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Sears is awesome because their CEO is bugfucking insane and clearly doesn't give even a quarter of a poo poo anymore. When there is light rainfall in Hoffman Estates the giant glass-enclosed atrium of their corporate headquarters is littered with trash cans and dumpsters to catch the dozens of unfixed roof leaks that have been getting steadily worse for years. They also love to treat their employees by arranging meet-and-greets with z-list "celebrities" pretty often so like once a month you get to see some poor billiards player or rodeo clown or some poo poo sitting at a table by himself in the middle of a completely vacant space, openly wondering how best to fire their agent
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Feb 23, 2016 20:29
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Sears has a red box in their corporate atrium but it's not actually linked to the red box network so someone cut out a giant foam slice of white bread and put it on top with a sign happily proclaiming it the Bread Box the movies haven't been updated in years
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Feb 23, 2016 20:41
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Cliff Racer posted:Your "dense population area" has significantly worse selection than south central Pennsylvania. Congratulations on living in Duluth, I guess. Duluth actually has The Current, a listener supported station with zero ads, a ridiculously wide selection of music, and excellent informative DJs, so I'm going to say that's false too. Most areas have at least one or two decent-to-excellent radio stations until you get to the 400 mile highways where you see maybe one or two other cars out west.
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Mar 1, 2016 18:34
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The Sears thing should not be a surprise to anyone that has ever had the displeasure of visiting their corporate HQ. The roof of their building leaks basically all the gently caress over when it rains, and since the majority of the campus is an enormous, open, glass-walled atrium the end result is that any time there is a light drizzle outside the atrium is literally filled with dozens of rollable dumpsters used to catch errant rainfall. There's an unlicensed Red Box machine in said atrium, but it's not connected to the Red Box network at large and has not had its selection updated in years. Because it's not technically a Red Box any more they cut out a big lovely looking slice of bread from craft foam and call it the Bread Box. The HQ keeps samples that vendors bring in and then sell them to their employees in the "sample store", which occasionally leads to fun things like them selling hundreds of prop phone chargers that didn't actually have wires in them, or old lovely off-brand net books from 2007 with no cords or batteries. The CEO runs the company like a gladiatorial arena - departments fight over limited funding in adversarial meetings explicitly scheduled to pit managers against each other, because everyone remembers that old adage "a house divided is totally awesome, guys." That same CEO forced IT to spend millions developing an internal social network and then forced employees to use it specifically to spy on them. One of their call centers was, last I heard, running hundreds of machines off of a single aging T1 line, and their techs couldn't figure out why things were timing out regularly. And while I haven't worked there in years, the network thing mentioned above is in no way the first time they've decided to just not pay a vendor. What's weird is that all of this is very visible and people are aware of how lovely it is and half their employees are STILL absurdly loyal to the company. Sorry, not employees - "associates".
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Jun 29, 2016 01:03
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I forgot one great thing - at one of the major entrances there's a nice big sign when you walk in asking you to not feed the animals, emphasizing Sears Holdings Corporation's new role as a lovely human zoo. It's probably meant to be facing the door for employees to see when they leave for lunch (although why would they, the cafeteria there is the one thing that's actually decent) but I'm pretty sure there's not a ton of fauna to feed in goddamn Hoffman Estates, IL. I guess I saw a squirrel there once?
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Jun 29, 2016 01:09
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Cowman posted:We couldn't sell all of our winter poo poo so we stuck it in the back for next year. First time we did this. We're also still selling some kid's winter gloves not on clearance even though it's 100F outside. We also got in some winter/fall clothes apparently. I don't know who does the orders but they're idiots. As someone who has met some of the people doing those orders at the corporate level, you have absolutely no idea at all. Roylicious posted:What the actual gently caress? Why haven't the shareholders revolted haha what the hell. They kind of have? I mean there have been more articles written about what an objectively, quantifiably bad leader the CEO is than I have seen about any other CEO in any industry ever, and they've gone back for years and years now. The stock has already tanked almost entirely. Here's the secret though: when Kmart bought Sears and formed the Sears Holding Company, they already knew their retail was in a tailspin. While Sears has been really trying to look like they're doing something to right the sinking ship (with Shop Your Way Rewards and goofy ads like "I shipped my pants") the reality of the situation is that Sears and Kmart actually own most if not all of the real estate where their stores are located - as a matter of policy, they don't lease stores. So Sears' stock is tumbling, the retail channel will dry out entirely within a few years, and the executives are flying it right into the side of the mountain so that when everything gets closed up they make shitloads off of unloading their hugely hugely profitable real estate holdings to some other poor giant retailer that hasn't yet figured out which way the economic winds are going re: box stores. This isn't even a secret at this point.
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Jun 29, 2016 18:32
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Fat Shat Sings posted:
They used to have a lady whose job was to sit at Corporate and remote into the security systems of any Sears or Kmart experiencing severe shrink issues, but as it turns out someone in an office thousands of miles away is pretty bad at actually stopping any crime. She'd call stores and speak with the managers and be all "yeah so some guy just walked out with three TVs, you need to be more on top of this poo poo" and the store managers would inevitably get pissed off and refuse to believe she was from Corporate at all. Nice lady.
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Jul 26, 2016 14:26
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bongwizzard posted:Sure, but you are still a pathetic gently caress undeserving of sympathy if you don't try. Without the desire to improve your lot, why bother even living? you're completely right, that's why nobody said you shouldn't try except this loving moron here: bongwizzard posted:Lol, sure, everything is random chance, no point in trying. Rockman Reserve has a new favorite as of 16:56 on Aug 5, 2016 |
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Aug 5, 2016 16:40
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I haven't been to Denver in over a decade but the mall is like two miles away from anything worthwhile IIRC, so no it's just a dumb move.
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Aug 12, 2016 00:35
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Citizen Tayne posted:There was some discussion about it in the Schwinn piece about how Walmart nearly destroyed them. Can't find the article now (of course), but knowing that Walmart's overriding doctrine to their suppliers is to cut costs every year, it makes sense. this is because visio tvs were steaming diarrhea garbage for years and years and not because Wal Mart Owns Sony And The Whole World you loving moron, hope this explains something for you
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Aug 27, 2016 06:29
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I BOUGHT A BAD TV ONCE THIS MEANS WAL MART IS BAD I AM DUMB ENOUGH THAT I BOUGHT A BAD TV AGAIN, LIKE A MORON, AND IT WAS SLIGHTLY BETTER DUE TO THE INEXORABLE MARCH OF TECHNOLOGY, THIS MEANS COST CO IS GOOD AND I AM SMART
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Aug 27, 2016 06:32
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yeah for sure but lol at that dudes conspiracy theories
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Aug 27, 2016 06:35
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Jastiger posted:Nah they legit bought the bottom of the line electronics but made sure the name brand was on it. For examplr samsung would have a 46 inch hd tv with all the trimmings and specs listed. Best Buy, hmm yes but if you actually bother reading the thread you will notice that this was not what that dude was claiming, at all, he actually said that the model numbers would be identical for different qualities of product
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Aug 27, 2016 16:06
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RocktheCaulk posted:In general, how much of a threat is the entire 'Franchise model' of stores under threat? Chipotle is having ridiculous supply chain issues and resorting to standard terrible labor practices against employees, people are mostly realizing fast food kills them, and models like Jimmy Johns that rely on having a store every square mile of every major/moderate/minor/suburban area just doesn't seem sustainable in the long run. I mean white people do love their mayonnaise on processed bread and food stuff, but the entire franchise model and system has to be under some stress? I'm pretty sure Jimmy Johns thrives on deliveries. I wouldn't be surprised to see some of their stores shrunk down to delivery-only kitchens but I'd be surprised if many of them closed in the short term. I'm probably not going to have Jimmy Johns for years, now - I used to get it maybe once or twice a month if I was working from home or busy with something and wanted a substantial meal without needing to cook. I've moved now though, and apparently although there are like five JJs within three miles of my new place, two of them within 2.2 miles, there are zero within the magical 2 mile delivery radius and there never will be because of how saturated the region is with them already. It's not good enough food to actually go out of your way for, since every one of the stores is within blocks of several much better options. The "freaky fast" delivery is literally the only thing they have going for them, and I'm pretty sure the company is well aware of it.
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Sep 3, 2016 16:26
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Dirty Sanchez posted:So, stores? Fifth ave in NY is a "mall"? Didn't know that. jesus christ how dumb do you have to be to look at that picture and think of fifth avenue did your mom drink a lot before she had you or ???
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Sep 3, 2016 21:30
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It really depends where you are (obviously). Something like 99% of the radio stations in the country are owned by the same lovely media conglomerate and they are just awful, but there are some diamonds in the rough out there.
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Sep 6, 2016 19:16
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i really love that johnny aztec came in here like "hurr durr that story about illiterate auto workers is FAAAAAAKE" because i had heard it before and thought it sounded a little fishy so it's cool to see it actually cited and johnny aztec is a slimesucking gutterball moron
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Sep 8, 2016 19:45
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I think the Saturn died because it just wasn't very good and people were already trying to strap poo poo to their Genesises like Sega CD and the 32x, then Sega came out with the Saturn and people were like 'what the gently caress is this poo poo i'm going to buy a Playstation'. Classic market oversaturation.
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Sep 16, 2016 17:35
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Blacktoll posted:Nothing is more depressing then a mall. This man has never been to a renaissance fair.
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Sep 19, 2016 16:18
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The only thing GameStop has done right in well over a decade has been to finally stop using those lovely circle stickers directly on the cases of used games. You could never, ever remove all of the adhesive, and then eventually as time went by the adhesive would collect dust and grime until your game looked like someone tried to use it to wipe their rear end.
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Sep 19, 2016 20:08
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I have one of those indoor go kart places by my house and I've never gone, it's like $80 to do. I would say those places have to be circling the drain, I've never seen one with a full parking lot, but then again there was one by my old apartment too and that lasted for the 6+ years I lived there.
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Sep 23, 2016 13:29
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well why not posted:bucks parties + work events are also a goldmine for these places. I know they're called "stag parties" in much of Europe but have never heard of "bucks parties". I'm only assuming they're the same thing because I don't think the Milwaukee Bucks have enough fans to throw a decent party, though.
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Sep 23, 2016 15:11
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Hahaha what the gently caress kind of scratcher shack doesn't take credit cards and why on earth would you get a tattoo there?
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Oct 3, 2016 15:11
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FlamingLiberal posted:Sears is doing bad enough by itself but in addition to that it has the rotting corpse of Kmart tied to it Kind of the opposite. K-Mart bought Sears and rebranded itself as the Sears Holdings Corporation.
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Nov 15, 2016 18:46
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Subjunctive posted:Isn't Sam's Club in the same world? Reported for trolling.
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Feb 24, 2017 20:21
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Krispy Kareem posted:One thing Uber has going for it is it's really safe. My Uber driver in D.C. left his regular taxi job after one of his co-workers was found in his trunk. I don't think that's true at all, dude. I mean Uber has only been around for a few years and we've already had a literal mass shooting incident where a guy was driving around picking up fares in between killing people.
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Mar 2, 2017 19:14
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Krispy Kareem posted:Did he kill any of his passengers? I was under the impression they all got fine service, except for that one guy who jumped out of the moving car. Just look at what you posted, jesus. No, a ride with a guy that has a smartphone app and is explicitly not an employee of a company is not going to be safer than a ride with someone who can get fired if you call and complain about him, full stop.
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Mar 2, 2017 19:34
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Krispy Kareem posted:I'm still not sure your point. Uber is safer for its drivers because no cash exchanges hands and passengers are reasonably identified via the application. It's safer for it's passengers because Uber expends more effort vetting it's drivers than gypsy taxi services that existed illegally before Uber took all their illegal business with it's own. Uber is also safer for getting drunk Mary home after the kegger. Brad is offering to take her, but he's looking a little sketchy, so let's use the app. The first part of the bolded statement is my point, the second part I am pretty sure is way, way wrong and I'm going to need to see some kind of citation to back it up. Plus, you know, taxi services have been running for literally a century now, and have all kinds of protections in place that Uber goes out of its way to ignore, but whatever. E: like this may surprise you but I never plan to drive anyone anywhere commercially so I don't give two fucks if supposedly the drivers are safer ([citation needed], by the way - a smartphone app is no better at vetting passengers than it is at vetting drivers), but saying that passenger safety is better is wrong.
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Mar 2, 2017 20:42
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Krispy Kareem posted:And it's not even the app that makes it safer (although it is safer with an application accessed on a device with biometric security). It's the lack of cash. Unless you consider killing cab drivers a sport, you aren't going to kill the drivers who don't have cash. Again, you keep talking about safety for the drivers. 99.999999999% of the people who use Uber are using it as passengers, which is less safe than a traditional cab.
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Mar 2, 2017 21:21
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Subjunctive posted:That's my intuition too, but do you have any data? Does it vary meaningfully by city? I don't have any numbers off-hand but if you have a complaint about an Uber driver you have to send an email report, which gets routed to the Phillipines and answered by a minimum wage reply bot worker. Real taxis are required by law to have a phone number directly to the dispatching company displayed to the passenger, plus if something goes really tits-up (like say, your driver starts talking about how the dispatching app is possessed by Satan and telling him to shoot people) it's way easier to call the cops with a cab number + company than it is to say "I don't know, he's driving me around in a beige Suburban, please send help". Taxis have a ton of problems that Uber fixes but safety is really not one of them.
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Mar 2, 2017 21:32
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Krispy Kareem posted:I'm taking my kid to an IKEA on a Saturday. Which is somewhere on the spectrum with a mall 72 hours before Christmas. I, uh, don't think IKEA is circling the drain, man. They are busy as hell on weekends but they're still usually not that bad to go through - packed full of people but they're so strongly designed around their "flow" that you're almost never stuck waiting for someone, even when you get to the registers.
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Mar 10, 2017 18:14
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fizzymercy posted:He was commenting on the fact that online retail is not going to kill brick and mortar retail completely as there are some shops that only thrive with in-person traffic. I think it's momentum, really. Fifteen years ago GC wasn't nearly as bad as they are now, people there knew their poo poo and the prices weren't quite as abysmal, so they've got a lot of residual goodwill from people that are only buying instruments every decade or so. e: they got bought by Bain Capital in '07 and that was when they started careening downhill.
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Mar 11, 2017 17:32
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Marv Hushman posted:Gander Mountain's done. Do you think so? They're closing like a fifth of their stores and filing for bankruptcy but they have a really strong presence in some areas. I wouldn't be particularly surprised to see them make a comeback - they're a niche store in a bracket where shopping in person often makes more sense than buying online sight unseen.
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Mar 13, 2017 21:13
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Holyshoot posted:
That you know of. E: lmfao did you really just acknowledge exactly what they did wrong and then try to downplay it? Are you actually this stupid or have you just had a lot of head injuries in your past? Rockman Reserve has a new favorite as of 15:19 on Mar 22, 2017 |
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Mar 22, 2017 15:16
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Holyshoot posted:Nah I just haven't cared to look into it beyond the headlines. No need to attack me friend. Well maybe the headlines about an organizational culture of perpetual fraud should have been enough to make you reconsider your dumb post, idk
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Mar 22, 2017 15:27
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Krispy Kareem posted:That's a feature, not a bug. That has nothing at all to do with what the poster was talking about, which is deliberately delaying deposits to the maximum allowed to force overdrafts even though you deposited your $400 paycheck hours before writing the $200 check that supposedly bounced. The key word you seem to have missed is "deposits".
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Mar 22, 2017 16:55
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Fumaofthelake posted:Not new but just a reminder Kmart doesn't have games anymore because the distributors don't actually trust them to pay. Kmart, which bought Sears, is the face of the Sears Holding Corporation, which has had issues paying its tech vendors in the past. This poo poo goes to corporate.
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Mar 23, 2017 02:07
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Despite their catastrophic report and basically every market analyst in the world saying that not only are they failing, but they're failing much faster than anyone predicted a few years ago, Sears Holdings stock is up three to four percent today. 
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Mar 23, 2017 16:40
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lavaca posted:A lot of local credit unions significantly lowered their membership standards and increased their advertising budgets after WaMu and other local banks went bust. For example, you just have to live or work in the state of Washington to join what used to be called "Boeing Employees Credit Union". Now we have a bunch of credit unions pretending to be retail banks. This has worked just fine for the last few years but I suspect the next recession won't be pretty. Speaking of companies pretending to be retail banks, what the gently caress is up with PayPal? I thought in the past decade or so they got dinged for basically acting as a bank minus the regulatory oversight but I haven't really heard anything about it since then.
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Mar 27, 2017 20:37
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ElGroucho posted:Which reminds me, Rock Band and Guitar Hero disappeared off the face of the earth very quickly. That's what makes the RB4/MadCatz thing so much weirder. The entire rhythm faux-band music game fad was really, truly dead, but Harmonix went ahead to make RB4 and tapped one of the worst hardware companies in the world to helm the accessory line, then didn't really advertise it at all. Every MCZ quarterly report after that was basically "well we'd be in a decent place but RB4 didn't meet sales expectations" and anyone with half a brain is thinking that whoever set those expectations is either terminally stupid or a brilliant con artist. UCS Hellmaker posted:No comments in here of Madcatz the makers of horrible game controllers and the like declaring bankruptcy? About time because they make the worst things and ruin quality like no tomorrow. WampaLord posted:I thought they had gained a second life by making very good fightsticks. Yeah, I was actually in the market for a fightstick and this kinda throws a wrench in things.
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Apr 6, 2017 15:10
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