Heading back to the valley

by on July 19, 2006

in Personal,Travel

I was out of town Monday through today for a family reunion in New Jersey. It’ll still take me a day or two to catch up on email; I’m sitting in the Philadelphia airport right now. But I couldn’t pass up the chance to see family and get an authentic New Jersey hoagie. :)

{ 73 comments… read them below or add one }

Aaron July 19, 2006 at 12:24 pm

Boy Matt,

You’ve been the traveling guy lately. Did you make it to the beach?

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Mr SEO July 19, 2006 at 12:26 pm

I’d like to put that Jersey hoagie up against a Brooklyn one any day :D

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Willburrrrr July 19, 2006 at 12:27 pm

I prefer the Philadelphia style of sandwich. Cheese, steak, peppers, onions, mushrooms, boo-ya!

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Aaron July 19, 2006 at 12:50 pm

Safe travels M.

Now it’s Aaron Wall’s turn to post.

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Josh July 19, 2006 at 12:57 pm

Where in Jersey, Matt?
Some hot days to be here, but I guess it could have been worse. You could have been in Lebanon.

I’m a bit south of Princeteon.

Looking for a way to get up to New England with the family for a week. Maybe the mountains in New Hampshire to cool off a little.

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Liana Evans July 19, 2006 at 12:58 pm

Philly Gal here! Colleagues of mine flew out of PHL yesterday and they had no AC — Sure hope they got that fixed by the time you got there.

Did you hit any of the storms we had here yesterday?

Next time you’re out this way you need to have a one of those “techie/seo/geek” dinners, there’s a few of us out this way that wouldn’t mind hosting. :)

have a safe trip back.

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graywolf July 19, 2006 at 1:08 pm

Dude it’s a sub not a hoagie

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David July 19, 2006 at 1:21 pm

Hoagie? Boo south Jersey ;)

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Aaron Brazell July 19, 2006 at 1:40 pm

And why not just get a Philly Cheesesteak? :) I know of a place in Cherry Hill….

And Matt… what is the Bay Area known for in terms of food. I’m going to be there for WordCamp and need to know good places…

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Ryan July 19, 2006 at 1:40 pm

SO Matt, how many vacation days do you get at Google?

So far this year, if I took as many days off as you, I’d have used up my last 7 years of vacation time… literally.

I”m really jealous.

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Brandi Belle July 19, 2006 at 1:46 pm

Philly Cheesesteak rocks! Aaron, what’s the name of that place in Cherry Hill? Maybe it’s my place… :)

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bob rains July 19, 2006 at 1:49 pm

I thought they called it a Grinder in Jersey. Or is a grinder a totally different sandwich, like a Panini? I like to consider myself a fan of the sandwich, but seriously the world of sandwiches could stand to do some work on their brand recognition.

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Chris Bartow July 19, 2006 at 2:15 pm

Did you pick up a pork roll, egg and cheese sandwich too?

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Ruslan Abuzant July 19, 2006 at 3:12 pm

Why not. If adsense was paying me half what Matt gets, i wont ever sit home :) Good luck.

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mark July 19, 2006 at 3:34 pm

Liek others mentioned, you HAVE to grab a Philly Cheesesteak there!

Have fun!

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SearcH EngineS WeB July 19, 2006 at 4:02 pm

One of us just created a VIRTUAL family reunion – no kidding !!!! – the relatives are Really spread out all over the globe – and all are techies – so it was no problem selling this idea then creating a conference in real-time, until the time comes when everyone could meet physically, if that time ever comes

Just think of the fact that * tommorrow is never guaranteed for anyone * – meet anyway you can, whenever you can, to tell someone you care :-)

Will be doing this once ever few months :D

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Tom July 19, 2006 at 5:01 pm

Genova’s in Oaklyn makes the best hoagies and cheese steaks! Mmmm, cheese steak and a birtch beer…heaven.

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Dave (Original) July 19, 2006 at 7:30 pm

RE: “hoagie” no idea what one is but they sound delicious!

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Shimon Sandler July 19, 2006 at 8:39 pm

No such thing as a New Jersey Hoagie. It’s called a Philly Hoagie. Even in NJ. ;-)

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Dave July 19, 2006 at 9:23 pm

I think I want to work at Google with vacation time like that.

I feel like the voice of Google for us webmasters has been sadly absent for the whole summer. You say that many others at Google can fill your shoes at anytime, I would like to see someone man your blog while you are gone.

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The Adam That Doesn't Belong To Matt July 19, 2006 at 9:38 pm

It could be worse. He could be a Canadian Senator. We had a guy a few years back that was paid an entire year for showing up in Ottawa for a day. So…1 days’ work, 365 days’ pay, with 364 of those days being spent in Mexico. I don’t see anything wrong with that math, do you?

So how long until you’re that lazy, sipping tequilas in Acapulco while you throw pesos at a 12-year-old slave boy to work on webspam issues for you and collect mucho dineros, Señor Matt?

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Matt Cutts July 19, 2006 at 10:33 pm

No beach, Aaron. I just ducked in and out. Dave, I hadn’t seen these folks for 5-6 years, and didn’t know when I’d get a chance again, so I wanted to make sure I got to visit with them.

Aaron Brazell, I wasn’t too far from Cherry Hill. Pine Barrens and the Jersey Devil, yah? graywolf, it will always be just a hoagie to me. I’m trying to remember the ingredients now. Ham, white cheese, salami, shredded lettucs, tomatoes, oil, oregano, and pepper. Mmmmm…

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Dave (Original) July 19, 2006 at 11:29 pm

Hmmmmmmmmmm hooagies :)

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Sean Carlos July 20, 2006 at 12:07 am

The word is definitely “grinder” [ http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Agrinder ] in Rhode Island. I’d always heard “sub” in Connecticut. I’ve never seen these things Italy despite their supposed origins. The word “Panino” (from pane, bread) just means sandwich – of any type.

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JLH July 20, 2006 at 12:33 am

Sorry Matt, a search related question.

Is there a super secret email address I can send spam reports or an actual URL for a spam report that works. I’ve been reporting a bunch of new subdomain-goobeltygook-random-number-letter spam sites that I’ve seen crop up lately but they continue to grow.

This time they got smarter, they have a double-hyphen in the name so the site: command is rendered useless to track their progress.

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Dave (Original) July 20, 2006 at 1:14 am
JLH July 20, 2006 at 1:57 am

Dave,

Yes. Nothing happens. Ever. It’s a placebo as far as I can tell. That’s why I was asking Matt if they had some sort of super-secret task force with an email address working on the subdomain spam (a.k.a. Billions of Pages or ‘Bad Data Push’ with the Alexa rating that went to 2000 in a month).

Found two more since posting originally, they are up to 500,000 pages each, they weren’t smart enough to use the “–” in the domain so we can’t watch them get pages in the index in real time.

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JLH July 20, 2006 at 2:06 am

All right this isn’t WMW I can be specific for an example for you Matt.

Try a search for: Goodman Amana HVAC

Goofy keywords I know, but it means something to me.

Anyway, 3 of the top 10, and 5 of the top 20 results are domains like 50934.m.etv–db4.org that are just 302 redirects to the infamous t1ps2see.com domain. For that search thats 25% to 30% spam on the first two pages of the SERPS. I figured they’d react to that, but no luck so far.

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Dave (Original) July 20, 2006 at 2:29 am

JLH, they use spam reports to modify theit algo. It’s rare for manual intervention.

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Dave (Original) July 20, 2006 at 2:30 am

I do agree though, those pages should be dumped ASAP.

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Maurice July 20, 2006 at 3:15 am

re nothing happens

not so ive reported sites and had them canned

I have just done this one http://www.link-pimp.com/ talk about beeing freeking obvious as a spam link site

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SM July 20, 2006 at 3:25 am

JLH, Try saarr.com , this might help you.

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ak July 20, 2006 at 3:41 am

You’re in Philly but did you head to South Street to get an authentic Philly cheesesteak?

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Aaron Pratt July 20, 2006 at 4:28 am

Ham, white cheese, salami, shredded lettucs, tomatoes, oil, oregano, and pepper. Mmmmm…

I see you are doing great watching your cholesterol Matt! ;-(

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Ted Z July 20, 2006 at 5:38 am

Hi Matt:

Warning! this is off topic!

Even though I am over 50 I am bravely working to add an RSS feed to my site. Is it proper to have duplicate content from my site in the RSS feed?

Ted Z

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Ryan July 20, 2006 at 5:49 am

Ted, Yes.

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Prestige July 20, 2006 at 6:28 am

Hey Matt…

Good to see you’re back.. Maybe you can explain the latest PR update.
No, I’m not a pagerank-o-holic. but this time the update was very different
and I wonder why.. what have changed?

I have a lot of questions and assumptions after this interesting changes and
I wonder how come no one talks about that. I guess people are sick talking
about that damn toolbar… :)

We actually thought how funny it will be if the toolbar also had colors … heh
I can imagine the forums getting full of strange posts saying “My PR turned blue!”

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sumit mehrotra July 20, 2006 at 6:57 am

Hi Matt,

I think you got me wrong.I just need your guidance on the previous post.
Hope you would help me in this regard.

Thanks and Regards,
Sumit Mehrotra

PS: Let me know, if this is not appropriate.

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Loonycoot July 20, 2006 at 7:21 am

You think we have hot weather? Just google for “pale man in the desert” (with quotes) and you will learn about heat.

But as for spam, write the name of a state and follow it with graphic design. Go past the first few pages and then all the results are for one domain. They must have 30,000 subdomains or more by my calculation with a doorway on each one. And sure, I reported it weeks ago. Oh well, I guess they are doing the best they can but I have learned not to expect every reported spammer to get canned.

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Ben July 20, 2006 at 7:26 am

It’s a shame you didn’t get to the beach, while I was stayin with friends in Pennsylvania we headed over to Atlantic City for a weekend, it was quite nice (also the first time I saw the Atlantic ocean lol).

Did you eat a lot of cheese steaks? :D

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SeoRookie July 20, 2006 at 7:27 am

Here’s the deal..
“Subs” originated in Connecticut. A local was making so many grinders for the naval base and electric boat (they build submarines) that they soon became known as subs.

Apparently a grinder was so named because the italian bread used to make these snadwiches was very chewy and you really had to “grind” away while masticating.

I saw on the food network that shops in Chicago make a grinder and then dip the entire sandwich, roll and all, into a big pot of Au Jus. What a mess to eat !

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Matt Cutts July 20, 2006 at 8:41 am

Ted Z, I wouldn’t worry about that at all. Lots of websites have HTML pages and RSS feeds.

JLH, you might try the spam report in Sitemaps. Since it’s authenticated, we can give those a little more weight. I saw what you were referring to though; usually those sites tend to be short-lived.

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Goodman Amana HVAC July 20, 2006 at 9:23 am

wow that term Goodman Amana HVAC is worth some good money, think I’ll have to get into the AC selling biz! :D

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lots0 July 20, 2006 at 9:29 am

Hey Matt,

Sorry to put a bummer on your Family Reunion, but I need to ask this. I tried to wait for a grab bag post but you have not done one in a while… sorry.

Can you give us an idea of what google is doing to prevent or reduce javascript cloaking in googles results?

For some competitive searches I am seeing 5,6 or 7 javascript cloaked listings in the top ten results (That’s 50%, 60% and 70% SPAM). If you want the queries just ask, I have also forwarded them to googles spam reporting page.

The longer you guys at google take to remove all the javascript cloaked pages from your results, the more javascript cloaked pages you (and everyone else) are going to see.

The longer these pages stay up, the more money they generate for the spammers. If google were to remove these pages in say less than 24 hours, the financial motivation to put all this spam in your index would be gone and so would the spam.

Letting the javascript cloaked SPAM stay in the results for weeks and weeks and weeks, after google knows about it, is just wrong, IMO.

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Joseph Hunkins July 20, 2006 at 9:30 am

Hello from “The Daily Grind” coffee shop in Harrisonburg VA where I’m catching up before our big family reunion. SEW that’s a neat idea (virtual family reunion), though I’ll have to get my relatives back online for that – several of the older folks quit the internet due to spams and viruses.
(I guess this is what happens when Matt takes a long vacation…all online hell breaks loose)

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JLH July 20, 2006 at 10:48 am

Thanks for the response Matt. I’ll do a bunch through sitemaps this afternoon.

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a July 20, 2006 at 10:50 am

Dirty Jersey baby! Represent!

What area of Jersey?

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Peter July 20, 2006 at 11:26 am

“Lots of websites have HTML pages and RSS feeds.”

aahhhhh like most imports come from other countries,. :)

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The Adam That Doesn't Belong To Matt July 20, 2006 at 3:34 pm

Hey Matt,

I’m potentially going to jump the gun a bit here, but is there going to be any future discussion of the Accessibility search that’s in Beta right now, and how much of a factor it will be in regular searching?

Sorry for the off-topic post, but having seen the Beta for the first time today, I think the thing kicks serious ass.

For those who have no idea what I’m referring to:

http://labs.google.com/accessible/

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AudBall July 20, 2006 at 4:14 pm

Matt;

Just wanted to let you know how much I am looking forward to attending your blogging session at SES San Jose..

You’re going to love the t-shirt I’ll be sporting!!

~AudBall

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BillyS July 20, 2006 at 4:15 pm

>>No such thing as a New Jersey Hoagie. It’s called a Philly Hoagie. Even in NJ.

I’ve lived in NJ all my life and we call ‘em submarine sandwiches. Hoagie really is a Pennsylvania term.

Grew up in Oakland (NJ), now living in Westfield.

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Lew July 20, 2006 at 4:59 pm

Matt,

Have you seen anyone else having the blank cached pages problem?

Hope you have a good time at the family reunion.

I spent alot of time in Wildwood NJ while growing up in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.

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Matt Cutts July 20, 2006 at 8:11 pm

Testing; ignore.

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John Tourloukis July 20, 2006 at 9:04 pm

Sub is east coast, Hoagie is Pennsylvania, and Grinder is a Mid-west thang

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John Tourloukis July 20, 2006 at 9:13 pm

Thanks for the post adam
http://labs.google.com/accessible/
I want those rankings, does the accessible site have filters turned off. I wonder if I’m doing something spammy because regular google does not show me that much love.
Maybe Google labs can come up with a spam rank tool

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Aaron Pratt July 20, 2006 at 9:33 pm

Testing; ignore.

Testing that hiccup there Matt? ;)

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Dave (Original) July 20, 2006 at 10:04 pm

OFF_TOPIC:

Today is a great day for White hats. looks like SEO Inc spammy methods have caught up with them AGAIN. Hopefully they will go bankrupt and never appear again.

KUDOS to Google & Matt personally!

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Matt Cutts July 21, 2006 at 12:27 am

Someone said that the captcha wasn’t working (even had a video). But it works fine for me (for what it is). Ironically, when I went to go say that in his comments, I ran afoul of his private spam detection, and so my comment wasn’t approved on his site! :)

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Rae July 21, 2006 at 6:30 am

Oh no, you are NOT from New Jersey Matt. No. I refuse to believe that a guy whose never read the Godfather is from *MY* state. Please say it ain’t so. The family *moved* there, right? ;-)

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The Adam That Doesn't Belong To Matt July 21, 2006 at 7:51 am

Matt,

Did the person complaining about it not see a security code section at all? If so, it may be because they had Javascript disabled.

Go into Firefox and disable the Javascript. It shows up at the bottom when you do that.

I did a test post (right before this one), so if you don’t see it, that’s probably what it is.

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The Adam That Doesn't Belong To Matt July 21, 2006 at 7:52 am

Whoops…ignore the part about not seeing the security section. I meant to say “see it above the textarea box for the post”. My bad.

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The Adam That Doesn't Belong To Matt July 21, 2006 at 9:29 am

Thanks for the post adam
http://labs.google.com/accessible/
I want those rankings, does the accessible site have filters turned off. I wonder if I’m doing something spammy because regular google does not show me that much love.
Maybe Google labs can come up with a spam rank tool

You and me both, buddy.

From the FAQ:

How does Accessible Search work?
In its current version, Google Accessible Search looks at a number of signals by examining the HTML markup found on a web page. It tends to favor pages that degrade gracefully — pages with few visual distractions and pages that are likely to render well with images turned off. Google Accessible Search is built on Google Co-op’s technology, which improves search results based on specialized interests.

So it looks like they’re examining markup and basing the rankings off of accessibility standards.

The interesting thing about it is that Craig’s List shows up quite a bit everywhere in it. Not really sure if that’s a bug or what, because that site is a bit of a mess. But it’s interesting.

Talk about stuff like this more, Matt. You’ve got a captive audience of at least…2. :)

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Michael McCaffrey July 23, 2006 at 3:05 pm

Dear Matt, As a Podcaster and Blogger, I’m not sure where I am in the spectrum, but I want to say I appreciate your thoughtful evaluation of the Podcasters News statement. As a member of the Podcasters News Netswork (different organization I think at podcasternews.com), I think you are correct in your evaluation.

I want to add that a lot of people listen to you and want to know what you have to say about a particular topic. Please take a moment and read my blog for today at muffinmanmusings.blogspot.com and let me know if you feel the same way. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

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Ian July 24, 2006 at 4:36 am

Yeah I often get the captcha failing :(

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Lp August 21, 2006 at 4:55 am

I didn’t know you were a Jersey boy, how cool! I grew up in Millington, NJ, bet you never heard of it. Anyways I was wondering, how come you aren’t running adsense on your blog? You really should be using your own products! You could donate the proceeds to your fav charity or something.

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Scented Candles December 19, 2006 at 10:42 am

How was the weather up there ?

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Sterling Silver Jewelry December 19, 2006 at 10:43 am

How do you block spammers on blog ?

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Jaci & Stacey January 8, 2007 at 6:53 am

WE LOVE CHEESESTEAKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Throw Pillows March 2, 2007 at 11:40 am

Cheesteaks do what cheesesteaks are.

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Remi April 27, 2007 at 3:41 pm

”It’ll still take me a day or two to catch up on email”

haha just don’t try to catch up and use the magic ‘delete’ button.
really helpful if you want some free time :D

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GC June 22, 2007 at 5:04 am

If you want the definitive hoagie & cheesesteak ratings go to the following website.

hollyeats.com

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Touch September 8, 2007 at 6:57 pm

I just had dinner (mmmm prawn curry) and yet, reading this thread makes me hungry again!

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JS September 22, 2007 at 10:15 am

Hoagies and Cheesesteaks FTW!

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