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Tailfins! We interview the creator of the classic classic car site and take a look inside it.
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Feb 4, 2025
Ed created tailfins.com in the mid-1990s; the site was last seen around 1999, until now! when it made a return as a “museum piece.” Here are some stories about the site, car sites then and now, the Internet Slant Six Club, Internet Mopar V8 Club, Internet FWD Club, and the “My Slant on Things” book... and just a bit about the classic versions of Allpar. #slant #slantsix #tailfins #mopar #classiccars #dodge #plymouth #allpar
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[Music]
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let me just ask you are you okay being
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recorded sure you might want to ask the
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viewers if it's okay that they have to
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stare at me you
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know it so let's talk about talins where
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it came from how you put it up long long
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long time ago uh I used to run the
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marketing department for the Bush
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Gardens theme park in Williamsburg
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Virginia we formed a partnership with a
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thing called the blackburg electronic
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Village in blackburg Virginia
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and that was a partnership between uh
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Virginia Tech maybe Bell Atlantic uh and
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the City of
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blackburg and this was early 90s and
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they wired the whole town with fiber
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optic cable just to see what would
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happen and um you know they had like a
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little shop in town that sold games uh
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and all of a sudden they're getting
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orders from all over the world I mean
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it's just like a lot of really cool
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things
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happen um I got uh Bush entertainment to
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come up with some money to help them
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wire the
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schools and an exchange for that me my
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staff whoever uh they had us come up and
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take HTML lessons and you know learn how
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the internet worked and sit through
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seminars and all that which was pretty
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cool and I got it in my head working
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with one of the guys up there that we
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were going to get in early on this thing
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and get
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Rich um and we came up with the idea
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that we'd come up with the analog of a
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Car Club online charge for membership
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and then you know watch the money come
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rolling down out of the sky I already
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had all the Slant six stuff so the first
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iteration of it was uh a slant six
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section and what I learned eventually
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was a I was hardly making any money at
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all B it was so incredible labor
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intensive because it was all handc back
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in those days you know it wasn't like I
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could just drop something into a form
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and boom it was on the site every page
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had to be uh done by hand nobody had a
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scanner back then so people would mail
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me pictures I'd scan them and anyway
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long story short whole lot of work not a
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lot of money um and then it was one of
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those life happens things I had a
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marriage that hit the Rocks um there was
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no way I could deal with all those
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changes and the site I ended up
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literally giving the site away another
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guy uh I forget what he called he made
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it the no BS slant 6 site took down
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everything I had done put up two or
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three pages let it stagnate and then it
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died so in a nutshell that's that's
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where Tail Fins came from and whatever
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and no I'm not rich so that's why it's
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at ts. motels.com well the uh the the
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the other one I had that was going to
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get us rich uh was data diner.com and it
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was going to be a publishing site and
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looking back it was like a half-ass
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attempt at being Amazon before there was
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an Amazon I still own that one if you'd
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like to buy it I I'll take
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offers excuse me we were selling car
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parts um a lot of which Gary was doing I
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mean there was no e-commerce back then
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you basically
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put it up somebody would say they want
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to buy it you had trust them to mail a
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check and you know again everything was
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analog and and hand done by hand well
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Gary being Gary felt bad about charging
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them shipping so he was shipping all
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this stuff for free out of his pocket
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and was losing money on it so that
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didn't work
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either so this would have started around
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96
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97 uh that's what the copyright dat is
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on Tail Fins I think it was earlier than
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that you know I was I was doing the the
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stuff with blackburg 92
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93 I'm gonna get3 or
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94 uh the first iteration probably went
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up but I could be wrong I don't remember
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he could probably go to the way back
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machine on archive.org and look for the
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earliest instance and it would be there
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what is what is the best part of tail
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fins for me to look at today in
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2024 um my favorite was uh the the bench
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race page where people would uh write
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stories that weren't howt just you know
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their favorite car recollection kind of
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stuff there's there's a wonderful one
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that Doug Dutra wrote about doing
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illegal burnouts and uh how he was
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trying to push the tail end of a car
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around while it was doing Bernards to
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sign his name on the pavement I mean you
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know just wonderfully goofy things like
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that um there was the guy that did the
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slant 6 wedding there was the other guy
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who uh ran for uh I forget it was a city
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council position or something and he
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made his uh Dodge Dart into the campaign
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mobile you know uh I I just loved all
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those stories we actually did a contest
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or two on who could write the best story
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for that part of the site and um you
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know that that was pretty cool
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uh the other thing just because it was a
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trip down memory lane is the uh are the
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ones that involve Gary or the ones I
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wrote In fact I sent you an email I
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think there was a uh an article I found
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that I'd completely forgotten about most
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of it about when um I went and redid a
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lot of the things I had done wrong on my
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64 Valiant and I had forgotten about all
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the fabrication work and welding and
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homemade exhaust system and all the
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other stuff I did on the car you know I
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really enjoyed going through that it was
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like wow I actually did a lot of work
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back then you
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know and I hope the car's still around
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and I hope someone's enjoying it all you
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know today of course we have forums and
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the first forums were just starting to
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get coded like web BBS which was such a
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wonderful form and that it had no
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security in it whatsoever yeah you know
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there was just no thought of gee if
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somebody comes up here and spams or
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there's not much you can do yeah in BBS
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because just you it assumed everybody
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was a good person and you're all in a
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community I I think one of the mistakes
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I made with tail fans was I just assumed
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no one could write with me so everything
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would come into me and I'd massage it
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and tweak it and whatever before it went
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up um you know which I guess was fine on
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one one end but on the
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other the the amount of work it took to
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get all that done uh was a bit much and
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most people weren't online back then you
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know
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I uh or or you know just weren't that
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sophisticated with anything electronic a
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lot of that stuff was a handwritten
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letter that I got in the mail with some
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photograph stuff then so a lot of vpar
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was people's emails especially in the
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early days and yeah once we had the
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Forum you know I'd see something cool in
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the Forum and I'd write to the person
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and say mind if I make this permanent
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and then there'd be a page up so you
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know we had a lot of mistakes and a lot
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of uh what's the word you know the
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stories that are great and sound really
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good but aren't true 426 Hemi same
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rating net and
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gross well and of course it wasn't it
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was 370 or so no matter what you've got
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parasitic loss along the way and there's
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no way that would be true but then again
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yeah I mean it was I mean Chevy
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dominated drag racing because they lied
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about their horsepower ratings
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underestimated and Ford went the other
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way and overstated what the actual
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horsepower was because he thought it was
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good for sales and uh when they defined
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the brackets and everything through the
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NH Chevys just killed everybody else
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because their 190 horsepower motor was
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really making
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235 was it Stan Aon or Doug Dutra I
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think it was Aton uh bill to 170 for
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drag racing because the thing will rev
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like crazy it's uh it's got a short
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stroke and you know that's bigger than
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the boore and the 225 is the other way
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around uh and uh I guess set up right
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that little 170 will scream you can grab
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it to the moon and it's fine with it all
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right so T fins is back uh you've been
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through bement and it's a minor miracle
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it's back because I don't know how many
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hard dve drive crashes backup Drive
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losses everything I've had along the way
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I have no idea how those files
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survived I can't believe I can go and
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look at that old site
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again I remember when uh when I first
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put uh Tail Fins Up um Jack po the guy
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that that did uh the slance 6 News he
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was not happy with it at all he goes I
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don't know what this new thing is but I
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don't like it it's G to undermine the
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club
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and so I I gave him free access to the
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site there's a section in there where
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you can uh sign up for the the Slant six
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of America Club you can order back
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issues with the
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newsletter I created all that and gave
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it to to jack for free as a peace
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offering uh because he was he was not
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pleased at all that we were you know
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encroaching in his Slant six space
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now that makes sense I mean it's a
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relatively small space Oh yeah yeah yeah
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and I I remember he was always jealous
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of the studa baker Club I guess there
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were so many of them that that club
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actually made a fair amount of money and
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he had a real hard time squeezing any
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cash out of us cheap skate Slant six
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owners well that's it isn't it it's a
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slightly different group of people it's
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oh yeah yeah I me Por four cylinder Club
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yeah wellow that that's that's that's
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like uh Gary platz's classic t-shirt
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that said Slant six cheap with an
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attitude let's let's give another nod to
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Gary um you know one of the the fun
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things about all the stuff we did uh the
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car shows he put on and the all the
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craziness that we used to pipe up to
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jack for the newsletter I mean he he
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would get back to us going I you know
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guys you know can you be a little more
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serious and because we just would have
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as much fun as we could and Gary would
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do his goofy illustrations and whatnot
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and he was so desperate for content for
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the newsletter that he would publish it
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anyway you know um and and giving Gary a
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creat creative Outlet was just so much
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fun um you go on the old tailin site
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there's a page with all the t-shirts
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that he did back then um there was a ton
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of his artwork all through the thing
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um there was the uh Platz cheesy Arts
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page where you could buy the the air
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cleaner clocks and other stuff he would
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come up with uh it was like dealing with
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a cheap skate uh Big Daddy at Roth
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almost you know I mean he was always
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coming up with One Lunatic thing or
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another and it was just so much fun to
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work with him and to give him an outlet
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on those things um which I guess is
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another favorite part of the site for me
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you know the Gary Platz touch and of
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course he has the book now oh yeah it's
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by Gary and dead yeah yeah all stitched
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together by
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you m went on things there you go you
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did you did um which is much better than
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the half-ass way we attempted to do it
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so thank you so much I don't think uh
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anybody involved especially me
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understood venture capital and scaling
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and I still had it in my head that I
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could just do this out of my basement
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and bootstrap it up all by myself and uh
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I don't know looking back now at things
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like Amazon and Facebook and whatever it
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just ain't the way it works you know we
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uh we had a fun run with it but uh and
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it's an artifact now I mean it's it's I
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think it's representative of an era
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that's come and gone when it comes to to
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things online and not everyone was on
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and if they were on America Online it
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was wal Garden back then you couldn't
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leave America online to actually go on
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the internet yeah it was a whole
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different world back
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then now if you go on the member
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Pages uh there were a lot more than that
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and if anybody had a
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picture with their car description that
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was a paid
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membership so so that that was a few
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people yeah yeah and again i' I'd have
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to go back and look and add it up I
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can't remember but but there were there
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were respectable few and then we we
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tried I tried to expand the site it was
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slant 6 oh and then added I added V8
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Mopars and front-wheel drive Mopars and
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then the idea was to evolve it out to
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where encompassed everything and just
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never got that far with it you did now
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that I look at it you must have gotten a
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couple hundred uh members because I
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didn't look at the text pages I was just
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looking at yeah yeah those were the
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Chiefs skates those were the true Slant
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six
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people back and looked there were some
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Oddball things in there here and there
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but uh I'd had to date to to remember
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them
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anyway oh I'm glad it's all back up I
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hope that other people are inspired to
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come and look at it now that it's there
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yeah yeah uh you know it's basically a
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museum piece now and you know thanks
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again for stitching it all back together
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and get the links working and I mean I
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just handed you a hot and I don't know
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how you managed to to pull it off but uh
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yeah it's a functioning site again so
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thank you oh you and Gary did that to me
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twice and now that we know that you're a
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sucker there'll probably be two three
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more you know it just wasn't that
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complicated a a project you know the old
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tail finite it was
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just early internet somebody trying to
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make something happen out of their
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basement and you know there's a little
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bit of a story to tell there but it
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really was reflective of the era you I
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there was probably thousands of us doing
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kind of the same thing with something
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back then so it it's a nicely crafted
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site loads very very quickly because
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there is no excess stuff there's no
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loading jQuery and running a thousand
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javascripts right it just loads quickly
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and you can read whatever you want if
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you're in the mind to read
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things and it's it's very it's a
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pleasing simp old layout too it's really
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nicer than I think anything I ever came
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up with yeah um yeah that was from some
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course I took at Virginia Tech uh that
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showed you how to do a sidebar with a
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toolbar in it so it's dirt simple
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underneath and it was all done by hand
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yeah the the logo came from some guy
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that was a member of the
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site he just emailed it to me one day
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going I was playing around can you use
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this I'm like yeah thanks
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so uh you know that was a that was a
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freebie thinking back on those days
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um at least the folks I was dealing with
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nobody was literally looking to uh to be
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very ultra competitive or Cutthroat or
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you know um I'm gonna you know climb the
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ladder and step on everybody that I can
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on the way up and get rich and whatever
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uh it was let's share
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and let's help each other out it was a
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lot different than it is now before the
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Zuckerberg of the world took
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over yeah and it's a lot nicer to
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participate in these sites with a lot
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more trustworthy information that's not
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done by AI
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yeah I don't remember any trolls back
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then no a lot we had some people got
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over excited yeah including me and some
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people who had to occasionally be
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suspended including
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me but not a whole lot of trolls it was
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a good atmosphere yeah yeah it's a bit
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different now sadly between Bots and
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troll farms and whatever else there is
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out there I mean people would like come
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in with helpful suggestions and point me
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in the right direction and contribute
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things and you know it was fun it was a
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lot of fun back then yeah it's been one
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Adventure after another and hopefully
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there's a few more to follow you know
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we'll see
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