Friday, January 27, 2006

Whew! What a day Thursday was. I went through all of my files and got them all nice and organized. This hasn't been an easy task since I had stuff scattered on 3 different computers. And I now have everything all together on one. My next step is to get everything backed up. I learned the hard way how important that is to back up everything, and do it often. You never know what might happen.

Anyway, I discovered some of my old graphics. So, I decided I'd share some of them with you. Some of them I made and some are just graphics I've picked here and there.

Ok, so here's a pic of a dragon I drew. It was one of the first ones I did from a tutorial I looked at on drawing dragons. I thought it turned out pretty good. One of these days I'll do more with it, perhaps color it.



This next pic is a drawing I did of Legolas from Lord of the Rings. I drew this a couple of years ago. It's not the greatest, but I thought it wasn't too bad since my drawing skills weren't as good then as they are now.



And now a pretty funny one. I was getting creative with some Lord of the Rings images and decided to make myself an elf princess. I took and image of Arwen and replaced her face with mine. ^_^



I have a couple more that I'll be adding in this post, but they serve a purpose as part of the post, including one of my signatures. I made several signatures a few years back. So, I decided I'll use them on here. I'll use the same one for a while, then replace it after a couple weeks.

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And now on to the Superbowl of Rock 'n Roll.



Your votes are:

Slayer (1) vs Pantera (3)

Tool (1) vs Nine Inch Nails (3)

Nickelback (0) vs Slipknot (3)

And the radio votes are:

Slayer (75) vs Pantera (231)

Tool (152) vs Nine Inch Nails (9) Haha! Tool rules!

Nickelback (100) vs Slipknot (106)

Sorry NIN fans, but Tool pounded 'em... pun intended. =P

That almost wraps up the round one match ups. There is one more Friday evening. But the two match ups at 7 am and 2 pm will be the beginning of the round 2 match ups where it will be round one winners against other round one winners. So, here they are.

Rob Zombie vs AC/DC

Sevendust vs System of a Down

Seether vs Korn

I am going with AC/DC, Sevendust, and Korn. I forgot to mention that I changed the music to go with those six bands. I did it for two reasons, to help people decide, in case they have a tough time deciding. And if anyone doesn't know these bands and actually wants to take the time to listen to them. Though, I don't expect anyone to hang around if they don't have the time.

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Comments:

sand dragon 19: Thanks for the offer to help. But I've been using Paint Shop Pro for a few years now and I can very easily throw together a series of pics. However, that is really cool that you are picking up stuff from tutorials to help you with Photoshop. There are some excellent tutorials out there.

Wolf of Darkstar: So far I've been right about all of the bands except Metallica getting beat by Megadeth. That one was a result of a lot of bad feelings toward Metallica's attitude and their current music endeavors. o_O

Yensid: I'd recommend you check out some of these bands, and I hope you like some of them. A lot of my taste in music does tend to run toward the more extreme metal. But I like a lot of Rock/Metal. If you have Sirius radio you can listen to Octane or Hard Attack. Octane is a lot like what my local radio station plays. Hard Attack it metal, to the truest meaning of metal.
Oh, and yes, Ronnie James Dio! Love 'im.
Thanks for the suggestion on getting the pic scanned. My first option will be to see if I can piece it together. I should be able to without any problems. But if I run into too many snags, I may go with your suggestion.

BlAiZeD: Actually, no. I just make it sound like I'm busy. ^_^ I play a lot. Yeah, I'll figure out something for the pic. But first I need to get the right color for Marik's skin tone. o_O

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Ok, I'm done. Take care everyone.

Catcha later...




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Thursday, January 26, 2006

Well, another fun-filled day has ended. o_O
Nothing much to say about what I did. I'm going to watch episode 1 of DNAngel. I've heard a lot about it, but have never seen it. I'm sure I'll like it.

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I did work on the drawing a little on Wednesday. By the way, I have it all drawn and lined with pen. I'm now working on coloring it. I tried to take a pic of it with my crappy cam, but it failed miserably. I'll have to find some other way of getting it on the computer. Perhaps when it's done I might just get a disposable camera and take some pics of it. Or attempt to scan it in pieces, then combine the pieces. Actually, that might not be too hard to do. Hmmm...

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It's now time to get onto the Superbowl of Rock 'n Roll. And thank you to everyone who's been participating in it. Tuesday night when I posted I put the results of Tuesday's match ups, but I forgot to put the match ups for Wednesday. So, I got on first thing in the morning when I woke up to put those on there. And then I forgot to say what my picks were for those ones. Also, on Tuesday's match ups I didn't have the score for the Marilyn Manson vs Alice In Chains match up. Well, I found out it was 136-121, Alice In Chains with the win.

And now onto Wednesday's results. Here's your votes:

Stone Temple Pilots (0) vs Ozzy/Black Sabbath (6)

Audioslave (1) vs Chevelle (3)

A Perfect Circle (1) vs Static X (3)

I wanted to mention that it's fine for anyone to vote on only one match up. I had a couple of people who said Ozzy/Black Sabbath but not familiar with the others. And that is perfectly fine. I don't ask people to vote for bands they don't know.

Here's the radio's results:

Stone Temple Pilots (108) vs Ozzy/Black Sabbath(184)

Audioslave (108) vs Chevelle (112)

A Perfect Circle (70) vs Static X (175)


Thursday's match ups are:

Slayer vs Pantera

Tool vs Nine Inch Nails

Nickelback vs Slipknot

I'm going with Pantera, Tool, and Slipknot.

Oh, I wanted to mention something interesting about the Disturbed/Linkin Park match up on Tuesday. What's rather interesting about Disturbed beating LP so bad is that the radio station forgot to include Disturbed in it last year. I wasn't too happy about it because Disturbed is one of my faves.
Anyway, I'll have the results in tomorrow's post.

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Well, that's all for now. Take care.

Catcha later...



Comments (4) | Permalink

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Warning: This post contains a lot of images. So, I apoligize if it takes a while to load for some of you. But I assure you it's worth it.

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Tuesday was a very boring day for me. I spent the day cleaning house. I didn't get a chance to work on the drawing.

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And now on to the Superbowl of Rock 'n Roll. Here's the results of your votes:

Disturbed (3) vs Linkin Park (4)

AC/DC (5) vs Rage Against the Machine (2)

Marilyn Manson (3) vs Alice In Chains (3)

It's a tie between Marilyn and Alice. However, I did not include the vote of one person who couldn't decide and wanted a half vote on each. Sorry no one, I can't do that. If you feel like casting a vote for one of them to break the tie, then go for it.

And here's the results from the radio:

Disturbed (223) vs Linkin Park (31) I kid you not on that one.

AC/DC (108) vs Rage Against the Machine (107) That one went into overtime.

Marilyn Manson (?) vs Alice In Chains (?) I missed this one on the radio, so I don't know the score. But I got the results on the web site, showing the winner to be Alice In Chains. Which reminds me, I forgot to tell you that if you are interested you can visit the radio station's web site at Rock945.com.

Oops, I almost forgot to add Wednesday's match ups. Here they are:

Stone Temple Pilots vs Ozzy/Black Sabbath

Audioslave vs Chevelle

A Perfect Circle vs Static X

Give me your votes, please. XD

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And now I will leave you with something pretty funny.

The Top 15 Hard-To-Find Toys

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Have a good one. Take care.

Catcha later...




Comments (7) | Permalink

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Yay! I managed to visit everyone's sites on Monday... that felt good. And I didn't experience a single delay.

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Not much happened on Monday. I worked on the Yu-Gi-Oh! drawing. It's kind of slow going. There was a point where I needed to look at the reference pic (son's backpack), but he was gone at school. And I was too lazy to look on the internet for an alternative. So, the moment he walked in the door I was like, "Tyler, give me your backpack!" ^_^

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Now it's time for the Superbowl of Rock 'n Roll. And thanks to those who have been giving me their feedback on this, I appreciate it.

Here's your votes on the Monday match ups:

Soundgarden (0) vs Godsmack (3)

Shinedown (1) vs System of a Down (2)

Crossfade (1) vs Mudvayne (2)

And the results on the radio were:

Soundgarden (84) vs Godsmack (169)

Shinedown (165) vs System of a Down (172)

Crossfade (39) vs Mudvayne (113)

So, the winners are Godsmack, System, and Mudvayne. In the early stages of listening to the Godsmack/Soundgarden match up, on the radio Monday morning, I was actually worried that everyone was going to be in a frame of mind to go with the local Seattle band because the Seahawks are going to the Superbowl. But that concern was quickly shortlived. Godsmack rules! ^_^

Tuesday's match ups are:

Disturbed vs Linkin Park

AC/DC vs Rage Against the Machine

Marilyn Manson vs Alice in Chains

That first one is a tough one, and as much as I like LP, I'm gonna have to go with Disturbed because they are just... well, Disturbed. Then I'll say AC/DC. And lastly I'll go with Alice in Chains because I have to support one of the Seattle bands. Anyway, let me know who you like in each of those match ups please. And I'll have the results in tomorrow's post.

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Well, I'm outta here. Take care.

Catcha later...


Comments (6) | Permalink

Monday, January 23, 2006

Well, MyO seems to be working now. So I guess I will get back into posting and visiting sites. Over the weekend I couldn't get any pages to load. However, I did run across something interesting. There was one member page that seemed to load just fine. I'm not gonna mention any names though. It's not anyone on my friends list.

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I think my description of how the Superbowl of Rock 'n Roll works was a little confusing. I wanted to explain better but since I had already attempted to post it three times before that, I was aggravated and just summed it up as best as I could.

So, I'll explain a little better. The radio station takes the 32 best bands they play on their station, and have them battle it out in match ups between two bands. They have the match ups on weekdays at 7 am, 2 pm, and 7 pm. Each one being a different match up between two different bands. The loser is out, and the winner moves on to another battle against the winner of another match up. They continue this until it's down to just two bands, which will take place on February 3rd.

I had mentioned the match ups they had last Friday. I'll put those here again and give the results of your votes and the results of the actual votes on the radio station.

Here's your votes:

Metallica (5) vs Megadeth (0)

Sevendust (2) vs Staind (2)

Nirvana (3) vs Rob Zombie/White Zombie (1)

Your votes have Metallica, and Nirvana winning those match ups, and Sevendust/Staind tied. I'll gladly take more votes on those if you missed it before.

Here are the results of the radio station votes:

Metallica (215) vs Megadeth (220)

Sevendust (171) vs Staind (131)

Nirvana (97) vs Rob Zombie/White Zombie (221)

The results turned out a bit different. Megadeth, Sevendust, and Zombie move on in the Superbowl of Rock 'n Roll on the radio station.

I will try to update each day on what happens during each days' match ups. And once again, please tell me which bands you choose in each match up. If you aren't into it, or aren't familiar with the bands, then just pass on it.

Here's the Monday match ups:

Soundgarden vs Godsmack

Shinedown vs System of a Down

Crossfade vs Mudvayne

I'm going with Godsmack(my fave), System, and Mudvayne on those.

Oh, in response to Yensid's comment, no I don't work for the radio station. I just listen to it a lot. ^_^

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Speaking of Superbowls, the Seattle Seahawks are going. This is a very proud moment for Northwesterners. I never thought it could happen in my lifetime. I was sure I'd see pigs fly before this would happen. ^_^

What makes it even better is that they are going up against the Steelers. I was hoping this would be the case. And I hope Seahawks kick their butts!

Actually I'm not much of a football fan, though I used to be a few years back. But when the "local" team does this good, I pay attention.

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Now on the subject of art. I've been drawing a lot lately, but mostly practicing the human body. Nothing that I will be submitting to my fan art. Then I decided to begin the 18x24 drawings for my family members. I drew a Dora the Explorer pic for my 4 year old daughter. And currently I am working on a Yu-Gi-Oh! drawing for my 7 year old son. I'm using a pic from his backpack as a reference. Except the pic on his backpack has Marik, Yugi, Kaiba, and Joey. He didn't want Joey in it. So it's only the other three. Then my next one will be a dragon for my 10 year old son.

As soon as I am finished drawing these I will take pics of them to share them with everyone.

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Well, I'm off to visit everyone. Take care.

Catcha later...


Comments (6) | Permalink

Saturday, January 21, 2006

If you are able to read this, I added another post before this one. So be sure to read it as well. I'm not sure how many of you are actually able to read this.

The reason for this post is because I cannot get any of the member pages to load. I managed to visit one person and that's it. I don't have time to sit here for hours trying to get pages to load. I may just stop coming for awhile until they get this fixed. It seems problems here on Otaku are getting more and more frequent and quite frankly I'm tired of it. So, if this continues I don't think I'll be coming around for a while. If they get it resolved then I will resume. If not, well it's really too bad because I enjoy visiting my friends. But I have a life to live and I can't spend it waiting for pages to load.

Sorry folks. I hope you are all well, take care.

Catcha later (hopefully)...


Comments (1) | Permalink

I'm in a really bad mood because this is my fourth time trying to post this stupid thing for various reasons. So, I'm gonna keep it short.

I wanted to tell everyone that it's time for the Superbowl of Rock 'n Roll. Some of you may remember me mentioning it last year. If not, well it's a thing my local radio station puts on each year. They have match ups between two bands and the listeners call in and vote for the one they like better. It started on Friday morning with 32 bands, and will continue until Feb. 3. They hold it on weekdays at 7 am, 2 pm, and 7 pm. Previous champs include Godsmack, Metallica, Tool, and Ozzy.

I'm not going to say at this time who won the first three match ups because I want to find out what you guys think. If you aren't into this kind of music then you can just pass on it. But I'd really like to know what others think compared to the results. So, here's the Friday match ups:

Metallica vs Megadeth
Sevendust vs Staind
Nirvana vs Rob Zombie

So, tell me which ones you like in each of those match ups please. XD

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And now I am going to end this with a quote of the day. After my four year old daughter hit her stuffed puppy-

Me: You are so violent.

Her: I'm not purple!

^_^

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Well, take care all!

Catcha later...


Comments (5) | Permalink

Monday, January 16, 2006

I'm back! Did you all miss me? ^_^

Did I use my time away wisely? No, I didn't. I goofed off a lot. What do you expect from a chronic procrastinator?

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I did get some drawing done. Nothing serious yet, just some doodles. I might have a couple that will end up being submitted, but as of yet, nothing new in my fan art.

I haven't watched much anime except the usual Saturday lineup. I did however get some Megas XLR episodes and have watched some of those. That's right, I along with Mamma Vash, dig giant robots. ^_^

And I did get to finally see War of the Worlds. It was on PPV, so I ordered it and recorded it on DVR. It's an awesome movie.

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Oh, I almost forgot... did you notice the music I have put on here? I included a variety of music for different tastes. In Flames is a Swedish metal band that is currently one of my faves. Then I added a Celtic style song from the movie Last of the Mohicans. If you haven't seen that movie yet, you should. I highly recommend it. Then I added the theme song from my favorite game, Legend of Dragoon. If you haven't played that game yet, I highly recommend you do. ^_^
And lastly, I added a song from a Feng Shui CD I have. I listen to that style of music in the evenings when it's time to wind down from a hectic day of goofing off. ^_^

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I was going to add replies to comments, but considering many of you may have forgotten what it is that you said in the last comments, I think I'll pass on it.

Oh, and thanks for all of the comments on hitting the 2000 mark.

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I'm now off to see how everyone is doing. Take care.

Catcha later...




Comments (11) | Permalink

Monday, January 9, 2006

Woohoo! I'm currently sitting at 2000 hits on my site. How cool is that? And I'm at Popularity Ranking #444. I thought that was kind of cool to hit 2000 and ranking #444 at the same time.

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Ok, now that I got that out of my system. It's time to discuss more serious issues. That kind of sounds ominous, doesn't it? o_O
No, it's nothing too serious. It's just that I'm thinking about taking some time off for a bit. Maybe around 5 days to a week. I have a lot of stuff that I need to take care of. And I'm sure you guys will get along just fine without me. However, I'm more worried about myself. I think this may be a challenge for me to be gone for so long. I mean I've done it before (for much longer) in the past, but I've been really enjoying frequently this place more lately. I will truly miss visiting my friends on a daily, or near daily basis.

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So, here's my last replies to comments for a while.

CosmicSailor

I know what you mean about needing to know how something works to make it work. I think that's why I felt so compelled to do the help page. I was the same way, I wasn't content to just have someone tell me what codes to use to do something. And I felt powerless when it came to doing other things whenever I would come up with an idea. Once I got to know how to read HTML, I would spend a lot of time looking over the code on other sites just to see how certain things worked.
I have ran across an issue that I'm a bit torn on. Many people disable the right-click on their sites because they don't want others copying their codes and stealing thier layouts. (Though, there are ways around this.) Well, I understand this completely because creating a web page is the same as creating a piece of art, a lot of time goes into it. However, on the other hand, there are those out there who can learn from those codes, not to copy them or steal a layout, but just to learn from them. That's what I have done. And one other problem that I have encountered with the no right-click is, occasionally an image won't load for some reason and in some instances by using the right-click on that image and select Show Image, the image will show. Well, that can't be done with the right-click disabled.

Thanks for the tip on the calligraphy pens. I'll have to remember that. Though, I don't think I'll be getting them anytime soon. Actually I wasn't wanting them for writing in calligraphy. I want a pen like that with varying line widths for drawing. I've tried using my set of pens that I mentioned yesterday for that, but I don't get a smooth transition from one line width to another. That's where a super fine flat tip pen would be nice. After reading Yensid's comment from yesterday I'm sure I can find what I'm looking for, I just haven't taken the time to look at the pens too much.

Yensid

Thank you as well for the tips on pens. You will most likely read what I said to CosmicSailor. So, I'll probably keep an eye out for the pens I'm looking for in the next month or so.
Yes, I agree with bristol board. I've used it on occasion. Though not as much as I'd like. As for paints, that's something I don't have too much experience with. I used acrylics a bit in one of my classes. One of these days I'll have to work with them again.

Wolf of Darkstar

Yep, that's me... smartarse with a good memory. Actually, I seem to be good at remembering humorous things better. ^_^
That's too bad that you are so busy. I don't have anyone to play checkers with. ^_^

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Well, I'm done for now. And I will be back maybe this coming weekend or so. However, I will drop in to check my PMs. So, if anyone has any questions, I'll be around to answer them.

Take care everyone.

Catcha later...


Comments (13) | Permalink

Sunday, January 8, 2006

Well, I spent Saturday working on the HTML help site. I got a lot of stuff on there, but there is still so much that needs to be added. And I'm finding that I actually enjoy doing this. I could just keep going for hours typing out how to do this stuff. I come to points where I find myself wanting to go into full detail about certain things, but I have to stop myself because I just don't have the time to put too much detail about any given subject. I should stress that if anyone goes to my HTML help site and still has questions about anything, don't hesitate to ask.

Now, there is one thing I wanted to mention. I know there are a few other help sites out there for myO sites. But the ones I've seen, as good as they are, to me are more like cheat sheets. They give you the codes you need to do certain things without fully explaining how they work. And I'm not trying to disrespect these other sites. What the authors of these sites have done is really great. However, the intention of my help site is to teach people how to use this stuff so they can continue to do it on their own without having to constantly rely on someone giving them the codes.
Again, I stress, no disrespect to others who have created help sites. And in no way am I trying to indicate that mine is better. As it is now, my help site does not have too much of the more advanced help that some of you are looking for. I'm hoping to get more of that on there soon.

And now on to comment replies...

CosmicSailor

If you need help making sense of CSS, then my help site might be what you need. I think I put it in a way that would be easy to understand. That's one of the reasons that I enjoy doing this is because I know what it's like to be a beginner at this and trying to learn it from sources that have been doing this so long that they seem to have forgotten how to speak like a normal human being.

No, I'm not giving you credit as the one who originated the reply to comments in posts. However, I think you kind of inspired me to start doing it. I had on occasion replied to certain things that people commented on, but not too often. And I don't know how many times Mamma Vash asked me a question and I completely forgot to answer it when I would comment on her post. So, I'd have to say unfortunately many of her questions went unanswered.

That's great that you got those pens. I have a set of Staedtler pigment liner pens in .1 , .3 , .5 , .7 . They are all in black. I like using these pens to line my drawings after I draw them in pencil. What I'd really like to get is a small flat tip one so I can get smooth line width variations, like a calligraphy pen.

DarkRosesSea

You asked what day it was here. I am in Pacific time in the US. I usually post at around 9-10 pm my time, but that is 12-1 am eastern time. The highlighted updated sites reset at 9 my time. So, when I post it is the evening of the day before the date on my posts. In other words, this post says Sunday, but it's only 10 pm Saturday night as I type this. ^_^

Face of Deth

You are welcome for the info on beating the 1500 characters, however I just learned this myself. I got the info from RenoTheTurk.
You might want to open a blank text file in notepad, copy what you have in your profile, then add anything else you'd like to add to your profile with all of it together in the text file. Then copy all of it together, and paste it into your profile.

Wolf of Darkstar

I haven't changed that much. However, we haven't really spoken much since you got back. So who's fault is that? You're never on messenger anymore! Hehe... =P
How's the new job going, or is it?

Dark Cloud

Thanks, I'm glad you like the new look. Yes, you should most definitely get an HTML book. That's the best way to learn it. You can take books with you almost anywhere.

Yensid

I have experienced a few other blog type sites. Though this is the only one I've become really committed to. There are always certain flaws with the posting thing, especially when people miss a day or two. Though, I'm one of those that tends to read back if I missed a day or two. Particularly my good friends. I don't like to miss things. Or in the case of adding a new friend like yourself. If someone is posting about a particular event that happened before I added that person, I will go back to find out what they are talking about.
Then there is always the case where I may put a reply to someone's comment on here and they may not be here the day I posted it, so they miss it. I'm wondering if I should go back to having more days on here.
Yes, there is a lot of sources out there for learning HTML, it's just having the time and patience to learn it. And it sounds like you don't have a whole lot of time for it right now. I agree, there is a lot of poor design choices out there. However, I am not going to tell people how they should design their pages. After all these are fan sites. And I'm not the kind of person to say, well my page is done right and yours isn't.
As for arranging stuff, well some of it can be done with regular HTML, and then some of it is done with CSS. To me the power is really in CSS, you can do a lot with it. But to me learning HTML is pretty easy, and once you learn it, or while you are learning it, CSS isn't that difficult to learn either.
Good luck to you on it, and I'm always willing to help whenever it's needed.

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Well, I'm done for today. Take care everyone.

Catcha later...


Comments (8) | Permalink