Messages

1

/dev/random / Re: The last movie you saw....

« on: April 15, 2024, 03:08:39 PM »

(Haven't seen it yet... but WANT to.)

More on the topic of Roman history...

Saw a commercial for this on youtube the other day. Anthony Hopkins as Emperor Vespasian. Should be pretty cool. Something about Roman gladiatorial games and such.

Those About To Die - Peacock original miniseries


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFQcZRCZABo

Hoping it's much better than the old Starz miniseries, Spartacus. I rewatched all 4 seasons of that again in the last several months. Does not stand the test of time as far as I'm concerned. Definitely worse the 2nd time around, not that I really liked it all that much the first time either. Season 1 kept me mostly interested. Season 2 prequel less so. Seasons 3 and 4 were pretty shitty. I even ended up deleting the whole series from my video drive when I was done because I DO NOT forsee that I ever want to watch it again. That's the thing about Starz shows. They're good to watch once. But even if it's 10 years after the premier, the 2nd time around shows you how lame it was. Except Ash vs Evil Dead. That ones corny and silly by design so it's fine. Black Sails - I remember liking that one when it was current. I've considered watching that one a 2nd time before also, but I know if I do, I'll just notice how crappy it really is.

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/dev/random / Re: The last movie you saw....

« on: April 09, 2024, 03:12:34 PM »

Caligula - The Ultimate Cut (1979, 2023)



Blah blah blah...

Blah, blah blah blah...

So I went back and watched the original 79 version, not the whole thing though, just skimmed the major parts. After freshly seeing both now, I can give a better assessment of the new "Ultimate Cut" version.

It seems as though the editor of the new version made it his entire point to remove any pornographic material. While some people, including some of the reputable mainstream actors in the film, might totally appreciate that seeing as how most of them never approved of that kind of material being added to the movie,... it's become very obvious after watching the original that a handful of the scenes they removed should've been left in. The new version should've followed the timeline and storyboard of the old version exactly. After watching the 2, it's obvious that the original 79 version was actually edited properly so as to tell the story correctly chronologically. As I said in the previous post, the new version takes earlier scenes and splices them in later in the film at parts where it apparently makes little sense.

Editing mistakes in the porn-less Ultimate Cut...

Some examples that stand out to me:

Caligula and Drusilla are in the emperors bed chamber. They are talking and fooling around like the perverts they are. There is a giant white marble face on the far wall, some kind of Roman pagan religious thing I think. The mouth on the face has a peephole that goes to the room on the other side of the wall. Caligula hears something, runs over, put his ear near the mouth and hears people moaning. He motions to Drusilla to remain quiet. He runs to the nearby door and looks around the wall to find some guy blowing another dude or a transsexual, I'm not sure. He gets mad and kicks them in the asses while screaming at them and runs them off. I don't know what the significance of that is... but it was in the 79 original. In the new version, he hears noise, he runs over... but they totally remove the scene where he discovers people behind the wall and angrily kicks them in the ass to shoo them away. It makes the brief scene make no sense when they remove the part of him discovering people behind the peephole in the wall. Later in the movie, after Caligula freaks out in the rain storm, Drusilla calms him down by having a threesome with him and his wife Caesonia (Helen Mirren). For some reason, Messalina and Agrippina (Penthouse pets Anneka Di Lorenzo and Lori Wagner) are on the other side of the giant white marble face on the wall peeping at them. They get turned on by what they see, and... bow-chicka-wow-wow, a xxx rated bush-lickin' lesbian scene ensues running parallel to the not-xxx threesome that Malcolm McDowall, Helen Mirren and Teresa Ann Savoy are having. I mention it only because the scene with the lesbian Penthouse pets was edited out of the new version, - but because it didn't really interfere with any part of the story or leave any strange unexplained gaps by editing it out, it was totally fine to leave that part out in my opinion.

When Drusilla (Teresa Ann Savoy) dies, in the original version, you see Caligula (Malcolm McDowall) going out of his mind with grief, sobbing and dragging her naked lifeless body all over the place. In a couple of shots, you get a brief view of her "hairy clam". The new Ultimate Cut removes most of the shots where you can see any part of her pubic area, greatly shortening the length of the scene, and greatly diminishing the importance of the scene in my opinion. So again, the editor prioritized censoring and removing the nudity above telling the story the best way possible. I think with a little effort, they could've used clever post-effects to add some fake shadows to key body parts to retain her modesty along with the full length of the scene. OH NO, NOT A PUSSY! At this point, we've all seen fuckin' Game of Thrones, so brief shots of genitalia really aren't that crazy are they?

The new version cuts out ALL of the pornographic stuff that happens during the Imperial Orgy, an event where Caligula raised money for the state by forcing the senators wives to prostitute themselves (one of the many reasons he became VERY hated by the Senate). Sure, the pornographic scenes included in the original 79 version were dirty as hell (you see a midget getting blown, Anneka Di Lorenzo appears again and sucks off a dude until he blows a load in her mouth), but without ANY of the nude scenes in that part, you completely lose the gravity of the situation. Honestly, even the original didn't do a good enough job of capturing the "gravity" of the situation. You see the senators wives all getting naked and freaky, and you see a couple of characters like Longinus (the emperors secretary) and Chaerea (leader of the Praetorian guard) grumbling about whats going on. You also see one or two other Senators approach them, and they grumble about what is happening... but none of them really express any anger and outrage at their wives being forced to whore themselves... as you'd think they obviously would. Anyway, without any of the dirty-nasty-nekkid stuff, it almost leads you to believe that it was just a fun little harmless party.

----

So after watching both now, I gotta admit... shit, the original version is actually still the best one. It would be great if someone could re-edit the 1979 original to add the additional 30-45 minutes of material included in the Ultimate Cut without removing any of the "pornographic" stuff. As much as no one really wants to see a mainstream movie with porn scenes in it... it's obvious that taking them out at this point kinda wrecks the movie in places. And it sucks that you now have to watch BOTH VERSIONS to get the most complete picture of the original Gore Vidal screenplay.

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/dev/random / Re: The last movie you saw....

« on: April 02, 2024, 08:45:59 AM »

Caligula - The Ultimate Cut (1979, 2023)



So the story behind this movie in a nutshell...

It was supposed to be a BIG deal. The guy who owned and started Penthouse magazine, Bob Guccione, had used Penthouse to partially fund movies before (Chinatown, The Longest Yard), but had never produced a movie entirely on his own. Then came the idea for Caligula. Basically he wanted to make a movie with porno movie scenes in it that was still considered a mainstream feature film with big budget mainstream film production value. (Perhaps his idea to help push porn into a more mainstream thing being that he was what I guess you'd call a "hedonist" himself.) He gets a big time writer like Gore Vidal to write it, an up and coming Italian director like Tinto Brass to direct it, and casts it with some well known and respected actors like Peter O'Toole (Lawrence of Arabia) and John Gielgud (probably most well-known for playing opposite Dudley Moore as the sarcastic mouthy butler in "Arthur"). Caligula was to be played by Malcolm McDowell, who had previously played the lead in the Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange... another pretty fucked up movie about another pretty fucked up character. But I guess no one involved in the movie (other than Bob Guccione) really wanted to make a PORN movie. Guccione saw what they had shot, didn't think it was pornographic enough, so he spent a few nights on his own unbeknownst to everyone else with his own cast of extras and several Penthouse Pets such as Lori Wagner and Anneka DiLorenzo shooting lots of scenes of pornographic material. He re-edited the film himself, splicing the scenes in where he wanted them with no input from the director. When everyone involved with the movie had heard what he had done, Gore Vidal and Tinto Brass both wanted their names taken off the film, several of the actors objected - it was a disaster.

The movie was eventually released, and I think it did actually MAKE money, probably mostly because of the press around it talking about how filthy and shocking it was. For example... Showgirls. What an AWFUL MOVIE. It was FUCKING TERRIBLE! But when you stick one of the Saved By The Bell girls in it, advertise that she gets explicitly full-frontal naked in it, and slap an NC-17 rating on it, some people are gonna go see it just because of the rating, just because they're curious about, "well, how shocking could it possibly really be?" - which is why that movie "almost" made it's production budget back at the box office (I think it fell about 4 or 5 million short of the 40M budget sunk into it.)

--------------------------

Anyway, with that said...

Caligula (1979) (the original release)

The original movie was pretty... meh. I never really liked it. The sets all look like shit from a stage play. The pervasive nudity in it I didn't really "mind" - that's kinda how life was in those days, it wasn't something people were uptight about. Not talking about the porn scenes, that stuff was spliced in like I said above, and the overwhelming majority of it honestly feels completely out of place. All in all, just not really a movie I liked. If you cut out all the acting and the story about Caligula and just had nothing but the scenes of Penthouse Pets eating each other out, then it would be a perfectly acceptable porno movie. But as a movie itself... I can't really approve... and I'll expand on that later.

---------------------------

Caligula (1979) (The Ultimate Cut) (premiered at 2023 Cannes Film Festival)

Bob Guccione died in 2010. Not really sure what the story is, but some other producer apparently got ahold of a ton of the thought-to-be lost footage from the movie, and reconstructed the film with tons of extra previously unseen footage, and making no use at all of the pornographic material shot by Guccione.

It's a good idea in theory I suppose... however... they spliced shit up wrong. In the original movie, it opens with Caligula and his sister Drusilla running around the forest dressed in white. It's nothing that an Emperor would be caught wearing. For some reason, The Ultimate Cut removes this scene from the opening and makes use of it much later in the film after Caligula is made Emperor. Again, the scene looks out of place because of what they're wearing. It obviously belonged at the START of the movie to show how childlike and carefree they were before being thrust into the roll of Emperor.

The Ultimate Cut really feels more like a REAL movie. The original always felt like exactly what it was: a movie hacked up and glued back together with porno scenes that didn't belong. I also notice in the new cut that many scenes remain very similar except for entirely different angles, like especially in the end when Caligula is assassinated. They cut the gruesome closeup of the slave bashing their child's head against the marble stairs to kill him, and instead have a much wider angle brief shot of it from higher up. Right after that, in the original, you see Longinus rushing down the stairs with a red sash and a crown to Crown Caligula's uncle Claudius, who is cowering in a corner, as the new Emperor. This is a closeup shot of the front. But in the new cut, it shows this same scene looking down from the top of the staircase at a side angle.

The Ultimate Cut is longer. Total runtime is like 3 hours (original was about 2 and a half hours). Seems like a great deal of extra footage is added to the beginning of the movie, especially the scene where Nerva (played by John Gielgud) commits ritual suicide by wrist slashing in the bath.

The Ultimate Cut is certainly more watchable, but I still can't say that I really like it, for many reasons. Primarily, I just don't think Malcolm McDowell really plays Caligula the way he should be played. Yes, Caligula was an asshole and a psycho at times and he really did many of the things depicted in the movie. He actually DID force the Senators wives to whore themselves out. There's a scene where he's in bed with a fever thinking he's about to die, and someone in the crowd standing by his bed (I forget the characters name or if he was named at all, but in reality, he was just a random unknown equestrian) speaks up and says, "I affirm my life if Jupiter would only spare our beloved Emperor!", at which point Caligula sits up and says, "Jupiter accepts your offer. Execute him." It then shows the guards dragging the man out, presumably to execute him. This is used in the movie to show what a callous psycho he is. But in reality, he never REALLY executed the man. He was taken to the Tiber river and tied in a sack and they threatened to throw him in, as was a common method of executing many people. But at the last second, they let him out as they were instructed to do by Caligula himself.

You see, Caligula wasn't nearly as "crazy" as movies and some historians would have you believe. Like how I said I would expand later... this is why I'm not a fan of this movie. It comes off as more of a stage piece meant to be tragic and cerebral, and in it's effort to BE that, it doesn't really tell the true story of Caligula well enough. Malcolm McDowell plays a nice psychotic Caligula, but fails to really embody him in how intelligent and fast-talking he was. Caligula was a wry and often sarcastic kind of guy who would speak to others in a tone of contempt, but didn't necessarily have a boiling psychotic hatred for everyone around him like the movie suggests. In reality, he was not entirely the mad tyrant the movie would have you believe. And like I said earlier, the sets all look like something to be displayed on the play stage in a theater, not something for a movie. It looks weird. It looks wrong. I don't like it.


Still... that's just MY opinion. And my opinion maybe isn't the most reliable thing to go on when it comes to this movie in particular.

I'd recommend it with maybe a 50/50. Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't. But if you're the kind of person who would've never dared to watch Caligula before knowing about the porn bullshit in it... then know that this version is fairly safe to watch. NOT with your kids, of course, FUCK NO. It's still got plenty of nudity, including some male full-frontal nudity. But none of the hardcore porn that used to be in it. I mean if you've seen the Spartacus or Game of Thrones miniseries, there's a ridiculous amount of nudity in those. This is comparable.

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Jokes / Re: Funny Pictures

« on: March 31, 2024, 10:38:12 AM »

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/dev/random / Re: The last movie you saw....

« on: March 25, 2024, 02:53:40 PM »

I've always been a fan of the original Road House with Patrick Swayze (ever since it first came out in '89). And not because it's become a cult classic and people think that it's "so bad that it's good", I disagree that it's "bad". I'll grant you that some of the dialogue is a little awkward, but as a late 80's, early 90's action flick goes, it's got it all - a great villain (Ben Gazzara as Brad Wesley  ), a likeable badass hero, good action, interesting scenes like the monster truck driving through the car dealership, and the special guest appearance of the Jeff Healey Band at their peak. (Big Jeff Healey fan, dude was an awesome guitar player). It's just a certain kind of movie, made a certain kind of way, at a certain point in time. And you can't duplicate that - times are different now, it could never come out the same. The old classic action movies, you can't copy the formula, it's just not the 90's anymore, it'll never be the same.

But that didn't stop someone from trying to remake and re-define Road House.



Road House (2024) - starring Jake Gyllenhall, Conor McGregor

Watched it this weekend. Eh... not terrible. Definitely not as good as the original. It does very little to stick to the original story, which I actually kind of appreciate. Rule #1: NEVER remake a fucking movie. But if you're fucking determined to be an asshole and do it anyway, at least don't make the same movie. And with the exception with when he meets the "love interest" in the hospital and some of the dialogue between them, most of the movie goes entirely it's own way. I think they did some weird 3d camera stuff to get the fight sequences looking a certain way... I wasn't a big fan of it, it looked too unnatural, and I suspect much of it was done in front of a green screen.

Conor McGregor... kinda plays himself for the most part. A wild obnoxious violent 24/7 party-time kinda guy. Looked like he was beefed up a little on 'roids, looked bloated up and much more Hulk Hogan-y than his typical fighting weight. I suppose he's an interesting villain, but nothing supremely special in my opinion.

It's watchable, especially if you're an action movie person. If you're not, you might lose interest somewhere in the middle. The 1989 Road House is still better in my opinion. Honestly, they could've retitled the movie, renamed Dalton to something else, and severed any connections to the original Road House movie, and it wouldn't change anything.

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/dev/random / Re: Whatcha listening to?

« on: March 06, 2024, 08:17:43 AM »

I've been a guitar nerd since I was a kid, always read all the guitar magazines, saw his name in there plenty but never actually heard anything from him.

20 seconds in and I already like it. Reminds me a little of Frank Zappa from around the same period.

70's was probably my favorite decade in music. The keyboards, the guitar sounds from that period, how effects pedals were starting to become the norm, especially things like the Phase90 which was used by country folks like Waylon Jennings as well as rock and roll players.

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/dev/random / Re: The Good Old Days thread

« on: February 19, 2024, 06:35:56 PM »

I wouldn't call myself a "Star Wars nerd" at all... I'm just a casual fan.

I was bored and felt like watching all 9 of the main movies, mostly with the intention of watching the newest 3 over again. I've seen all 3 of them, but I remember feeling incredibly confused by the strange ending of the last one, so I wanted to watch them again... probably just to confirm how stupid and awful they really are.

When downloading the movies, I came across a torrent that was called the "despecialized trilogy". I looked up some more info on it...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmy's_Despecialized_Edition

It's the original trilogy compiled from several sources (35mm film, laser disc, capacitance disc, etc) with the original sound effects, music, and color timing, none of the later added CGI effects and characters, and restoration of all of the original scenes that were later changed or removed by George Lucas for the re-releases.

I've gotten through New Hope and Empire Strikes Back so far. Right off the bat, I notice the color is definitely different from the DVD version I have. It looks a lot more like a movie from the 70's and 80's, more similar to the technicolor process used in the 60's and 70's which made colors pop out a little better. Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but it seems like this de-specialized version has a lot of extra scenes in the bar where Luke and Obi-Wan meet Han. Or maybe it's the removal of all the CGI crap that makes the scene look so different.

Biggest thing I notice in Empire Strikes Back is the re-inclusion of the original scene where Darth Vader communicates with the Emperor via hologram. The Emperor looked different in the 2nd movie, and his voice was not the same as in the 3rd one either (less deep voice, less evil sounding, no english accent). He only appears in the Empire Strikes Back just that one time as a hologram. In the George Lucas re-releases, this scene was changed to include the Emperor as he appeared and sounded in the 3rd movie for the sake of "continuity".

Again, I'm not really a Star Wars nerd, but I'd definitely call myself a movie nerd. I do agree with the fans who like these de-specialized versions of the films more. I don't like the fact that George Lucas decided to change those films so drastically. Remastering, color tweaking, that's one thing. Even if you're gonna add shitloads of extra footage like the later re-release of Apocalypse Now did, that's fine, because you're not "changing" the movie all that much. Fans of the de-specialized versions argue that George Lucas effectively "vandalized" the movies by changing them so significantly, and I definitely agree. I kinda liked the prequel movies, but I was not a huge fan of the large amount of CGI used in the prequels. It was what I'd call "believable enough" but it still looked very much computer generated. Conventional effects and puppeteered characters may not look 100% real either, but at least they don't look 100% fake like all the computer generated characters do.

I didn't watch the first movie too much as a kid, but I remember in the 80's and 90's, HBO used to show The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi quite frequently. I used to watch them a lot when they'd come on. My mom was especially a fan of Empire Strikes Back, but I liked Return of the Jedi more because of the ewoks and the speeder bikes. It's cool to finally be able to see them once again like they were back then.

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art, music, etc. / Re: Cooking

« on: February 08, 2024, 04:24:17 PM »

Willie Nelson Chicken-Fried Steak

time: 1hr
yield: 6 servings

About:
Willie Nelson Chicken-Fried Steak will always be on your mind! Don't believe us? Once you take a bite of these perfectly breaded chicken-fried steak bites, you will understand what you've been missing. The savory gravy smothered on top plus your favorite creamy mashed potatoes will assure you that this braided country music hippie knows what he's talking about! You'll be craving the Southern flavors of Willie Nelson Chicken-Fried Steak so often that you'll be getting on the road again and again to buy the ingredients to make it!

Finally tried this recipe tonight. HOLY MOLY it's good. Didn't do paprika or cayenne pepper in the batter. Didn't have any cayenne, and I don't see much point in putting paprika in ANYTHING. It doesn't add anything nice in my opinion. Used to, I'd just slap the steaks into some flour and then right into the pan. This way, soaking it in a bowl of eggs and milk first, the crust is a lot fluffier and the steak is a lot more tender.

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/dev/random / Re: The Strange and Interesting Thread

« on: February 06, 2024, 04:30:08 AM »

Vegans and animal rights folks will hate this.

I don't necessarily LIKE the idea of making a game out of the death and suffering of an animal, but I acknowledge that it's a cultural thing. And aside from the obvious moral objections, I do find it fascinating and somewhat entertaining as a cultural staple. According to wiki: "the bull lives three times longer than do cattle reared exclusively for meat, and lives wild during that period in meadows and forests which are funded by the premium the bullfight's box office adds on to the price of their meat.", so I'm assuming they usually butcher the animal afterwords for FOOD... so it's not like they just kill it for nothing, it was always gonna be steaks anyway.

Anyway, a movie about female matador Christina Sanchez.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q74CXj-EFI

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xatrix / Re: Friends of Xatrix Server

« on: February 04, 2024, 02:31:21 AM »

EXTERMINADER is a known asshole who bans everyone that can beat him. He is a 50yo virgin who has tried desperately for years to hook up with "Debbie" who may or may not be a female

Ouch.

I've butted heads with him in the past. We're cool now. At least I think we are. I hope we are.

I don't think it's necessarily "beating him" that he gets upset by, it's people coming in and going full bore try-hard competition-mode when everyone else is just playing it casual and having fun. You have to keep in mind, this is where folks like Optica used to default to when DM would get too crowded for his TDM style item controlling tactics to keep his KDR up at a high enough number to suit his ego. He was used to stacking and controlling armors and mega, whereas the xatrix regulars would certainly USE the armors and mega, but it was obvious that they weren't making an effort to keep others from using them in order to always have the advantage.

So if they have a low tolerance for perceived try-hard-ism, that's why. If they banned anyone, hopefully it was him. Guy won't talk no matter how friendly you try to be with him, and he plays like a dick. I mean how hard is it to be nice and say hello just one time?

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/dev/random / Re: The last movie you saw....

« on: February 01, 2024, 06:05:49 PM »

The Silent Mountain (2014)

Haven't seen it yet. Came across this youtube clip about it. A movie about WW1. Looks pretty interesting. Trying to download it now.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dszlIAF5zfg

I saw a couple of other movies about WW1 in the past few years...

1917 (2019) - was REALLY good. About 2 soldiers tasked with taking an important message to the front line warning the officers to call off an attack. From what I remember, apparently the enemy found out about the attack, knew they were coming, and were set up to ambush and slaughter them. Don't wanna say more than that lest I give it away for anyone who will want to see it now. You should though. Seriously, it's really good.

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) - Was filmed in German, but dubbed pretty well in English. Usually dubbed movies kinda suck because the dubbed voices are completely void of the proper emotion... or they OVER-emote things... this one, the English dubs do tend to match the actors appropriately. About a German boy and his friends who join the war effort thinking they will become heroes, but quickly find out that they got themselves into a veritable "world of shit" as they say. Accurately depicts the horrors of WW1 as well as any movie possibly could. Not a happy tale at all, very sad ending and would be categorized as a "tragedy" as far as plays go.

From what little I've seen of clips of the 1979 version, I guess it borrows a lot from the 1979 version of the same name starring Richard Thomas, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasance, and Ian Holm. I haven't seen that one all the way through, perhaps I'll download it too. And THAT one is a remake of the original 1930 version... which I ALSO haven't seen.

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/dev/random / Re: What games are you playing ?

« on: January 30, 2024, 01:25:25 AM »

Ready or Not - finally fully released on Steam back at Xmas. 50 bucks I think.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjAFMd3tWb4

Haven't been playing it much, only on the 2nd level, and the first one is basically just a simple warm-up.

It goes from ridiculously easy in the first level, to ridiculously hard and annoying in the 2nd level where you enter the internal courtyard/breezeway of a hotel with two floors above you looking down with a couple of elusive baddies wading back and forth behind the railings where you can't see them until they open up on you and blow the shit out of you. And every time you try to detain one of the civilians, inevitably another bad guy comes out and blasts you're busy cuffing them.

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tastyspleen.net / Re: Clemency for the banned?

« on: January 29, 2024, 12:09:36 PM »

Brodephus is HANGRY! HAVE A SNICKERS, BOY!

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tastyspleen.net / Re: Clemency for the banned?

« on: January 29, 2024, 02:23:51 AM »

He's gonna spend his time posting my old shit as if that somehow effects me.

That's kinda like money though... cuz I still get to live in his head rent free.

Stay mad, Brody. Fight the good fight.

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tastyspleen.net / Re: Clemency for the banned?

« on: January 28, 2024, 11:27:27 PM »

He's gonna spend his money posting my old shit as if that somehow effects me.