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| Porn Users Forum » User Ranks » User Post History |
Post History:
messmer (0)
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| 401-450 of 2588 Posts | < Previous Page | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Page 9 | 10 | 16 | 22 | 28 | 34 | 40 | 51 | 52 | Next Page > |
| 01-08-13 04:05pm - 4366 days | #29 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User  Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
As usual, let me know immediately when you find it, Cap'n. I would turn my back on hardcore in a minute!  | |
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| 01-08-13 04:02pm - 4366 days | #52 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
I can't believe how lax they have become. In many scenes you hear squeaking cameras and chairs, directions being given, people closing doors or talking in the background, people coming up the stairs. I guess this is mostly due to the fact that many DVDs are produced on the cheap nowadays, just to keep from going under.  | |
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| 01-08-13 03:52pm - 4366 days | #27 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
^ Strangely enough most of the female stars of yesteryear you mentioned were never of great appeal to me, even though many of them were my contemporaries, especially all the so-called sex goddesses like Brigitte Bardot or Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield. The pout on the former two irritated me no end, while the oversized mammaries on the latter turned me off. She looked as lopsided as Jane Russell, another one I didn't find sexy in the slightest. I find many of today's stars much, much sexier and wouldn't mind seeing them in a film or two that was slightly soft porn. Two bad the industry appears to have turned their back on movies like "Eyes Wide Shut!" I wasn't overly fond of the movie itself but Nicole Kidman was hot!  | |
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| 01-08-13 03:33pm - 4366 days | #7 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
I think I know exactly which site you are talking about, RB. I subscribed to it some time ago without running into any problems and always wondered about the negative remarks by other users. With a huge site I suppose errors are possible but they didn't happen to me. Downloads were plentiful and fast, quitting was easy, I was never charged for something I didn't want .. so all around it was a positive experience, except I would never go back because of all the huge, enhanced breasts that the site seems to specialize in. I do believe those who complain, but I also believe they are probably in the minority or your particular site would have long ago gone out of business. Or maybe I was just lucky?  | |
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| 01-08-13 10:12am - 4366 days | #2 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Ah, your lactating, cream pied lady is probably hiding with my mature woman, wearing erotic lingerie who goes from fully dressed to fully undressed! Probably in a witness protection program where no one can find her!  | |
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| 01-08-13 10:07am - 4366 days | #49 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Thanks, CC. That's my pet peeve. The producers seem to think that having their male performers look like "Gangstas" adds erotic value to a scene.  | |
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| 01-07-13 11:57am - 4367 days | #6 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Oh God, why did you have to put that into my mind. Tina Fey just dropped out of contention! | |
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| 01-07-13 10:36am - 4367 days | #3 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Don't laugh, but for me Tina Fey would be on top of the list. I don't watch Saturday Night Live so I knew nothing about her until I watched a movie she starred in last week .. she is a definite hottie in my eyes and became an instant favorite. | |
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| 01-07-13 10:31am - 4367 days | #8 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
I guess fake breasts go with "pornstar" or "escort," at least the ones in Denner's link. That would leave me out .. honestly .. even if they did lower their price. I can't stand those artificial orbs. Well, I wouldn't (couldn't) in any case! | |
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| 01-07-13 10:13am - 4367 days | #16 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
I love the digital age myself. There are so many positives about it. At one time you had to hide your stash from the prying eyes of your nearest and dearest, now you put it on an encrypted external hard drive. I am surprised at the "25% of Internet traffic" I had really assumed, without having any proof, that the percentage would be much higher. It was something I read in an article somewhere but then not all articles published can be trusted. Theoretically the Ukraine should not be effected by what the Russians do, now that they gained their independence, but they might consider the present laws a good thing and follow the lead. Trouble with both countries was the fact that organized crime had quite the slice of the porn trade so that migh be another factor why the new law would be generally supported by the population at large. | |
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| 01-07-13 09:52am - 4367 days | #55 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Now there's a good idea. I would stop all my objections to portrait format if I could swivel my monitor. One of my beefs is that "portrait" is simply too small on the ordinary monitor ... for me. That's one of the reasons I never use my tablet either to view porn. If I could swivel my wide screen monitor the picture would be considerably larger. Yes, I'd go for that! I don't care for technical details or how many pixels are contained in a High Resolution picture. All I know is that I like to see the models big without having to zoom and study each body part separately. | |
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| 01-06-13 06:45pm - 4368 days | #14 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
All I can say is that I am supremely happy that I had the good fortune to live at least during a part of the wild west, wide open, Internet era. Before the golden age Canada had always been so uptight about porn that their attitude to sex and nudity was ridiculous to someone with a European background. There was a time shortly after I landed on these shores when you even had to smuggle Penthouse et. al across the U.S. border or buy them from someone who kept them under the counter, out of sight of the disapproving eyes of the law. What a glorious 18 years of freedom for me, a regular Internet smorgasbord of every kind of porn .. and the authorities stepped back for a little while because the thought of controlling the flood was more than they felt they were capable of handling. Not only that, but they also finally found out how popular porn was among most men and many women, so their careers were on the line as well. No doubt you are right, GM. The pendulum always swings back, so it might very well swing back to Victorian prudishness. I just hope that it won't be in your time and mine! Even though I have enough in my stash to last me another fifty years I love the smell of freedom ... the freedom to explore my sexual needs and dreams and fantasies to the full. | |
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| 01-06-13 02:29pm - 4368 days | #5 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Wasn't I thinking the same thing! I get so much spam on a daily basis, it is pathetic. That's under my throw-away address. The sad thing is that my real name quite often shows up in the subject area of the email which means that my personal information is being sold by some of the sites I subscribe to, or by their payment processors. So we not only have bots but legitimate sites that are a bit greedy. I hate Spam. Gmail puts it into a folder for me but I still have to scan 40 or so headers daily just to make sure there's not a genuine email among them. Thanks for letting me rave. | |
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| 01-06-13 02:18pm - 4368 days | #16 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
^ My favorite for puffy nipples is Blue Angel (ALSScan, 21Sextury). Faye Reagan has nice ones as well. | |
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| 01-06-13 10:36am - 4368 days | #3 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Most sites have a newsletter you can subscribe to. Just click on that and give them your email address. I get all kinds of email from various sources. Also check your "spam" folder. Sometimes they end up there. | |
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| 01-06-13 10:32am - 4368 days | #13 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Is that all they show, Capn, just nipples, or is there full nudity as well? The site does look promising. | |
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| 01-05-13 02:35pm - 4369 days | #4 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Three cheers for Hungary and the Czech Republic! They'll keep feeding us the good stuff, I hope???? | |
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| 01-05-13 02:33pm - 4369 days | #47 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
I don't think my preference for landscape has anything to do with OCD. It's simply a personal preference, same as I no longer watch 4:3 TV but only 16:9 HD. There is simply MORE to the picture and it is esthetically more pleasing. | |
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| 01-05-13 09:56am - 4369 days | #44 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
And I still agree with you, Cap'n! Landscape does not necessarily mean a small figure surrounded by sand and sea. The picture can be taken so that the head touches one end of the screen and the feet the other, when viewed on a widescreen. And as you so rightly stated, if that isn't big enough for you you can always zoom in. Exception, a true portrait (head shot). There are many sets in my collection where the photographer was smart enough to offer almost identical shots in portrait and landscape, and since portrait leaves me cold I simply sort the set by size and keep landscape only. True, I miss some good shots in portrait now and then, but there's nothing like seeing that screen filled with female beauty rather than a vertical shot with black bars on either side. Of course I do that only with sets that give me an option. Most of them I have to keep "as is" because landscape is so rare. But, as someone else pointed out, not everyone has the same taste so I guess we'll be stuck with portrait for quite a while longer. | |
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| 01-03-13 01:47pm - 4371 days | #33 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
I completely agree, Cap'n. Remember that was MY personal fight almost 5 years ago: "Give us more landscape shots." I've given up in the meantime. Fighting for a strip sequence with mature women is hard enough!  I watch some picture sets on my flatscreen 42" TV and the landscape shots are far more appealing than the portrait ones because they fill the whole screen. And with a bit of cropping you still get a good close-up view of the model. I really don't understand why some (most) photographers prefer to shoot in that format and why so many users accept that format so readily. | |
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| 01-01-13 06:53pm - 4373 days | #5 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Despite the fact that I go through my usual spiel, eg. strip tease fully clothed to fully naked, on an almost daily basis, I do enjoy looking at stretched pussies as the grand finale to the strip but always prefer landscape format to the more common close-ups that ignore the rest of the model's body. Bubble butts are a passion of mine. I find that those of black models are offering the greatest boost to my libido. I love black models, period. Nicest natural breasts, normal rather than skinny anorexic bodies, and the aforementioned gorgeous bubble butts. Black is beautiful! | |
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| 01-01-13 10:36am - 4373 days | #27 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
My view exactly, Claypaws. Why not leave in a couple of pictures where the women still wear bras and panties and display them clearly and frontally, and then show the rest of the subscribers what they want to see. Both factions could have their way. It would be win-win all around especially since I appreciate naked full body shots as well. The truncated shots of a torso etc. don't appeal to me though .. I like to see the women attached to them! | |
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| 01-01-13 10:25am - 4373 days | #8 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Thank you Khan and Staff. A Happy New Year to you as well as to all my friends in this Forum. A special Happy New Year 2013 to the developer of the mature site with women in lingerie slowly stripping from fully clothed to fully naked. I know he is out there somewhere! Fixated M. | |
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| 12-31-12 07:01pm - 4374 days | #18 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Fascinating behind the scenes glimpse. Thanks, Claypaws. Just a couple of questions. Who whittles those 1500 images down to about 150? Is it the photographer or the site? Number two, if it is the photographer, could you please keep some of the pictures where the models wear panties and bras! | |
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| 12-31-12 02:45pm - 4374 days | #4 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Thanks for the prompt reply, Khan. Hope someone will get the culprits. That upgrade message threw me off! I thought it was genuine. | |
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| 12-31-12 01:56pm - 4374 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
For two days in a row there were hours I could not connect to this site because a site upgrade was in progress, according to the message. Just curious, are you making minor, barely noticeable upgrades or is there a major one in the works, Khan? | |
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| 12-29-12 01:32pm - 4376 days | #28 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
I agree with you completely, Pat. I have had three Japanese sites sitting in favorites for the longest time because I love the looks of Japanese models, but can't get myself to subscribe because of the mosaic. And saying that we don't need to see the vagina because we all know what it looks like does not make much sense to me, because we might as well blur their breasts as well ... we all know what THEY look like. Right now I am waiting until someone reports that the non-pixelated material in Japanese sites is building to a level that will make it worthwhile to subscribe. | |
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| 12-27-12 06:19pm - 4378 days | #8 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Agreed! | |
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| 12-27-12 12:58pm - 4378 days | #6 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
I always assumed that their whimpering-whining noises were those of ecstasy and not of resistance. A cultural thing. You may have noticed, if you've ever subscribed to a site that features Eastern European models, that their "noises" are different from ours as well. | |
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| 12-27-12 11:05am - 4378 days | #5 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Are you sure your sample is taken from WatchMyGF? I just did a quick tour and can't see your picture anywhere!? | |
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| 12-25-12 11:31am - 4380 days | #3 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Thank you, Khan, the same to you and yours. The same also to all my fellow PUs! | |
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| 12-25-12 11:29am - 4380 days | #12 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Last time I joined it wasn't that obvious to me, RB. Everything appeared to be above board. I guess I was one of the fortunate ones. This time, however, it didn't take long to see how blatantly unethical they were. | |
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| 12-24-12 10:27am - 4381 days | #42 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
I think I mentioned this in another place but my view on tattoos is slowly evolving. Where at one time I was totally against them I can now see a certain beauty in those artistic whole upper arm tattoos, and even tramp stamps no longer bother me. However, I still hate them near breasts or pubes or thighs or upper back. | |
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| 12-24-12 10:18am - 4381 days | #12 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Yet they run from nudity as if Satan were chasing them. Weird standards! Forty years or so ago I was convinced that by now it would be generally accepted, even by the "family oriented" networks but we haven't come far, have we, except for the acceptance of filthy talk. | |
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| 12-24-12 10:09am - 4381 days | #10 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Thanks, Khan. The strange thing is that ALL the recent updates from their various sites are listed as 1080p within the HD button (check their tour) yet when you download that particular update it is available in 720p only. I have not yet come across any site that had a 1080p video for download. Maybe there is a premium membership where they would be available but that option is nowhere listed when you sign up. Something is indeed going on. It is called misleading advertisement. In any case my subscription has now expired and the site has been black listed by me, never to be visited again. Once again, thanks for your hands-on way of looking after us! | |
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| 12-23-12 07:03pm - 4382 days | #8 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Good idea, Pat. Unless Khan has read this thread and has taken steps already to check things out an error report might be a good thing. | |
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| 12-23-12 07:01pm - 4382 days | #60 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Scarier yet, who can reassure me that all those armed security guards, principals and teachers will always remain emotionally stable? As CT pointed out everyone has a trigger, so, the less guns the less deaths if someone should snap unexpectedly. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Every decent member of the NRA, and I don't doubt there are many, should hand in his membership this very moment in response to the callous indifference shown by their leadership. Such a bizarre reaction, attempting to maintain the status quo with all these tragic incidents ... one after the other after the other ... staring them in the face! Incidents that completely fly in the face of their arguments. It may be people that kill people but they should not be handed rapid fire instruments of death to help up the numbers. Disgusting. | |
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| 12-23-12 10:40am - 4382 days | #5 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Every single update is marked 1080p on their tour, Pat. One does not have to go from site to site in order to find them. Bangbros have become crooks, plain and simple, since all you get when you attempt to download those so-called 1080p videos is 720p. I am repeating what I wrote in my comment: I wrote an email to support in connection with this deception, got a formulaic answer telling me how to download an HD video in mp4 (720p) but not responding to my original query how to get the 1080p version. A second email remained unanswered. Hook the customer with a cheap subscription price, lead him to a page of "upgrades" when he first signs in rather than to the home page with the latest updates .. these guys could stand an investigation for downright deception. And last time was such a positive experience. Either they have become desperate or they are under new management. Edited on Dec 23, 2012, 10:51am | |
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| 12-23-12 10:29am - 4382 days | #4 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Well (see my comment on the site's page) there is no mention anywhere that you need a premium membership to get the 1080p videos, except after you sign up. There is also deliberate deception because, if you take their tour, you will see that all their most recent updates sport a 1080p within the HD button and this is what you expect to get. I do wish that TBP made it more obvious that the ordinary subscription to this site doesn't give you what is advertised. It would also be nice if there were an official mention somewhere that the site has turned into a trap, trying to entice you to upgrade to a full membership. I thought I was getting a full membership when I subscribed recently. Bunch of sleazy opportunists .. and it was such a good site at one time. | |
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| 12-23-12 10:17am - 4382 days | #57 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
I would claim without hesitation that both police officers and all those who are not for a ban on assault rifles are the ones who are mentally unstable. That a ban is necessary is obvious to most rational people while the NRA's answer is to put a cop in every school, mall and movie theater!! By all means, let folks keep their hand guns if they feel unsafe but do away with all those super sized ammo clips and the rifles that go with them. 20 little kids and 6 adults cry out that something be done this time. Enough is enough. | |
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| 12-22-12 04:10pm - 4383 days | #50 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Thanks, CT. A very reasonable answer and I left your answer intact for that reason. Now if only every gun owner were like you! | |
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| 12-22-12 10:49am - 4383 days | #45 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
A CNN comment without comment: http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/20/opinion/wa...;iid=article_sidebar | |
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| 12-22-12 09:59am - 4383 days | #15 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Just curious, is there such a thing as adult games that are sold generally, in regular stores? I've seen plenty of games on the shelves that are marked "adults only" but this is always in connection with violence. I have yet to see one that features sex and nudity. | |
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| 12-22-12 09:52am - 4383 days | #3 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
I thought firing her was stupid and wrong. No, I don't watch the show, but everyone should have a chance at starting over in a different career and one could have a worse background than that of a porn star. But this is the opinion of a lover of porn. I guess the producers were worried about losing advertisers who tend to be pretty skittish in connection with anything that has ties, even former ones, to anything that is not "Pro Family Values." A shame! | |
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| 12-21-12 11:10am - 4384 days | #34 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Good point, Reveen. To tell the truth with most porn I had always assumed that the "borderline abuse" was by mutual consent, in other words something talked about before the scene was filmed, so my objection to the women being called names was never in connection with a "performance." Facial Abuse being an exception .. I was truly disgusted by their demeaning talk with/and treatment of the models. However, your remarks do make me sit up and think. If I thought for one moment that the name-calling in scenes wasn't entirely by consent I would return to softcore only immediately. I simply hated the fact that various porn video sites and some users called the models names as they described a scene or DVD, because in this case the performers had no control over how they were described. | |
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| 12-21-12 10:26am - 4384 days | #43 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
^ Why do you possess so many guns, CT? And wouldn't your theory practically force you to get rid of all of them just in case someone pulls your trigger one of these days? | |
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| 12-17-12 01:40pm - 4388 days | #28 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
My wife and I hold the same view as you when it comes to some folks craving 5 minutes in the spot light ... take notice, I am ... however in the case of a man who commits suicide right after his horrifying deed that theory goes out the window. At least for us. So we are left with the inexplicable. | |
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| 12-17-12 01:34pm - 4388 days | #6 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Hard to tell if the body is good if you can't see it for all the tattoos!  And there is an age divide when it comes to getting in bed with her. Testosterone driven young males no doubt would, but for many of us older men it is a sure fire turn off. Same as I wouldn't get into bed with someone with enhanced breasts, that's how strong my revulsion is. After a certain age you get pickier, at least some of us do! | |
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| 12-17-12 10:32am - 4388 days | #26 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/...ld-guns.html?cmp=rss Neil Macdonald: Death and delusion in a nation of assault rifles Yet another "national discussion" about guns is under way here, and it's so anti-rational, so politically cowardly, so �unbearably stupid that you have to wonder how a nation that has enlightened the world in so many other ways could wallow in this kind of delusion. Twenty children are dead, and journalists and politicians have assumed those breathy, semi-hushed tones that have become so much the norm in covering tragedies. Everywhere, there is talk about "the grieving process," with pious asides thrown in about the need to "go home and hug your children," or pray. As if that is going to accomplish anything. The American audience is a giant emotional sponge looking for distraction from its collective gun craziness, and the media obliges, broadcasting endless montages of victims, with sombre, hymnal piano music playing underneath. After the state medical examiner had finished talking about multiple bullet wounds in each young victim, all inflicted by the same Bushmaster rifle, one reporter asked the man to talk about how much he'd cried � "personally" � while performing the autopsies. To repeat: the 20-year-old shooter used a Bushmaster .223 assault rifle, a commercial model of the military M-16, and the reporter wanted to talk about crying. The weapon is designed for war, firing ultra-destructive bullets that travel at 3,000 feet per second. It is designed to destroy human life as efficiently as possible, causing maximum internal damage. As a colleague of mine so bitterly remarked, just perfect for a kindergarten operation. The shooter's mother, apparently the first victim in this rampage, is being described in media reports here as "an avid sporting enthusiast" who "enjoyed the independence" of shooting. She reportedly trained her disturbed son (whom she had once yanked out of the system and home-schooled) at the firing range. When he left home for the elementary school on Friday, he chose the Bushmaster and a few semi-automatic pistols, leaving behind his mother's slower, conventional rifles, along with her dead body. Terrifying logic Now, as the so-called national conversation proceeds, politicians and pundits talk sternly about the importance of remembering that gun ownership is a constitutional right, practised responsibly by millions of Americans. Who should carry weapons? In this country, people actually speak about "enjoying" shooting something like a Bushmaster, as if that were some sort of normal activity. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican congressman from Utah, proclaimed on Sunday that the real problem underlying these kinds of incidents is the mental health issue: "I am a concealed carry permit holder. I own a Glock 23, I've got a shotgun, I'm not the person you need to worry about." Well, sorry, senator, but you are certainly one of them, at least in my (admittedly Canadian) book. If I understand properly, you live in an urban area, and carry around a .40-calibre pistol with up to 17 bullets in the magazine, capable of firing up to five a second, just like one of the pistols the Connecticut shooter toted. In other words, you pack the means to kill more than a dozen people in moments if you choose, and we just have to trust you to be sensible and hold your temper. Chaffetz's position is, basically, the core of the pro-gun message in this country: The destructive power of the weapon is not the issue. It is all about personal responsibility. And personal freedom. The logic is terrifying. You could extend it to hand grenades or flame-throwers. Some people here do. (Though grenades are actually illegal here). Flame-throwers don�t incinerate people, people incinerate people, to paraphrase a favorite gun-lobby aphorism. The 'child-killing lobby' For the moment, politically powerful pro-gun groups � "the child-killing lobby," as the New Yorker's Adam Gopnik, another Canadian, called them Friday � and most of their lawmaker allies are silent, save for the occasional declaration that this is a time to mourn, or to denounce "the gun control vultures already circling the corpses." The National Rifle Association's website contains not a single word about the Connecticut massacre. But just watch. Soon enough will come the talk about how the Newtown school shooting just underlines the need for even more ordinary Americans to arm themselves in self-defence. And the weird, horrible reality here is that there is some truth to that. The NRA has helped ensure it. There are currently about 300 million guns in this country, and gun laws are looser every year. The high courts have slapped down states that have tried to restrict gun use. It is now quite normal to see people carrying pistols on their hips in shops and restaurants. Plenty more carry concealed weapons. And many of these are criminals. Police are overwhelmed. At the same time, it's a safe bet that if Sarah Dawn McKinley, of Blanchard, Okla., didn't have a gun last January, she'd be a statistic, too. Alone with her toddler as intruders tried to break in, she called 911. The operator told her to do what she had to do. She killed one intruder with her late-husband's shotgun long before police arrived. He was armed with a 12-inch hunting knife. The new normal There are, of course, other good reasons to own guns, especially in isolated rural areas. There always have been. I remember a large dog, obviously rabid with foam on its muzzle, staggering toward our farmhouse in Ontario when I was a child. My dad shooed my brothers and me inside, fetched his bolt-action rifle from the bedroom, slipped in a single round, and shot the beast dead. (He was a pretty good shot). Another time, he walked out with that rifle in the middle of the night and faced down a car full of menacing, drunken, hoodlums in our lane. Years later, a neighbour on a nearby farm was murdered by the "Ottawa Valley killer," while watching TV. The nearest police station was an hour's drive from our rural gravel road. But my father never owned a Bushmaster. Or an Uzi. Or a sniper rifle. Or a flame-thrower. What's taken hold here in America is lunacy. There have been 16 mass shootings in the U.S. just this year alone, leaving 88 people dead. It's the new normal. Some of the killers wore body armour and fired weapons that scare Marines. President Barack Obama has tearfully called for "meaningful action" on guns, just as he did after another mass shooting during his last term, and followed up by doing, well, nothing. Perhaps he will try something this time, now that his last election is behind him and the history books beckon. But what, exactly? His first election sent gun lovers racing to stock up on ammo and new weapons, for fear Obama would take their guns away. He had to assure them he wouldn�t. Now, one of Obama's congressional allies, New York Senator Chuck Schumer, is mulling the notion of restricting weapon clips to 10 bullets. "We need a new paradigm," declared Schumer. How about this instead: Start by taking weapons of war away from people who aren't soldiers or police. | |
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| 12-17-12 10:27am - 4388 days | #3 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Not much sense putting lingerie on her if you see a face staring at you through her stocking top!  | |
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