 FAQ Has Arrived, ... Get your 4th encounter here |
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 Dec 8 2006, 03:08 PM
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#176
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Shadow Cartographer  Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636  |
I hate to just keep posting "agreed" after Nightmare's posts, but, ah... me too. We do need some realism in our tech as it's something that we're familiar with. Example: I used to be a C programmer and I know quite a bit about computers. Everytime I see a movie that features "Hacking" my suspension of disbelief goes out of the window. Seen The Net with Sandra Bullock? Where a web-design company has infiltrated a little link into the bottom of all web-pages that you can click on to hack the company's system? Or Jurassic Park with the line that will be burned into my brain till the day I die: "It's a UNIX system! I know this!" I have a friend who is a doctor and who has the same problem when Hollywood does injury or hospitals. If a magician wants to levitate, that's one thing. If they want to screw up the more blatant laws of physics, then that's going to produce the same disengaging that happens whenever we see violations of things we know about. Khadim's Law #4: The more dragons you have in your game, the harder you have to work to maintain realism everywhere else. |
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Dec 8 2006, 03:17 PM
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#177
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,168 Joined: 15-April 05 From: Helsinki, Finland Member No.: 7,337 |
Hmm..Nightmare, i think i like some of your house rulings. :D Its a shame that you dont live near here. I need more SR players around here(i have a few but not much!)
The only one that i dont agree with is Technomancer removal; but its ok, i can see how some folks think they dont fit. I think theyre a bit nifty, but they are definately a falvor thing. Lets say im in the middle...if they arent there, i dont mind. If there there, i dont mind. So it wouldnt affect me too much :) With your cyberlimbs, you simply charge more Nuyen and/or essence for the higher 'base calibrated' ones? Do the enhancements cost the same for them? |
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Dec 8 2006, 03:28 PM
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#178
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,590 Joined: 11-September 04 Member No.: 6,650 |
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I see you are not as familiar with UNIX as you thing as that is a real UNIX GUI. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: |
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Dec 8 2006, 03:45 PM
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#179
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
Pal. I spent nearly two years developing software on a HP Unix 11 platform. The fact that they used the ugliest filesystem navigator in the history of computers ( Midnight Commander is prettier! ) did not fool me. The reason that the line caused such tremendous derision is the implication that the character can suddenly crack the system because "I know UNIX". I mean how does that work? "Hey - Sed and Awk are installed so getting admin privileges will be easy." Now if the character said: "It's Windows 98" then her relief would be a bit more believable. ;) |
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Dec 8 2006, 04:03 PM
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#180
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Awakened Asset Group: Members Posts: 4,464 Joined: 9-April 05 From: AGS, North German League Member No.: 7,309 |
Nice GUI. Too much spare time on part of the programmers, or a honest-to-god innovation attempt?
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Dec 8 2006, 06:08 PM
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#181
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,537 Joined: 27-August 06 From: Albuquerque NM Member No.: 9,234 |
That's why our PCs pretended to be security contractors. Actually, we were security contractors, but we made a lot more money from our off-the-books clients than we did from our legitimate customers. But it sure made getting our steel lynxes, keycard copiers and anti-vehicular rockets a lot easier. |
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Dec 8 2006, 06:28 PM
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#182
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,512 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 392 |
Here's a big beef for magic versus technology. Maybe those who are working on Augmentation can answer it.
Will a normal street sam be able to design and install his own cyberware without having to become an engineer character? Right now mages can be completely self-sufficient if they take some enchanting and spell design. And in fact, spell design and circulation are the only two magical R&D/Production methods that have comparable test times to programming. Add to this the fact that Summoners who have some Enchanting (Alchemy) can get a 20% discount on their spirit/ritual materials you can see how things seem wonky. In SR3, sams never even considered trying to build their own guns or designing and installing custom cyberware. However, the enchanting rules seem to have been converted over from SR3 almost word for word. We never had a mage last more than a few sessions once we started using alchemy. They'd get enough karma to hit that sweet spot where they can create orichalcum fast enough that they have a guaranteed high lifestyle without having to shadowrun anymore. Not only are the personal development aspects of a mage better compared to a street sam but they are largely self-sufficient, working in groups to get discounts, not for necessity, and have much larger earning potential. The way I'm designing street sams now is I take a template of cyberware that I want and then build a hacker around it. That's assuming that I don't just play a Hacker Adept instead. Also, I don't think houseruling is very conducive to a gaming community. If I can't go to another gaming group without having to first read 8 pages of houserules then there's a cost to getting involved. Makes it harder to introduce new gamers. Also it makes discourse between people on boards like this difficult because we are all playing with different systems. The quality of a rules system is based on ease of interpretation and minimizing of house rules necessary to play it. SR4 seems to be losing rules quality very quickly. BTW, my comment earlier about Extended masking was perfectly valid. As soon as you get the metamagic you can conceal 2 spells or foci and it automatically gets better just through the course of character development. Finally, the reason I was irate about the dig at Gibson was not because he is the be all and end all of cyberpunk. I list Billy Idol, Hackers, and Strange Days as high as Gibson in terms of its impact on my perception of the genre. Although Gibson was my gateway into SR he is not my idol of cyberpunk. What I objected to was the fact that the "frequently asked question" had been answered officially at least once that I recall (in one of the sneak-peak FAQs). The way I understood it was that the whole reason the question was included was to take a swipe at Gibson, which is childish and unprofessional. |
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Dec 8 2006, 07:08 PM
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#183
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
Right. When does that happen in SR4? THe Fencing rate in SR4 is 30%. Orichalcum is worth 50,000 :nuyen: a unit, and the raw materials cost 44,000 :nuyen: to get your test. If you have a Dicepool of 24, you'll average getting the highet possible result - 5 units of Orichalcum. That retails for 250,000 :nuyen:, which means that the Alchemist's cut is about 75 grand. That's a take home profit of 31,000 :nuyen: a month. But seriously, who the fuck has an Enchanting dicepool of 24? You need a dicepool of 18 to even break even on the startup costs. You need a dicepool of 21 to show real profit, where is that coming from? I could see someone spending Edge every month to make their Orichalcum progess better, or I suppose you could play Logistics and Dragons and find buyers yourself and sell directly to the public in units of 1 or 2 throughout the months and pull ahead with just a dicepool of 15. But that's still crazy crazy high and you actually are adventuring at that point (even thouh your adventures are now "keep the Holloweeners from jacking the orichalcum shipment before you get paid."). I'm aware that in SR3 you could have a Magic Attribute high enough that your TN for making Orichalcum was 2 and you just made 5 units of Orichalcum every single month with your starting character Enchanting skill - but in SR4 that requires you to get 8 hits, which is the average result for someone with an Enchanting of 7 and a Magic of 17 - I just don't see people hitting that "sweet spot" terribly quickly under the current rules. -Frank |
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Dec 8 2006, 07:40 PM
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#184
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
forget orichalcum! too much work. using talismongering to find gold is where the real money lies.
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Dec 8 2006, 08:03 PM
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#185
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 829 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 770 |
We've covered this before - the "kg" or whatever of "gold" that a magician finds, is, in fact, a trivial amout of actual Au. Rather - it's a lump of rock that hasn't been polluted, hasn't been worked with machinery, and has just enough actual gold to be useful for alchemy.
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Dec 8 2006, 08:15 PM
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#186
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,512 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 392 |
Too right. Not to mention using it to exploit the 20% off discount on your conjuring/ritual materials, plus another 10-20% off if you happen to be in the right group. 4 units of the cheapest refined or 2 of the cheapest radicals only cost 400 as opposed to the 500 for 1 force of conjuring. The only difference is how efficiently the alchemist can make the materials. As far as orichalcum goes, it was much easier in SR3, they made it slightly harder in this edition. However, you are forgeting that you don't have to purchase all the ingredients. Starting with refined you cut that cost to 22,000 and 11,000 if you start with raw. If you have refined then you need a second circulation which means you are only making orichalcum every two months. Assume Magic 5, Enchancting 4, Survival 4, Intuition 5 (make it your drain stat)and Power Focus 2 (starting mage). That's 11 dice, or 3 successes for enchancting and 3 successes for location (default for 1 on gathering). You locate all 4 raw in 10.66 hours and gather in 2 hours. Since they are all the same category you can work with them all as 1 test. Raw to refined takes 1.3 days. You do the circulation to radicalize them and succeed (29.3 days). Do another circulation for orichalcum. You're expecting to succeed and get 1 unit of orichalcum. Throw you Edge in before you roll. That adds .55 successes at Edge 1 for a total of 4 (rounded up since I rounded down before). You get 2 units of orichalcum which you sell at 30,000. Let's say you're living modestly at Middle, renting a shop (have to book by lunar months--28 days), and that you can borrow funds from your credit card at 18%. You rent comes to 10,000+4500. By the way you have to be SINner for this to work but since it's legit it doesn't matter. 2 month's interest on that is 3% or 435. You still have the shop for 26.7 days but you'll need another 2 months plus 2.5 months living expenses. That comes to 3000+12500. You deduct that plus interest from the 30,000 for a total of 14065. You use that to pay off you card and are left with a balance of 435 (the interest--funny huh?). For the next two months the interest is 3% times 435. 13.05 nuyen. You expect exactly the same results on all your rolls so you produce another 30,000. This time your profit is 14051.95 and your credit card balance is 0. This time you could make the jump to high without losing money (your profit would be 1551.95) and you are now living the high life. Note the only costs I have not worked into this feasability analysis is the transportation to and from talismonering sites, the cost of using those sites, and the temporal cost of finding you own raw materials. I have also not included the cost of the assayer's kit. Also I didn't include the cost of glitches or critical glitches since if you were running instead of enchanting either one of these could cost you your life. A starting mage is fully self sufficient at starting character stats at the high lifestyle with minimal twinking within half a year. As mfb pointed out if you just become a gold miner you can probably make even more money. Don't mess with accountants and their numbers....bwahahahahahahahaha! |
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Dec 8 2006, 08:41 PM
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#187
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 633 Joined: 23-February 06 Member No.: 8,301 |
Personally, I didn't think it was any worse than Gibson's own swipe at Shadowrun, which is what spawned the comment. And, honestly, it was funny. It wasn't spiteful at all, and I only saw it as a good-natured joke. If they had said "Because William Gibson is a jackass" I would agree with you. |
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Dec 8 2006, 08:55 PM
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#188
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,333 Joined: 19-August 06 From: Austin Member No.: 9,168 |
Agreed. At this point, it's a known issue. Part of what I love about SR is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. The fact that they can poke fun at themselves and Gibson in the FAQ is great. But many people have asked why the decker went away, to the point of complaining that the Hacker in the BBB isn't really a hacker. Hell, I've houseruled Decks back in for my game, assuming it ever actually starts up. So that part is valid too. |
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Dec 8 2006, 08:57 PM
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#189
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,556 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 98 |
I think i'm about to die from happiness :P :cyber: |
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Dec 8 2006, 09:14 PM
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#190
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
Brilliant! Except...
4 Hits only gets you 1 unit of Orichalcum. You consume the materials with 3 hits, but you get Orichalcum equal to the net hits - the number of hits you get in excess of the threshold. So your economic model is brilliant. Perfectly excuted and if you could squeeze an extra 3 dice out of the character's Enchanting test you'd be on your way to having a full time job. Very much like how a Hacker with Computer 5 and Artisan 4 could proabbaly make a pretty good living as a graphic designer if there wasn't some pressing reason for him to be running the shadows instead. -Frank |
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Dec 8 2006, 09:24 PM
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#191
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
Which is what it comes down to. A character without a reason to be in the shadows fundementally lacks the verisimilitude right from the start that is suppositly being sought. It's the same thing as "I take 1 million :nuyen: resources in chargen and buy a permanent lifestyle. Whoot, I win!" :wobble: @Cheops My mind boggles at a SR game in which the players decide that's a good idea. Why weren't you playing Parker Brother's Monopoly instead? :? |
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Dec 8 2006, 09:34 PM
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#192
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 124 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 2,072 |
Whew this thread has been a wild ride.
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Dec 8 2006, 09:44 PM
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#193
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Gotta side with the "we're not playing a game about running a store" side on this one. I came to run the shadows.
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Dec 8 2006, 09:51 PM
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#194
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,526 Joined: 9-April 06 From: McGuire AFB, NJ Member No.: 8,445 |
And James gets a point!
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Dec 8 2006, 09:59 PM
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#195
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
How many points do I need to win?
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Dec 8 2006, 09:59 PM
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#196
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
Could you please favour me with a recap in a sentence or two? I fear I don't have the stomach nor the time to sift through the 7+ pages of posts. ;) Thanks.
Enough to buy a permanent Lifestyle. Preferably one on Boardwalk. |
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Dec 8 2006, 10:08 PM
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#197
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,526 Joined: 9-April 06 From: McGuire AFB, NJ Member No.: 8,445 |
With a hotel. :P |
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Dec 8 2006, 10:25 PM
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#198
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 500 Joined: 4-September 06 From: Salt Lake UT Member No.: 9,299 |
That's a good point. I allways have to pay for fake SINs and the licences to go with my gear. I have a hard time understanding how that works, since I have to be a registered employee of an entity which is leagaly licened to have and use 12F gear in whatever jurisdiction I travel to, but it usually gets me a pass for normal everyday situations. I'm aware though that this means that the GM (who was usually me) has the player by the shorthairs in that situation. The player takes the chance of getting his fake SIN flagged every time he walks down the street in a B or better neighborhood with a high dencity of MAD and cyber scanners. I've never encountered a similar dencity of brain scanners that snoop for which spells a character knows. Maybe that's a problem with the setting. I should probably house rule it.
This is another setting issue. Magic is becomeing more common It's allready realatively accepted by the genral public. Mages don't even face the level of stigma that Orks do. I have a suspicion that in Emergence TM's will come along and pretty much remove the spotlight of paranoia from mages completely. People with cyberlimbs and dermal plating will still face social interaction mods. Fine it's the players choice and in my experience it makes for a compelling character. The funny thing about that is that there is no Cost and availability listing in my book for natural replacement limbs. (I'm not justifying borgs as runners by saying that they're compelling. We need borgs as a GM device and scenery.)
I allready appologized for that. It was a stupid thing for me to bring up, and I wouldn't have if I hadn't miss read your comment about Hatchetman. Thanks by the way for that little preview of Augmentation if that's what it was. I am aware that I am childishly emotional when it comes to cyberware and implant tec that stopped me from making my point about cybermancy. That is, If one can develop cybermancy why cant one develope an essence breakthrough or at least a better understanding of how essence limits cyberware instalation. If they're sticking to the modification of the nervous system for bioelectric powersources put a person's aura out of phase idea, how about a piece of gear, nanites, bioware, better damned batteries, that can be used to offset essence drain?
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Dec 8 2006, 10:29 PM
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#199
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
Initial posts: Reaction enhancers aren't compatible with wired reflexes. Whine, mutter, boo! OneTrikPony: Designers hate cyberpunk. Magic is too uber. Lots of capital letters. Declares FAQ-induced constipation. More posts: Agents fixed. Ooo - hacking stuff! Synner: Promises sweets for everyone. OneTrikPony: Suggestive comments towards Synner. Sphincter presumably working again. Others: Debate on nature of drones and rigging. Knasser: Insightful and witty post. AR vs. VR topic re-appears like a Marvel villain that will not die in yet another thread. Gibson sucks. No he doesn't. Yes he does. No he really doesn't. He might or might not suck but he's highly unlikely to give a shit we think so. Microsoft SR game sucks. Yes it does. Lorechaser: Quantum. Debate about mages making more money through alchemy. ==== There you go. :D -K. |
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Dec 8 2006, 10:34 PM
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#200
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Genuine Artificial Intelligence Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 |
Knasser, having read through this entire thread as it occured, that was hilarious. Thank you. :-)
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