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Why You Suck in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #64
To be fair, "not trying to insult" and "trying not to insult" aren't the same.

So I guess it's instinctive invective; he's not actively out to insult anyone, but he doesn't give a damn about it either way.

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
SpiderWeb Merchandising! in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #31
"Vahnatai Creationist" could be misunderstood. People ignore the words they don't get, leaving "Creationist", which alludes to the likes of Chick, Falwell et al.

I'd take the last one if it had the caption "Hail Dikiyoba". :P

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
It's taken two years, twenty-eight weeks, and three days in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #2
Seeing the name Dewdney on a book cover immediately brought to mind this:

IMAGE(http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~akd/PERSONAL/Yendred.GIF)

Anyone familiar with it? I got the book from a library sale (like most of the interesting/weird books I own) a couple of years ago, and somehow it stuck in my memory.

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My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Episode 3 Continued in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #273
Mh, no episode 4. So no episodes -2, -1 and 0 either? Don't imitate George Lucas. :P

I'm getting an "end times" vibe from this forum by now. First Alec's topic, a few people leave, and now we start shutting down the ouroborotic (thanks, Thuryl) meme-machines...

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Spiderweb Monthly Stats - February 2007 in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #74
Kyrek, the post counter may be causing the posters to destroy the board, however. Unaware.

ET, one would almost think you were desperately trying reverse psychology.

quote:
ouroborotic
To go with ouroborosis, the name of the disease?

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Why You Suck in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #58
quote:
and no reminiscing about "good old days"
Perhaps you hit it there...

Edit:

quote:
Stareye - Switzerland (In the middle of everything, has moderate power but rather than using it, promotes peace)


[ Wednesday, February 21, 2007 17:00: Message edited by: Dr. Johann Georg Faust ]

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
It's a Wonderful Life in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #6
quote:
On that note, what happened to Botswana and South Africa? They fell from being some of the most prosperous countries on the continent to having smallest life expectancy, but maintaining high income.
Inequality. From what I hear, there are a few rich corrupt politicians sucking up all of the wealth and leaving the rest of the population dirt poor. Since money doesn't make you immortal, these bring up the average income, but have no impact on life expectancy, which is dominated by the starving populace.

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
The Demon of IRL, Part II in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #15
It'd have to be very convenient.

Also, I was going to plug our frappr map, but I was unaware that Frappr has in the meantime begun to suck like crazy, so apologies.

Having done this before, I know it's no big deal for me to go somewhere here in Germany, but it would still have to be for at least two days to be worth the 8 hour train ride (or the cash for a plane ticket).

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Spiderweb Monthly Stats - February 2007 in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #70
Eph: I don't think I've been less sarcastic or more honest with myself so far this year. I don't know why I dared to post that - chalk it up to me being tired, facing a lot of trouble by Friday, and having brooded over this for some time.

ET, I'll just have to live with that. Making the right decisions is not just about denying windfalls to your opponents. :P

And it's not just you, Actaeon.

I don't want to make a big fuss of this, like last year - that turned out a sham/flop after all.

[ Wednesday, February 21, 2007 16:27: Message edited by: Dr. Johann Georg Faust ]

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
The Shocking Truth in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #11
Apparently, "x cure cancer" is surprisingly likely to return a correction to "x cause cancer". Not in the majority of cases, but definitely more than I'd expect.

It works for: "politics, games, computers, microsoft, linux, bush, france, canada, us" It doesn't work for "politicians, spiderweb, usenet, scorpius, arancaytar, polaris, desperance". It is likely that the term needs to be very common (or consist of very common words) to achieve this effect.

The explanation for this may be that there are a heck of a lot of things that cause cancer, and not many that cure it. And also, the things that do cause cancer (say, cigarettes) are mentioned far more often outside medical expert circles than those that cure it. And since Google seems to make these corrections by calculating trends in word associations and their popularity, "s/cure cancer/cause cancer/" makes sense. So I guess we found a flaw in that approach.

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Spiderweb Monthly Stats - February 2007 in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #66
I'm really wondering about this topic now - and the general concept of the stats. Didn't I buy myself a spot on the board of notable members at the cost of driving the community into the ground? I had similar scruples last year, and I turned off the stats for a month, but it didn't help anything - especially when I brought them back.

You know, back near the start of 2005, when I first thought of making postcount statistics, I thought "crap, this is going to completely break the community". One of two things I thought would do this - the other one being an "ignore" list that let you shut out posts by certain members. If postcount became an objective in itself, and all confrontation could be avoided, the Spiderweb community would cease to be about anything and become a paradox - a community that was about nothing at all but itself. That was a thought experiment which I tried to carefully test back in March 2005. It was not meant to be more.

But I brushed away those doubts when monthly stats became an institution and suddenly, I was on the fast-track to respect. Nobody would have voted me for mod back in 2005 for an encyclopedia (let alone one on Geocities). I'd be nothing now, even with my postcount - or if anything, certainly not admin of 2/3 of the active satellites.

So, in conclusion, I suck. I broke Spiderweb. And I did it for popularity. I'm not sure how significant my contribution was to doing it, but just look at what we've become.

I'm sorry.

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My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Why You Suck in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #53
Before I really delve into this post, a brief justification:

quote:
Zeviz:

Everybody posting here is wasting time that could be more productively spent elsewhere.
Alec makes a point. He's making it in an embittered way and fills it with invective, because debating high-brow intellectual matters in gutter language is a Desp thing, but his point stands. We - the community of General - have a problem. It's not as bad as Alec paints it, but it's there.

And that I argue this - when last week, I'd have said "shut up and let the turtles do their work" - shows the flaw of your "wasting time" conclusion. Since we are still establishing and convincing each other, this thread has a purpose. We can't jump into possible treatments until we've finished the diagnosis. Claiming that we've all decided on our views and we don't need to debate this further chokes a very interesting and hopefully productive argument.

I'm even willing to look past Alec's "You". It isn't easy to accuse a group from inside - on the ego and on the tone of your accusation, which assumes a kind of defeatist attitude that doesn't help the argument. So he takes an external perspective.

---

I found this paper a year ago, which seems very apt to the topic. A group is its own worst enemy, by Clay Shirky at http://www.shirky.com.

For example:

quote:
(explaining group cohesion)
You are at a party, and you get bored. You say "This isn't doing it for me anymore. I'd rather be someplace else." [...] And then a really remarkable thing happens: You don't leave.

[...]

And then, another really remarkable thing happens. Twenty minutes later, one person stands up and gets their coat, and what happens? Suddenly everyone is getting their coats on, all at the same time.

The base patterns are all there. Alec (and everyone who agrees with him) cannot deny some hesitation in getting their coat. For a variety of reasons, including nostalgia and the hope that the problem disappears - but adding up to the basic concept that everyone who's been here for a year or two feels somewhat at home here, and doesn't want to leave just because the quality has lessened.

The other base behavior patterns that Shirky quotes W. R. Bion on are also present. External enemies, religious figures (ironically, Jeff Vogel fills both roles for different people).

Now, the paper really deals with designing software for use by social groups. That doesn't really apply here; we're dealing with finished products.

But it mentions a few points in passing. Ironically, what it claims is counter-intuitive: Postcounts and karma are useful as an incentive to participate and maintain a single identity (and face it, who wouldn't post as a guest if it was possible here and didn't mean you missed out on $posts++?). Barriers of entry (which would be summed up as "fluffy turtles" here) serve their purpose too, in distinguishing between members and outsiders.

So there's some consolation - Spiderweb is not necessarily flawed from the outset; it doesn't contain the seed of its own destruction.

But we have drifted in a direction that isn't beneficial in the past three years. Maybe four.

I remember this board was interesting when I came. Fast-paced, hard to keep up with, easy to get insulted on (courtesy of Alec, Djur, TM and Scorp), but interesting. Somehow, over the past four years, this has steadily drained away, to be replaced by vague and hollow mutterings. We've replaced whatever this community used to talk about with talking about how great this community used to be.

The RPs are another indicator. We haven't had a new RP in nearly a year now, and the last RP we actually finished was three years ago. In fact, I know of only three that were finished in the time I was here.

But do you know what stopped RPs from being completed? Back in the day, it was when they got flamed to hell and eventually locked. This was back when "Zephyr et al need not apply" meant something - Spiderweb was so fast-paced and volatile that something as fragile as a roleplay had a hard time weathering this environment. We got a lot of flamewars, and some diamonds.

But what now? Roleplays no longer explode. They fizzle. They slow down and eventually fade. The same goes for other conflict topics - debates, for example.

I'm rambling on about symptoms here. This is because evidently, a lot of the "there's nothing wrong with us at all" side just doesn't see any negative symptoms in our current situation, and the ones I brought up hopefully show that yes, something is "wrong" rather than just "odd" about our situation.

Alec also names a symptom, but no diagnosis - in spite of the "why" in the title. A group identified by references to itself is a result, but what is the cause? That is what we need to know before we can take measures to make things right again.

And I'm sure that I'm not the only one who would like to do that. Alec himself is here, after all, and presenting and defending this topic - when anyone else who suddenly had this enlightenment might have posted it and vanished, or just vanished without explanation.

Do we stand a chance? Or is it time to get our coats and move on?

[ Wednesday, February 21, 2007 15:00: Message edited by: The Sorcerer ]

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My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Cheater! in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #4
In regular playing, as far as advantages go that remove the challenge:

- I back up save files.
- In BoA, I use weapons from TM scenarios (notably Adlerauge).
- In Avernum 4, I use archery and regularly heal myself up in towns.

Other than that, I've juiced up my party prior to entering high-level scenarios, and for A[1-3] when I needed to find some obscure message in the game quickly.

---

I remember the times when I walked through Exile 3 and editor-healed myself at every turn of combat. But I don't think that counts really; that was six years ago and I sucked at the game.

[ Wednesday, February 21, 2007 04:00: Message edited by: The Sorcerer ]

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Why You Suck in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #30
quote:
'Diki's story' is worthless as a referent for humor (no offense, Diki) because it uses SW as a referent to begin with. It's all recursive and idiotic to hinge jokes on references to it. I suppose the next step would be some kind of asinine comic that makes nothing but references to 'Diki's story' and then people limit their humorous purview to that.
We are becoming like one of those movies that the rights holder keeps making spin-off merchandise from. The horror! :eek:

Well Alec, you have my attention. Is there anything that could save this place?

Mh... for starters, I could set the post stats private, I guess.

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Exile II Music? in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #2
mp3? I thought it was all midi?

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My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Avernum 4 - 7.63 (10.0/1.0) in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #23
I could rate this down, if it were not for these points: I bashed it like no tomorrow back in the day even though I can actually enjoy myself playing it, Jeff said he needed to make something that sells, and I rated even Homeland 2.5.

However, it does make an almost unforgivable error in combining Avernum's lack of walking animations with Geneforge's point and click movement, and it also does away with Avernum's graphics and elevations.

7.7.

Edit: ...and with the concept of an original storyline, if we need to name the obvious.

[ Wednesday, February 21, 2007 02:32: Message edited by: The Sorcerer ]

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My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
SpiderWeb Merchandising! in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #24
"The time between your post and someone quoting it is inversely proportional to its factual accuracy."

But I was referring to the definition of Spiderweb Software games as "games created by Spiderweb Software".

The reason I was wrong is that the object displayed is a frigging boat, and those really can't move diagonally in Exile.

Edit: As far as I know. I really need to try it out. Can you move diagonally with boats? It always seemed that there were some rocks which could block me just in this configuration:

.X
X.


[ Tuesday, February 20, 2007 22:29: Message edited by: The Sorcerer ]

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
SpiderWeb Merchandising! in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #22
Yes, it's the Spiderweb font, named "MaidenWord". I think I even had it uploaded somewhere... four years ago. Might still be there.

[ Tuesday, February 20, 2007 22:23: Message edited by: The Sorcerer ]

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Jeff linked to on Slashdot in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #9
From Runescape, I got the experience that people also love to spend hours standing in populated areas of the game world to beg for money or items.

So far, I've thought these people were pathetic. But Jeff's article got me a new perspective: These people are obviously getting something, or they wouldn't ask. Are they getting more than they would by levelling themselves?

And if they are, aren't they right in taking the easy way out and hence actually a lot smarter than all the grinders who waste their time doing tedious, repetitive clicking?

---

I suppose it's like spammers. Everyone hates them, but it must be quite a rewarding occupation (leaving aside death threats and lawsuits).

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
SpiderWeb Merchandising! in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #5
In Germany, as a general rule of thumb you can wear questionable slogans on your T-shirts as long as they're in English (and aren't really bad, for example racist or extremely right-wing). "You're cute" ranks low on that scale, and isn't too outrageous. :P

Amazingly many people have a below-average (or non-existant) grasp of English here. I'm told this is different in the Netherlands.

[ Tuesday, February 20, 2007 00:21: Message edited by: The Sorcerer ]

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Excellent lockings in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #29
quote:
Originally written by Actaeon:

Aran's bans
*daydreams*

If I were an admin,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy ban.
If I were a Spidweb god!
I could ban all those noob-heads
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
If I were not an itty bitty small,
Yidle-diddle-didle-didle mod.

I'd make a big tall forum with threads by the dozen,
Right in the middle of the board.
A fine top banner with real wooden floors below.
There would be one long thread just for connections,
And one even longer for birthdays,
And one more for nothing at all, just for show...


Locks, not bans.

But that's exactly the reason I use the sunset picture. :)

[ Monday, February 19, 2007 23:32: Message edited by: The Sorcerer ]

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Spiderweb Monthly Stats - February 2007 in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #46
quote:
Originally written by Clam:

How come he has not been banned?
Or at least canned?
The again, he probably does not even deserve
those "honours". I have a little suspicion
he might be posting here for exactly that.
To some people even bad attention is
still better than no attention.
Some people are pitiful.

I love free verse! You should send this in to poetry.com, they gobble up stuff like that. :P

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
SpiderWeb Merchandising! in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #3
I'd buy it. Hell, I'd wear it. That thing's on the outside, after all, and I don't look down on my chest often. :P

However, while the inside joke is nice it needs some more clearly recognizable logo too, maybe on the back.

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Things to improve Dikiyoba's ausome story! in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #152
quote:
?
You weren't joking. Oh my... o_o

---

Anyway, case rests. "You are a newbie if you can instill laughter by claiming otherwise." :)

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Spiderweb Monthly Stats - February 2007 in General
Law Bringer
Member # 2984
Profile Homepage #34
quote:
Originally written by Infernal Flamming Muffin:

Just call me by the name that shows.
Or, since everyone else is, call me Muffin.

Too bad, Iffy... :)

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Encyclopaedia ErmarianaForum ArchivesForum StatisticsRSS [Topic / Forum]
My BlogPolarisI eat novels for breakfast.
Polaris is dead, long live Polaris.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00

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