[Sun] 04 May 2014 (I will always love you)

How we died (in the future)
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fer
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Location: Emotional wreck

[Sun] 04 May 2014 (I will always love you)

Post by fer »

Missions:
  • Pancho
  • Edna
  • Holy Stones
  • Down Mr President! (after-party)
Despite the Bank Holiday, we managed to field 37 brave comrades tonight. This was good, but not quite enough for the objectives the Party had set for us ... namely, completing the meat grinder, Pancho, and its new sequel, Edna. Faced with two missions that have an insatiable desire for comrades' bodies (and flaming IFVs), we used science to bring the dead back to life! Actually, we didn't do that, but we did try out a new reinforcement mechanic. After beating Pancho (for the first time) and Edna (on our first run), both times under the brave leadership of comrade Tigershark, we re-ignited the timeless battle between Aziz and Azoz in the new Holy Stones. Finally, in the after-party, we all participated in a bromance action movie simulator mission, Down Mr President! (with comrades Tigershark and Ferrard Carson in the lead roles). Thank you to everyone who came along, and for making the slotting - both regular and reinforcement - very smooth. As the session host (and creator of Pancho and Edna), I'm very keen to hear feedback on the reinforcement mechanic and missions.

As ever, please post your thoughts, feedback, screenshots and video here - comrade YouTube Hero SuperU's FA doesn't just produce our video idents, but provides leadership and guidance to propaganda artists. We also have a new YouTube channel that he manages so if you have any content you think should feature then let him know and he will sort you out, for more info check out this thread!; more guidance on video editing for Folk ARPS is provided by comrade Ferrard Carson. Posts in the AAR threads really help us (the hosts and mission makers), both with understanding how we can improve the experiences, and showing potential comrades what our sessions are like.

Finally, this had to be done (the after-party crowd will understand) ... :v:


TacticalSloth
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2014 6:19 am

Re: [Sun] 04 May 2014 (Reinforcements!)

Post by TacticalSloth »

hello

I joined towards the end of 'Edna', did a bit of IFV driving, other than us getting hit by an RPG nothing exiting really happened.
(was thinking ,since driving isn't really fun, maybe we could have an AI in the driver slot and have the commander controlling it?)

Holy stones - I was a rifleman in Alpha squad. It was less than 3 minutes when my whole fireteam got wiped out. I managed to kill a guy and than died.
In my opinion, playing without NVG's is completely pointless for a 'real' semi-realistic mission. I just can't think of anything we could've done better, or anyway we could've play it differently, without NVG's (or at least, don't make it pitch black next time, make it like 1700-1800 with starlight).
On the other hand, If we had NVG's or if it wasn't pitch-black, I can think of numerous ways we could have played it and not die (at least not immediately); piling
from cover to cover, one man at a time for example (as opposed to just following each other while being bunched up, unable to see our surroundings, which is what we did).

President mission -
I was Delta 2 FTL (a 3 man FT).
We were 'entrenching' in the 1st floor of a a big 4-story white building. I was holding a corner and got shot and killed after about 1 minute from the start.
Again, I like the mission Idea, but completely don't see the point of having only pistols/Smg's. I was helpless with that pistol. maybe just smg's would be fine.
Also, I think we spawned too close to the action, IMO having us spawning in a safe distance would've allowed us to plan out an approach and maybe avoid casualties at such an early stage.

that's all I can think of , will edit if will come up with anything else.

greetings
Shay

Ardyvee
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Location: Portugal. Because yeah.

Re: [Sun] 04 May 2014 (I will always love you)

Post by Ardyvee »

Pancho: So... homer was going to have a retirement party next week. We were told to go to an overwatch position away from the enemy positions. We go.. and our our way there we get shot. I managed to exit before the IFV blew up in a nice little ball of fire. The rest of pancho was spent running around with DC Fer. He tried to get me killed multiple times throughout the operation directed me to possible enemy positions so that I could help him get closer to the front-lines unharmed. We managed to confiscate some Zafirs from dead enemy soldiers. We followed the Charlie squad, pew pew some EI that were inside buildings that should have been clear, called IFV support, got transported inside the town inside the IFV, heard Fer become CO just as we finished cleaning up the AO. Took a nice picture, too. Enjoyable listening in CC and watch everyone else get shot at.

Edna: The party must have liked my performance with the Zafirs since I got promoted from LunchBox Commander to MMG Assitant (getting out of those lunchboxes is ALWAYS a promotion). Helped comrade head shoot enemy infantry. Shoot some myself. Liberated an Static MG that we sadly didn't get to use. Fun stuff.

Holy Stones: I was part of A2's squad on... side that didn't have bandanas. We rushed to the bunker and did our best to defend it. It was dark. Civilians decided to enter the bunker every now and then and just walk in front of the entrance. The enemy threw many grenades to the bunker, myself dying to one after many. We managed victory, despite having lost many comrades and being on numerical disadvantage.

Down Mr President!: It looks like pistol are pretty good. When used by the AI. We are tasked with saving our leader Tigershark from a failed coup. Armed with mostly firearms and smgs we head towards him. I, as the medic, engage an AI inside a building, miraculously not getting shot by an already firing enemy. Then, afterwards, I get killed by one single shot by an enemy AI inside a building using a pistol.
:siiigh:


Reinforcements: I did not use this. Today was a good day in terms of surviving. However, it did allow for a slightly longer mission (1h) where nobody spent half of it dead. My crew would have spent 40min. doing nothing if it wasn't for that, and I believe the extra manpower towards later stages allowed victory. Thanks fer for taking the job :)

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Ferrard Carson
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Re: [Sun] 04 May 2014 (I will always love you)

Post by Ferrard Carson »

Pancho
Deployed as Alpha 2 FTL

Oh look, I'm 2nd FTL in a squad on this mission again. Oh look, we're clearing the exact same building where I got shot in the first 2 minutes of our last run of this mission. Oh look, I'm... alive? Huh.

Under Bodge's constant, steady leadership, Alpha carved a wide swath across the corridor we were to clear, starting in the West and chewing our way to the Northeast building by building. With the occasional potshot from AI 500+ meters away, the various fire teams managed to overcome enough of their hesitancy to move under fire, and we eventually reached the halfway point... to find the latecoming Charlie crowding us in.

Like boisterous reservists, Charlie charged through us screaming warcries and waving tomahawks and machetes around like hooligans-- at least, that's what I like to think, though in truth they just ended up piling into our sector due to the way the urban area converged.

Alpha 2 cleared its way into town, working house-by-house and losing our beloved AR to EI at the far end of a long street turned into a shooting gallery. Some minutes later, I looked up to realize that I was at the edge of the city, and that we had completely cleaned house! Panochori was ours! A brief photo-op was held with a local news reporter, and then we unleashed our pent up aggression and utterly wrecked town square with our victory fire!

Edna
Deployed as Alpha 2 FTL

What? This again? The Alpha dream-team... didn't reunite, because my old fireteam members weren't able to seize their spots quick enough :( But the power trio of Bodge / Bones / Carson was still going strong, and we duct-taped Cam into place as Alpha's balancing 3rd FTL that we could throw headfirst into the beaten zone to take bullets meant for us fete and worship and adore.

Alpha achieved the crest of the hill without exposing ourselves to the enemy. Bravo to our left... didn't, as announced by the rat-tat-tat of machine-gun fire and the echo of grenades as they blew their loads in Bravo's midst. After the entire platoon laid down a withering field of fire on anything and everything in sight (how very American of us), Bravo seized the rocky ridge and Alpha passed north of them to seize the hill beyond them.

After trading long-range potshots with the AI (and the AI generally coming out on top, with Bodge, our glorious leader falling to HMG fire), all of Alpha piled down into a nearby ravine that would take us straight into the middle of enemy-occupied Edessa. I emerged from the muddy muck to see all of Alpha surging out of the reeds - Aqarius was cut down by machine gun fire as he charged out of the gully, and I took a very painful bullet to the spleen that forced me to take cover. A doggedly persistent CSAT machine gunner held off me and the Bravo Medic (???) until Alpha 2's survivors could come up on their flank and fill them with lead.

Among the dead from the assault: Bones from Alpha 1. Meaning I was now ASL.

Detaching A1 and A3 to clear some nearby suspected machine gun positions, A2 followed me back through Edessa, checking to see if any CSAT souls had survived our assault. As we looked back towards the center of town, there were those f***ing reservists from the last mission, whooping and hollering and shooting in the air like they'd won the whole thing for us.

And then victory was declared and apparently they were right :psyduck:

Holy Stones
Deployed as Azoz-For (Bandana-for) Alpha 3 FTL

Ah the glorious rivalry of Aziz and Azoz - nothing shall keep it apart, not the blazing Takistani sun, not the coldest Thirsk winter, not an interlude of some three decades since last they met on the field of battle... not even the fact that neither appear in ArmA 3!

Azoz's brave militia charged southwards across the bridge into the street-lamped landscape of Central Kavala. Our rifles blazing, A3 looped around The Shrine as we attempted to work into Aziz's rear and take his forces by surprise.

It seems, however, that Mamuto's fire team on Aziz's militia had the same idea. I whispered for my AT rifleman to follow me, looked behind me, and lo-and-behold, there were two figures in very fetching ugly boonie hats. I distracted Mamuto by filling his thoughts with hot lead, but his mate took offense to that, we swung our guns towards one another, and we opened fire at the same time. My shots grazed his shin, but his turned my brain-pan into more of a brain-colander :psyboom:

In the end, the Aziz-For fireteam occupying the shrine traded fire with the Azoz-For fireteam occupying a nearby apartment block, pinned in the shrine while no one from Azoz-For moved to unseat them. As a result, Zeus shone his divine favor upon Aziz, and the boonie-hatted cultists received the favor of the gods that they certainly did not deserve - no one with that appalling a fashion sense should receive the favor of the gods :colbert:

Down Mr President! (after-party)
Deployed as President Tigershark's loyal bodyguard

Ah Tigershark... your brave leadership would have done Altis so much good if only our coup had worked. And all the natives are getting worked up about it, even setting aside their differences in some misguided attempt to kill us all.

We came to in the midst of a compound under assault, with Delta's hastily improvised minefield working with increasingly concerning rapidity. The FIA bastards were ruthless, charging straight into minefields trying to trigger as many as they could so that their comrades behind them could get through. Delta's numbers dwindled as Tiger and I huddled in a corner, shooting the occasional mean glare (and a few 9mm bullets) out towards the swarms of FIA outside the front gate. We abandoned one building as the courtyard began to crawl with FIA and the sounds of Alpha's steady advance towards us slackened in the distance.

"That means they're close, right?" we asked. "There's one guy left in Alpha" was the answer.

:siiigh:

So off we went, we five survivors of Delta, to rescue the rescuers. Err... rescuer, singular. Joyfully reunited outside the front gates, the six of us traipsed off towards the Northwest. Three of us fled back away from the minefield in a panic. The two of us watched the last survivor of Alpha perish from pistol fire.

And then it was just me and Tiger.

And obviously me and Tiger is all we need. The One True Bromance raged through the city, striking dead all FIA we came across, and then we saw the bridge. And the guards. And the appalling lack of cover. We charged. They shot. I died. My only comfort as my lifeblood wept out through my hands was that Tiger still lived.

Until the AGL-to-the-face incident within sight of the boats. What sadistic f***er made this mission... Oh, right. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

:clint: ~ Ferrard
"Take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turnin' of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurtin' before she keels... makes her home."

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fer
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Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:16 am
Location: Emotional wreck

Re: [Sun] 04 May 2014 (Reinforcements!)

Post by fer »

Hey TacticalSloth, thanks for coming to the session, and also for posting as a relative newcomer - the hosts team really appreciates it when people take time to do that.

:v:

I wanted to respond to some of your points:
TacticalSloth wrote:I joined towards the end of 'Edna', did a bit of IFV driving, other than us getting hit by an RPG nothing exiting really happened.
(was thinking ,since driving isn't really fun, maybe we could have an AI in the driver slot and have the commander controlling it?)
I know what you mean - and I'm not a fan of deliberately boring roles in missions (unless I'm asking a attack helo crew to loiter outside the AO for 75% of a mission). Indeed, in missions with transport helicopters, we sometimes see AI pilots. However, with ground vehicles the AI pathfinding can be so terrible that either journeys are painfully long, or you cannot react quickly (or appropriately) enough to enemy fire. Or both. Hence the choice to use human crews. Don't worry if driving isn't your thing, I'm sure next session you'll have plenty of opportunities to be an infantryman with a proper rifle!
TacticalSloth wrote:Holy stones - I was a rifleman in Alpha squad. It was less than 3 minutes when my whole fireteam got wiped out. I managed to kill a guy and than died.
In my opinion, playing without NVG's is completely pointless for a 'real' semi-realistic mission. I just can't think of anything we could've done better, or anyway we could've play it differently, without NVG's (or at least, don't make it pitch black next time, make it like 1700-1800 with starlight).
On the other hand, If we had NVG's or if it wasn't pitch-black, I can think of numerous ways we could have played it and not die (at least not immediately); piling
from cover to cover, one man at a time for example (as opposed to just following each other while being bunched up, unable to see our surroundings, which is what we did).
Your feedback isn't wrong at all - we could make this far more tactical if we had NVGs and proper weapons. However, it also makes me realise that some aspects of how FA operates, and how some of our missions work, aren't always explained in our forum posts. The TL/DR is that whilst the majority of our missions are reasonably serious and tactical, we've always had a tradition of more light-hearted, snappy adversarials - sometimes with gimmicky twists (the gimmicky ones tend to get played during the 'after-party', when the session has officially ended by plenty of comrades remain). Holy Stones isn't quite an after-party mission, but it's in the tradition of our Internecine missions: designed to be quick and chaotic, and over quickly. A big part of the original Internecine and Holy Stones missions was deliberately similar uniforms for both sides, crappy weapons and (sometimes, but not always) poor visibility - because they are supposed to be disorganised clashes between militias. Here are some videos from the originals:
Next time I run Holy Stones in an ArmA 3 session, though, I'm going to select dusk conditions to see what happens when there's a little more visibility.
TacticalSloth wrote:Again, I like the mission Idea, but completely don't see the point of having only pistols/Smg's. I was helpless with that pistol. maybe just smg's would be fine.
Also, I think we spawned too close to the action, IMO having us spawning in a safe distance would've allowed us to plan out an approach and maybe avoid casualties at such an early stage.
I might be with you on the pistols point, actually. The SMGs are still poor enough in ArmA 3 that they would represent a massive change from rifles, especially if ammunition was limited. However, and to be fair to comrade Carson's mission, our numbers - and the fact that we were in after-party mode - meant that we probably didn't tackle the mission quite as tactically as we could have. Before asking for a loadout change, I'd like to see a much larger rescue force attempt to reach the compound, moving more slowly and with better mutual support between elements. In contrast, I would like to see the number of AI in the town reduced by 50%, primarily for performance reasons, but also because I'm not sure they're justified in certain parts of the town.

Hope those thoughts are helpful - looking forward to seeing you in our sessions again, hopefully. Again, thank you for taking time to post!

:v:

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Homercleese
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Re: [Sun] 04 May 2014 (I will always love you)

Post by Homercleese »

This was another good, really fun A3 session. Hopefully that's a sign that all the hard work from the mission makers has started to reach critical mass. Not to say that I haven't enjoyed the A3 sessions for a good while now, but A3 itself has lacked a certain something until recently.

Pancho
IFV-1 Driver. Commander Ardyvee and Gunner His Mighty Lordship Penney.

Spawned in sitting position, apparently floating in nothing. Looked around: no tracks, no armour plates, no crew. Thought it was a bit odd. Got out. And finally got back into my lovely IFV. Never so happy to see the letterbox.
Anyway, we were to move south-east to an elevated peninsula that would give us good eyes towards the objective town. We waited in defilade while the infantry moved into position. Once we got the go word, I moved us up to swing around a large rock and... we immediately got hit by one and then another rocket. At least I assume so. It was in impressively rapid succession. Ardy bailed after the first and though I tried to follow, Arma's still brilliantly intuitive mouse-wheel feature bested me sooooooo... I fried with Penney.

After a brief turmoil in Limbo, Fer marched us into the all new 'Reinforcements' sub-channel. We then coalesced into an all-new Charlie led by the redoubtable Waffly with Penney and I taking C1 and 2 respectively. C2, fireteam of reborn heroes, stood as:

Charlie 1 FTL Homercleese, AR tired hippo, AAR Fideldideldidel (sorry can't remember), AT Pickers.
At least I think that was our roster. After IFV-1 I told myself I'd never get so attached.

What followed was a long, gaspy run to catch up with what was left of Alpha and Bravo. Made it in time to start the main assault and proceeded with the messy task of clearing houses. Lots of houses, so few minions. I used them all to ultimate effect, even Lithion who was the sole survivor of Alpha. I sent Blue, Pickers and Lithion off to clear a house and moved to check another with Red (Fidel and hippo). House was clear, if a bit exposed on the entrance. I made it in and out, realised Blue had gone very quiet, called Red to go check them with me. Realised hippo had died on his exit. Moved to Blue, realised they were dead, turned around, realised Fidel had died.
It was all very traumatic so I gave up on the FTL lark and became one of Penney's Primium Peons in C1. Very shortly after victory was declared!

(Technical note: Some choppy performance on this, started to get some people sliding around the place and VON became close to unusable. I guess the server was struggling).


Edna
(Bravo's) MMG-1, with the lovely Croc as my assistant.

A lot of Long to Very Long fire support on this but that's definately not a complaint, it was also a lot of fun. All the more so when I realised I had a Kafir! Started at the back (well back) of the column and struggled to catch Bravo, but once caught we proceeded to set them free once more and basically moved from hill to hill, always one behind them, providing covering fire for them to advance under.
*Highlights*
-A long range duel with a fixed position HMG at about 800 metres. (Which we won of course. And would've done without the IFV's help. We didn't want it Waffly!)
-A brief period during which we ensconced ourselves with an Alpha FT and then left just before a grenade exploded right in front of their faces, halving their number (and here I thought you'd been concerned for my health Croc).
-The constant battle with my number one enemy, the Sun. Every time I took a direct sight east into town there it was, in my optics, taunting me, searing my retina. It made hitting really small guys at 600m a game of guessing 'where in the big glowing blob might he have moved to now?'

After spending the entire mission looking at Bravo's (admittedly very firm) bums, we managed to catch a last minute lift in Waffly's IFV who shuttled us up to the church. Everything looked clear until some sort of grenade fire started hitting eardrum-burstingly close. Still not seeing anything we assumed it must be a long range grenade launcher.Everything still looked clear though and it seemed the end trigger just hadn't fired so Fer decided we'd won. But just before he could manually trigger it MMG team had a very close encounter with an EI hiding in a rear rockface I'd just decided to check. I got away with a nick but poor Croc became luggage***. Before I could wreak vengance or join him it ended.


Holy Stones
A2 FTL, AR Rook, AAR Fer, AT Ardyvee

Good to see this one back and, for me at least, it seemed a lot less chaotic in A3 then even the sanest run through in A2.
CO Bones (?) had a simple plan. A1 and A3 would secure the left and right flanks of the market respectively while A2, in an obvious sign of respect for our abilities, would charge straight to the bunker and shield the holy stones with our own.

And it actually worked remarkably well. OpFor seemed quite slow to react so we occupied the bunker with no hassles and just hunkered down keeping very cautious eyes out. Came under a heavy bit of rifle grenade bombardment and Ardy died but we couldn't do much but listen to the fire on either side of us. A1 and A3 seemed to wrap it up mostly, and I think I finished off the last of em with a return volley of GP's from the bunker entrance.


Down Mr. President

A1 FTL, with Sttfff and Pickers.

With revolution (obviously) being too much like hard work for those compliant Greeks, President Amin and his campaign staff needed desperately to return to our core constituency to reassess the impact of our central message. We'd expended all our rifle ammo punching binder holes in memos so had to rely on our sidearms to penetrate the conciousness of our target demographic.
President 'Tigershark' Amin was waiting at HQ with his personal (some would say too personal) bodyguard Ferrard and his top Delta cold-callers while we, Alpha we coming back from the campaign trail to link up with them before taking the absolutely-not-paid-for-with-voter-donations boats off this politically apathetic rock.

And so began the trek. ASL tired hippo (he worked very hard on this campaign and has every! right to be exhausted, let alone tired) wisely chose a plan short on complicated frills. Go to President, shoot bad guys. Avoid coastal guns and minefield. And so we went. A1 had a good time of it and soon we'd all swapped out our pistols for some (comparatively) lovely SMGs. Things went bad for A2 and shortly later I was one-shotted to the head by some neo-liberal, neo-con, Reaganite, Maoist, pinko commie-monarchist. He definitely won't be voting though.

My boys in A1 kept on for a while after but were gradually cut down, leaving only an injured hippo, proceeding at a lurch, to aid the President. Delta on the other hand were in much better shape, leaving hippo arriving to escort 6 or 7 much healthier, more heavily armed men to safety.

But Delta too got ground down after stepping out of their plush, 5-star HQ (and onto their own minefield), until, in a breathtaking and achingly beautiful turn of events, it was Tiger and Ferrard, fighting back-to-back (and possibly sometimes face-to-face) against a society that had rejected them. Two men, oppressed and demonised, their love their only weapons against overwhelming odds! It was Oscar winning stuff, or at least Farrelly Brothers quality.

I suggested the title "Amin love with President Amin".

But no one laughed. And then Ferrard was dead. Coincidence?


***(Thank you Arnie!: see 'Eraser')

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Tigershark
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Re: [Sun] 04 May 2014 (I will always love you)

Post by Tigershark »

Arma's still brilliantly intuitive mouse-wheel feature bested me sooooooo... I fried with Penney.
Press the 'V' key stupid Homer.

Image
Sticking feathers up your ass does not make you a chicken.

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boberro
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Re: [Sun] 04 May 2014 (I will always love you)

Post by boberro »

Edna, engineer
Joined in the last wave, repaired IFV, killed another antitank man that no one else spotted.
Good show.
Holy Stones
I don't like Holy Stones.
Down Mr. President, A2 Rifleman (as opposed to pistolmen)
This one would need a change of starting gear. IMHO everyone should have SMGs, not 9mm pistols. It's hard to "push forward" if you know that your teammates have absolutely no way of covering you.
Other than that, this mission may be fun.
Delete this marker please. You're scaring the tank.
My screenshots are being added using Steam Screenshots Sharing Script™. You'll need Tampermonkey (Chrome) or Greasemonkey (Firefox) On Opera should be good to go..

tired hippo
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Re: [Sun] 04 May 2014 (I will always love you)

Post by tired hippo »

boberro wrote: Down Mr. President, A2 Rifleman (as opposed to pistolmen)
This one would need a change of starting gear. IMHO everyone should have SMGs, not 9mm pistols. It's hard to "push forward" if you know that your teammates have absolutely no way of covering you.
Other than that, this mission may be fun.
Not sure if this necessarily requires a change of starting gear. With the benefit of hindsight, if I'd kept the alpha fire teams closer together, we might have been able punch through the enemy lines without taking as many casualties. But we got separated, A2 seemed to get bogged down in enemies, and both fire teams got whittled down.

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Homercleese
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Re: [Sun] 04 May 2014 (I will always love you)

Post by Homercleese »

Tiger, that's a post season 10 episode and therefore sacrilege with it's inclusion of modern US pop culture references. Instead I give you:



I can't be expected to remember two methods of performing the same action!

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