say "It's a ******** letter, get over it. f you can understand the context and what is being said, even with a few minor misspellings, then I say ********! You jsut learned a new language! Dweebonics! Now take your diploma and get the ******** outa here!"
"Stuck-up stickyeak wants to b***h and moan? Let'em! That way we'll know wh to kill when we decide to go postal and clean up the gene pool..."
TypoKing · Sun Jan 16, 2005 @ 12:50am · 0 Comments |
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