This toy ordering is getting excessive.

The Stampman saga continues -- and apparently more harassment took place on Sunday! At one point he blocked my mother's path in the church and refused to let her pass until she shook his hand. Then, at the Thanksgiving dinner, ol' Stampy made a point of sitting at a table adjacent to my mother's so that his back was to hers. God only knows how much time he spent staring at the back of her head, but, when the churchgoers were asked to applaud our veterans and current soldiers, he turned, leaned over, and slammed his hands together roughly a foot from my mother's ear. The most unfortunate part is that Mom met with the pastor (again) to discuss the Stampman's harassment following the church service, so this latter incident happened after the pastor told him to leave her the frick alone.

Oh, and he left another message on the voice mail tonight -- once again begging Mom to be his friend. Ugh.

Anyway, remember the Halloween card I mentioned in the last Stampman entry? Here it is! This is actually the first time I'd actually looked at it -- I wasn't really eager to touch it (and not because he has HIV, but rather because he's uber creepy and I wouldn't put it past him to seal the envelope with jizz or something), so I was working from my mother's description before -- and wow. Wow. Even the envelope is creepy, what with the tiny snowcat creatures and the fact that he's addressed it as being from a fictional sender who lives at a nonexistent address. Yay! (more...)

He's called multiple times today -- likely once from his health care service provider (seriously!) and at least twice from a pay phone. He may also have called at least once using a calling card, though we can't say for certain whether those calls (which occur daily from the same 866 number) are from him or a telemarketer.

Anyway, since we obviously didn't answer his most recent pay phone call, he left a short message:

Blocking my phone number is not in your best interests.

...Yes.

Despite what I say in the lengthier discussion, I'm not really sure what compelled me to try my hand, voice, and visage at a video log -- but here we go. So yeah, if you've never seen me in person and would like to point and laugh at my awkward mannerisms and rambling speech, now you can! The 24-second test video is below, followed by a much lengthier three-part discussion behind the cut. As note at one point, I really hadn't intended for it to be so long -- I neglected to time myself and ended up rambling on for 23 minutes. Eat your heart out, Vice President-elect Joe Biden!

Part 1 (6:40)

Part 2 (8:35)

Part 3 (8:06)

And get this: there's even more stuff that I wanted to discuss, like that this mindset mine is arguably unhealthy because it makes me significantly less motivated to go out and "succeed" in social and/or material contexts, since I largely have everything that I want -- or at least what I feel it is important to have -- aboard the floating citadel in my psyche. (Even a room filled with mannequins!) Perhaps I'll save that for a future vlog or a text follow-up (or even the comments section below, if it comes up there).

Anyway, let me know what you think. I may post this on YouTube, but I obviously have no aspirations to be some widely-watched YT celebrity -- I don't ever plan to care enough to add special effects (beyond the fades) or cut stuff out or even work from a script (though outlines or checklists may be helpful in the future) so keep that in mind when offering criticisms, comments, et cetera. There's also no need to suggest that I not ramble so much or make shorter videos, since I am both well aware of those issues and inclined to agree! And while I certainly have no plans to transform Wesoteric into a vlog -- this would be a biweekly feature at the absolute maximum, and probably more like a monthly thing -- do let me know if you'd balk at video entries even that infrequently. I certainly have no problem with text entries, and as noted I'm infinitely more comfortable with them. 🙂

Repo! The Genetic Opera is looking bloody awesome.

Other links of possible interest:

The Anchorage Daily News endorses Obama. That's just... fantastic.

Banksy?s Village Petstore and Charcoal Grill is also pretty amazing, what with animatronic swimming fish sticks and drinking hot dogs and glammed-up rabbits and all. It's too bad it's apparently going away at the end of the month -- this place should be a permanent attraction.

Interview Sarah Palin via the Palin parrot! Granted, Palin's most recent interviews have been a little less embarrassing (though having McCain tag along to supervise doesn't help her image), but she still has a fairly strange relationship with words. It's like sentence structure and coherence are as foreign to Sarah Palin as... well, something that you probably wouldn't find in abundance in Alaska. Gila monsters?

BBC News: New feathered dinosaur discovered -- that little guy looks like the result of a freakish genetic experiment between a peacock and a Chinese dragon! Also, dinosaurs rule.

Apparently Dawn Eden has made it into a Snopes entry. I want to be on Snopes! C'mon people, make me popular. 😛

And usually fights between CGI creatures in visual media put me to sleep -- as with Hulk's battle with the Abomination in The Incredible Hulk and that insanely long fight between Kong and the V-Rexes in King Kong -- but I found the encounter between the future predator and gorgonopsid in "Primeval" to be pretty engaging stuff. That goes for the entire series as well, though Series 2 definitely represents a step down from the first six episodes. In any case, I now require a Series 2 Helen Cutter figure to menace the members of my 5" toy collection. Helen Cutter is evil.

Oh yeah, if you're running WordPress, I definitely recommend giving the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin a try. While updating WP wasn't terribly difficult to begin with, it's undeniably simpler when the process is automated for you. 🙂