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Post by Mandarin Dessert Version 0 on May 19, 2021 5:27:02 GMT -5
Hey, who stole my lasagna? It must have been that darn cat! I hope he will crash and burn when James & Mike play Garfield Kart: -Going by the wikipedia entry, I presume that they are playing it for the PC, but no guarantees from my side for that.
-James with a quasi-goatee and a shirt...a look that you don't see too often from him. Also at this point he must have done something with his hair so that he doesn't wear a cap anymore in these videos.
-This is less about them talking about the game (which is essentially a Mario Kart clone with Garfield characters) and more about the Garfield comics itself.
-James likes the Garfield comics the most when Garfield really goes into planning and doing stuff like a real cat would because, as a cat owner himself, James feels that this is where Garfield is the funniest rather than when he pushes Odie off the table for the hundredth time or when he eats lasagna or stuff like that. I also like the story about James cutting out the Garfield comic strips from the newspaper and pasting them into a book to collect them.
-They also talk about Garfield having had a resurgence with the Garfield Minus Garfield comics (where they also mention that Jon Arbuckle is hilarious) and James especially liking the videos by Lasagna Cat...which are apparently hour-long videos where he disects a single Garfield comic strip? Uhhh...k. Though going by his explanation, it appears that those videos speak to James's appeal for the weird and the scary (especially with that Sex Survey Results video he mentions...no spoilers from me about that). Cannot say anything as I haven't seen a Lasagna Cat video but if James has fun with it, good for him. I wonder though whether the whole Garfield Getting Thrown Out The Window meme was around at that time (April 2020) or if it came later in the year.
-They are a bit sad that Garfield is nowadays considered a bad comic strip because it had a lot of good strips over the course of its career and people remember more the lackluster later years. At least Garfield is still better than Marmaduke (which Mike considers the worst newspaper comic strip ever made).
-Of the newspaper comic strips, among their favorites are Farside, Calvin & Hobbes, Little Nemo, the Lloyd Gottfredsson Mickey Mouse strips, Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon etc.. But above them all, they both think that Peanuts is still the gold standard when it comes to newspaper comic strips.
-Overall, a decent episode not so much for the game but hearing James & Mike's thoughts about Garfield and newspaper comic strips.
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Post by Mandarin Dessert Version 0 on May 20, 2021 1:44:40 GMT -5
Let us all be valiant knights and help our noble king regain the Holy Grail when James & Mike play Knights Of The Round for the Arcade: -At least this time, they mention that they play this via the Nintendo Switch online mode, so there you have the method in how they play this particular game.
-I have rented this game once in its SNES port format but I think only once. It was just another beat em up and I liked Final Fight better.
-Too bad, so sad, pangjuck, but if you cause such a huge amount of lag, don't expect James & Mike to play with you.
-Meh, I don't mind them filling up the sides of the screen too much. Certainly never annoys me with the Mega Man X games but to each their own.
-Yeah, there were certainly a lot of beat 'em up games especially in the 16-bit era of which they mention several. I especially remember the one based off of that Pirates Of Dark Waters animated show which my brother and me played through while renting it (though we did play it on Easy mode). Mike is just a bit miffed that in this Beat 'Em Up bundle they found Knights Of The Round in, that it didn't include the two Dungeons & Dragons beat 'em ups (if you remember, Shadows Over Mystara is one of his favorite beat em ups). Well, perhaps sometime later.
-James & Mike getting quite philosophical about games: "Why would simply eating an apple or a turkey leg heal all the crucial wounds I suffered while fighting enemies in these games?" The world may never know.
-Also getting into a bit of a game graphic discussion about how these games show all the pixels a bit too clearly playing it on a flatscreen TV and how those games were more meant to be played on a CRT Tube TV. Interesting to see in the inserts that Mike already did a CRT Tube TV stream playing various NES games last year. I thought the current streams he does were the first ones he did that for.
-Well, from the topic of the Disney movie Sword In The Stone to which James especially really would have loved a sequel instead of all the other cheapquels that have come out, it brings them to not being happy with Disney's current M.O. of doing live action movies of movies that they already did. In their opinion, Disney should either A) do something with fairy tales they haven't covered before like Hansel & Gretel or B) if they do live-action version of movies they covered, just do something new like new songs, a new direction instead of doing verbatim the same movie just in live-action.
-I know that feeling of trying to watch a movie you really loved as a kid with a child (my nephew in this case and James with his daughters) and them not being able to pay attention to the whole movie. Though at least James's daughter managed to watch the whole original Willy Wonka movie with him which made James happy.
-Well, this new player at least doesn't cause any great lag, so James & Mike are cool to play with him.
-...I would certainly run away if a giant dude like that would cross my path since he seems to not be able to run very fast.
-I guess James finally grew up by using the three letter names to input "Sid", "Dan" or other normal names instead of "Ass" like he used to.
-All in all, a good entertaining episode with a fun game to watch and lots of entertaining topics.
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Post by Mandarin Dessert Version 0 on May 21, 2021 6:16:21 GMT -5
Enough with games, let's go shopping! And what better way to do that than having James & Mike have a look at the Nintendo Switch eShop, especially their SNES and NES sections? -Oh, from the menu screen, I can now deduce that they probably played Garfield Kart and Final Fight also via the Nintendo Switch. -Yeah, the SNES collection doesn't look exactly thrilling...it may have more games than the SNES Classic from the looks of it but I doubt anybody really clamored to play Super Tennis, Super Soccer, Pop'n Twinbee, Brawl Brothers etc. over the other more classic games. -OK, I may not know much about the current game system developers market but I would say that the reason why more classic titles like Mega Man, Castlevania, Contra etc. are not on there is because they are technically available via stuff like the Mega Man Legacy Collection, Castlevania Anniversary Collection, Contra Anniversary Collection and stuff that you can buy individually. I don't know whether the SNES games displayed here have to be purchased individually or if they are already available when you have the Switch and you can access this collection without having to buy anything in it and can just play it. Anyway, since they are already purchasable via another method it wouldn't make sense to make them available separately in this eShop collecton. That makes more sense to me than their thought process that Nintendo wants people to buy the SNES Classic as well which is why they keep the other games off of the Switch SNES Collection. I am actually surprised that they don't come to that conclusion. -Brawl Brothers looks familiar...then I checked it and it is actually the sequel to Rival Turf!, another beat em game me and my brother rented a bit and enjoyed a lot. Cannot say that I played this one at all. -Now to the NES Collection which is mostly interesting for having apparently all the black box games on there, even Mike's favorites...the sports games. -Is it an optical illusion or something? Because I can see some games being double in there or are there two different versions of games in the NES section? -Same complaint as to the SNES section, same reasoning by me as above to this situation. -Boy, Mike really doesn't like Skate Or Die. -Overall, a nice diversion from the usual although I am a bit stupefied why both James & Mike didn't come to the most obvious conclusion regarding the non-availability of those games on these collections.
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Post by Mandarin Dessert Version 0 on May 22, 2021 3:04:12 GMT -5
Move on aside, Garfield! You tried to get on Mario's turf but not for long! Now we show you how it's done when James & Mike play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Nintendo Switch: -I mentioned it before but here, on the home stretch, those title screens for James & Mike Mondays were really awesome looking and it would have certainly been a highlight for many more Mondays to come to see what they could come up with.
-Since Mario Kart 8 is essentially the same game for Switch as it was for the Wii U, it gets them to talk about a bit about these consoles. Mike isn't really a fan of Mario Kart 8 being re-released on the Switch since he was already urging for a Mario Kart 9 at that point but understands it since the Wii U was the least successful console Nintendo ever released so not many gamers got a chance to play it (also another reason why the Switch had so many re-releases of Wii U games). I guess they are talking about it in the sense of home consoles because I cannot think that the Wii U sold worse than the Virtual Boy for example. On the other hand, the Switch apparently was the most successful console since the NES for Nintendo (so I guess it even beat the Wii) which I find interesting that they followed up their worst selling console with another best-selling console. Since James & Mike both had the Wii U, I guess they are among the few that are a bit miffed with the re-releases but they are not grumpy or anything but understand why it was that way.
-They do, however, have some complaints bout the Switch like the dock which is set up in a weird manner and also James had the problem of having to insert the cables in a specific manner, otherwise his Switch wouldn't start. Dunno if those problems have been fixed since I have never been a Switch owner but luckily, it didn't deter them from enjoying the system.
-Indeed, those commercials were weird showing people playing handheld video games while doing other stuff where you wouldn't even need to have a handheld video game system like playing basketball etc..
-One thing Mike really likes about this Deluxe edition of Mario Kart 8 is that they changed the battle mode back to being in battle arenas instead of the normal courses which was something he really hated when it was originally released. While I have never played it that way before, having played the Battle Arena in Mario Kart 64 lots of times I can definitely see why those were more fun than doing them on the courses. They don't play Battle Mode in this video which is a shame since we never got to see them playing it that way before.
-Love that scene from a convention where Mike trashed his competition in the Super Mario Kart battle arena while the crowd chanted Mike. Mike even mentions that Super Mario Kart is probably his favorite SNES game of all time. With other stuff like Zelda and Mario, he prefers the NES entries to the SNES entries because they provide more of a challenge. Having playing Super Mario Bros. 1 and 3, I can definitely say that Super Mario World 1 and 2 are a bit of a breeze compared to those (which is why I want to beat those titles someday).
-Those two guys definitely got it right: instead of just reading up info from Wiki articles and stuff, I loved J&MM for the random, off-the-wall tangents they sometimes go off on (as can be read about here in the past pages of this thread).
-Definitely an interesting idea for a race track in the snow mountain level which Mike really likes because it is just a downhill race without it going in circles. It is really something that he would like to see more of in the upcoming Mario Kart games.
-Nice that they also have an F-Zero and an Excitebike track in this game. With the former, Mike mentions a name called Fast RMX on the Nintendo Switch which is kinda an F-Zero game, making him a bit miffed why Nintendo doesn't just release a new F-Zero game.
-We learn that Mike prefers using the Koopa Troopa as his go-to driver for Mario Kart because he has used him exclusively since way back in the Super Mario Kart days so he keeps on using him while James has no special preference.
-Mike has a 16-mm print of the original 1977 Star Wars? Neat.
-Playing the Animal Crossing track last, brings them to the topic about games in general. While Mike prefers action-based games where something happens at all times (he has to get into a certain mood to play an RPG or a puzzle game), James doesn't have a specific type of game he likes, he likes a wide variety of games (kinda like me with books, TV shows etc.). Though James at this point is basically that, in contrast to his AVGN persona, he wants to play games that he doesn't get into a frustrated, emotional mood with like for example playing Batman for the NES which he can play for the first few levels but when it gets too difficult, he just shuts it off and plays something else instead. Mike, on the other hand, wants to power through even through a frustrating game to beat it (which I actually currently watch an example of when he played King's Knight for the NES).
-Overall, an excellent episode with lots of fun discussions and a beautiful game to look at.
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Post by Mandarin Dessert Version 0 on May 22, 2021 23:44:57 GMT -5
Stack 'em up, stack 'em up! But delicately, darlings, those are rare jewels you are arranging! Hopefully James & Mike won't make too much of a mess when they play Columns 2 for the Arcade: -Played again via the Nintendo Switch and, at first, I thought from their discussion that it was a Sega Genesis game originally but as it turned out, it was the only one of the three Columns games that was never released on the Sega Genesis. -Yeah, it kinda is like Tetris except that you can only internally change the columns but you cannot flip them horizontally (which kinda makes sense, as they mention, since the game is called Columns). Dunno if I would have liked that type of game. -The Columns games have a place for Mike's heart since those were the only games his mother would play with him (while James only remembers his father playing Top Gun...and another game I cannot remember anymore). Kinda reminds me of my mother who only had one video game she would play all the time: Tetris on Game Boy. So I guess parents tend to go for those type of puzzle games (at least the female parental units). -We also learn that James really hates headphones because they make his ears sweat and itch. He remarks the irony that, at that point, some of his sponsors for AVGN videos have been headphone makers but those were just ones you stuck in your ear and they didn't cover your ears, so I guess they were still bearable to shill for. The most useless headphones in their opinion were some Apple headphones which they describe as having two rocks in your ears. -The bane of this remote location set-up: you never know when the call might drop. -They actually get to talk a bit about their pre-AVGN videos from 2001/02 (that have been uploaded to YT since then) like their Mario Segalli video (which was a Mike college project video) and "It Came From The Toilet". They note that the Mario Segalli video already had some things that would reappear in the Nerd episodes (like flipping the bird or cursing at video game-related stuff) and the Toilet one featured the first time that Mike got covered in poop by James. Funny also that unlike the AVGN videos where they had water in the beer bottles, for the Mario Segalli videos they actually put actual Bacardi Rum into the cereal (that must have tasted awful). Also, when you have a scene in a video that requires one person to be covered in poop, make sure that there is a second person present who gets to have the satisfaction of covering you in poop. -To conclude, a decent and fun little video mostly interesting for them talking about their pre-AVGN videos.
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Post by Mandarin Dessert Version 0 on May 24, 2021 2:19:06 GMT -5
Which one will taste more like normal pizza and which one will taste like one of Michelangelo's creations? Let's find out when James & Mike play both Turtles In Time for the SNES and The Hyperstone Heist for the Sega Genesis: -So, this set-up is similar to their Super Mario Bros. 3 video except that James will be playing Turtles In Time and Mike will play The Hyperstone Heist.
-Neat. The first video (though only by a day) that is less than a year old, showing how much we have caught up to this show.
-I may have mentioned it in the original Turtles In Time episode they did (back on the first page of this thread) but I owned Turtles In Time as a child and I played it many, many times and thoroughly enjoyed it. Since I never played a Sega Genesis, I cannot comment on Hyperstone Heist.
-Talking a bit about the Turtles games in general with Mike being one of the rare (?) fans of the original NES TMNT game because it was something different and he enjoyed it. Compared to that, he found Turtles 2 The Arcade Game on NES to be monotonous and repetitive and was never a big fan of it (mostly because you only fight foot soldiers in that one). However, what they both agree on is that Turtles In Time was a really good game because of the graphics, the variety of enemies you encounter and it just being plain enjoyable. Though, of course, the original arcade versions rock even more.
-They actually point out that it was mostly Konami that released different versions of the same title (like with Turtles here but also with Castlevania and Contra) on SNES and Genesis while other companies did mostly the same game on both consoles. Perhaps it was because Konami wanted to add something a little bit different for gamers of each console there.
-Speaking of differences, Mike actually has gone back to playing more Sega Genesis (at the time of the video in May 2020) because it has a wide variety of shmups which is a genre he really likes and which he feels was underrepresented on the SNES in comparison. Interesting, never knew that.
-Mike also mentions a fan game called TMNT: Rescue-Palooza which he really loves because it gives every fan of the TMNT animated series what they would want...including Vernon, Burne and Irma as playable characters (although from the looks of it, they pretty much suck).
-They also talk about the Batman vs. TMNT animated crossover which James really like and it brings up the topic of crossovers being mostly done in animation and games (like, for example, Injustice which is a fighting game I haven't heard before but which looks really good) while never really being done in live action (the most recent example James could think of at that time was Freddy vs. Jason).
-So from the looks of it, Hyperstone Heist looks better graphically but doesn't offer as much variety, apparently having only five (though very long) levels, no time travel theme, no move to throw the foot soldiers into the screen, a low amount of boss characters (later you even have to defeat palette-swapped bosses of the same character) and characters in general...so overall, James & Mike come to the conclusion that Turtles In Time might be the better version.
-In a ranking, James would say that Michelangelo and Raphael are his favorite turtles, with Donatello being third and Leonardo being fourth because the latter doesn't have any distinguishing characteristics besides being responsible and being the leader. Asking him this during a livestream recently, I now know that Mike likes Raphael the most.
-Very weird to see Tatsu from the movies being a boss character in Hyperstone Heist. And James...I think the line "Go. Play." was said by Shredder in the second movie, not Tatsu.
-OMG, the stage Neon Night-Riders takes place in 2020! So, where are my hover discs I can fly on?
-Heh, the final credits song being from that "Coming Out Of Our Shells" tour album...kinda weird to hear.
-So, James finishes Turtles In Time while Mike gives up on the final stage in Hyperstone Heist...not because it was difficult, but because this is all he can take from this game at the moment mostly due to the issues mentioned above.
-Overall, another entertaining video due to the differences evident between the two games and because of the interesting discussions heard.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on May 24, 2021 2:36:35 GMT -5
Yeah, Rescue-Palooza's cool, and I haven't seen Irma in action, but Vernon is definitely a joke character. He doesn't even get a special move like the other characters, and all of his stats are 1.
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Post by Mandarin Dessert Version 0 on May 25, 2021 3:24:55 GMT -5
At least I know that James got home and became a family man while I doubt Mike declares himself to be the strongest woman in the world. Let's see what stuff they are made of when they play every Street Fighter II game for the Arcade: -Again made possible through the magic of the Nintendo Switch having gotten a Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Bundle which has all the games from the first, second and third generation of Street Fighter games including the Alpha games. The only detriments are that only two of the five Street Fighter II games offer online multiplayer (so James has to go it alone for three of them), that you have to select a game to do online multiplayer on in a certain time frame or the computer chooses for you and that you have to select a fighter in time or the computer chooses for you. The latter two especially sound really stupid and provide some problems for James here. -I am actually surprised that there were only five Street Fighter II versions...I thought it were way more. -Of all the games listed, I have rented the original Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II Turbo/Hyper Fighting and Super Street Fighter II when I was a kid and I enjoyed them well enough when I rented them but not so much that I wanted to possess them. -Yeah, one doesn't hear that much about the original Street Fighter game and it kinda...doesn't look good and both James & Mike don't have much nice things to say about it. I wonder if there were other video game franchises where the first game was completely forgotten about while the second one sold like gangbusters. -James & Mike admit that they weren't big on Street Fighter II when it became popular: for James, he was more into Mortal Kombat and he just, for some reason, found the supernatural things in it completely ridiculous compared to something like Final Fight which he felt was more realistic and what he associated more with a street fight (I guess with Mortal Kombat he had no problem since it was made clear from the start that it was a supernatural environment in that one). With Mike, it was also that he was more into Final Fight and found the idea of a 1-on-1 fighting game weird as a child so he wasn't too into it. -Street Fighter II Championship Edition was the one that added the four boss characters from the first Street Fighter II game to it and was released on the Sega Genesis so no wonder I never saw that one. -Now there's an idea: Bob Saget playing as Sagat. Wonder what his reaction would be? -They also mention that Raul Julia was a great M.Bison in the movie. Have to agree with that. -Street Fighter II Turbo/Hyper Fighting...now that one really does look like it moves at hyperspeed compared to the original one. Though I never tried the higher turbo levels in that one when I rented it. -James really liking Fei Long's winning pose where he looks like he's having a seizure for some reason. -Now technically this is a retreat since they did play Super Street Fighter II Turbo in a previous episode for the 3DO but they have revisited some games in the past so why not? Though the above mentioned problems rear their head when they are forced to play a match in one the Street Fighter III games featuring those enduring characters...Alex and Q. I bet they made quite an impact in the Street Fighter world. -All in all, another fun and educational video just for getting to know how many Street Fighter II versions there were. Though another episode ending on a sad note when I hear James & Mike talking about tackling the original Street Fighter or games from the Alpha and III era on future episodes.
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Post by Mandarin Dessert Version 0 on May 26, 2021 1:36:18 GMT -5
Hmm, that sounds like a game I really have never heard much about. I wonder what system it came out on. Guess I will hear it when James & Mike play the 30 Second Memory Game: -OK, not really a video game, but just something they decided to do out of fun. Basically, in turns, they name a game and then the other has to name as much facts as they can about it until 30 seconds are up. This is just for fun and not something competitive in this case. -I am sure it happens often that people confuse Primal Rage and Killer Instinct. And again another game that they could have done on James & Mike Mondays. Would have really loved to see their reactions on the piss fatality. -Love that we have some games here that they covered on James & Mike Mondays, some games that Mike has done streams on and also rather obscure games (like Hatris and Solar Jetman for example). -Is that really true that Mega Man 5 on NES is the rarest of the NES Mega Man games? I would have bet a large amount of money that Mega Man 6 was the rarest. -Love when they buck with each other with James going to the Nintendo Game Atlas and Pollen Water as topics (though with the latter Mike really picks up the ball and runs with it). -Overall, a different episode, for sure, and a decent one.
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Post by Mandarin Dessert Version 0 on May 27, 2021 2:47:39 GMT -5
Move over, Captain Marvel and Captain Falcon! There's a new captain in town better than all you would-be world savers! And he's gonna prove it to you when James & Mike play Captain Commando for the Arcade: -Nothing said in that regard, but I would bet 100 dollars that they play it via the Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle on the Nintendo Switch again. -They explain and go into the history of Captain Commando a bit. Have to say that until that video came out less than a year ago, I had no idea who Captain Commando is. I owned Ducktales on the NES back then but I cannot remember if he was ever mentioned in the German instruction manual, so his existence came as complete news to me. -Now I kinda wanted to see a video where James and Mike went through his old taped together instruction manuals and discover what James scribbled and wrote down there. That could be a fun video. Love how he taped all the manuals together into a big book and what he wrote into the Ghosts'n Goblins manual. And I totally feel him since I also remember scribbling in my old comics and stuff (though it was more the kind of using colored pens to draw over faces and stuff). -That's certainly an interesting character...a baby in a mech suit. And later we get the ultimate inception: a baby in a mech suit piloting a mech suit. -James definitely has an interesting idea for a video: pointing out all the trademarks within the games of each company (Sunsoft, Konami, Capcom, Ocean etc.). Kinda makes me wonder if Titus really was only around during the Nintendo 64 days. -Mike mentions that this game really stuck out to him because of the gore level (people getting cut in half, blood being visible) and also that you can use much more weapon items compared to Final Fight (like using a gun, for example). -OK, James, I accept it that you are more comfortable with it...but it's still not pronounced Rye-You! -That would be really interesting if that music cue really was the one from Ninja Gaiden that they used, barring the fact that it was made by a different company. -James actually mentions that he has tried to watch more 1990s TV animation since that is a topic that went totally by him (since he was more into horror films at that time and not watching TV animation) and he enjoys Ren & Stimpy, Animaniacs etc.. The latter especially reminds him that that was probably the last show referencing stuff like Orson Welles/Citizen Kane etc., i.e. older stuff that nowadays most people wouldn't be so familiar with. I can definitely see that appealing to James. -Love that he tries to get his kids into Popeye by using the black-and-white Fleischer cartoons (though mentioning later that it is harder to get kids to watch something in black-and-white these days) which Mike thinks are better...except for that Sinbad The Sailor one (isn't that also a Popeye cartoon that is in the National Film Registry?) -Another take at their discussion about how people are more interested into hearing about something negative instead of positive, again using the example of James's video praising the Maltese Falcon only getting 40,000 views while his video about 10 reasons why Blu-Ray sucks got 400,000 views. Cannot disagree with him here. -The highlight of the video is definitely when they get into the idea of how young ones could be introduced to the old Looney Tunes shorts again and getting into the idea of how, for example, during a Minecraft session, a 7-minute Looney Tunes short pops up. They get so much into the idea and it causes perhaps the biggest crack-up I have seen since the Goat Simulator episode, so much so that James is even crying at the end there of laughing so hard. -Even brings to topic how his daughters would react if something like this interrupted their New Muppet Babies watching. Stuff like this really makes me want to see James doing a video with his daughters but, again, I fully understand if James wouldn't want to do this. -And during that whole discussion they beat the game without even having time to make fun of the last boss's name...Scumocide. -Overall, a very entertaining episode with a fun game and the whole "Looney Tunes out of nowhere interrupting various things" was one of the best things out of this series in quite a while. Definitely one of the highlights of the last remaining days of this show.
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Post by Mandarin Dessert Version 0 on May 27, 2021 23:17:10 GMT -5
Just as an info: I will be away until Sunday so the next post will be on Monday. So don't worry if today and the next days will not have any new posts.
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