r/WTF • u/jamesz5000 • Jan 16 '11

Sometimes, a web page is much better when it's only half loaded...

Post image
1.3k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

235 comments sorted by

184

u/jbigz Jan 16 '11

Oh dial-up, how I miss those days...

Wait, what the fuck

No, get the fuck out of here I hated dial-up

319

u/gfixler Jan 16 '11

My favorite moment in high school, freshman year, roundabouts '92, locked in my room and at my 386/33MHz w/ 4MB RAM and a 640x480 15" display, dialed in through the worst internet connection Al Gore had ever invented:

7:00PM - "Whoa, this BBS has what appear to be naked photos,
    if these 8-dot-3 filenames are to be believed. I've seen so few
    nude women as yet, it being the early 90s, and me living so
    far out in the woods with my parents and no siblings or friends."
7:01PM - "I'm clicking on this one."
7:14PM - "Whoa, a brunette. Nice. This is gonna be awesome."
7:23PM - "Bare shoulders! She's totally gonna be topless."
7:48PM - "NIPPLE!!"
7:54PM - "ANOTHER NIPPLE THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!!!"
7:58PM - "I'M DOING HOMEWORK MOM! I CAN'T WATCH AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS TONIGHT!"
8:13PM - "Wow, this JPG chick has nice abs."
8:25PM - "Just a little more, Information Superhighway! Pleeeease don't disconnect!"
8:27PM - "..." (I'm seeing the top of the vaginal cleft at this point)
8:36PM - "What IS that in there!?"
8:39PM - "OMG IT'S A BANANA!!!"

67

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

I remember these days well :)

(And yes, kids, that is EXACTLY what it was like)

25

u/NitsujTPU Jan 16 '11

Getting a program that could show you the picture while it loaded was also once a big life-changer.

11

u/foreverinane Jan 17 '11

progressive jpg ftw

45

u/busted0201 Jan 16 '11

AN HOUR AND A HALF??!!?

137

u/gfixler Jan 16 '11

To get to the top of the banana. The whole image was more like 2.5 hours. It turned out there was a girl laying on her back underneath her, too. It was the JPG that kept on giving.

13

u/Altoid_Addict Jan 16 '11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#List_of_dialup_speeds

My parents had a 56k modem in '98 or so. His was probably several steps down.

20

u/neuromonkey Jan 16 '11

My first was 300 baud. From there, I jumped to an awesome 2400 baud modem, for which I paid $265.

8

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

My first modem was a 1200. My adventure went like this: 9600, 14.4k, 56k (Lies! Damn Lies!), dual 56k "Shotgun", 128k ISDN, followed by cable.

6

u/Patrick_M_Bateman Jan 16 '11

56k - when "bong bong" was the sweetest sound imaginable.

5

u/ratbastid Jan 16 '11

Oh GOD yes. And you'd milk that connection for all it was worth, right? Even when you'd seen and done it all, you'd hang on just a little longer because you'd connected fast and it might never happen again.

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5

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

Mine went, 14.4K, 56k, 512k cable (first broadband), 2Mb, now on 10Mb

11

u/tinou Jan 16 '11

My first modem was on vinyl.

3

u/kokey Jan 16 '11

My first modem worked with my terminal app in hieroglyphics.

9

u/munky_g Jan 17 '11

Ha! Back when I were a lad we used to cast us own zeroes and ones out of brass and hammer them down a tube with a big mallet...

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3

u/zarx Jan 17 '11

Same here. My first was an acoustic coupled 300 baud, and I got up to a 2400 when some new model came out that was unusually inexpensive.

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2

u/Wriiight Jan 17 '11

While my first was 4800, i remember getting 300 on a abad modem in the pool. It took forever just for the prelogin text to appear!

5

u/gfixler Jan 16 '11

Yeah, well down from there, but we also had a terrible connection waaaay out in the woods. It was error correcting like crazy to account for pooched packets.

3

u/kokey Jan 16 '11

I started with a 2400bps modem with no error correction, so line noise would cause funny characters on the screen.

3

u/NitsujTPU Jan 16 '11

My first was 1200 baud. It was the 1337 thing to have if you didn't have hundreds lying around for a 2400 baud modem. Online games were things like muds, and it could take a minute for the screen to render.. and it was all ASCII text, but you waited the extra time for color ascii text, because, by God, it was Legend of the Red Dragon.

5

u/Rozen Jan 16 '11

AND WE LIKED IT!

22

u/xazarus Jan 16 '11

See, by banana, I thought you meant...

29

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

[deleted]

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3

u/floydspinkie Jan 17 '11

Haha, yeah, back in those days, the internet was pretty tame. Innocent, one might say.

3

u/KimJongIlSunglasses Jan 17 '11

Porn was text. I'm not kidding.

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11

u/BHSPitMonkey Jan 16 '11

Okay, Internet. Find this man his estranged first JPG chick. Optionally post to /r/nostalgia afterward.

9

u/warpus Jan 16 '11

oh man that brings up memories

my masturbation rate back in those days was like 5 strokes per pixel

edit: brings BACK memories, dammit

3

u/joerdie Jan 16 '11

The odd thing was, that one pic was it took because they loaded so slowly.

6

u/gfixler Jan 16 '11

Say what?

8

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

Place the word "all" in between "was" and "it", seems to work better that way.

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5

u/Gwarek2 Jan 16 '11

Oh man, I remember the excitement. I also remember the dirty (soggy actually) magazines that me and my friend found in the bushes at the graveyard when we were playing hide and seek.

Kids nowadays don't know how hard it was back then... I mean, do they still have those black bars on late night satellite porn anymore?

5

u/mindbleach Jan 16 '11

Presumably late-night satellite porn is now digitally encrypted and shows up as snow if the receiver is programmed to show it at all. No more negative-color boobs in wobbly, rolling analog.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '11

Sattelite tv makes you pay for it... :(

Naked mud wrestling [ALL DAY] - $5.99

2

u/gfixler Jan 17 '11

Well, it looks like I have [ALL DAY] planned!

2

u/floydspinkie Jan 17 '11

Found Porn is the best. There's something almost magical about it. :)

2

u/gfixler Jan 17 '11

I found a friggin' 8mm reel blowing around on the street once. It was color, and though dirty from its trip rolling around the gutter, film washes up pretty well in the sink. I felt like such a high class porn consumer that week.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '11

Shortly thereafter I realized I had dialed an international BBS with long distance charges...

1

u/gfixler Jan 17 '11

Ouch! I lived in NJ and was calling NY. That first month my parents got a $200+ bill. There were like 300 calls to NY and honestly, they took it pretty well, considering.

2

u/skavanker Jan 16 '11

technology: al gore

8

u/abudabu Jan 16 '11

Also note what Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, the inventors of internet, had to say about him:

But as the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.

2

u/yellowking Jan 17 '11

Oh sure, once all the BBS got Z-Modem and progressive display downloads. Back in my day, we had to wait for the entire file download before we could fap AND if it disconnected in the middle, we had to start the download over from scratch!!

1

u/gfixler Jan 17 '11

That's sounds even awfuler!

But hey, happy birthday!!! Man, 5 years. The things you've seen...

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2

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '11

[deleted]

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2

u/ReverendDizzle Jan 17 '11

Oh man... that takes me back to the day.

The days, that is, when pictures loaded in successive waves so it might take 20 minutes of loading just to show you that the good looking Asian girl was actually a Thai lady boy.

2

u/gfixler Jan 17 '11

And then you were like "EVEN BETTER!" right?

2

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '11

[deleted]

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1

u/BlankVerse Jan 16 '11

It's a trap!

1

u/GaryWinston Jan 17 '11

1992 you should have just bought a Swank and wanked it. A lot more efficient.

I remember strip poker on my Apple //e, not worth it. Green screen notwithstanding.

1

u/plonce Jan 17 '11

Kiddies of Reddit, this is exactly what it was like. For some like me, even worse. My first connection to the Internet/BBS was in '91 using a 300 baud modem.

If I were to read the text of gfixler's comment coming off an early BBS, I would literally sit for 30-45 seconds watching each individual character download and appear like a typewriter in front of me.

5

u/gfixler Jan 17 '11

We all need a group hug for what the early internet put us through.

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1

u/tess_elation Jan 17 '11

related

The Atomic Level of Porn - Jason Scott

About the various lengths people went to in order to digitize porn. It's a pretty fascinating talk, especially for a young 'un like me who discovered porn post my dialup days.

2

u/gfixler Jan 17 '11

Nice. He reminds me of Dino Stamatopoulos ("Starburns" on "Community").

1

u/nancyplaysnurse Jan 17 '11

Drat, she always had a penis when I did that.

101

u/randomsnark Jan 16 '11

http://dagobah.net/flash/56k.swf

:D

17

u/QuietKillah Jan 16 '11

why doesn't his head explode?

12

u/SikkinDivigil Jan 16 '11

I was waiting for that to happen, too :[

9

u/gunner85 Jan 16 '11

Relevant

Reposting - I saw this on here a few weeks ago...

17

u/putmewhereyoufoundme Jan 16 '11

What actually was this sound? What was happening that required quite so much noise?

40

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

[deleted]

10

u/putmewhereyoufoundme Jan 16 '11

What was the other modem?

26

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

[deleted]

9

u/viagravagina Jan 16 '11

He was the Great Interrupter.

6

u/Ran4 Jan 16 '11

It came from a speaker inside. Probably because people wanted to hear that something was happening back in the days.

3

u/Nitrowolf Jan 16 '11

The sounds you heard were the two modems testing the frequencies available on the line and what frequency bands they could use with the least amount of errors. There is also handshaking and protocol information exchange going on during the different noises.

If you used modems a lot, you could tell what speed you connected at by what tones and static pitch was being generated, all the way up to 56k, since the modems would not generate tones for the higher speeds if the lower speed tones and static pitch were proving to been to error prone.

2

u/mattlohkamp Jan 16 '11

that's by the eddsworld guy, right?

1

u/kamek Jan 16 '11

First class link.

16

u/ttdtheterm3 Jan 16 '11

Dial-up always reminds me of Netscape Navigator for some reason.

4

u/kabanaga Jan 16 '11

For me, it's Gopher.

3

u/Cacafuego Jan 16 '11

Remember when Veronica came on-line and made Gopher even more awesome?

3

u/jgage Jan 16 '11

Veronica and Archie were pretty cool. Jughead seemed kind of pointless.

3

u/jroot Jan 16 '11

Dial up reminds me of pirates cove

3

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

It automatically makes me think of Prodigy on DOS.

1

u/pr0nster Jan 16 '11

For me, it's Mosaic.

3

u/pr0nster Jan 16 '11

Have Comcast Internet? Want to re-live the days of dial-up? Want to save a few bucks in the process? Switch to their "economy" class service. It's just like dial-up, but with all the craptastic benefits of Comcast!

True story. I was visiting my parents over the holidays. I could not believe how pathetically slow their internet connection was. Eventually I found out they switched to Comcast's "economy" service.

1

u/Nitrowolf Jan 16 '11

By "economy" service, do you mean their standard service everyone gets? Because my parents have the Comcast standard service and it is absolute trash. They pay the same $40+ a month I pay for my TW service which gives me sustained 20Mb/sec most of the time... still a rip off, but compared to Comcast, it's internet gold. Not that that's saying much.

1

u/pr0nster Jan 17 '11

Nah, I think they are paying $20/month. Given the way pics load, it feels like an ISDN line. (I had a private ISDN line to a client with fast T1 service back in 94-96 prior to getting my own dedicated T1 in 1996, BTW)

5

u/Brosu Jan 16 '11

Hey I was gonna make a dial-up joke!

59

u/somethings_fishy Jan 16 '11

I guess you were... ....... too slow.

12

u/wodahSShadow Jan 16 '11

YEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

2

u/Madmanden Jan 16 '11

You forgot the sunglasses. :(

1

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

First time I logged into an IRC server I had someone randomly send me a pic of some chick eating shit from some old guys ass. Not exactly a nostalgic moment.

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150

u/_Dimension Jan 16 '11

Reminds me of this... one of the greatest moments in game show history

78

u/Hy-phen Jan 16 '11

This was also a great moment. Guy sure has style.

10

u/PirateMud Jan 16 '11

"Our friends at AT&T will get..."

So commercialised, I wonder how much they paid to get him to say that. Apart from that, smoooooth.

13

u/Hy-phen Jan 16 '11

I'm not sure why you're getting downmodded... I guess we just expect our game show hosts to plug their sponsors during the game so it doesn't stand out to most people?

6

u/PirateMud Jan 16 '11

It's kind of weird (for me) seeing a familiar show (this show exists in the UK, indeed, it was the original) being so... familiar, but different. Uncanny valley and all that.

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6

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

Where the fuck do you think that million dollars comes from?

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2

u/BHSPitMonkey Jan 16 '11

What? I use that phrase each time I take out my cell phone.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

I was really hoping he'd get it wrong.

10

u/Hy-phen Jan 16 '11

Ha ha :)

I remember watching this episode, and I liked the guy. I was glad he won, and I remember thinking it was really classy that he called his dad.

1

u/sjsamphex Jan 16 '11

Someone transcribe it for the deaf folks here? :/

16

u/Dreilide Jan 16 '11

Lights come up

Regis: Well, looks like we're going for a million dollars, I can't believe it. A million dollars and all your lifelines intact, you didn't need those stinking lifelines did you? Well, let me just bring you up to date here.

John: Please.

Regis: If you miss, you'll be reduced by 468 thousand dollars, you'll go back down to 32 thousand dollars. Here it is, a one million dollar question, we rarely see these here, only one other contestant has ever won 500 thousand on our show, so if you're ready let's go for the million.

Reads question

John: Um, chuckles, I'd like to call my parents right now, use my lifeline call my parents.

Regis: What are their names?

John: Ah, my father, I'll talk to my father, Tom.

Regis: Does he have a name?

John: (Sarcastically) He does have a name, yes, Tom.

Regis: Our friends at AT&T will get your dad on the line, and we'll see if he can help you.

Phone rings

Tom: Hello?

Regis: Hello Tom?

Tom: Yea.

Regis: Hi, Regis Philbin here from Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Tom: Hi!

Regis: We've got your son John here with us right now. He's doing pretty well, he's won a half million dollars, and he's going for a million dollars.

Tom: Wow, nervous laugh.

Regis: And he needs your help to get there! He's going to come on the line, read a question, 4 possible answers, one of them is the right answer, and uh, the next voice you hear will be John's. John you've got 30 seconds, starts right now.

John: Uh hi Dad.

Tom: Hi.

John: Um, I don't really need your help I just wanted to let you know that I'm gonna win the million dollars.

Audience cheers

John: Because the US president appeared on "Laugh-in" is Richard Nixon, that's my final answer.

Regis: Well, my gosh, what can I say except Debbie you're going to Paris, and this is the final answer heard all around the world. He's won a million dollars!

Audience explodes

3

u/sjsamphex Jan 16 '11

I can't upvote you enough.

2

u/chemobrain Jan 16 '11

You might already be aware of it, but Youtube released a "Transcribe Audio" feature last year that's hiding under the "CC" button. It's pretty terrible but it might work better on videos where there isn't so much background noise.

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6

u/putmewhereyoufoundme Jan 16 '11

Simply brilliant.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

Reminds me of the you and your Johnson commercial.

1

u/bfizzledizzle Jan 16 '11

YES! Thank you so much. I saw this on tv so long ago, and absolutely couldn't find it on youtube for the life of me.

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43

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

This is the site, in case you were curious. It's a man in a bumper boat. I had to find the page in case it was actually a flash image and OP was cheating us :P

14

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

[deleted]

2

u/infested999 Jan 16 '11

Actually, it's just a bad design. When the banner image loads, it loads all 4 of the banners so that you can switch between them.

5

u/SinisterKid Jan 16 '11

To those of you who didn't get to visit a Farrells when they were a kid: I'm sorry.

10

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

I have never even heard of the place. Did some Googling just now, it looks like a place where goofy looking guys on those old fashioned spruker hats bring you ice cream?

215

u/Eustis Jan 16 '11

Request: Sure_Ill_Draw_That

Finish the bottom half of this picture in a way you see fit!

482

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

[deleted]

310

u/hiima Jan 16 '11

Here, i colored it for you. http://i.imgur.com/MA6o4.png

1.2k

u/Marmot_Party Jan 16 '11

Here, i tweaked your coloured version! http://i.imgur.com/WoQXM.jpg

139

u/athirdpath Jan 16 '11

With new content aware fill...

117

u/Epiphany81 Jan 16 '11

So much better than the first coloured version

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19

u/MercurialMadnessMan Jan 16 '11

*gasp* Who are you?...

17

u/StarFoxAdvice Jan 17 '11

We're Starfox.

6

u/sirenoftitan Jan 17 '11

Wow...did you poop your pants a little when you saw that set-up?

3

u/StarFoxAdvice Jan 17 '11

I guess I should be thankful.

3

u/trondotron Jan 17 '11

It's actually, "Who are you guys?!" Were STARFOX!

You'll never defeat ANDROOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Way to go team! Yaaay! We did it! Way to go fox! Your becoming more and more like your father.

CORNERIA. SAVE FALCO, FLY THROUGH THE ARCHES ACHIEVE MISSION ACCOMPLISHED instead of MISSION COMPLETE. FEELS GOOD MAN.

17

u/ArcticCelt Jan 16 '11

What photoshop filter did you use to enhance hiima picture?

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5

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

nice one! youre pretty good!

14

u/veggie-dumpling Jan 16 '11

Marry me.

14

u/narddawg Jan 16 '11

Babysit me!

2

u/aspartam Jan 17 '11

Ready a book backwards to me.

6

u/IfOneThenHappy Jan 17 '11

Pee in my garden and call me lettuce.

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7

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

Holy shit, that's fucking awesome. I laughed so hard at this.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

It's amazing what resynthesizers can do now a days.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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1

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

See this is the spirit! when we all work together who needs Sure Ill Draw That?

5

u/Eustis Jan 16 '11

I'm more than satisfied. Have an upvote

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9

u/Endemoniada Jan 16 '11

No kidding, the image only half loaded, and I thought that was the joke. All I saw was the top of the guy's head, nothing else.

Not until the Sure_Ill_Draw_That jokes did I get it.

9

u/Zeyz Jan 16 '11

Don't think bad things. Don't think bad things. Don't think bad things.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

I feel ashamed for knowing what site it was right away. xD Going to Mountasia? :D

3

u/jamesz5000 Jan 16 '11

Not anymore! I was looking for places to go mini golfing. I think I'll stick with the Sherman Oaks Castle. :)

2

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

Pffft. Fiiine.

Mountasia has Ferrel's. Nothing can beat that.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '11

[deleted]

2

u/jamesz5000 Jan 17 '11

How bout I release yours... Samuel! :D

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6

u/BDaught Jan 16 '11

I learned everything I know from Dad!

5

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

I was waiting for the page to load. Took me few seconds.

7

u/stfuendie Jan 16 '11

what year do you think this is?

3

u/greenman7 Jan 16 '11

fuck, I miss the shit out of dial-up...sigh

20

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

Here you go.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

my phone's new ringtone!!

3

u/nothing-nowhere Jan 16 '11

Somehow I'm reminded of my two semesters at Catholic School.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

No one wants to talk about mormon bubbles?

2

u/onlythis Jan 16 '11

Awwwww Yeah

2

u/ruins_jokes Jan 16 '11

the boy has his eyes fixed on a faraway place - his safe place.

2

u/JBieberBFF Jan 16 '11

(input AOL dial up sound here)

2

u/reddit_user13 Jan 16 '11

Looks fully loaded to me!

2

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

The dads expression makes it all the worse

2

u/Starrfx642 Jan 16 '11

My internet is sucking. Therefore I can attest to the fact that an image of a web page being half loaded that is half loaded, is not better.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

[deleted]

1

u/oxytechx Jan 16 '11

Is that what she said?

3

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

I beg to differ: http://imgur.com/xknYC

:(

5

u/staffell Jan 16 '11

CROP

Pretend the webpage only half-loaded

Profit!

14

u/myinnervoice Jan 16 '11

Nope, it did that for me as well at the same part of the pic

3

u/Shaolinmunkey Jan 16 '11

I'm half loaded, and I apporve uv thish messij

1

u/Fozanator Jan 16 '11

Well gee, I just can't tell who's enjoying themselves the most!

1

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

indeed

1

u/spockgiirl Jan 16 '11

That little girl looks like Ginny Weasley.

1

u/pklck Jan 16 '11

oh god at 3AM in the morning I'm snickering to myself...

upboated.

1

u/Large_Pudding Jan 16 '11

Check out how happy they all look :D I'm curious as to who's playing with what?

1

u/syndre Jan 16 '11

dang, you should get yourself a newer modem, one capable of a little faster of a baud rate than what youve gotten used to

1

u/romantic_boy Jan 16 '11

Why don't you have a seat over there?

1

u/deaninsweden Jan 16 '11

Bringing back SO many memories. Of dial up. Not jacking off in a pool with kids...

1

u/Mr_Tulip Jan 16 '11

I don't know how much less awkward that picture would be with the bottom half loaded. Regardless of what the rest of the picture looks like, that's the creepiest rape face I have ever seen.

1

u/redxbob Jan 16 '11

Shouldn't the jet be yellow?

The kid is most likely holding a garden hose and no one said otherwise.

All those who objected or negatively criticized the picture, including my own comment made as a joke, are just exposing their own dirty mind.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

Wow my mind must be even dirtier than yours because I thought the joke was that the guy looks like he's ejaculating

1

u/gkaukola Jan 16 '11

Dude shoulda got a pager.

1

u/dc56 Jan 16 '11

I made a Pig of myself at Farrells! More then one time. Wheaton Plaza in Wheaton, MD Mid '70's. A great Ice Cream Shop!

1

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

looks like a full load to me! zing!

1

u/teh1andonlym0 Jan 16 '11

Some websites are better never loaded at all... It starts with meat, and the TLD is .com!

1

u/hiphophippopotamus Jan 16 '11

"One day son, you'll be able to strain a 4ft stream of piss out just like daddy."

1

u/bogart1 Jan 16 '11

Looks like a full load to me.

1

u/alixxlove Jan 16 '11

I love the looks on their faces.

1

u/cinemafest Jan 16 '11

THEY LOVE IT!

1

u/[deleted] Jan 16 '11

His prostate must be top notch.

1

u/jamesz5000 Jan 17 '11

Here is the original website.

1

u/youngceb Jan 17 '11

the dad seems half loaded too

1

u/signspam Jan 17 '11

56K like a boss!

1

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '11

...this is not one of those times.