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Nerd Bacon News: December (1)

Hello ladies and gents, this will be a somewhat abbreviated issue of Greased due to the hefty supplemental pieces I've been putting my time towards, the holiday season in general, and my own personal push to play and write and review in attempt to hopefully keep some of you active, enthused, and inspired! Normally the first issue of the month includes a breakdown of the previous month's traffic statistics, but I'm going to be omitting that this time around. I'll probably include them in the following issue, but if not, I plan to do a semi-detailed segment on our traffic throughout 2015 within the first issue of 2016.

I can't stress enough how much we need some of you Baconeers to pick up the pace and provide us with some reviews! We know the holidays are busy for everyone, but unless you've quit gaming altogether, there's no reason you can't take a few minutes each month and throw us a bone! We really want to do what it takes to monetize our activities here at NB - for the benefit of everyone, not just ourselves - and in order to do that we need to have a constant flow of new articles. Whether you're committed to completing the Mario challenge, earning as many badges as you can, or something else, dig deep and find that motivation to sit down and give us your opinion on some games!

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Mario Challenge Scorecard
Member	Number	Games
AbyssalOblivion	1	Mario Hoops 3-on-3 DS
The Cubist	7	Yoshi's Woolly World (Wii U) Super Princess Peach (DS) Mario is Missing! (SNES) Super Mario Kart (SNES) Mario's Time Machine (SNES) Mario Party 10 (Wii U) Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash (Wii U)
Doc Croc	1	Dr. Mario Online Rx (WiiWare)
NerdBerry	2	Mario's Tennis (VB) Super Mario Bros.: The Movie: The Game
Paladin	1	Super Mario RPG (SNES)
Space Invader	1	Donkey Kong (2600)
ZB	3	Mario Tennis (N64) Wario Land 4 (GBA) Virtual Boy Wario Land (VB)

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The scorecard is looking pretty damn good, with a total of 7 participants during our first month of the challenge. So far I'm the only one who's finished, but ZB is in a strong second place and sure to finish the challenge soon. Right on his heels is NerdBerry, only one review away from getting over the hump. Doc Croc and AbyssalOblivion are keeping things interesting with slightly lesser-known entries while Space Invader takes us back to Mario's very first appearance in Donkey Kong. Paladin enters the fray right here at the beginning of our second month of the challenge with NB's second review of Super Mario RPG.

With 7 members onboard and 16 reviews of Mario games already knocked out this month, I'm optimistic. But hey, we'd still love to see even more of you all get in on the action! Remember that the reward for completing the challenge (ending February 1st as "Retroary" kicks into gear) is the exclusive "Weird Mushroom" badge from the new Super Mario Maker. But once the challenge is over that's it, no other way to add this lovely fungus to your virtual sash. Get started now! If you're fuzzy on the rules or if you've just plain forgotten, head back over to Issue #14-S where we lay it all out.

During the last issue I mentioned that I was personally challenging myself (The Cubist) to review twice as many Mario games in the same amount of time and that if anyone chose to accept this challenge with me there might be a neato (possibly secret...?) reward in store. Well, the offer still stands! Dust off those Mario games or check out some of his latest adventures and join me!

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Promoting Connectivity

I sent out an email regarding this subject back on the 30th, but I'm going to quickly touch on it again for anyone who may've gotten behind or forgotten.

One of the best things we can do for ourselves when it comes to increasing audience interest is to maximize the impact of any one single page. Realistically, how many readers/gamers out there are looking for a compendium of reviews to sift through? Probably not very many. When people make it to our site, it's highly probable that they've come to read a review on a specific game. But once they read that review, then what? It's our job to keep them on the site as long as we can. While our content (I believe, anyway) is well organized by a variety of criteria and users have an available Search Bar to find whatever else they may want, making the decision to browse through our archives or conduct a specific search isn't quite the same as having a link, right there in front of them, that points to something related to the article they just read. Just think about how well everything on Wikipedia is linked up. Have you ever lost track of time reading about one thing and then another? Have you ever whittled away the hours going from "sea urchins" to "Charlemange" while hitting "grilled cheese sandwich," "kickboxing," and "PCP" in between?

Ok, so perhaps those ambitions are a bit lofty for The Bacon, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Many times we've mentioned creating small "nav boxes" at the bottom of articles containing links to other articles of the same series. After a good deal of work (not the least of which involved untangling the site's default CSS), we've finally got something that we think will work. Now what we need is your help in putting together comprehensive and well-organized lists of games so that we can turn them into nav boxes and get to work on actually getting these up on articles.

For all the detais and plenty of examples, please check out 1.17.2 and lend us a hand!

Lastly, I just wanted to say DAMN, followed quickly by a "thank you!" to several of you who have already emailed lists to me. In the 5 short days since the original email was sent, you guys have provided me with a wealth of information. Will we use all of this at once? Of course not. But it will be really nice to have this stuff available when the time rolls around that we do need it. A special nod to the Doc for sending me like, 37 lists within a couple of hours of receiving the email! And again, thank you everyone and keep 'em coming at your convenience!

Within the next 24 to 48 hours I hope to be able to take all of the lists I've received so far and put them up on a page which will regularly be updated. This will not only make it easier to know what's been done and what hasn't, but it'll also give you all a chance to review lists compiled by others and let us know if you think the organizational scheme should be change, certain games added/deleted, or any other modifications. I'll send out a quick email notice when the page is up.

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To Be(at the Game), or Not to Be(at the Game)? That is the question!

Did you catch the joke there? Did it make sense? Or are you wondering what "be at the game" means? To clarify, it's supposed to be "beat"..."beat the game"...playing off the famous phrase from Hamlet (the image was supposed to be a hint)...oh nevermind. Within our rules and guidelines, we do suggest beating a game before reviewing it. Some members have interpreted this as meaning that they must finish the game before reviewing it. Yes, generally speaking it's good to see all of what a game has to offer before putting forth an opinion on it, but to be fair, it's not as important as, say, watching all of a movie before reviewing it. Even if you're unable to beat a game, as long as you've spent time trying to beat it then chances are you already know a good deal about how the game works, and you should have a pretty decent idea of whether or not this is a game you like or not.

What we don't want is for people to sit down, play a game for an hour, and immediately jump to reviewing it just to tally up reviews. But as long as you, the reviewer, are making a concerted effort to get through as much possible and understand as much as possible, you shouldn't feel like you have to beat the game in order to write a publication-worthy review.

More specifically, I think we primarily had newer games in mind when we set forth this suggestion. Newer games are big and lengthy, with room to shift and change drastically during one's playthrough. That's not to say older games can't or don't undergo change, but typically they have greater limitations and broader assumptions can be made based on less play-time. If you've been bouncing off your enemies' heads and avoiding pits for 5 levels, chances are things aren't goint to change much for those last 3 levels.

In summation, give any game you play and plan on reviewing a fair shot, but also know that we don't want that last boss fight or those 2 last levels to keep you from reviewing a game you've gotten to know. Use your best judgement. If you think can write a decent review with what informatio you have, then go right ahead!

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Hey Brah, You Look Pretty Burnt Out...

Burnout. It's a phenomenon that David and I see again and again...and again. And again. It happens to the best of writers and the worst of writers. It's not just a matter of being too busy to write or review. It's not one of those cases where a member never really got started in the first place. No...burnout is one of the most depressing things that David and I are forced to endure. Why? Because future burnouts start off wildly productive! And even though we're well aware of the signs at this point, we still like to think that "maybe this guy/girl will be the one to keep it together..."

Burnout starts with an enthusiastic and highly motivated member. They're eager to join the team, typically pay close attention to our rules and regulations, and prove to be extremely valuable short-term assests. Many of NB's burnouts have started off as some of our most prolific members. The length of this stage varies; some past members have attempted feats like 5 reviews in 10 days before disappearing into the darkness; others start strong, settle into a more realistic and sustainable groove, and then begin a rapid descent into obscurity after a couple months of occasional appearances. We're always sad to see these guys and girls go. To start with such a "bang" and go out as just another member who fed us one excuse after another or worse yet, ignores us completely, is a painful thing to watch.

So the question is... are you burnt out? Some of you are far too consistent to be considered as such, but I could probably pick out a couple of "burnout Baconeers" with a reasonable dgree of confidence. Getting off to a strong start doesn't automatically make you a burnout...nor does getting busy and off-schedule during the holidays. But there are a couple of you out there who really wowed us in the beginning and who we haven't heard much from over the last month. Here's the thing though - we definitely don't aim to create burnouts and we'd be glad to do whatever we can to alleviate and prevent it as well. We understand and believe in concepts like moderation and variety, and we know that members who very quickly devote all of their free time to The Bacon tend to withdraw that time and effort just as quickly. If you're serious about being a part of Nerd Bacon and making it a better place, that's great, but ease into it. Don't feel like you've got to give everything you have to give in a week, or two weeks, or whatever. NB will still be here tomorrow, and the day after that, so be smart about how much of your energy goes into the site.

So I ask again...are you a burnout? If so, it's not too late! First things first - take a break! Yes, we want you guys to be as productive as possible; yes, we want to churn out massive amounts of quality material, however, we'd rather lose you for 2 or 3 weeks than lose you forever. When you've put some distance between yourself and your "job" as a Baconeer and can come back refreshed, remember the reason(s) you got interested in the first place. Was it your love of games? The chance to express your opinion? An opportunity to be a part of something from the ground(ish) up? Whatever the reason, don't use up all your motivation at once; save some for later. It's kind of like being hungry and eating a big meal. Depending on how hungry you are, it might seem like a good idea to eat as much as possible as quickly as possible. In the short-term, you empty a lot of plates and enjoy a lot of flavors, but you're also overloading your senses, and when it's all over, you're completely stuffed and probably don't even want to think about food for the next few hours. It's the same with playing and reviewing. You can gorge yourself at the beginning and make a respectable bit of progress, but in doing so, you've over-indulged and overloaded on the activity, leading to a repulsion of sorts.

My advice? Don't ever completely satisfy whatever it is that draws you to The Bacon. Instead of biting off one giant chunk and then deciding that "reviewing isn't for you," stick around and bite off several smaller chunks. By tackling your "job" at NB in smaller doses, you'll get to find out how much you actually like doing this stuff. Contrarily, when you take it all in in one big dose, you end up finding out more about what you don't like about the "job" instead. If you want more responsibility, we'll give it to you. If you submit 10 reviews a day, we'll do our best to either publish them or tell you exactly what needs to be done to make them publishable. But give yourself enough time and exposure to make sure it's a load you want to bear, not simply a load that you can bear.

Oh, and one last bit of advice, especially for those of you who are authors or close to being so. Sometimes I just fall into a funk where I'm not wild about playing video games, period. It has nothing to do with my feelings or ambitions towards Nerd Bacon, I just go through spells where the thought of trudging through a game isn't enjoyable. In these cases, I find other ways to devote my energy towards The Bacon - maybe I experiment with the coding that makes the site possible - maybe I use the time to look into money-making or recruitment opportunities - maybe I take on a larger social role on the site - maybe I use my column to write about something completely different! Our number 1 priority is video game reviews, but that doesn't mean that we don't want or appreciate help in other areas. If you ever do experience a low point in your interest in gaming, remember that it doesn't have to coincide with your withdrawal from The Bacon; we'll be glad to put your talents to use in other ways until the gaming bug bites you again!

So if you are feeling burnt out, take a step back, don't just disappear. Even if you don't feel like playing games and/or writing reviews, maybe you've got some other ideas about how to make the site better, and maybe you've got the know-how to put these changes in motion (after receiving our approval, of course). Perhaps there are other aspects of the site (editing, marketing, forums, maintanence, social networking, recuritment, coding, and so on) that need just the sort of expertise that you have to offer! The most important thing is to stay active and stay communicative. Do you know what the number 1 reason is behind member termination? It's when they just stop answering us.

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Review Spotlight

Our Review Spotlight will return in our next issue, #18! Between Thanksgiving, the extra content, and my own writing, time just ran out. If you haven't done so already, I recommend giving Nerdberry's parodic piece on the fictional Super Mario Bros.: The Movie: The Game a read whenever you get the chance to!

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Ever Come to Us with an Idea or Suggestion...Only to Feel as if it Fell on Deaf Ears...?

Recently it's come to our attention that some of you may feel or have felt slighted by us after making a suggestion or bringing us an idea. Please know that if you have, it was certainly not our intention! I know we're always throwing around things like "bring your suggestions to us" or "help make NB better with our ideas" or "we're always willing to accept member input"...and all of that is 100% true. Sometimes we're just busy. Sometimes I (or David) have the luxury of sitting down to reply to an email and being able to harp on endlessly about relatively minor points. Other times there are more pressing matters to consider and despite our best intentions, that one email from you may slip further and further behind. If you haven't heard back from us on a particular issue - be it an outright question or suggestion worthy of discussion - please do not assume that we have purposefully neglected you! 'Cuz we haven't. I know that personally I sometimes forget to mark the email as "Unread" so that I'll see it later. Sometimes I have more to say than I have time for and never can seem to find the right moment to put my thoughts out there...it happens. But if you're looking for an answer or if you feel like we're sloughing off a really good idea, send us another email! No response? Send another! We're never just going to straight up ignore you. We do our best, but sometimes you just have to be a little persistent with us.

There's another facet to this problem as well. As I previously stated, we truly mean all that stuff about accepting and indeed wanting your input. We genuinely want you guys and girls to come to us with ideas that could improve one aspect or another of The Bacon. However, I think some confusion arises with our diplomatic use of words like "suggestion" and "idea." To be honest, at any given point David and I have never been at a loss for ideas or suggestions for improvement. Chances are, we've probably tossed around at least 75% of those suggestions at some point in the past. The issue lies less in actually "coming up with the idea" and more in "coming up with a way to make that idea a reality." When David and I say something like, "come to us with your suggestions," we're also saying, "come to us with your suggestions...and your plan on how to make them a reality."

Think of it like this: a company dedicated to reducing global emissions comes to me and says, "Cubes, give us your brilliant take on how to reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere." My retort? "Well, the best thing to do would be to develop a cleaner and cheaper alternative to fossil fuels!" The execs at the Earth-conscious company glare at me as crickets begin to chirp...until the one outspoken guy on the end audibly mutters, "no shit, Sherlock." And then I mope around for a couple of weeks, wondering why I haven't gotten a pat on the back from the company for my brilliant idea, convinced that I wasted my time and feeling like a fool for even taking my idea to the big-time executives. Can you see where I'm going with this? Yes, my "idea" is sound, but that isn't really what the company was asking me for, was it? They already understand the problem well enough to know that they need to find or developer cheaper and cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels; what they wanted from me was an idea that addresses the reality behid producing such an alternative.

It's kind of the same way around here. We know what needs to be done. We need help on how to do it!

Moreover, neither of us is in much of a position to take on any extensive extra duties. So when you come to us with an idea, we've got our fingers crossed that you'll be following that idea with something to the tune of, "and here's what I [the member] can do to hep make that possible!" Now that's not to say every suggestion that you toss our way needs to be something so drastic, but when it comes to those ideas that revolve around putting our name out there or speaking to specific academic groups when it comes to recruting, we don't just need your idea, we need to know what and how you're planning on helping us!

More than anything I think it boils down to a misunderstanding. Here's an exampe similar to (if not overly simplistic of) what we've received in the past: a member comes to us and says, "hey, you guys should get a sponsor!" Then we say, "yes, that would be excellent! Having that money would be a huge help!" At this point, we feel like we've given our approval for this member to go out and seek out a sponsor on our behalf...yet the member is (apparently) all the while believing that we are the ones taking steps to procure a sponsor based on their suggestion. Since each side is expecting the other to take action, the point is never brought up again, and the member feels like we brushed him or her off without ever taking their suggestion seriously, or worse yet, pretending to take it seriously.

So if you're a member who's felt brushed off, sloughed off, disregarded, ignored, neglected, or forgotten, please, don't be miffed. Your input is important and appreciated. And as much as we love hearing a good idea, we really love hearing a good idea that you can help us out with!

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Get Greasy!

Help us fill Greased with the things that you want to know about the site! What do you want us to talk about regularly? What kind of updates are you hoping for? What sort of information would inspire you to be even more productive? Let us know how we can make Greased yours and we will do our best. Don't hesitate to share any tips or tricks you may wish to share as well. We'd love to have more of you guys' and girls' input. We'd also love to field any questions that you guys and girls may have: questions about grammar, spelling, or punctuation? Maybe an ambiguous piece of policy you want clarification on? Or maybe there's a technical aspect that you've seen in another article or on another site that you're interested in using? Chances are that if you have a question so does someone else, so please, speak up and ask us! If you submit something that we use in a future issue of Greased, you'll earn yourself a Lightning Bolt Badge!

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Twitch

We may have slowed down our official operations on Twitch, but that doesn't mean we're closed off to those of you who may want to host an occasional stream for fun. Our plan for Monday nights may not have exactly worked out as well as we had hoped, but the feedback regarding individual streams was generally positive. Rhutsczar's "Cards Against Humanity" night was a resounding success by all accounts (I was unfortunately unable to attend) and I know the event inspired several other ideas among members that for one reason or another never came to fruition. We may have had less than stellar results when it came to amassing an audience through Twitch, yet it always remained an effective platform for bringing members together and providing a means of socialization amongst those interested.

So if you've got a cool idea for a stream, or a new game you'd like to share, or an old favorite to show off, let us know! We'll announce your stream as far ahead as possible and encourage others to attend. The upcoming holiday season may be a great time to get in on the action since more people will be home...or it could backfire depending on how many people use this extra time to busy themselves even further. Who knows? At any rate, we do miss the member-to-member interactions that frequent streams provided us with, and though we may not have the staff or the pull to maintain several regular "shows" aimed at an audience, we still want to give those of you who are interested the chance to interact and have fun.

If you're craving the spotlight, if you're missing your fellow Baconeers, and if you can handle getting off to a slow start or not drawing in many viewers or members without taking it too personally (hey, it's a crappy feeling but it happens...part of the reason we shut down The BLT was because some our members (myself included at least once) were putting some serious thought and preparation into streams that no one was attending)...if you can handle that possibility, then consider throwing caution to the wind and giving us a "special event" once in a while and putting on a show for your fellow Baconeers! Perhaps at some point in the not-too-distant future we can find more success in gearing these streams towards members rather than audiences of relative strangers. Just a little something to keep in mind.

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Volunteers for January Clean-Up Still Needed/Wanted

We still need a few individuals who feel like they know their way around WordPress to step up and volunteer to assists with the "January Clean-Up." I've mentioned it several times, but to briefly reiterate, this will be an ongoing activity with the aim of bringing NB's older articles up to snuff. We know a lot more now than we did back then. As a result of us figuring things out and developing standards and making occasionally drastic changes to the site, there are lots of articles that need to be updated and/or cleaned up in terms of Featured Image, SEO, Exceprt, and possibly missing or incorrect Header information, particularly some of the early "Nerd Ratings" and missing "Publisher" fields. January isn't that far away, so if you're interested in helping us out, go ahead and get in touch with us.

Assuming we're ready, we hope to also start putting the new nav boxes in articles as part of the clean-up as well. Overall the process should help these articles gain more notice and generate more traffic. As it is, I'm afraid some of these are very isolated, especially those written before we were using our SEO plugin.

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Interested in Making Videos?

It seems like we used to get tons of requests from members who wished to produce video reviews, but when we finally opened our doors wholeheartedly, we got very few takers. If you have more than 10 published reviews (which most of you do), why not try your hand at a video review or even a video Top 10? We don't want plain videos of you playing a game, though we would be happy to accept a video of you showing off a particular feat in the game - maybe a secret, or how to get through a rough patch, or something like that. Or if you wanted to take your gameplay and do something "artistic" with it that'd be great. Reviews are of course top priority, but we're definitely open to letting you flex your creativity muscles. If you're not sure about something but have an idea, let us know!

Even if you're not a top-notch video producer, don't sweat it. We will definitely afford you some leniency, and after all, the only way to get better at making videos is to keep at it, and you've got to start somewhere. Your video will count as an article, so go ahead and give it a shot! Suggestions include: a narrated Top 10 with appropriate footage, a straightforward video review, an instructional/DIY guide (hardware modding, homebrew games, cable/adapter construction), impressive gameplay techniques (speed runs, glitches, no deaths, etc.), entertaining/artistic videos - gameplay set to music, footage manipulated in creative ways, something viewers would look at and say, "cool!"

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Site Developments

For those of you who've been taking the time to read through the lengthy, tech-laden documents that I've been attaching to Greased lately, you can probably guess that I've been spending a fair bit of time honing my knowledge of CSS/HTML (the languages that make Nerd Bacon what it is...sort of...). In fact, recently my "schedule" has consisted of a week of playing games with the kid and banging out reviews, followed by a week of intensive study of CSS/HTML. For quite a while now I've been coding these issues of Greased 100% from scratch - I'm talking I start with a totally blank slab o' screen in Notepad (Notepad+ technically) and manually type all that you see you here. I'm not pretending to be an expert or even close to one when it comes to this stuff, however, I know 1,000 times more than I did back in the site's younger days when I would spend hours aimlessly poking at one thing and then another, inserting one value and then the next, trying desperately to achieve some vague notion of "success."

What I'm getting at here is that the site is in much more capable hands when it comes to presentation and layout (unfortunately, I've still got a long ways to go before I can do much to affect the functionality of NB) and the topic of a "resdesigned Nerd Bacon" is something that David and I have thrown back and forth multiple times with varying degress of seriousness - even a total rebuild of the presentation from scratch. The biggest hurdle we eventually reach is what would a redesigned NB look like? A nice clean, sterile site with lots of white and empty space? Something more suited to an e-zine with a fixed header and a fixed left sidebar for navigation? What would a static homepage look like? How would we put together a proper welcome for visitors while still relaying our most recent efforts?

We have come a long way from the cookie-cutter look thar we first sported, but the default coding is messy, convoluted, and trying to make real changes is a bit like untangling a piece of thread tangled within a piece of twine, itself knotted around a bundle of cords. The upshot to having more direct control over the site's presentation is that I think it would be a lot easier to account for mobile devices. I know that some people aren't thrilled with the site's design in general and hey, maybe this is where you could help us out!

Obviously the mobile version is a disaster, but putting that aside for just a moment, what do you think a redesigned NB should look like? Seriously! Lay it on me - it doesn't even have to be practical. I'm just interested in getting some ideas flowing. Think outside the box. Think in terms of layout changes; draw me a crude diagram in Paint if you need to! What content is essential? What can go? Is there content that should be continuously displayed (such as in the header, or a sidebar, etc.) that isn't already? Do we need 2 sidebars? Do we need 1 sidebar? I'd love to hear your ideas, big and small, multiple ideas if you have them! Personally I like the site as it is, but it is a little busy and I wouldn't mind having more control over some aspects - such as a static homepage. But I also know that I'm probably a bit too close to it, which is why I think pooling opinions from you all is important.

Don't expect major changes anytime soon though! I've got a full plate with the new nav boxes and of course David and I would need to discuss and agree on these changes, but I think it's a project worth tackling, or at the very least exploring.

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Until Next Time...

We hope everyone is getting ready for a fun/relaxing/generous holiday season. Hopefully between all the eating and cooking and traveling we've given you enough stuff to do to help us out. Game lists, the Mario Challenge, sending in your thoughts on redesign possibilities, hosting a Twitch stream...plenty of awesome stuff you can do for us during your holiday downtime! But really, enjoy your time away from the grind and think about us here at The Bacon once in a while.

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Issue #17

December 4th, 2015

Volume 1