[City of Secrets] Review (non-spoily)
Jason Melancon
back after you've played it.]
City of Secrets is Short's most ambitious, to say nothing of awaited,
game to date, and it shows well before the game proper executes its
first instruction. The package includes several kinds of feelies --
cloth, paper, comestible (!) and online -- as well as a sample
transcript and an interactive trailer. All this has a benefit quite
apart from giving the thrill of opening the package and sifting
through the goodies (give the deep, jet-black envelope a good shake to
dislodge everything, unless you have a flashlight handy :). These
things all help give a very rich feel for the game universe, the
customs of the City, and the front it presents to travelers like us,
as well as the lifestyle of the protagonist and just enough of his
background to get you interested. None of this is integral to the
plot of the game, but it all ties in.
Incidentally, this background comes together to form what seems to
this reviewer a slightly different perspective for the player
character than usually found in Short games. The usual attention to
game-world craftsmanship, to uniqueness, ornateness, antiquity,
delicacy, and so on -- to *expensiveness,* if I can empathize with the
PC for a moment -- is still there, but presented through the outlook
of a working man, mechanically-minded, in near culture-shock over the
change from a quite different set of utilitarian sensibilities. I
found this refreshing, even as understated, or possibly as underused,
as the effect is. However, there still is more of a call for dirt,
grime, and other unsightliness in such an urban environment than I
believe the descriptions are supplied with, especially in the chapter
of the game which most calls for it and which does, to be fair, begin
to evince it.
The detail and polish found in the packaging and trappings continue as
the game begins, with a barrage of techniques. Among these, many room
descriptions change several times over the course of the game,
sometimes as a result of tangible changes in the environment,
sometimes not, and nearly every location has the one-line, per-turn
events that keep that text-game-frozen-in-time feel at bay. Oh, and
the pools from which these events are randomly drawn *themselves*
change along the plot arc. The superposition of all these tricks
could have conspired to make the game disjointed, or jumbled, but
somehow it all flows very naturally. The spit and polish is just a
little more concentrated at the beginning of the game than the
mid-to-late portion, where unevenness creeps into the proofreading and
the thoroughness of the implemented surroundings. But this is a
consequence of the scale of the work, as we've seen in other games of
similar heft, and can be corrected.
Mimesis is supported by a freshness, wonder, and unity of flavor in
the writing that one might expect from Short, or indeed probably any
practiced travel writer worth her salt. I can't think of a game that
this particular forte could be applied more fittingly to the writing
of. My favorite passage from the game, though, comes from one of the
many books to be found throughout the City on various subjects. It's
the one on the window sill seat; I'll let you discover it. Moving on
its own, its impact is sharpened by its meta-textual relevance.
Most of the reading the player does is for the sake of curiosity, but
one or two puzzle solutions rely on knowledge gained from a book
object. Fortunately, nearly all of the puzzles have two or more
radically different ways to get past them. In fact, City of Secrets,
for all its megabytes, is a surprisingly easy and short game to get
through. Estimates I've read range from three to five hours to
complete, and while mine was closer to ten, I am a slowpoke. Paradox?
No. The original vision was for the game to be one element of a
band's music CD album, part of a tightly-integrated multimedia package
dreamed up by the band, Secret-secret, who actually sketched out a
good deal of the storyline, setting, and characters before the IF
community was involved. The game was to be the introduction to IF for
thousands of San Francisco music-lovers. While production of the
album ultimately fell through, the game was created with this
constraint in mind. It would introduce the art of adventuring, with
unusually forgiving and encouraging gameplay and a significant help
system. This, in concert with multiple paths and the text density of
the smaller, focussed, competition-style piece Short is known for,
helps explain the need for its bulk, which apparently became a serious
issue several times in development. Ironically, perhaps sadly, the
game will probably only see distribution to the usual IF community of
players with years of familiarity with the medium. At least we now
have a very clear choice when newbies ask for something to get started
with.
Given that the story was blocked out by someone with noticeably less
skill in writing, to judge from the accompanying design notes, it's
fortunate that the author was able to take this and run with it, and
produce a story without a hint of the hokey. I don't doubt the
creative skill of the original mastermind, and in places his influence
is evident on the ability of the story to hang together -- like the
scene in the clothing shop, for example. But -- it's difficult to be
non-specific about this -- I'm sure the two-opposing-forces idea had
to be treated carefully to avoid hitting the player over the head, or
seeming too hackneyed. The author succeeds in these, but perhaps at
the cost of really investing the player or PC in any particular
philosophy. I never felt enamored of what the design notes wanted me
to be. Perhaps there was a conscious decision to smooth over this
plot point and make it less melodramatic. Perhaps I'm just a skeptic.
Either way, the result works fine on its own terms.
As if these qualities weren't enough, the game is about a thriving
city, and all the help menus, good writing, and feelies on Earth won't
keep the game world from feeling abandoned. Quite apart from that,
the plot of City of Secrets really has human conflicts at its core, a
clash of personalities, of groupings, of philosophies. Extraordinary
effort must go into the NPCs of such a game, and the techniques from
Galatea and Best of Three are brought out in full force to populate
this one. The City is full of characters who talk at length with the
PC, around a dozen or more, which is the other half of the equation
leading to its record filesize. They use the familiar topic-menu
system combined with ask/tell (I couldn't find a distinction between
"ask" and "tell," but there may be a case where they're different) and
a couple new NPC (and other) commands thrown in for good measure.
Since I have a personal weakness for wanting to see all game text, I
tend to try to exhaust conversation menus. Often games don't punish
this habit, and sometimes they expect it. It was definitely a
liability in City of Secrets, though, since some of the menus have
options thrown in which lower the cooperativeness of the conversation
partner, altering your path through the story. Furthermore, the
ask/tell interface meshes with the menu topics, so that when all but
one conversation choice in a topic has been explored and you "ask
about" the topic later, the game picks the last choice for you,
screwing you even when you've been discreet for a change. And
unfortunately, the programming technique that made the plethora of
super-interactive NPCs possible also made possible what was probably
the game's worst flaw: Characters can be a little too similar to each
other in their conversational speech. Many of the NPCs have some of
the same topic options and the same responses to them. This makes NPC
conversation a bit repetitive in places, but also leads to situations
like this:
Inside Fortress Walls
. . .
A man in rags sits against the wall, periodically shaking his
cap full of coins and addressing the passers-by.
>1
"How do I get to the Fortress?"
"Have a stroll uphill on May Street until you reach the main
gate. You'll run into a bend . . . ."
Sure, most of these common responses appear to be randomly picked from
a large pool of things that mean the same; sure, these special cases
can be corrected; sure, it's nice to get the game before hell freezes
over. But it's unfortunate.
The City has a distinct personality of its own, independent of its
denizens. We get to know the City from inside and out. Its history
is emblazoned on its outward appearance, from changes in architecture
to changes in demographic makeup, to writings and artwork from
different game ages, to dilapidation -- sometimes shocking
dilapidation, treated nevertheless with the remove and apathy that
can't help but be engendered by enough eras of time occupied with
other changes. That history, furthermore, is researchable, its major
figures have places in that history, and its minor figures will tell
anyone who's interested all about it. And things are possible within
the City that aren't possible elsewhere. I, like my character, didn't
accept these possibilities until very late in the game, and that is
possibly the best sort of praise I can give.
City of Secrets does nothing revolutionary. All of its techniques
have been done elsewhere first, to the best of my knowledge. The
magic, much as in great films like Citizen Kane, lies in the creative
combination of most of the advanced tricks and skills present in the
state of the art. About the only late great advance absent is the
simulationism and emergent solutions in Metamorphoses, the work which
caught the eye of the band leader and led him to Short. We can be
glad it did.
--
Jason Melancon
Al
I can agree or disagree with Jason
buecause I paid for the CD/feelies long ago
(back in September Ibelieve)
and still havent gotten it shiped to me.
ems...@mindspring.com
Al knows what his situation is, and it is a bit disingenuous of him to
raise it here in these terms.
As far as everyone else goes, though: I know there are a few people
who still haven't received their packets. If you're one of these,
don't panic; I had 50-odd CDs to burn and boxes to mail, so the
shipment had to be done in shifts. The delays of international mail
in particular will have slowed some of them down. It's all air mail,
though, so hopefully it shouldn't take *too* long.
-- Emily
Al
"ems...@mindspring.com" wrote:
> Al knows what his situation is, and it is a bit disingenuous of him to
> raise it here in these terms.
>
>
All I know is th at you told me you were going to refund my money
which I never got. So what is it Emily are you going to rerutn the
funds or ship the product.
And BTW NO I don't know what my situation is other than what I
just outlined above.
Harry
Personally, I think you should not do this here.
-------------------------
"Hey, aren't you Gadget?"
"I was."
(To send e-mail, remove SPAMBLOCK from address)
ems...@mindspring.com
which I never got. So what is it Emily are you going to rerutn the
funds or ship the product.
And BTW NO I don't know what my situation is other than what I
just outlined above.
---
If you insist.
In September you requested permission to pay by postal order rather
than by PayPal, which is what I required of everyone else. Despite
the instructions I gave you, what you sent me turned out to be a
postal order that I cannot cash because it was made out incorrectly.
I didn't bounce your postal order back to you at that time out of a
misguided attempt at kindness -- I figured it would be a pain for you
to get it refunded and a new one made, we had a history of working
together amicably on some other things, and I figured I could just let
the $11 or so slide -- a drop in the bucket compared to the several
hundred dollars I was already losing on this project.
From then on, you emailed me increasingly frequently, demanding to
know the exact status of the work: what I had finished so far, what
aspects of the feelies remained to be completed, and what precisely
was holding them up. I explained that I was updating people on the
project status as often as it was possible for me to give any definite
information. While I appreciated your zeal to see the game completed,
I also found answering the constant demand for updates a bit wearing,
especially since some aspects of the project had to be done by outside
companies or the volunteer work of my friends, and I couldn't predict
precisely what the turn-around time would be. Several things wound up
having to go through multiple proofs, with all the mailing time and
expense entailed. After many hours of attempts to figure out how to
make a hybrid CD with freeware tools, I decided I needed to order
extra software to master the CDs. Formatting the files correctly for
the print run turned out to be difficult and require me to get outside
help. All these things made it fairly complicated to predict when I
would be done.
After several exchanges of email, I explained that I couldn't offer
you an exact date, and asked you to be patient. You responded with an
note to the effect that I had had your money for months, wasn't
delivering, and should put up or shut up -- so I told you I would send
it back.
You back-pedaled and gave a bunch of additional contingent
instructions about my sending you the money if the game wasn't going
to be ready by a certain date, and so on, but at this point it seemed
simpler just to send you back the money and have done with any
semblance of a contract between us.
This turned out to be a bit more complicated than I anticipated,
though: I wasn't sure whether you would be able to cash the postal
order (made out to me, albeit incorrectly), so I tried to find out if
there was a way for me to get that money out of it. There wasn't. I
emailed you explaining the situation. You didn't reply. Finally, I
posted your mail order back to you; if it hasn't arrived yet, it
should do so soon. Getting the money back from the post office is
left as an exercise for you. I've never tried to get back money I had
put into a postal order, but I assume that you have ID which
identifies you as the registered sender, and that they will refund
you.
Now, I realize that you're frustrated, and I'm sorry. I dislike
making people unhappy, which I know I did in this case; I really
dislike the public airing of grievances; and I am also (painfully)
conscious of the various other projects/arenas in which I still owe IF
people things. But I worked 20 or more hours a week from September to
March on this project (sometimes a lot more, like 60); the slowness
was neither negligence nor bad faith on my part. I admit, yes, to
misjudgement in my initial predictions of how long the project would
take. Unfortunately that's not an error that can be trivially
corrected.
As for you, you should have your money (or at least the money order)
back shortly, and the gamefile will be available to you, as to
everyone else who didn't preorder, in a few weeks. That's the best I
can do for you at this point.
Al
"ems...@mindspring.com" wrote:
>
>
>
> In September you requested permission to pay by postal order rather
> than by PayPal, which is what I required of everyone else. Despite
> the instructions I gave you, what you sent me turned out to be a
> postal order that I cannot cash because it was made out incorrectly.
> I didn't bounce your postal order back to you at that time out of a
> misguided attempt at kindness -- I figured it would be a pain for you
> to get it refunded and a new one made, we had a history of working
> together amicably on some other things, and I figured I could just let
> the $11 or so slide -- a drop in the bucket compared to the several
> hundred dollars I was already losing on this project.
This is news to me. Why didn't you just send the money order back and
I would have accomodated you. If the money order wasn't made out
correctly why didn't you e-mail me then and there., return the nmoney
order and I would have sent you what you needed. This is all brand new
to me.
>
>
> From then on, you emailed me increasingly frequently, demanding to
> know the exact status of the work: what I had finished so far, what
> aspects of the feelies remained to be completed, and what precisely
> was holding them up. I explained that I was updating people on the
> project status as often as it was possible for me to give any definite
> information. While I appreciated your zeal to see the game completed,
> I also found answering the constant demand for updates a bit wearing,
> especially since some aspects of the project had to be done by outside
> companies or the volunteer work of my friends, and I couldn't predict
> precisely what the turn-around time would be. Several things wound up
> having to go through multiple proofs, with all the mailing time and
> expense entailed. After many hours of attempts to figure out how to
> make a hybrid CD with freeware tools, I decided I needed to order
> extra software to master the CDs. Formatting the files correctly for
> the print run turned out to be difficult and require me to get outside
> help. All these things made it fairly complicated to predict when I
> would be done.
I also asked you what the status was on the CDs whethre they had been
silk-screened etc etc. You never replied.
Finally after you posted on your web site that the CDs were being burned
you never made a new posting to the group stating when they were to be shipped
or what their status was. I distinctly rembember this being up for several
weeks.
>
>
> After several exchanges of email, I explained that I couldn't offer
> you an exact date, and asked you to be patient. You responded with an
> note to the effect that I had had your money for months, wasn't
> delivering, and should put up or shut up -- so I told you I would send
> it back.
It appears we have both had a lack of communicatioins here. Your negative
response to my questions or NOT responding at all in certain areas. I am
to blame for incessant inquries but the least you could have done was post
a quick expalantion on your web site of what was happening why it was
taking so long and I wouldn't have bugged you about it.
>
>
> You back-pedaled and gave a bunch of additional contingent
> instructions about my sending you the money if the game wasn't going
> to be ready by a certain date, and so on, but at this point it seemed
> simpler just to send you back the money and have done with any
> semblance of a contract between us.
I asked that if the game wasn't ready I would wait till April 1st.
Your response was that you were giving me my money back and
that was the end of that. I would have to wait with the other sfor the
public release to if-archive. You g ave me no other option and by then
which was several months ago I expected the money order which never
arrived. I let things slide for awhile.
>
>
> This turned out to be a bit more complicated than I anticipated,
> though: I wasn't sure whether you would be able to cash the postal
> order (made out to me, albeit incorrectly), so I tried to find out if
> there was a way for me to get that money out of it. There wasn't. I
> emailed you explaining the situation. You didn't reply. Finally, I
> posted your mail order back to you; if it hasn't arrived yet, it
> should do so soon. Getting the money back from the post office is
> left as an exercise for you. I've never tried to get back money I had
> put into a postal order, but I assume that you have ID which
> identifies you as the registered sender, and that they will refund
> you.
You never answered ANY questions on why the game was taking so long
but got frustrated and told me that I was getting my money back.
Well here it is April 11th and I 'm sorry that there's been a lack of
communicatons between us.
>
>
> Now, I realize that you're frustrated, and I'm sorry. I dislike
> making people unhappy, which I know I did in this case; I really
> dislike the public airing of grievances; and I am also (painfully)
> conscious of the various other projects/arenas in which I still owe IF
> people things. But I worked 20 or more hours a week from September to
> March on this project (sometimes a lot more, like 60); the slowness
> was neither negligence nor bad faith on my part. I admit, yes, to
> misjudgement in my initial predictions of how long the project would
> take. Unfortunately that's not an error that can be trivially
> corrected.
I'm not taking all the blame but the very least you could have done was
explain to me the problems. My udnerstanding was that the CDs needed
to be silk-screened or some such which you never answered to me BTW
and I got frustrated by your lack of response.
>
>
> As for you, you should have your money (or at least the money order)
> back shortly, and the gamefile will be available to you, as to
> everyone else who didn't preorder, in a few weeks. That's the best I
> can do for you at this point.
Tell me how to pay for the game and I'll resend you a proper money order.
It was BTW a USPS money order and I dont' understand why you couldn't
tet it cashed at the Post office. As I statd before why didn't you e-mail me
return the money order and I would have gotten a proper monetary instruemnt
sent to you . You NEVER did this.
Finally once again I'm sorry that this lack of communications between the
2 of us has caused these problems. The blame is equally divided amongst
the 2 of us.
End of Subject.
ems...@mindspring.com
> The City is full of characters who talk at length with the
> PC, around a dozen or more, which is the other half of the equation
> leading to its record filesize. They use the familiar topic-menu
> system combined with ask/tell (I couldn't find a distinction between
> "ask" and "tell," but there may be a case where they're different)
ASK and TELL are set to access subsets of the available conversation,
while TOPIC shows you everything. So if you ASK someone about CHEESE,
the game should show you only
1) Pardon me, do you have any Roquefort?
although there might also be a statement
2) Personally I prefer Stilton to all other cheeses.
available under that topic, which would show up if you did TELL
someone about CHEESE. And TOPIC cheese would let you see both 1 and
2.
It's a fairly trivial nicety, and I imagine that in fact most people
will find it easiest to use TOPIC pretty much all the time, in order
to see all the available options. But I figured the game should
*understand* ask and tell, and should know which of its conversation
items were questions (or, at a stretch, implicit requests for
information, even if not ending with a question mark).
No matter which of these techniques you use, the game will go ahead
and give your character's question/comment/etc. if there is only one
available on the menu. This is because I got negative feedback about
Best of Three, when people did TOPIC FOO and then had to explicitly
choose the sole item that appeared on the menu. It seemed to speed up
the game, and make it feel more natural, to produce actual activity as
often as possible. I briefly kicked around the idea of having this
player-settable -- that is, let the player choose whether or not to
automatically speak the sole option -- but decided that the game
already has too many different settings as it is, and I doubted anyone
would mind too terribly much. Possibly I was wrong.
Anyway. Thanks for the review!
-- Emily
Nikki
> Several things wound up
> having to go through multiple proofs, with all the mailing time and
> expense entailed. After many hours of attempts to figure out how to
> make a hybrid CD with freeware tools, I decided I needed to order
> extra software to master the CDs. Formatting the files correctly for
> the print run turned out to be difficult and require me to get outside
> help. All these things made it fairly complicated to predict when I
> would be done.
These problems could have been foreseen. Shuffling and evasive answers won't
change the obvious fact that you haven't fulfilled your obligations. I think
your claims concerning Als supposed ingenuousness border on insolence. A
dissatisfied customer sees no other solution than to air his complaints in a
public forum and instead of accommodating his requests you ridicule him
portraying him as a half-illiterate pettifogger. With that attitude, it's no
wonder you're losing money.
Andrew Plotkin
solved that way.
To anyone but Emily and Al, this is all second-hand storytelling
anyway. Even if you think it's your business, you have no basis on
which to judge the matter.
Leave it in email.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
Ben Caplan
> These do not need to be aired on a public newsgroup. They can't be
> solved that way.
>
> To anyone but Emily and Al, this is all second-hand storytelling
> anyway. Even if you think it's your business, you have no basis on
> which to judge the matter.
>
> Leave it in email.
Maybe there should be a mailing list.
Stephen Granade
> These do not need to be aired on a public newsgroup. They can't be
> solved that way.
>
> To anyone but Emily and Al, this is all second-hand storytelling
> anyway. Even if you think it's your business, you have no basis on
> which to judge the matter.
Also, please note that Nikki (who may also be Aaron Krochmal, based on
posting host) has so far merely posted inflammatory messages in
rec.*.int-fiction:
(Aaron)
(Nikki)
Stephen
--
Stephen Granade
ste...@granades.com
Cedric Knight
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> writes:
>
> > These do not need to be aired on a public newsgroup. They can't be
> > solved that way.
> >
> > To anyone but Emily and Al, this is all second-hand storytelling
> > anyway. Even if you think it's your business, you have no basis on
> > which to judge the matter.
>
> Also, please note that Nikki (who may also be Aaron Krochmal, based on
> posting host) has so far merely posted inflammatory messages in
> rec.*.int-fiction:
They're probably both Mr Pudlo, with or without sex change. "Herbert
West" seems a relatively benign persona so far.
CK
Al
Time to end this thread.
Peter Lansford
Clearly, this AI person is in the wrong. On any fair reading of the
evidence, he's obviously brought all of the problems down upon
himself. His actions were clearly not reasonable in the
circumstances. No doubt he will try to weasel out and attempt to end
this thread before others have had an opportunity to comment.
Frankly, I find it difficult to believe anything AI says on this
important issue, as he offers no proof to substantiate his claims, or
any cogent arguments at all.
Where is your PROOF, Mr. AI? (if that is really your name!)
Peter, Phd
Louie Hannen
"Peter Lansford" <peta...@sharkattacks.com> wrote in message
news:b3aef867.03041...@posting.google.com...
Actually, I think his name is AL.
Sorry... I couldn't resist. :)
Louie
Philip
> > Emily and I have resolved our differences privately
>
> Time to end this thread.
Frankly, I think this thread may continue until the posters grow tired of
trashing you. You purposefully post an inflammatory remark in response to
Emily's post--completely unnecessary. As the thread continues I suspect you
probably begin to feel a bit stupid for raising the issue in public where it
doesn't belong. Now you just want it to "go away".
I think Emily's only mistake in this whole ordeal was wasting so much time
explaining to the rest of us what was going on. A simple, "Don't listen to
Al, that's that rad...@qadas.com idiot again," would have sufficed.
Philip
Al
Peter Lansford wrote:
>
>
> Where is your PROOF, Mr. AI? (if that is really your name!)
>
>
Hey Peter get some glasses it's Al not AI ! ! !
Al
Louie Hannen wrote:
>
>
>
> Actually, I think his name is AL.
>
>
>
>
Louie Thank God you don't need glasses ! ! !!
:) :) :)
Nikki
> They're probably both Mr Pudlo, with or without sex change. "Herbert
> West" seems a relatively benign persona so far.
On what do you base your groundless accusations? How could you even conceive
that a persona of mine could possibly be benign? Your accusations of
benevolence do not scare me!
I will diminish and withdraw into my padded cell and remain an evil troll.
Aaron Krochmal
Her mistake is that she treats her customers with the same lofty
condescension as she treats the rest of the world.
If there ever was a risk of Ms Shorts games becoming a commercial
success, this thread has convinced me otherwise. Not only is she
unable to write commercially viable games, but she also lacks planning
skills and her customer relations are rotten to the core.
Should she ever make a buck flogging her masturbatory scribble, I
promise to tie my dick in a knot and post a picture of it here.
Al
Aaron Krochmal wrote:
> "
>
> If there ever was a risk of Ms Shorts games becoming a commercial
> success, this thread has convinced me otherwise. Not only is she
> unable to write commercially viable games, but she also lacks planning
> skills and her customer relations are rotten to the core.
>
>
All I'm going to say is that she got pissed off when she shouldn't have.
There was defiinitely a communications problem between the 2 of us
and it has now been worked out.
If you people still want to flog you aren't bothering me one bit but there
are other more important topics to discuss.
Kurtis Stryker
Krochmal) wrote:
>Her mistake is that she treats her customers with the same lofty
>condescension as she treats the rest of the world.
Haw haw haw!
You've been desperately... *pathetically* trolling this newsgroup for
MONTHS now, you worthless sub-human wretch, and you're going to
pretend, even while trolling, that you can work out what you laughably
perceive to be somebody else's personality problems? Too fucking
funny. But hey, keep at it! When even a dipshit like "Al" there is
able to come off as being about a billion times more talented and
interesting than you are, you can still definitely make up the
difference in screechy, mewling volume!
Hahahaha... WAY TO REPRESENT THERE BUDDY!
Nikos Chantziaras
news:b7hq82$14g5r$1...@ID-178926.news.dfncis.de...
>
> Cedric Knight
>
> > They're probably both Mr Pudlo, with or without sex change.
> > "Herbert West" seems a relatively benign persona so far.
> I will diminish and withdraw into my padded cell and remain an
> evil troll.
I never saw an evil troll. I only know of two kinds of trolls; the stupid
and the funny. Stupid trolls are common. Funny ones are very rare (B1FF
comes to mind; I don't know about the Erics though).
-- Niko
http://members.lycos.co.uk/realnc
Adam Thornton
Aaron Krochmal <kroc...@sociologist.com> wrote:
>Should she ever make a buck flogging her masturbatory scribble, I
>promise to tie my dick in a knot and post a picture of it here.
Emily! Please post with a masturbatory-scribble-flog, and then send me
your address!
I will *gladly* donate a dollar to the cause of seeing a picture of
Aaron's dick tied in a knot. However, I don't think that a mere still
image will do it justice, because I'm sure that it's possible to find a
picture of a dick tied in a knot in about three minutes using Google. I
think, rather, we need a video, where he opens up his wallet, produces
picture ID, that the camera can read, and then the camera pans back to
his face to convince us that it's the same person. After that
establishing shot, the camera shall remain parked while he extracts the
member in question and ties it. Naturally, no cuts, like the
Divine-and-dogshit scene at the end of _Pink Flamingos_.
Do we get to specify the kind of knot? Because I'd really like to see a
figure-eight with safety.
There are some things money just can't buy. But for some things,
there's, well, a picture of George Washington.
Adam
Matthew Garrett
> In article <664ecb1.03041...@posting.google.com>,
> Aaron Krochmal <kroc...@sociologist.com> wrote:
>>Should she ever make a buck flogging her masturbatory scribble, I
>>promise to tie my dick in a knot and post a picture of it here.
>
> Emily! Please post with a masturbatory-scribble-flog, and then send me
> your address!
Bad Adam! Don't encourage posting of binaries to non-binary groups. It'd
be a shame to have servers drop it on the floor...
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-rec.gam...@srcf.ucam.org
I am currently angry about:
GConf
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~mjg59/angry/3.html
Adam Thornton
Matthew Garrett <mjg59-rec.gam...@srcf.ucam.org> wrote:
>In article <b7l5nv$mpg$1...@news.fsf.net>, Adam Thornton wrote:
>> In article <664ecb1.03041...@posting.google.com>,
>> Aaron Krochmal <kroc...@sociologist.com> wrote:
>>>Should she ever make a buck flogging her masturbatory scribble, I
>>>promise to tie my dick in a knot and post a picture of it here.
>>
>> Emily! Please post with a masturbatory-scribble-flog, and then send me
>> your address!
>
>Bad Adam! Don't encourage posting of binaries to non-binary groups. It'd
>be a shame to have servers drop it on the floor...
Should I receive a copy of this video, I will make it available on my
web site. That's a promise.
Adam
Nikos Chantziaras
>
> Matthew Garrett wrote:
> >
> >> Emily! Please post with a masturbatory-scribble-flog, and then
> >> send me your address!
> >
> > Bad Adam! Don't encourage posting of binaries to non-binary
> > groups. It'd be a shame to have servers drop it on the floor...
>
> Should I receive a copy of this video, I will make it available on
> my web site. That's a promise.
I would be a *great* addition for http://members.lycos.co.uk/realnc/fun.htm,
so I'm interested in it too! Gimme, gimme!
-- Niko
http://members.lycos.co.uk/realnc