tent moot crash

I was SO sure that either Twilight or Hunger Games fandom would be Amy's next target...

2013-04-28T06:48:39Z

... but it's definitely "Supernatural."

http://1purp0se.tumblr.com/post/48955640666/and-im-prouder-of-that-than-if-id-simply-been-good

Somebody contacted me, anonymously, last week, asking for some details about The Person Known As Amy Player/Victoria Bitter/Jordan Wood/Andy Blake. They expressed concern about Amy/Andy's activities in "Supernatural" fandom and said they wanted more info, to assemble a report of sorts.

I think this person did a really good job describing why Amy/Andy is so gorram dangerous. I wish I could have done such a good job, when I wrote Teh Book, actually. I guess I was a little upset at the time. *sporfle*

Have a read and share it if you use that Tumblr thing. It's good stuff.

The Thanfiction Theme Song

2013-02-27T21:24:44Z

Thank you Abbey for turning up this gem:

I guess this fandom's called "Supernatural."

2013-02-26T06:20:53Z

I haven't heard of it, myself, but I got a tip tonight to check out this Tumblr account:

http://flutiebear.tumblr.com/

I didn't really look at it much. As soon as I saw:

It was never my intention to start fandom wank, I swear, or to pile
on a relative stranger. But what I read freaked me enough that I thought
it was my responsibility to let others know.
I’m not telling you to unfollow andy, or to stop reading his meta, or
to send nasty messages to him, or anything like that. I’m only trying
to pass along the same information that was given to me.

I already knew the whole story from start to finish. Meet the new con, same as the old con.

Abbey got a note on her blog to the effect of:

He's been calling himself a vessel now, saying he can hear what the real angels are saying and invite them into him, particularly Castiel, and that they're hiding the truth of the show in plain sight and we're basically living in the French Mistake universe but he can see where the show's happening in reality and that's how he knows Destiel is real, and he's been collecting money to get "the rest" of the Winchester Gospels published, but of course it's all super secret.

Like I said, same as always. Channeling yet again. Doesn't it ever get old?

If you've been missing that good old fashioned wank, by all means, indulge yourself. I'm too busy to bother, but if anything original or interesting turns up, feel free to post it here so we can all munch popcorn and peruse the new OMGWTFBBQ.

Cheers,
Turi

PS. Here's a link to a more explanatory post: http://flutiebear.tumblr.com/post/43988347092/a-con-artist-in-our-midst

Shameless Commerce Division: "My" band's tour and album

2012-09-09T18:53:32Z

Hey, all. Things have certainly been quiet lately. I know we're all waiting for the inevitable next disaster, but in the meantime, life goes on. I've been getting the band I manage ready to tour the West Coast.

I can't figure out how to make the Calendar Widget work with LJ, so you'll have to go to our main website to see where we're playing:

whitefort.net

The guys and I will be in LA, Seattle, Portland, Bend, and several points in between. Come see them play if you get a chance. They utterly, utterly shred.

We're doing a Kickstarter campaign so we can print a new album before we hit the road. If you like their music, you can basically pre-order the album at this link:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/whitefort/release-a-new-album-6-8

And if you happen to know an awesome venue that might want to have the guys play, we've still got some dates open during the tour. I'm trying to put these crazy Russians to work every day they're here--otherwise they'll just sit around my kitchen drinking all my vodka. :-)

Cheers!

Oh, will someone PLEASE send a copy of WAF?

2012-04-06T15:51:33Z

http://andythanfiction.tumblr.com/post/20555370637/i-am-taking-the-kindle-broaden-your-horizons-challenge

Or better yet, HP and the Heirs of Slytherin...

That was the best laugh I've had all day--and it's not even 9:00 AM yet!

The REAL scam starts now: Amy's shooting for the publishing world

2012-04-01T23:45:39Z

http://andythanfiction.tumblr.com/post/20308042800/the-good-news-and-the-bad-news

Or, if this entry gets locked out, here's a copy of the original text:

The good news and the bad news

Due to the recent publishing success of “50 Shades of Grey” (which started out as a Twilight fanfic) and “City of Bones” (which started out as a Harry Potter fanfic) I have been in correspondence with a literary agent and publisher regarding the Daydverse. As a result, I will be ‘filing the serial numbers’ off of and very slightly reworking Sluagh, A Peccatis, and Oubliette as original fiction for publication.

This will unfortunately require that I withdraw the Daydverse from the internet, as even DAYD contains a substantial number of my original characters (or those who are JKR’s in name only) who are featured prominently in the other works. I apologize for any distress or inconvenience this may cause, and you may still download copies for your personal use in the 30 days before they are withdrawn permanently. It is my hope that in addition to the obvious financial benefits for myself that this will be a means of introducing the wider non-fic-reading world to the characters all of you have come to know and love in the ‘verse.

Thank you for your love and support in the years that the Daydverse has existed online as a Harry Potter subfandom, and I hope that you will continue to support me in my professional endeavors and consider buying my fiction when it is published.

Thanfiction aka Andrew Blake

Given all the private cult/brainwashing business in which Amy Player specializes, can you even imagine the lives she will ruin if she becomes a "legitimate" famous author?

I shudder to think of the money she will scam from real charities, not to mention the mind games, arranged marriages, spirit channeling, etc.

*shakes head*

Remember when I predicted, vehemently, that Amy Player would get someone killed? And then she did it? Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict it will happen, AGAIN. Except next time it'll be some poor messed up young person who gets suckered into some idiotic fantasy about communicating with someone "from the spirit realm" or wherever, and can't handle the pressure.

Amazing that nothing can be done to stop this person. Just fugging amazing.

Look out, Hunger Games fandom...

2012-03-27T00:04:17Z

... coz yer next.

Conviction vs. voluntary compliance.

2011-11-07T23:53:23Z

Hi, gang. I need to eat a little crow here (not a lot, but a little).

I'm going to start out by saying that I've gotten accustomed, in my historic dealings with Bit of Earth people (in particular, Amy, Abbey, and Cherie) to a rather vehement denial of the facts. I hope anyone who has followed this story, here or in the book, can recognize that Amy Player told a lot of lies, and when she got caught in them, she backpedaled with tremendous effort. Even to the point of writing up fake legal documents (and sending them to the entire cast of the LOTR films) in which she not only denied the truth, she made up additional lies in an effort to deflect blame onto me.

Given that I was dealing with someone who would compose arguments made of frank lies, there were times, quite a few, even, when I took verbal shortcuts. Not in order to be deceptive, but because the full legally qualified 100% correct statement was too long and cumbersome. I've learned a lot of things about the justice system, and one of them is that there are a surprising number of nuances around the concept of guilt and innocence. Way more than you'd think, by watching TV.

Now those shortcuts are coming to bite me on the butt, because even though they were essentially correct, they weren't absolutely correct. So, on to the crow eating:

In the past, even so recently as on Abbey's blog, I've stated that she and Amy were convicted of operating a fraudulent charity. That was shorthand, and in the strictest legal sense it wasn't correct.

Abbey and Amy were issued a document by the Oregon Dept. of Justice. This document was called an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance. In the document, the DOJ listed things that were done by and for the "charity," Bit of Earth, things which were illegal. The document further required them to pay a fine AND to agree, in writing, never to solicit funds for any charity ever again in the State of Oregon.

Finally the document gave Abbey and Amy two choices:

1) They could sign this document, pay the fine, and walk away.
2) They could claim to be innocent of the deeds listed in the document, at which time the DOJ would take them to court and let a judge rule on whether they were guilty or not.

Amy and Abbey signed the document and paid the fine.

Were they convicted of a crime? No. To be convicted, you have to go to court and a judge and jury look at the evidence and decide whether you're guilty. Abbey and Amy chose to avoid the courtroom by voluntarily accepting the conditions set by the DOJ.

Were they innocent? No. Again, the matter of guilt and innocence, in the legal sense, has to be determined in a courtroom. Because the courtroom was avoided, they were neither convicted nor exonerated of committing crimes.

Were they busted? Fuck yeah! The DOJ gave them a chance to either explain themselves or accept punishment, and they accepted punishment. If that's not busted, I don't know what is.

To put another way: if you've ever had a speeding ticket, you probably noticed how the ticket itself says that you can plead guilty (and pay the fine and be done), innocent (and go to court to contest the ticket), or nolo contendre (in which you also pay the fine and be done BUT you are not admitting guilt). I think the Assurance was issued with the same sort of spirit as a Nolo Contendre option. It avoids the time and expense of a trial, and the "black mark" of a guilty verdict--but you're still busted for speeding.

On Abbey's blog, I left a post about her "conviction" by the DOJ. Because both Abbey and Amy have denied any wrongdoing in the past, I expected more of the same, so I felt justified in taking shortcuts. If there was going to be denial, it might as well be denial of the Abridged Version. I mean, come on, if I'd said, "you were issued an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance from the DOJ, which you signed," well, first of all most people would have no earthly idea what that meant, and 2nd of all, I'm not even sure which verb to put the "Didn't" in front of, to turn that statement into a denial!

Not to mention that, "You were convicted, In Yer FACE!" just plain sounds better than "You were issued an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance from the DOJ, which you signed, In Yer FACE!"
Given that I expected to hear "I never did anything wrong, you evil persecuting meanie," it was more efficient all around to just sum it up with "convicted."

However, Abbey surprised me--and pleasantly so--by not denying anything. She 'fessed up to receiving that document from the DOJ. Furthermore, Abbey correctly pointed out that they were never convicted.

So, I want to apologize for using the wrong language in describing the outcome from the Dept. of Justice. Busted, but not convicted. Thanks for understanding.

Did some tidying today.

2011-11-06T21:49:27Z

Hi, gang. I sat down to review the LJ today in light of current events. I got rid of some recent entries that were, well, no longer relevant. Here's the deal:

A week ago, I was sent a link to Abbey's blog. Filled with distrust, I checked it out and was initially unimpressed. The bottom line was that in the first entry I read (randomly in the middle), I got a very hostile vibe and reacted, negatively, from my gut.

The good thing about this LJ, though, is that it provokes thought and confrontation. Yeah, it provokes a lot of wank, too, but I strongly believe in confrontation (if you haven't noticed). Turning the other way, living in denial, deliberately ignoring that which is wrong or harmful to others... these are all bad things. Those are the behaviors that allow things like child abuse to take place. When good people are aware, but do nothing, the bad have free reign. The world doesn't get better when people turn their heads and pretend nothing bad is happening. The world gets better when people examine situations, bear witness, and take a stand.

So, in my usual freight-train-like fashion, I pointed people toward Abbey's blog. The first result of that provocation was that Cherie aka "Diamond" contacted me, for the first time since 2004.

Just seeing her first letter was a joy for me. It was honest and heartfelt and made me teary to read it.

By way of history: "Di" herself told me exactly one lie: After the detective came to my door, she told me that she had seen "Jordan" with no shirt on, and confirmed that "he" was a boy. That sent me off on a skewed journey, but in the end, it's one fib and I know "Jordan" pressured her, HARD, to do it. In the end, one lie is not hard to forgive.

There's also the matter of the loan on which she defaulted. I remember the first time I called "Di" and asked why she hadn't made any payments. I felt at the time, and I still do today, that she was as stunned as I was by the news. She explained that she'd been handing her paychecks over to Amy because Amy had "taken responsibility" for the household finances. "Jordan" knew about the loan, knew payments were due... Cherie had assumed that "Jordan" was sending the appropriate checks.

I was angry with Cherie, but I never felt, in my gut, like SHE was ripping me off. By then, I'd caught onto Amy as a thief and liar, and I knew Amy was ultimately to blame. Sue and the twins and I begged Cherie to get away from "Jordan" and wake up to the fact that she was being conned--but she sided with "Jordan." I was angry with Cherie for that--for letting "Jordan" win, basically--and I bawled her out many times to stop hiding behind "Jordan" and repay her debt. But despite all the anger, frustration, and disappointment, part of me knew Cherie was being lied to and manipulated, and that was why she was behaving so badly. I knew in my heart of hearts that if this friendship had developed under different circumstances--that is, without the poison of a con artist twisting everything up with lies--things would have turned out waaaay differently. Because at heart, Cherie was an honorable person.

The letter came from that person.

Cherie and I have exchanged several letters in the past few days. She has a long story to tell. She's just starting to do so, at her own LJ, here. Cherie originally posted a link to her journal in a comment to one of the entries I removed, so I've deliberately re-posted the link here. She's only barely begun to talk about her experiences with "Jordan." I'm both curious and filled with dread about the stories she might tell.

The next result of provoking Abbey was that Abbey also responded. Like me, she reacted from her gut at first. We did a little public sparring (although not much--most of it was done by other people, actually). I gotta tell ya, however, that I was extremely amused to learn that Abbey was the "minion" who first tipped me off to "Andy Blake" back at the end of 2009. This story just keeps on twisting.

The important thing is that Abbey went on to write me a private letter. A long, thoughtful, sincere and gracious private letter. I was reminded of the person I'd met back in 2003, the fun, smart, snarky, generous, and creative gal whom I liked the minute I met her. I won't go into the letter's details, although I think they will eventually come out. It's still too early in this process of reconciliation and healing, at this time.

But I do want to share the most important and touching part of her letter--the part that meant the most to me, and convinced me that this was The Real Abbey speaking:

I am sorry for using your hospitality. For putting you through all the financial stress. I'm sure you remember how incapacitated I was by panic for a while when we were looking for an apartment. I remember you taking care of me as I sat in the middle of panic attacks. And I never thanked you properly for that. Nor for loaning us money, or the loan you cosigned on, or cosigning on our apartment. You did those things and I was and am grateful. No matter what came later.

I cannot TELL you guys how much that meant to me. A simple, genuine thanks for something that I'd done just on autopilot at the time. It spoke volumes to me. I could see that Abbey has spent some serious effort reflecting upon her past. Not just in a "poor little me" way, but in a strong, "gee, I had some good things that I fucked up" way.

I've personally found, for myself, that when I look at things from what my weight management coach calls "the gratitude piece," things become a lot more meaningful and change becomes more permanent. In "Fat Camp," I've learned to be glad for my health, and to concentrate on that gratitude, rather than to internally whine that "other people can get away with hot fudge sundaes, it's no fair that I can't eat one." It's hard to wallow in self-pity when you're feeling gratitude--they're kinda mutually exclusive. And if I can't eat the damn sundae either way, well, I'd rather not eat it while feeling the pleasant emotion of gratitude than the depressing emotion of self-pity.

But I digress. The point being that seeing this "gratitude piece" in Abbey's letter was heartwarming to me. It made me feel, as with Cherie, that this is the Real Abbey--not the fucked up, presumed-criminal, living-a-lie Abbey that I've dealt with for the past few years. I am SO FECKING GLAD--for her, for her family, for myself, and for the world. Everyone who takes the time to reclaim their personal sanity and become a better person is a benefit to the whole human race.

I still find it hard to read Abbey's blog, because just as this LJ has always been a place for me to vent, so is her blog a venting place. But we're continuing to exchange private letters, and in private, it's possible to talk more and wank less.

It's crazy, too, because of the whole "feast or famine" aspect--for years nothing, then suddenly I'm having long, difficult, and heartfelt conversations with both these gals. Cherie spoke first, so I've spent more time talking to her, but woof, there's just SO MUCH to discuss with both.

Anyway, so that's why I cleaned out recent entries in the LJ. I really feel like it is possible to mend fences here, and I'm glad of that. And while the provocative entries originally spurred these discussions to take place, they'd served that purpose and were no longer needed. I decided to change them out for this entry. I want to express that even a hardnose asshole like me can see that both Abbey and Cherie have a story to tell that's worth hearing. Stories that involve making mistakes, being horribly manipulated and used, fighting their way out of a hostile, unhealthy situation, and coming back to life.

I can't quite say I'm looking forward to hearing these tales, per se, but man, I'm glad they're both around to tell them.

Elanor

2011-11-03T04:50:53Z

Photos taken today, on a beautiful fall afternoon in Beaverton, Oregon: The Elanor garden.

You knew it was coming: "Andy's" latest Big Ask

2011-10-04T02:13:59Z

Reported to me today: Brother, can you spare a dime (or $2000)?"

So the guy marries an American woman but still has to file $2k worth of paperwork in order to remain in the US? Can anyone confirm whether there's any truth to that?

And of course, somehow this little "fact" eluded their attention until a week before the deadline. This is a major M.O. for all con artists: everything is a rush, with a highly emotional outcome if YOU fail to act. That way you don't have time to think about things like "is this even a valid ask," or "should I really give money for someone stupid enough to wait until the last minute to raise money--especially for something they could have EASILY predicted, for MONTHS, would cost some dough?"

Wanna take bets on whether the DAYDians fall for this one?

Future Entry from the "Trail of Tears Hike" Diary

2011-07-20T19:49:55Z

"Hardships along the trail: Day 17. Vagina continues to bleed. Could I actually be a woman?"

--one of the Three Sockpuppets

OK, that just busted my gut.

BTW, if you'd like to keep up on the impending train wreck, the firsthand wank can be found here. I haven't had any interest in reading it, until someone on FB pointed out that "Andy" preached at a Baptist church during the hike. I had to take that one in. Alas, it wasn't the Westboros.

I think it was Moonjaguar who once said, "VB has such brass balls, how can she sit down without going 'clank'?"

Colleen Doran's killer summary

2011-07-15T21:38:17Z

Just go read it. She is so funny. And whatever you do, don't skip the comments.

Had to bump this up... "Andy" shows what a thoughtful, feminist "guy" "he" is.

2011-07-09T20:03:55Z

Just read for yourself.

Compare that to the "grrrrrrrrls rulz" blather on her latest fake charity.

So... the fandom is infested with girls, for whom "Andy" expresses clear contempt. Nice. Then "he" turns around and claims to advocate for abused women. How can you have contempt for the same people you say you want to help?

How can the DAYD folks not recognize this? I don't care whether you accept that Amy Player was "Andy's" former twin sister but later became a complete stranger who nonetheless shared her innermost motives and habits with "Andy"... How can you read these hostile generalizations about females, and then accept that "Andy" respects women enough to want to empower them?

If YOU wanted to empower abused people, would you write denigrating remarks about them?

Can I just say that when Amy, as "Jordan Wood," first came to my house in 2003, "he" walked in my living room, saw my two pet guinea pigs (in cages), and shrieked? I hesitate to say "shrieked like a girl," because that would be redundant.

I guess shrieking at a caged rodent is not "Little bubble-headed" girly, especially for someone who claims to be making "his" first kill around that same time.

Sorry, sometimes I need to rant, too.

The 100% True Story About Everything.

2011-07-08T03:51:09Z

I had to share this. Amy's own words, courtesy of a friend with really good connections at Skype. A good lesson for everyone to remember--nothing you say on the internet is truly private.

For your reading (dis)pleasure... Andrew's summary of the 2009 wank, Project Eleanor, BoE, Amy, Jordan and you... from a Skype chat just a week or two ago.

The story now seems to be that Amy Player is just some random stranger to whom you tried to link him out of revenge. Too bad nobody in the world believed you (except those thousands of FW posters), haha!

How do you make up an evil twin and then un-make her up and STILL HAVE PEOPLE BELIEVE YOU? Only Andrew knows!!

But for a random crazy stranger... Andrew sure does know a lot about Amy and the little details of Project Eleanor and BoE.....

FAN 1: I hope I'm not opening old wounds but what's the story about Andy being a scammer of some sort?

FAN 2: Long story short (too late) Andy's sister and a vengeful ex attempted to connect Andy with a female scam artist who'd caused a bit of a scandal in Lord of the Rings fandom a few years ago. Some still believe that Andy and this Amy are one and the same.

FAN 1: And they still are trying to make it believable?

FAN 2: Apparently. It's become something of a running joke around here - - how bad Andy fails at con-artistry.

...

FAN 1: But... if Andy is that girl... who is the blue-haired (now purple-haired) guy on the profile pictures? :P

FAN 2: *shrug* You're expecting logic from these people?

.......))later that day((.......

ANDREW BLAKE: Back in the spring of 2008, I had a three week online flirtation with a woman named Shannon, who goes by Luvscharlie online. She seemed sweet enough at first, btu then I got very uncomfortable with her obsession with porn, with being the "perviest" and "kinkiest" in her circle of friends, with fandom popularity, and the extent to which she neglected her daughter for fandom. I ended the relationship, and she persued, and she acted like I'd left her at the friggin' altar when I said No Means No. So a year and a half later, one of her friends of friends who writes Supernatural real-person slash porn gets in a fandom scandal, and several other juicy fandom scandals from years past are referenced, including the "Great VB/TentMoot debacle". Never not wanting to be In The Know, Shannon hunts it up, and notices a resemblance between me and this "VB." Half hoping that it is me and she can make my life hell, not caring if it isn't because it'll make my life hell anyway, she sends my Twitpic address and all other info she can find on me to Turimel and says that the Great Con Artist Has Been Found.

Turimel has two options: She can say that yes, there's a resemblance, but there's really no other evidence beyond state of birth and look connecting the two, and further investigation would be required to make sure it wasn't a sibling, cousin, or coincidence... or she can go howling into the middle of fandom shrieking that all the mockery of her before for being a lunatic was wrong because here is PROOF that VB's AT IT AGAIN because her latest scamming scam of scamdom is PRETENDING TO BE MALE and inviting people out to DC for something called "Daydcon" which we all KNOW will just be a ruse to sell thousands of fake tickets and run cackling into the night with money!!!

We all know what she chose.

And then she got laughed out of Harry Potter when the Big Scam Convention turned out to be, well, Daydcon. There was a lot of"wow, this whole thing is freaky," but then the world moved on and left her sulking and embarrassed. She's had a year and a half to stew, and then she gets another "opportunity," this time to prove that no, she's not a paranoid obsessive loser, I Really Killed People This Time ZOMG!

An here we all are, and she's wrong again, and she'll be shown up as wrong again, and she'll go off sulking into her corner, and three years from now some troll will send her word that I've had or adopted a kid, and she'll find some cute baby-in-bath pictures and start shrieking that My Latest Scam Is Child Porn. It's how she rolls.

I've had people who actually want to kill me, who have killed people before with no compunction, for things I've actually done. Some bitch ranting erroneously on her LJ?

There is no fucking way that can touch me at all.

I live big, live passionately. I have people who would die for me and people who would die for the chance to have me dead. I've seen 37 friends die violently. I've been shot 4 times. I've been stabbed, strangled, beaten, burned, left for dead...an internet brouhaha doesn't register as anything more than a mosquito bite. And it's a lot more amusing.

And while we're getting things out there, I did some digging to find out for sure about the LotR mess of 2001-03 when the scandal broke, just to be sure that I wouldn't have cops at my door with outstanding warrants and a lot of annoying explanations and paperwork when I was trying to prepare a meetup.

The Big Scandal, of course, which everyone's heard right now, is that Amy was supposedly impersonating Elijah Wood, stalking LotR actors, stole $3000 from Reading is Fundamental, and ran this huge scam of a pretend LotR convention hat stole tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars from dozens of fans and sponsors and stars, all of which she pocketed.

The reality is about as closely related as how I supposedly seduced Brittany into leaving her poor kindly husband, accused him of horrible abuse, and slowly drove him mad until he had no choice but to try and kill us all to prevent us stealing everything he had and leaving him beggared in the streets and then, when he showed up with the gun, threw Brittany and Tony into his path, dared him to shoot, and dove for cover.

The reality: Amy was deeply into LotR roleplaying and did a lot of chats and even had a few RPG journals, one of which was, yes, an RPF RPG where she did play as Elijah. She was a big fan of him and Sean Astin, and did start a Sam Gamgee fan club, but no worse a fan than many other people. She was a least bisexual, possibly lesbian, possibly trans - she's been legitimately confused about that at least since she was 10 - and when she decided to try living as a boy for a while, she took the name Jordan Wood, which maybe was a bit fangirly juvenile, but she was 17. There was speculation that she was a cousin by some people, which she never quashed, but she never actually made any claims.

There was a big project to build a reading garden for Reading is Fundamental; Project Eleanor. They had a special screening to raise money for the project, which had been budgeted about $1400, and the extra was supposed to go to RiF. The screening raised $3000, but due to some errors in how much wood they were going to need for the deck and some other unforeseen expenses, Project Eleanor wound up costing $3400. So no, nothing got donated to RiF, and yes, Amy reimbursed herself the expenses she'd paid out of pocket, but the whole thing wound up COSTING her $400, and there was nothing TO give to charity. The police conduced an extensive investigation of this and determined that the only wrongdoing was that she hadn't filed a license before holding a raffle, and she was fined $400 for an illegal gambling activity. They also found out that she'd not filed any of the right paperwork, but determined that it was ignorant, not criminal, and simply issued an injunction that sad all over it that it was not a statement of guilt or wrongdoing but that she agreed not to engage in a financial capacity with any charity in the state of Oregon for 2 years or until she had taken certain classes.

With Project Eleanor having been a technical, even if not financial success, and having gotten a lot of attention, admiration, and having gotten to spend the day with one of her favorite actors, Amy made a really stupid choice. Rather than saying "I overstepped myself a bit with this, but it was good, let's scale it back a bit and do it again," she decided to go A Billion Times As Big. She was going to throw an LotR convention that would make ComiCon look pathetic!

Now, I don't know about you, but if a teenaged kid with zero convention experience was spouting big dreams like that after having sort-of-failed and barely pulled off and netted no proceeds with their last event...I'd not be lining up to throw money at it.
However, she was gushing about how she was going to get All The Actors There, and people who are already tits-deep in fandom will do a lot of stupid if they think they can meet The Movie Stars.

So she does her damndest, but she frankly hasn't got clue one. Her mouth's writing checks that her knowledge can't keep, and she says that stuff's going to happen with no idea how she'll pull it off, figuring it's a lot easier than it is. She's talking so big and confident, that for a while, she does have a lot of the actors agents on board and have them booked, because she's telling the agents about this huge convention with thousands of people etc etc. Then people start looking further, and pulling out, and more and more "did you remember to do the - - -" starts catching up wither her. The whole damn thing implodes. It's not a scam, it's a really badly run event. Everyone who has put anything into it, herself included, loses their shirts. There is no convention.

Turimel starts screaming that Amy has obviously run off with all the tens of thousands of dollars from the thousands of tickets and al the hundreds of vendors and movie stars and does manage to get Amy arrested. Tey find out that it was just epically poorly run, there is no money, there were barely 50 tickets sold and the venue has refunded them all, the vendors she never got table fees from and there were only a dozen... that it was a disaster that had been grossly inflated but by the cocky mouth of a kid who thought they could do it and were doing it, not a scam artist.

Turimel refuses to believe it, and is further horrified to hear from the police that the person they arrested was technically a girl, which throws her into epic spasms of OMGNOEZ!!!

So, she has two options.

1) Either she gave about 10K on her credit card for deposits (all of which was refunded, btw) to a gender-confused, emotionally messed-up teenage kid who was making grandiose promises that should have easily been seen through as unable to follow through on despite best intentions. IN other words, that she was a 45 year old woman who made a really stupid decision out of being blinded by her own fandom obsessions.

2. SHE'S THE VICTIM OF A HORRIBLY LYING ICKY DIRTY TRANNY BITCH~

Except, well, number two didn't get her far. So she had to start coming up with "better reasons" why she was so upset. So the numbers started inflating, the charges got wilder, etc.

She stopped mentioning the deposits had been refunded. She started claiming the huge success Amy had promised as money stolen rather than money that never happened, etc.

But no matter how wild she got, her attention and martyr status dried up fairly soon, especially as more people started calling her on her bullshit. So she published a book - well, she had to self-publish on a vanity press - that was basically her LJ between a set of covers. And she had the chutzpah to actually add the cost of printing and promoting (which didn't work) to the Amount Amy Stole From Her.

But the book went nowhere, and no one was listening any more, and she was herself an internet laugingstock, and she sulked and brooded and stewed and festered her hate - remember, after helping with the convention she was suppose to beBFFs with a dozen movie stars and the biggest queen in the LotR fandom by now - until Shannon came along and made her a very happy woman by handing her the Golden Boy of Harry Potter fandom on a silver platter.

She's 55 now, mother of three, and a doctor for an insurance company.

All because she's still incredibly bitter that she didn't get to spend a weekend hanging out with the Fellowship and becoming a fandom superstar.

Amy's got problems, oh yes. But Turimel's got bigger ones, and if anyone's walking the fine edge of criminal and getting away with it, it's her with the slander, libel, and harassment.

[Turi here: Baby, if you ever want to accuse me of slander and libel, take me to court. Please. Bring it on. Here, have some evidence: Amy Player is a con artist. She is currently posing as a male named Andrew Michael Blake. She established this identity with a fraudulent Virginia driver's license. There ya go, "Andy." Take that to the cops and say you want to press charges. What's holding you back?]

I've actually talked to the cops about it, but I can't get a restraining order because she's wrong about who I am... she keeps threatening and spreading lies about *Amy.

It's like David Ecks, who has made his living screaming about the vast alien government conspiracy.

FAN 3: So you can't stop her because her accusations are too ridiculous for a legal response?

ANDREW BLAKE: He can't be sued for slandering the Alien Overlords because there aren't any, and yes ))Fan 3(( that's exactly it.

...

ANDREW BLAKE: I will warn you fairly that if Holly (EDITOR NOTE: author of the article about the ToT hike) doesn't come down hard on the side of Amy/Andy is Evilest Evil, she'll be on Turimel's shit list, and Streetlight will be smeared on Turi's journal as yet another dupe in my pocket at best, an outright co-conspirator at worst. But that's not actually a big deal, I don't personally think.

FAN 1: Well... Turi has...what? 3 followers?

FAN 2: All of those posts on the article were from variations on the same screenname. One from Facebook, one from AOL, one from Yahoo.

ANDREW BLAKE: About a dozen. A lot of whom are just in it for the troll factor of watching the scandal and screaming and poking it all.

Has anyone seen her latest post? It's baffling to me. So these two emails... they don't have identical IP addresses. The IP addresses indicate different computers in the same area. At that time, Amy was living in Newport News, the biggest military center in the country, and claiming that it was someone she knew locally and personally. So wouldn't it be a sign that it was TRUE that the IPs were different computers from the same area? And, um, apparently Matt was in the Marines and Matt = Jason and Brittany = Amber? Except that I = Amy = Matt = Jason? I'm so fucking confused. What is she even accusing there?

**********

Wasn't that special? Not that I expected anything different. Amy always falls back on "Oh, that person accusing me of con artistry? She's a bitter ex-girlfriend."

I do admit, I am puzzled about Holly the Journalist, but I reckon she's too boggled by the sheer amount of bizarre details to write a story about this. I got the same reaction from the Oregonian and TheOneRing.net--it's too much detail for a coherent story.

I'm not even going to go into the whole bit about how Everybody got Refunds and Everybody Got Reimbursed for All The Mischief. Bullshit. So are all of her "facts" about me-age, kids, job, transphobia. But hey, we all know how honest and truthful Amy is.

So yeah, all three of you who follow this LJ, hope you got it all straightened out now.

And can I just add... "The Golden Boy of HP fandom?" How can someone so utterly shitty have such enormous self-esteem?

Another Way Back letter--sockpuppetry this time

2011-06-22T04:38:14Z

OK, so last week I was trying to free some space on my hard drive when I deleted something important and got the Blue Screen of Death. Couldn't fix it, no one could, had to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows. Bleah. So I spent today reloading programs (fortunately I had data on one drive, programs on the other--so mostly I lost downloaded programs, not Irreplaceable Stuff). That included rebuilding my Outlook Express mailboxes from backup. (Sorry, I know, I know, but I'm getting to the good part. Bear with me for 5 more sentences).

Since I was messing with old emails, I decided to do the same thing I did the other night, which was to pick an email at random and read it. I did that on my Hotmail account (which receives mail from this LJ), but this is the stuff I've saved on my home computer. Anyway, this was the letter I picked (slightly edited for space):

*******************

From: Carlanime
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 12:57:29 -0500 (EST)

Hi. I may not be the first person to point this out, so if
you already know about it, just skip this--but if you
don't, it might be of interest.
You know the old boe group on yahoo? It's still there;
I was re-reading messages (out of, I admit this up
front, sheer nosiness). Anyway, I *think* I've noticed
something about the IP addresses, but I don't know
enough about computers to be sure.

Okay: at some point "VB" tells a meandering story
about meeting a marine who likes slash. ::pause to
roll eyes:: That sounded so unlikely that I clicked
the "reveal source" option at the top of "his"
messages, and I think I've found a pattern.

Here's the source information for said "marine" when
he posts to the group:

108. From VivaZeeBool@h... Tue Jan 08 21:38:03 2002
From: "Rennie Gade" <vivazeebool@h...>
Received: from unknown (216.115.97.172)
X-Originating-IP: [4.54.41.126]

And--this is the part I'm wondering about--here's the
info from the next message from VB:
111. From voyagerbabe@h... Wed Jan 09 04:44:09 2002
From: "VB ." <voyagerbabe@h...>
Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171)
X-Originating-IP: [4.54.41.150]

*******************

I swear, I picked this letter at random--just scrolled up with a flick of the mouse and clicked on whatever it landed on. It happens to be from Carlanime, who was the first one to tell me about "Andy Blake's" involvement in the Fairfield shootings. Like I said in that post, she's a long time reader and commenter here.

Now, the reason this is interesting is that I have heard from former friends of Amy/"Andy" regarding some creepy business from Brittany Quinn's "husband." People from the DAYD crowd tell me that Ms. Quinn's husband, a Marine, had persistently hassled/stalked Brittany on line through the DAYD community message service for a while, texting or tweeting or IM'ing or whatever. This was taken as proof that Ms. Quinn was in danger and needed "Andy's" protection (ahem, yeah, right).

Never mind that according to the newspapers, Brittany Quinn was single, or that Jason Eisenburg was a video producer, not a Marine. I'd like to propose to the DAYD community that since Amy Player (as "Victoria Bitter") has masqueraded on line as a Marine before, it just might be possible that she did it again (as "Andy Blake").

Fortunately, there's a nice, rational, objective way to find out: I'd encourage anyone with access to the IM records regarding Brittany's "Marine ex-husband" to just take one look at the IP address origins of those messages... and compare them to the messages from "Andy Blake."

I hope a few of the DAYD folks will try this simple little test. It could be a real eye-opener.

And I GOTTA quit looking through my mailboxes. Geez, this stuff is addicting! I was ANGRY when I read it all the first time... but now, sheesh, it's a better timesuck than Facebook, Minesweeper, and my Firefly DVD's put together!

By Request: The Pictorial Guideline to Amy Player's Identity

2011-06-21T05:25:36Z

I had this posted a long time ago, but I took it down when Live Journal censored it at "Andy Blake's" request. But I think I can work out an acceptable solution to "Andy's" gripe this time. Anyway, for your perusal, the many faces of Amy Player:

0. Amy Player, age 8 or so. Source: Friend of the Player family. Pictured with her mother, Cyd Player, and Kamazar, an Arabian horse.

1. Amy Player, age 18 or so. Source: Her father. Specifically, when Amy sent her parents a Fake Suicide letter in 2003, her horrified father jumped on a plane to Oregon to find her. He asked the sheriff's office for help. He gave them this photo, which became part of her arrest record.

2. Victoria Bitter, age early 20's. Source: I don't remember who sent this to me, but it was someone who met "Victoria Bitter" at an event called "Connexions."

3. Jordan Wood, first appearance, Line Party for "The Two Towers" film premier, parking lot of Lloyd Center Cinema, Portland, Oregon. December, 2002. Pictured with Abbey Stone. Source: Unknown photographer. I don't remember who gave this to me. I may have pilfered it from the Web--all I seem to have is a low-rez version.

3. Jordan Wood. Source: The official photographer from Project Elanor. Pictured with Abbey Stone.

4. Jordan Wood. Source: The official photographer from Project Elanor. Pictured with Abbey Stone and Sean Astin.

5. Jordan Wood. Source: Unknown photographer. Picture was taken a week after Project Elanor, at a "Finishing the Garden" work event. Note the phony cast that allowed poor "Jordan" to be freed from performing any work at the work party.

6. Amy Player/Jordan Wood. Source: Press release by Marion County Sheriff, summer 2003, regarding the "missing person" Amy Player, rumored to be suicidal. Includes "Jordan's" driver license photo from the Oregon DMV records. Wish I had a better copy.

7. Amy Player/Jordan Wood. Source: Mug shot, Marion County Sheriff, December, 2003

8. "Harry Potter by Jordan Wood." Source: LJ reader Oulangi, who worked for the Wax Museum on Hollywood Blvd in LA. Summer, 2004. "Jordan" gave her this card, which had been made by local talent agency. The agency was contacted by Zach Dundas, a reporter from Willamette Week in Portland Oregon. Zach was trying to track down Amy Player for an interview regarding his upcoming article about Bit of Earth. Upon learning from Zach that "Jordan" was not a young man with a degree in acting, but rather a young woman who'd been arrested for identity theft, the agency fired Amy.

9. Jordan Wood, panhandling in costume as Harry Potter in front of Mann's Chinese Theater. Source: Associated Press.

10. Jordan Wood, panhandling in costume as Harry Potter in front of Mann's Chinese Theater. Source: Associated Press.

11. Jordan Wood, panhandling in costume as Harry Potter in front of Mann's Chinese Theater. Source: I believe Oulangi secretly took this photo, but it may have been a different LJ reader who was visiting Hollywood.

INTERMISSION: Because I just never get tired of this one: LJ reader Adahy's wonderful, whimsical ad.

12. Jordan Wood, panhandling in costume as Legolas in front of Mann's. Pictured with Sue Astle (former Bit of Earth member and roommate of Amy and Abbey). Source: My personal photo, January 2005.

13. Jordan Wood, panhandling in costume as Legolas in front of Mann's. January 2005. I can't remember who the gal is in the photo. She was in LA for the same LOTR convention that Sue and I attended, and they popped over to Mann's to see if they could spot "Those Two." Obviously, they did.

14. Jordan Wood, panhandling in costume as "Puss In Boots" in front of Mann's Chinese. Pictured with Abbey Stone, panhandling in costume as "Fiona." Source: One of the other costumed characters, who contacted me some time in mid-2005. He was distressed because Abbey and "Jordan" were claiming to be the Official Organizers of the costumed characters and were charging people a fee to be "members." They said they were working with the police and Chamber of Commerce and telling the other characters they couldn't march in parades in costume and what not, unless they paid the dues to join their club. I called both the police and the CoC; there was no official club for the costumed characters. It was all an extortion scam, to bilk their friends and neighbors out of phony "dues."

15. Jordan Wood, panhandling in costume in front of Mann's Chinese. I believe this was from early 2006. I'm not sure what character Amy is in this shot. Abbey, however, is the evil queen from Narnia, which was new.

At some point in 2006/2007, Abbey and "Jordan" left Hollywood and went Back East. I only vaguely remember the story, as it came from Amy's phony apology, and thus by definition is a giant pack of lies. Because my Livejournal records the IP address of everyone who posts here, I was able to confirm that Amy made her posts on a computer in Newport News, Virginia, her hometown. That was in March, 2007.

16.5. Andy Blake, at a Halloween party, in costume as Bill Weasley. Source: this livejournal entry. Decmber 2009. You'll have to go to the entry to see the photo.

16. Andy Blake. Source: Virginia Dept. of Motor Vehicles. This is the photo from "Andy's" driver license, which is dated July 2007. This is mere months after Amy's big "confession"--she was undoubtedly working on "Andy's" fake birth certificate at the same time she was assuring us of her new life and new intentions. I've cropped out everything but "Andy's" picture; that will hopefully pass muster with the idiots in charge of Livejournal.

Amy was recognized as "Andy Blake" in December of 2009. There was some discussion on this journal about the fact that "Andy's" Real Life friends had seen "his" driver license. So an LJ reader who works in the Virginia DMV checked out "Andy's" license in their computer. She mailed me an image of the license in January 2010. Because she didn't have a legal probable cause to investigate "Andy Blake," she couldn't take any official action.

I posted the entire license on this journal, and "Andy" complained to Livejournal management. They locked the entry and ordered me to remove the license photo. I told them it was a fake ID, but they didn't want to hear about it. That was about the same time my mom died. It was a little too much stress and heartache for me and led me to conclude that the world wasn't worth trying to help. So I majorly abridged this LJ and said, "If you people want to hear the juicy gossip, you gotta pay for it. Buy the book."

A month ago, LJ reader Carlanime sent me a link to a news story in Fairfield, in which "Andy Blake" was involved in a triple homicide. Reading the news story, I recognized Amy Player's handiwork immediately. I've received Amy's homemade fake legal documents. I recognized Amy's writing style and absurd demands in the letters Jason Eisenburg received--the letters that drove him over the edge and led him to kill Brittany Quinn, Tony Chambers, and himself. I realized that Amy, unchecked, was doing what she does best: creating lies and chaos and using that for her own personal gain and pleasure. Except her little fun and games cost these people their lives--and now Amy is using Brittany's horrible story to leverage "charitable donations to help victims of domestic violence."

17. Andy Blake, Current. One of "Andy's" friends invited a reporter to cover the story of the Fake Charity hike. I suspect this was Amy's suggestion-"How'd you like to be the PR person! Go get us some press and you'll have a Higher Spot in my Inner Circle." That's her usual. Anyway, after the story was written, "Andy" herself submitted this photo to accompany the article. I believe it is also her FB profile photo.

And because everyone loves a direct compare-and-contrast:

That pretty much brings us up to date. Look for yourself and trust your own eyes, folks. And I apologize to any person in the transgender community who resents the use of scare quotes and female genders: it is not meant to be disrespectful. It is meant to Cut The Crap that this con artist/identity thief has created.

Guys, really... we have to do something.

2011-06-19T06:13:01Z

http://www.examiner.com/sex-trafficking-in-national/murder-victim-s-friends-plan-1000-mile-charity-hike-her-honor

Can people please just go over to this site and leave a comment to the effect that sending "Andy Blake" money or gifts is just not a good idea?

I can think of a dozen women's shelters right here in Salem that could make GOOD USE of the things that Amy is trying to scam for herself. And I bet there are some in your town, too.

It's making me SICK that she's getting away with exploiting this.

A trip down memory lane

2011-06-06T04:34:10Z

I was just looking up some old correspondents in the Tentmoot folder of my email box and opened a letter at random. Geeze, this stuff is mindboggling, even to me. If you miss Teh Crazy, here's a reminder (and I've met the writer in person, along with the friends she mentioned; the details were confirmed) I'm just going to post the whole thing, edited only to protect the privacy of the people named:

* * * * *

I've just compulsively binged myself on the entirety of "When a Fan..." in one sitting and could not resist the mad urge to drop you a line. I am alternately amused and horrified, but, sadly, not altogether surprised to read of all of Jordan/Amy's notorious exploits on the west coast.

I knew "Jordan" back in her Amy days, when she was fresh from home schooling and just beginning college at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, VA. I know the Jeffrey and Steve of which she speaks in her "suicide" missive -- they were the successive directors of the theater program at CNU. Additionally, I was friends with Adrian, attended school with him, and worked with him for a time. [To be utterly honest, I had an interest in him in mid-2002, about the time their relationship was self-destructing because of her budding lesbianism. However, Adrian was in love with Amy and they were determined, according to him, to "work past" her interest in women (and, apparently, her disinterest in his penis). Adrian, btw, actually *is* from Australia, and is quite a nice fellow. I've not spoken to him since the full scope of Amy's issues came to light, but I can only imagine what must be going on in his head about it...]

Amy almost immediately had a reputation when she began at CNU -- and it wasn't a good one. She was irritating to the nth degree. Few could tolerate her, even fewer liked her. Back then, her schtick was "I'm a wide-eye, innocent home schooled girl who knows nothing of this big, bizarre, bewildering world." She plead ignorance of knowledge of everything from the Muppets to the Beatles. More than once, those in my social group compared notes and caught her in lies about her level of social/cultural awareness. After all, she was merely schooled at home, not raised by wolves.

She was clearly an enormously intelligent and talented girl, but she knew it and made a point of reminding everyone whenever she had the chance. She craved attention and was altogether obvious about seeking it. To that end, she was a terrible kiss-ass, particularly to (professor's name removed), who himself was a pompous ass no one liked and constantly gave Amy the adulation she sought. There was just something about her, nothing concrete that could be pinned down to a single behavior or act, but you just wanted to vacate the room the minute she started talking. If she would later possess a charisma that many found hard to resist, it had yet to be developed at that point. Perhaps she found an audience more receptive to her needs, or perhaps "killing" Amy gave her a certain feeling of power and confidence she lacked before.

The lies were present even then. On the way to a cast party one night, she gave myself and a friend a detailed account of how another friend of ours had stood up in the middle of one of professor's classes, told that professor to fuck off, and walked right out of the classroom. We foolishly believed it until said friend and others who were in the same class denied the incident ever took place.

Another time, after we had become more acutely aware of Amy's deceit and penchant for the dramatic, one of my friends decided to test Amy to see just how far she would go. We were at a party and scurried off to the kitchen to make Amy a "fuzzy navel," which consisted of a glass of orange juice and, perhaps, a drop or two of peach schnapps. One pseudo-navel later Amy was rolling around the floor in a "drunken" stupor.

I admittedly did not spend a great deal of time around Amy. There are certainly other of my contemporaries who have seen and heard more, but what I did experience of Amy made it quite clear to me that something wasn't quite right. At that time, however, it just seemed like a harmless annoyance. I think we all assumed that once Amy assimilated into the adult world a bit more, it would mature her and her personality would calm down. Apparently, the opposite came to fruition.

I actually remember the genesis of her LOTR mania, as I too was rather fanatical about the movies at that time. I remember sitting in the Student Center at CNU while Amy was sewing away at her Frodo costume. Who knew it was the beginning of such a sad and strange saga?!

There were times I felt sorry for Amy, and there are times I still do. You have to wonder how someone goes so totally wrong. Was it her parents? Was it the world in general? Is she just nutters? Really makes you want to look into nature vs. nature. It's all the more sad when one considers how truly intelligent and talented she is -- but I suppose that's also what makes her dangerous. She is an adult now and she's done terrible things to innocent people -- not to mention her family and other loved ones. It's time she took responsibility for her actions and stopped running. She needs help. But in the meantime, I sincerely hope no one else gets snowed by her mind games.

I'm still astounded that I actually *know* this person. These are the sort of folks you hear about in the news, but never entirely believe exist. But yes, Virginia, there *is* an Amy Player...er, Jordan Wood...whatever. Thanks for writing this book and drawing attention to Amy and Abbey's scams. If anything, it's provided hours of entertainment for many of us folks down here in VA. My friend Greg and I have spent many an afternoon in giggle fits while riffing on the Amy/Jordan madness (we've been debating who will play us in the inevitable TV movie of her life...I'm voting Janeane Garofalo for me...hehe)

* * * * *

Look at that story about the "in class incident." What point could she POSSIBLY have had, making up a lie like that? Especially one that was so easy to disprove. Amy said herself that the reason she pulls this crap is that she likes to see just how far she can go before getting caught. Hell, that was probably a lie too, but maybe it had a grain of truth.

I have hundreds of letters like this one. So many people have contributed to this story. I'm beginning to wish I didn't purge this journal last year... but in the end, I bet I could reconstruct most of it from the emails I've kept.

Amy's no "criminal mastermind." She's a liar. A liar of consistent, unfathomable, inhuman proportion. She tells lies for no discernible reason at all. She tells lies when the truth is actually more convenient or would serve her better. And she definitely tells lies to get what she wants, whether it's money, the company of celebrities, or the admiration of others.

Pathetic.

Not to forget the bystander...

2011-06-05T21:39:15Z

I got a message from a friend of the other young man who was killed in this debacle. She pointed me to his FB page.

I don't know why I felt like I should post this, it's really pretty macabre, but everyone's talking about Ms. Quinn and Mr. Eisenburg... it just seems like Mr. Chambers deserves "recognition" too. Or something like that.

Anyway, yeah. Sad stuff.

For the record...

2011-05-25T08:01:39Z

Somewhere on some subset of FW, there is a post stating that "the DAYD community" (don't know if this is on FB, LJ, or what) received a mass-email about me. According to this email, I contacted one of Brittany's brothers and "shoved the wank in his face."

This is totally false. Period. I have never contacted anyone in the Quinn or Eisenburg family.

Several people claiming to be friends of theirs have written to me, and asked questions, which I've answered. These friends may have passed information along, but if so, that was their decision.

Anyone who can type the word "google" into a web browser may have discovered Amy Player wank and passed it along. Amy Wank is not exactly hard to procure.

Or, perhaps no one has shoved wank at the Quinns. Or perhaps this DAYD mass-mail was never sent, it's all just a rumor. I hope the whole thing is bunk, because shoving wank in the face of a grieving family member is just unspeakably rotten.

LATE ENTRY: I do have one "inside source" in the DAYD LJ community, who says they didn't receive any mass-mailing of this kind. So it's possible NONE of this even happened. Ugh.

Sigh... guess I better go into the Long Version

2011-05-23T06:48:26Z

All right, so here's how I got tipped off about Amy Player's latest ploy (the one resulting in a genuine triple-murder...)

Last night I got an email from Carlanime, a long time reader and commenter here at Tent Moot Crash. She has started a new journal under a new name and has asked that that pristine LJ be kept out of this, but she said to go ahead and share this under her former fandom name.

This is from her other journal, posted on May 18, 2011. I've added some explanations in brackets [].

... I found myself in the mood to read DAYD ["Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness, a fanfiction novel written by Amy Player under the name "Andy Blake," LJ name "Thanfiction"]--try to charitably assume I was doing so for nice reasons, okay? LOL--only there is no way I could spend that much time staring at fanfiction on the computer screen. And then I had a brilliant idea: I would ask for a kindle version!

And the DAYDians are, I have to say, a lovely bunch of people. [The same can be said about Bit of Earth--Amy likes to target lovely people] They immediately came up with kindle-able versions of the fic, offers to convert the other fics, and links to sites that would convert any fanfiction I wanted. I found myself really, really liking these people. They're just nice.

...then I backread a few posts to see what the comm was like, and I'm fairly sure their niceness is being epically taken advantage of.

There's this one post where he proposes a trip to NZ. Someone else screencapped it here.

Then there's a post entitled "For the Fallen." In which he announces that one of the people going on the NZ trip has been shot and killed and they need to take the NZ trip in her honour....yeah, I know. I'm just going to c&p this whole post: [For those of you who would prefer to read the original, it was posted on Facebook here.]

Daydian Friends and Family:

I'm sorry that I haven't been on in a while, and that I haven't been able to get this out sooner, but my life, which I am currently very grateful to have, has rather been turned upside down recently, and not in the usual ways of work and errands and random bad luck parking tickets.

Last Saturday, May 7, there was a shooting in Fairfield, California*, at the house I shared with [info]m_oquinn . I was fortunate to survive having merely taken a bullet to the ankle. [info]m_oquinn was not so fortunate. She was killed instantly.

[This has been reported in several newspapers and TV news shows. For once, Amy is telling the truth: there was a real double murder and suicide, and Amy was apparently shot in the ankle No wank here... this is the real thing].

For those of you who only knew her on the comm, she was [info]m_oquinn . She read DAYD back in 2008 when it had just been written, and lurked first at my personal LJ and then on the comm. In the summer of 2009, she gathered the courage to leave her abusive relationship and became active with us for the first time, coming to my attention when she sunk her teeth into the rather mammoth project of reviewing every single sketch I then had up on DeviantArt.

[Read that again. This woman, Brittany Quinn, had befriended Amy for the past 3 years. Brittany chose to accept and defend the lies that "Andy Blake" told--including that the Real Problem was "Andy's" Evil Twin Sister, Amy Player--and she has just been murdered in cold blood, IN AMY's PRESENCE. Do you see grief? Do you see shock and horror? Do you see Amy bragging offhandedly about what a prolific artist she is? That's what I see here.]

I should have known then that she had my own taste for shooting high. [Indeed, that's a tasteful remark] We started corresponding, and she was instrumental in making Daydcon '09 happen; running the auction, helping coordinate things, and even putting in almost $2000 of her own money towards Daydian tickets. She and I drove cross-country in a blizzard, spent a summer helping [info]magikcat112 and [info]dn_solis get on their newly-married feet, and walked 1100 miles up the Pacific coast with [info]deadskyblacksun . She was always willing to help fellow Daydians and host gatherings, and gave everything she had to others.

[Reminds me of Shireling Sue, who withdrew from college and used her tuition money to help Amy move to LA. Amy is an expert con artist--she doesn't steal money, she talks people into GIVING her their money.]

For those who knew her in person, however, she was a lot more. To them, she was Brittany Quinn, or as a particularly irrepressible two year old dubbed her, M'Bidney.

[Just like the (fictitious) Filipino makeup artist who dubbed Orlando Bloom "Li-Li-O Boom," no doubt. Amy loves to create a sense of intimacy with phony endearing nicknames.]

She was twenty-seven years old, born two days after St. Pats to bright blue eyes, a cinnamon spatter of freckles, and a pile of corkscrew curls the envy of every '80s curling rod, the oldest of nine children in the Napa Valley of California. She raised her siblings almost single-handedly, despite poverty that had eight children in a two-bedroom cinder-block house, homeschooling all of them through high school while teaching herself. There is a picture of her making dinner at the stove, experience clear in her confident handling of the pan and tools, stretching the meat with oatmeal, directing her younger siblings to cut the onions and set the table...when she was five.

[Getting piled pretty deep here. I just received an email from a friend of the Quinn family. There are some elements of truth in this story--Amy usually has something to base her wild tales upon. Kind of like Keizer Sose in "The Usual Suspects." To wit, according to this friend of the Quinn's, Brittany does have 8 sibs and does know how to cook. However, she states that Brittany's mother was an attentive and loving parent and did not force her to raise her sibs.

Recall that Amy's first scam was to accuse her own parents of selling her into the same Sex Slavery ring that murdered JonBenet Ramesey--and how some of the older child prostitutes helped Li'l Amy and other young ones learn how to read and what not. She's applying that same theme here, to Ms. Quinn. Amy has a habit of repeating stories that work.]

By the age of twelve, she had done logging, horse-breaking and cattle-wrangling, been a mother and teacher to eight, and could run a household to the envy of any 19th century homesteader, canning and baking, gardening, making herbal remedies, and making clothes. But she was also fascinated with geology and medicine, science, sociology, and most of all, the wide and varied world of people and their diverse cultures. She was equally comfortable making tortillas as wheat rolls as blinis as steam buns, and she always wanted to meet you, learn from you, talk to you, help you. It didn't matter who you were. You were a human being in Brittany's eyes, and that made you her friend and valuable to her.

She taught English in China, bringing home a t-shirt covered in carefully penned messages from her students, most of them begging her to come back for another semester. When the tsunami hit Indonesia, she traveled to the hardest-hit province, tucking her exuberant curls under a hijab in the only fundamentalist Muslim area and learning the prayers and verses from the Koran to offer comfort on their terms as she helped them dig out their homes and fed the hungry. She was active in multiple churches and aid organizations, and volunteered with the Queen of the Valley hospital as well as donating her skills as a certified massage therapist to several elder hospices and her skills as a licensed California Tax Preparer for abused women at a local shelter.

[The friend of Ms. Quinn confirmed that she went abroad with her church. She says that "Andrew Blake" was barred from services in that church. Apparently they could smell a rat.]

She had her right foot crushed not once, but twice and her nose broken as a teacher of equestrian therapy for autistic children, and sometimes her convictions and generosity meant sleeping on the street, but she laughed off those prices as incidental fees of an active life.

[No idea if this is true. Given that Amy's mother Cyd is a horse thief, having stolen and then negligently killed a pedigreed Arabian mare, I'm guessing this tale is mostly some kind of sick transference on Amy's part].

For four years, she was also trapped in a relationship with an abusive man who also employed her under slavery conditions in his business, where she learned the trade of advertising and audio-video production and determinedly built a network of contacts across the East Bay area. At first, she was wrapped up in how she could use his business to help others and attain more skills that could be useful for the less fortunate, not to mention that she was more than accustomed to a harsh life of brutally hard work. Eventually, however, she realized that being beaten and screamed at, locked out and forced to sleep in storage sheds and closets, and worked 16-20 hours a day to ever-changing standards was unacceptable, and backed by her friends at the shelter, she got out.

[Ms. Quinn's friend states, "I'm almost certain he never touched her in any violent way...jason had a video business and she did help him ..also when jason and brittney first move in together they worked on their house together side by side not like she was his slave."

Recall that when Amy and Abbey Stone got together and formed Bit of Earth (the fake charity that they used to swindle people worldwide), the two of them claimed that Abbey was the victim of horrible abuse--including being tied up and kept locked in the basement--by Abbey's husband Mike. Despite Abbey initiating the divorce, she and Amy ended up getting the jointly owned house, which they trashed. I saw the house--they painted screwy murals in it and left it unsellable. They also abandoned Mike's car, equally trashed, on a street in Salem (I have the police report of that somewhere). Amy also confessed, in her Fake Suicide Letter To Her Parents, that she and Abbey stole money from the Joint Checking Account and then pinned the theft on Mike--even going after him in court to "get the money back!" The point being: Bear in mind that Amy embellished/exaggerated/made up such stories about Mike, and not only got away with it, she profited from it. She is undoubtedly doing the same thing to Jason Eisenburg.]

Unfortunately, walking out the door didn't end the legal battle to separate herself from this man, and after she had given everything she had to the Alberigis, she was left with no other choice but to move back in to one of the jointly-owned properties.

[This would be the same woman who can afford to fly off to China and Indonesia... things do not quite add up here. This is a bad sign actually--Amy usually prides herself on weaving a plausible story. When she lets her stories get flimsy, that means she's aware that people are catching onto her, and she's getting ready to bolt.]

I went with her, trying to help keep her safe, and we almost made it. We had been careful and thorough, managing to stay away from him and utilize all the proper legal and police protections to hold on while the courts did their job. He stalled, he forged, he threw fits, but we kept our heads down and worked steadily.

[Amy always accuses the other party of doing the very things SHE is doing.]

Illustration. Catering. Waiting tables. Murals. Massage. Digging gardens. Running errands. Doing taxes. Slowly but surely, we dug ourselves out from having given everything away the summer of '10.

[Bear in mind that Amy has also claimed that some time in 2010, she and Ms. Quinn and some other "DAYDians" were taking a wonderful hike from (I believe) the Bay Area to Vancouver BC. I think she claimed to be walking the Pacific Crest Trail. Frankly, I doubt she has walked as far as Portland, Oregon to Vancouver, Washington, but who knows, maybe this happened. The point being that we have a number of conflicting reports from "Andy Blake" about this time period--was "he" working "his" fingers to the bone, or frolicking in the wilderness?]

On the morning of the 7th, we ran the numbers, and the news was good. We'd be able to get out again by the first of June, then head off to New Zealand for the cross-country trek, come back to our own room in the Napa Valley, work the grape harvest and bottling, and have an apartment in the Bay Area from which we could finish off the court proceedings. It was all going to be okay after all.

[Work the grape harvest... Shall I point out here that Amy spent the entire Project Elanor event "supervising," to the point that Sean Astin pulled she and Abbey aside and chewed them out for being lousy leaders and terrible examples? I don't see her raising one finger to do the hard physical labor of picking grapes.]

She enrolled for pre-med classes, happydancing around the room that she was going to be finally able to pursue her childhood dream of becoming a pediatrician for Doctors Without Borders.

[This is almost the exact same description Amy used to describe Cherie Deuvall, upon finding out that she would be meeting Sean Bean at Tentmoot. It's amazing to me, to see the same old stuff--same exact words, even--coming up again.]

I said only if I could get my nursing certificate alongside my marketing degree

[Amy is a college dropout, having left Christopher Newport University because she realized it was no fun to do homework and take tests. I went out to Virginia and met with some of her former friends and classmates, to get the truth about the college thing.]

so that I could come help sometimes. It was a deal. I had a client; Bonita the Fruit Bat Counts from One to Ten, a children's book to benefit the Costa Rican Rainforest. She offered to make tea and then give me a foot rub while I worked, because she was too excited and keyed up to focus on her grant applications just yet. I laughed, and said this seemed like a great deal to me, did we have any of that Chinese jasmine stuff from New Year left, and she left the room to wash out the tea kettle.

Footsteps on the stairs.

Eight shots.

Looking down the barrel of a 9mm six inches from my face.

It jammed.

Three times.

[Amy has written many tall tales of her military exploits, as "Jordan Wood," young man on the run from the Irish Republican Army, as a Genuine JRR Tolkien First Age Elf (reincarnated, of course) and other fictional identities. I believe "Andy Blake" was portrayed as some sort of soldier-of-fortune at one point, if I recall correctly. I seem to recall something about fighting for one side in the Balkans or Afghanistan or someplace, then returning and fighting for the opposite side, just to gain a deeper understanding of the ethnic conflict. Anyone remember that one? Of course, "Andy" also has a heart condition that was supposed to kill him sometime before June of 2010. That would probably preclude any military exploits. I just don't know anymore which lie is current.

Either way, this story reads like all of Amy's fiction, with the dramatic pauses and what not. Bear in mind that THIS REALLY HAPPENED; Ms. Quinn and another person were murdered in this apartment. Again, do you see horror? Do you see shock and PTSD? All I see is "ooh, here's an opportunity for me to show off my flair for dramatic writing."

Finally I note that Amy was shot in the foot, through a locked door. I am quite certain that she ran like a cowardly dog when she first heard shots, locked her housemates outside with the shooter, and was probably cowering behind a piece of furniture when Mr. Eisenburg shot at her.]

Calling 911.

Trying to talk him down.

A bullet in my ankle and two in his head.

[Excuse me, but does this imply that "Andy" somehow wrestled the gun away from Eisenburg, getting shot in the process, and "put him down?" I'm sorry, Amy, but you're no Jack Reacher. Or Jack Bauer. Or Jack Shit, when you get right down to it.]

Twelve minutes, fourteen seconds between the first shots and me in the back of an ambulance begging to know if Brittany was alive and getting my answers in the evasive looks of the medics and the overheard chatter of the scanner in the front cab. It was not okay any more.

For me, it will be okay again.

[Of that we have no doubt, Amy.]

For Brittany, it won't. That bright, beautiful, vibrant life is over. It ended too soon, too fast, too brutally, but that doesn't mean its influence on the world has to be snuffed off as quickly, or that it has to end with a handful of sweat-rumpled flower petals tossed on before the first shovel of rich Napa soil hits the casket lid with a hollow patter of false finality.

[ummm, wtf? False finality? A young woman has been murdered. What's the false part? More of Amy's overdone prose, devoid of grief or horror.]

Officially, there will be services for her at the Cornerstone Church in Napa, California, at 2pm on Saturday, May 21, 2011. When we discussed what-ifs, she always said that the Daydians were her friends and family without question, and if you can read this post, you're more than welcome by Brittany's account to attend her memorial. [Gee, thanks for giving us permission.] There is also a request by the family that in lieu of flowers, you consider a donation to NEWS, the local Napa shelter for battered women and children.

[That was probably a legitimate Ask--and it provides the perfect segue into a less legitimate Ask:]

For myself, however, I cannot be content with that. She was worth so much more than a donation card, an afternoon in a starched collar, and where should we have dinner tonight before I take you back to the airport thank you so much for coming.

Brittany had her heart set on the New Zealand trek. Taking primarily the Te Araroa from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island in what she was damned determined would be record-breaking time, there wasn't a day that went by that she wasn't talking about it, and she had pulled in every connection that she'd ever made to try and get her portion of the to-do list done, insisting on taking the bulk of the gear collection because of her wide network and fervent work ethic. She used to say without really joking at all that she'd do it over her own dead body if need be.

And so I will. [info]deadskyblacksun , [info]martimus_prime , and [info]dave_agnew have also renewed their commitment to this trek, and we are going to walk it in her name. [info]kate_lb is also trying to get the time off work to take Brittany's place on the team. Yes, I will walk all 1,864miles with the bullet still in my ankle if I have to.

[Never gonna happen. This is my prediction of the Great NZ Trek:

1) "Andy" sponges up money from the DAYD people for "his" heroic symbolic trek and manages to get a flight to NZ.

2) Soon after landing, however, "Andy" will be "hospitalized" for an infection in the wounded ankle. This leads to a new Big Ask, as "he" appeals online for money for medical bills since "he" is in grave danger of losing "his" leg. This is straight from one of Amy's early scams: as "Victoria Bitter," Amy claimed to be hospitalized with an eye infection (completely false). For this she received gifts, letters of encouragement, and even an autographed picture of one of the LOTR actors (a gift from the Bit of Earth message board on Yahoo).

3) In reality, "Andy" is spending "his" days attempting to sneak onto the set of "The Hobbit," since that has always been Amy's dream: to rub shoulders with Peter Jackson and the LOTR cast.

Personally, I don't know how, in the era of Homeland Security, Amy will manage to get a passport in the name of Andrew Blake. I know she got a fraudulent driver's license for "Andy" in Virginia, but I would HOPE that a phony passport will not be a piece of cake.

On the other hand, I do know how desperately Amy wants to be part of the Hobbit movie. I'm sure she's putting her best efforts into this.]

We will do it for Brittany, we will do it for domestic violence awareness, and to raise money for victims of domestic violence rather than the original plan of the Christchurch Earthquake.

[The State of Oregon fined Amy Player in 2004 for operating a phony charity. Amy and Abbey, under the imprint of their fake charity, Bit of Earth, had been raising money that they claimed was earmarked for the real charity, Reading is Fundamental. They asked actor Sean Astin to host a special showing of "LOTR: The Two Towers" in Portland, which he did. Abbey stood on that stage and said to Sean and the audience, "You all just raised $3,000 for RIF!" RIF, however, never saw a dime of that money. It all went into the clove cigarettes that Abbey and Amy smoked. Amy has been forbidden from any involvement in charitable fundraising in the State of Oregon. Had she made that claim in Oregon, she could be fined $25,000. But she did it in California, so she will get away with it. Nice, huh?]

We will do it in her name, and we would like to do it with your help. In the next post, I will be putting up what was originally Brittany's part of the to-do list. I think that if one extraordinary woman could do it, an extraordinary community definitely can in her memory.

For the fallen. We have lost our first.

[Amy Player is using this woman's death as an avenue for conning money out of the DAYD group. Plain and simple. And appalling. But the very best part is yet to come. "Andy's" final comments:]

* Yes, I know this is the internet, and this seems so very hard to believe. Here is an article about the shooting. Here is Brittany's obituary. And here, if you want to see, is the x-ray of my ankle. With bullet.

[The name on the xray film is Andrew Blake, at Queen of the Valley hospital. There is some speculation about whether it's fake, but the news stories have confirmed that "Andy Blake" was shot in the ankle. Plus, I've seen plenty of bullets-in-bodies X-rays before and it looks authentic to me.

What I find ironic is that Amy has learned from the past. How many fake Internet deaths and injuries has she pulled off now? She was faster than a fecking Ferrari to follow up this claim with credible evidence--newspaper articles, obits, and her own Xray films. Almost as though she knew people might doubt her story...]

I just don't know. I HATE thinking he's lying about that, but...well, BY A STRANGE COINCIDENCE, all the expensive parts of the NZ trip (like booking plane tickets and buying gear) were the responsibility of the dead girl, and now he's asking the others to take over her tasks. Which, if it's true, is incredibly touching.
But if it's not true....

And so that's how I got involved in this chapter. In the past 24 hours, I sent emails to several of the reporters and to the Fairfield PD. I doubt that they will take any interest whatsoever. They have a nice, closed case: man goes nuts over divorce stress, goes on killing spree. Simple and concise. They don't want to know that the man was being harassed by a professional con artist, who did this at least once before with Abbey's husband and will undoubtedly do it again.

I've heard from this friend of the Quinns, who states that "I've been doing some research and saw that amy is trying to do some scam in brittneys name" and has asked me what she can do about it.

I have taken so much crap regarding Amy Player over the years. "You're just stupid and gullible. The fact that you're willing to admit you got conned just proves even further how stupid and gullible you are. You should get a life instead of obsessing over Amy." And of course, my favorite: "Why are you still picking on Amy, get over it, she's obviously changed..."

This is why. Because I could see almost 10 years ago that Amy was NOT going to stop, and that she would seriously ruin someone's life. I felt compelled to try to stop her. Because I've always believed in the adage, "If not me, then who?"

When my mom died last year, I gave up on trying. The DAYDians were so determined to support "Andy," and believe all her absurd stories (yes, the one about "Andy" being the unfortunate twin brother of the Evil Amy Player, what a whopper), and I had other fish to fry.

I knew Amy was going to get someone hurt. I knew she would eventually victimize someone who would get too angry and lash out physically. I expected HER to get her ass beat, or worse. I frankly expected it to happen on Hollywood Blvd, back when she was conning the other street people in front of the Chinese Theater.

Now three people are dead and Amy not only lives on, but she's scamming on, too.

I'm so sorry for the Quinn family, and the Eisenburg family, and the family of the other roommate, Tony. I feel guilty that I haven't done more to put a stop to Amy Player, but honestly, I don't know what else I might have done. I hope that it helps them to understand a little more about just how poisonous Amy is, and how she victimized all of these people, even the shooter, with her con artistry, her well-honed skills at agitating and harassing people with phony legal proceedings, and her vast experience at brainwashing lonely people. They were caught up in something that was beyond their control: the Cult of Amy Player, Charismatic Sociopath.

I hope that when Brittany's mom, in her grief, feels like she somehow failed her daughter, she can use this knowledge to put the blame where it really lies.

And there was blood, this time

2011-05-22T06:35:05Z

http://www.fox40.com/news/headlines/ktxl-lawsuits-court-orders-led-up-to-deadly-fairfield-triple-shooting-20110509,0,411368.story

Guess who the roommate was--the one who got shot in the foot?

"Andrew Blake."
aka Thanfiction.
aka Jordan Wood.
aka Victoria Bitter.
aka Amy Player.

And now "Andy's" asking for money for a plane flight to New Zealand. In order to walk across the country in a charity effort to benefit victims of domestic violence. Originally "Andy" wanted to do the walk to benefit the Christchurch earthquake victims, but this tragedy changed "Andy's" mind.

Lest we forget,Amy Player was found guilty of operating a fraudulent charity and illegally soliciting charitable donations. Amy still owes the real charity, Reading Is Fundamental, $3000. Besides, I'm quite sure that the only reason Amy wants to go to NZ is to sneak onto the set of "The Hobbit."

When Eisenburg's father quoted those "legal documents" that Eisenburg received, they had some familiar themes. Reminded me a lot of that fake Cease and Desist letter that Amy and Abbey sent to me and the entire cast of the LOTR films, actually. What do you want to bet that Amy wrote the "civil suit" that pushed Jason Eisenburg over the edge? What do you want to bet that this is why Jason Eisenburg shot Amy in the foot, through the locked door of the bathroom where Amy was hiding?

What do you want to bet that Amy charged into that bathroom at breakneck speed as soon as the gun showed up, locking Brittany Quinn outside to face the shooter alone?

I'm appalled. And yet there's nothing I can do. Three people are dead, and I know that Amy's lies and manipulations had something to do with it--if not EVERYTHING to do with it. Amy might as well have pulled the trigger. But if there's anything I've learned from all this, it's that it's easier for Amy to make people believe lies, than for me to make people believe the truth. And now that monster is getting away with murder, for real.

*headdesk*

Amazing art project (not mine) and other ramblings

2010-06-23T19:34:02Z

First things first... you guys MUST watch this video. This gal at the Art Center constructed an INCREDIBLY complex ceramic version of Howl's Moving Castle and RAKU FIRED it. Those of you who have done Raku know why that is so utterly jawdropping and deserving of all caps. For the rest, well, just watch and trust me, this is COOL:

So we heat the little Raku kiln up to around 1800 degrees Farenheit, open it, remove the ceramic piece and shove it in a barrel of newspaper. The burning paper smokes the clay so it turns black, and it creates a low-oxygen environment so the glazes are "reduced," in the chemical reduction sense, as in adding electrons to turn the positive metal ions in the glaze back into their charge-neutral form. Hence the amazing copper on the pipework, it's actual copper from cuprous carbonate that's been slammed back into metal, bonded to the clay.

The process of suddenly dropping from 1800 degrees to around 500 puts a certain amount of stress on the clay (thermal expansion and all that), so Raku is not generally something you do to a delicate piece, or one you've worked on for a long time. We were all begging her not to Raku this thing, actually, because everyone reckoned they'd take off that upper garbage can and there would be a pile of rubble in the pail. Wow.

In other news: Many of you know that I tend to get involved with community service organizations (and boy, do I make sure they're legitimate after the BoE fiasco). I was one of the co-founders of the art center where that sculpture was made, actually. This is my latest endeavor:

What a shitty time to try to start a new nonprofit. We have until August of next year to get this radio station built and start broadcasting, or the FCC will pull our license and give it to someone else. There's only so much FM bandwidth available and it's in high demand. Getting the license in the FIRST place was a MASSIVE ordeal, it's incredibly competitive, volumes of intelligent paperwork had to be submitted with lawyers and engineers, the whole bit. It SUCKS that the entire US economy went into the toilet JUST AS we got this opportunity to construct a really cool new resource for the community.

So if you're feeling generous, chip in towards our FM transmitter. Community radio Utterly Rules for many, many reasons. We'll stream it live someday and I plan to have my own show. Help put me on the radio! The world needs more snark and blinding hot light of truth.

Enough of that. A collective thanks to the people who have left recent comments regarding my mom and/or my recent LJ purge. I'm currently embroiled in my own official Mid Life Crisis (TM). I want to get my birthmark tattooed, to put a frame around the mark Mom left on me, so to speak (even though I know she had nothing to do with it, port-wine stains come from a failure of neural crest migration which is entirely fetal in origin). I discovered a "new to me" band called Radiohead (I know, I'm a fossil. What can I say, I was really preoccupied during the 90's and early aughts) and now I want to be in a grunge rock band (hey, I can write angsty existential lyrics and sing them in a poorly enunciated, barely understandable way). When I really get caught up in it, I ponder the wisdom of taking up smoking, for the specific reason of ensuring that I don't live long enough to see all my friends die before me. Fuckses, Precious.

As you can see, I've been doing some serious stewing these past few months.

Recent discoveries that make life worth sustaining yet another hour:

1) Radiohead
2) The IT Crowd
3) Shynola, and the Strawberry Swing video they made for Coldplay
4) Salem Weight Management (I've lost 31 pounds since February)
5) These Guys, who remodeled my backyard and it is so beautiful I just sit out on my new steps and admire it
6) A Tale of Two Cities, which I somehow was never forced to read in high school or college but actually KICKS ASS
7) The phrase "Recalled to Life" per entry #6
8) Christopher Marley's gallery, which is inexplicably located here in Salem
9) The Spillcam.

Actually, watching the Spillcam kinda makes me want to give up, but then I think of all those pelicans that will need help. Already planning a trip to the Gulf shores once the kids are back in school. I was going to go sooner but my friend Betsy (a 20-year veteran of the Parks Service in Florida) advised me to wait a few months when the novelty has worn off AND the REAL BULK of the spill starts washing up.

That's what I've been up to lately. Sorry I haven't been keeping up with comments, emails, phone calls, etc. Too busy battling with mortality, unresolved neuroses, and such crap. Thank Ghod for strawberries in the garden.

Had to share: I got my hush money, after all!

2010-04-04T23:10:07Z

Hey gang,

Yeah, yeah, I swore off this stuff, but like an addict, I'm back. Just a teeny tidbit for your amusement: the final scoop on Thanfiction's payola effort.

To recap:

Around Dec. 9, 2009: Someone buzzed thru this journal (prior to my Big Cleansing Purge) and noted that Amy Player/Victoria Bitter/Jordan Wood had re-emerged under the new fake identity of Andy Blake or "Thanfiction." Basking in the limelight of Harry Potter fanfic and fanart. Claiming to have a rare heart disease with mere months to live--and ooh so gratefully accepting "donations" for "heart medicine" and rent (while living at home with the parents). And selling blatantly copied art for "commissions." Amy was even planning a convention to meet all "Thanfiction's" new friends! In other words, the usual.

Within nanoseconds of my posting an update of Amy's whereabouts, I got a Livejournal PM from none other than "Andy Blake":

This was exciting, for not only did this confirm 100% that "thanfiction" was, in fact, Amy Player, but Amy was also finally coughing up some of the money that "Jordan" and Abbey stole from me, back in the day! Whee!

Sadly, however, there was a problem. I'd VERY recently switched internet hosts and all my emails were disappearing off into the ether. Amy had sent the payment to an address that was not functioning. Argh. On top of it all, that particular addy wasn't even hooked up to my paypal account. I envisioned that Paypal would get a bounceback from the mailserver saying "No such address," cancel the payment, and that would be that. DAMN! Probably my last chance to get any of my money back, and it was foiled by technology and bad timing.

Being ever hopeful, though, I went ahead and fixed the mailservers and also added the email Amy had used to my Paypal account. Hey, why not? Amy may decide someday to just pay me back and be done with it, right? I'm such an optimist.

So today I'm downloading my paypal account info in order to do my taxes (yeah, just getting around to them, what can I say, it's been an overwhelming year). Not a lot of transactions, but I download them to Excel and start deleting all the extra lines and annoying bookkeeping baloney like "temporary holds" and what not...

... and much to my utter shock and delight, there was Andy Blake's $100 payment.

Can I tell you all how much I love Paypal?? I mean, it kept trying to find me after I screwed up my email servers, and it DID find me once I fixed the problem... and it delivered $100 of Amy Player's money right to my doorstep.

OF course, knowing that Amy GOT that money by defrauding other people kind of sucks... but once again I remind myself that I'm no longer in the "protecting others" business. If YOU, dear reader, gave "Andy Blake" some cash for "heart medicine" or "rent," you now know that it went to me, to bribe me from spreading the truth about Amy Player's latest scam. If you happen to resent that fact, then maybe you'd better take that up with "Andy." Of course, bear in mind that "Andy" still owes thousands of dollars to dozens of people, so you're at the end of a long line.

Oops, I forgot, "Andy's" already outlived his life expectancy. Gosh, maybe someone can post a link to "Andy's" obit.

Still waiting to see if Amy shows up as "Mike Conner," as promised...