With an online presence like “Mantodea,” a lot of people wonder why I don’t use my real name. The answer is quite simple…

My real name is too common.

A few months ago when I was trying to create an online presence for my website work, I tried making a domain name out of my real name. You know, something like: laurenporter.com

Taken.

lauren-porter.com?

Taken.

laurenporter.net?

Taken.

SHEESH! Who is using my name all over the interwebs? Well, in order to find this out, I decided to google my name and see who else was using it and for what. That is how I came across a pleasant surprise.

Someone with my name knitted herself a Ferrari!!

Source: http://www.gizmodiva.com/other_stuff/ lauren_porters_knitted_ferrari_is_hot_in_the_signature_red.php

Her and twenty other knitters which incorporated family and friends, knit most of this in garter stitch squares, 250 of them, around a steel frame that she herself welded together and put together. I, ironically, am just starting to learn about knitting and starting to knit little bags, socks and gloves for myself; but would never even think of knitting a Ferrari!

So what cool stuff can you find when you google search your name?

Check out her website, which is full of cool stuff at: http://www.lauren-porter.co.uk/

During the recession, it is very hard to take a vacation without spending tons and tons of money. It is usually during these times that we take a look around local attractions, trying to find “side adventures” so we don’t go crazy from being stuck at home. Being a New Jersey native all of my life, weirdness and the paranormal seem to be one of many tourist attractions of this state. Heck, the Weird New Jersey Magazine originated from here, and got numerous teenagers arrested for trespassing ever since.

So what is a Jersey girl to do when she is getting a mild case of cabin fever and not wanting to spend too much money to have a good time? Go spend a weekend in Cape May’s Victorian district, what else?

A few weeks ago a couple of friends and I decided to take a trip to Cape May during their “Girlfriend Getaway Weekend.” We were drawn by the thought of a relaxing weekend near the ocean (granted it isn’t warm enough yet to swim) and originally, we were told of a Slow Food Festival going on that weekend that would’ve had a walkthrough winery tour, with wine, cheese and chocolate tasting!

How could a woman say no to that?

So we booked a room at the Southern Mansion, an old victorian bed and breakfast, just to add extra excitement to our trip. Why do you ask? It is said to be haunted. That and there was a coupon deal online for a weekend stay. Remember, we’re still in a recession.

We arrived on Friday night and were literally blown away by the decorum of the place. Even though our original plan was to enjoy drink and food, slowly the bed and breakfast itself became the highlight of the trip. The first night there, we tried hard to communicate with the spirits of the bed and breakfast since our room was ironically across the hallway from the very “active” room. A few bumps and bangs in the night later, we got nothing. 

Southern Mansion Lounge

Saturday we get up, planning to head to the Slow Food Festival, originally being told online that it was a $5 entrance fee. But when we called to get more information on the festival, we were then told it was $125 to just attend! Where did that extra 120 dollars come from?!

So now what? We got no haunting (just weird dreams) and now the festival was not within our budget. Well the Southern Mansion was within walking distance of a mall so we did what any group of females would do… SHOP!

Weird toys in Cape May...

I have to say I actually got a huge kick out of shopping here. There are a lot of antique stores and knickknack stores that you can’t find anywhere else. There was even a few craft stores, which are harder to find up in Northern New Jersey, that we all took enjoyment in. The only odd thing we noticed in one of these craft stores is that it seemed that yarn balls kept trying to fall around us, even though we didn’t touch them. The owners told us simply to not to worry about it, rang up our purchases and let us go on our merry way.

After shopping in a few more stores, and my one friend finding the comic book vault (and then getting “locked up” inside it) we grabbed some dinner at the Lobster House. Couldn’t go wrong with having a nice big lobster in your belly!

The victim...

Determined to find some weirdness and excitement in this trip, we all bought tickets for the “Cape May Trolley Ghost Tour” and actually found it interesting. They drive you around in the trolley, pointing out places that a local medium sensed spirits out, telling you stories and the history of the town. What was even more interesting is the store we had yarn drop around us was one of the places that were said to be haunted, having that same exact incident happen to other people who entered the store.

Now slightly excited from the news in the ghost tour, we walked back to the Southern Mansion, where one of the workers asked us what they said about them on the tour. Apparently, all the trolley tour said about the haunting of the bed and breakfast was slightly wrong. After getting the correct story of the haunting, we again tried to reach some ghostly contact. This time, we actually heard children’s voices, piano’s playing and even had a loud bang in our room for no reason.

Southern Mansion Solarium

All in all, when we left the Southern Mansion, we were sad but not disappointed. We got a little “spook”, we learned more about the history of the town and we still got pampered with the free breakfasts and the luxury rooms it had to offer. I definitely recommend a trip to Cape May and staying at one of their bed and breakfasts for one time in your life if you like history and a few good ghost stories. However, I suggest going early or late in the year, as the rates are much lower. If you don’t want to spend the cash to stay overnight, I still recommend taking a day trip to either enjoy the shops or the restaurants they have there.

Is Cape May truly haunted? Perhaps. But I think I’ll need another weekend there to find out for sure.

*hint hint*

This is again, another “current events” blog but this situation just intrigues me and confuses me at the same time.

Pirates? This is year 2009, right? We didn’t back track somewhere, correct?

Of course, I’m referring to the Captain Phillips/Somalia pirates situation. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m actually amazed that there are still pirates in the seven seas. Every time I get an image from the word “pirate” I pretty much envision Blackbeard. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. Pirates of the Caribbean. Not a bunch of guys with guns, acting like terrorists, holding Navy captains hostage for money.

Where are the doubloons? Where are the true swashbucklers? Where’s the freaking talking parrot?

Well, I guess we should really call these either “modern pirates” or “sea criminals.” It sort of saddens me that this is going on. I used to LOVE pirates. When I was younger, I even did a whole research paper on the famous pirates of olden times. Even though they were thieves, and I guess not too much different from these modern pirates, there was some sort of honor and heroic flair given to them. A sense of adventure and sense of duty of being a pirate was plastered along with their imagery.

However these pirates are viewed as a bunch of money-grabbing bastards. And I sadly have to agree with that.

Historically speaking, pirates of back then were also money-grabbing bastards, all about raping and pillaging other ships or small villages, but something here with these Somali pirates doesn’t add up. I guess the images we grow up with as children is what we usually view pirates as, not these pirates that used hostages to try and get their way.

I applaud this though, as this whole situation shows the truth in piracy. That piracy isn’t just Blackbeard or a few teens downloading the latest Metallica album without paying rights to it; but men who still roam the seven seas, trying to earn a quick buck off of other ships. Maybe, in a weird way, we can “protect” the image of olden pirates that we revere and idolize by now being knowledgeable of these problems. Maybe now, our country can focus on protecting our ships on the seas just as much as we have been worried about protecting our land.

Maybe this can not happen again.

As I’m writing this, Captain Phillips is now safe and three of the four pirates are dead, with the remaining pirate in custody. I’m sure that must be ironic for him, as now one of the pirates who was having him hostage now has the tables turned on him.

I’m glad Captain Richard Phillips is safe, and hope that the pirates get what they deserve.

Ok, it has been a while since I did a rant, and this is probably my first “technical” rant, but you all deserve it for putting up with me this long.

I usually like discovering new websites, videos, and other internet phenomenon, but sometimes certain things just piss me off. Right now, the target in my sights is Facebook.

Now, I like Facebook for numerous reasons but lately, they’ve become the bane of my existence. Years ago, Myspace was “my world.” Everything about me was on Myspace. However, as time went on, Myspace got boring, and took too long to update and keep up with user’s demands. It also got bombarded and full of games (can’t erase the gamer in me as hard as I try) so actually keeping in touch with people became hard. It seems the only reason I’m on myspace nowadays is to play the games I’m in and that is all.

I then slowly drifted to Facebook as Myspace became lower and lower on my priority list. I found old friends I had not talked to in YEARS and it also still had some games that I could play on there. Nowadays, I find myself playing and installing “applications” on both Myspace and Facebook.

During this transition, I became a fan of Twitter. It originally was set up to let my friends know what I was up to when I went to Otakon, since a few couldn’t go but wanted to feel like they were there with the rest of us. But as more and more people started following me, and starting conversations with me, I found myself using Twitter more for my “randumb” comments and to give everyone a little chuckle every once in a while.

This probably all sounds normal. So then, why am I ranting about Facebook you ask? Well it is quite simple…

…THEY ARE TRYING TO BE LIKE TWITTER!

I’m actually getting a bit ahead of myself here, but the first strike Facebook had with me was their updated “terms and conditions” with all the current users. This so-called “terms and conditions” pretty much said that any content posted on Facebook could be used at any time by Facebook for their own purposes. This pretty much destroyed everyone’s commandment right to privacy. This created a huge outrage by the Facebook users and Facebook, after a week or so, revised the terms and conditions.

The fact that they changed the terms and conditions put Facebook back in the spotlight for me, and I started using it again.

But now, Facebook has changed the design of their pages… to make it look more like Twitter.

My first complaint I ever had with Facebook was the design. It was very confusing to me, someone who was pretty much brought up on Myspace, to get used to Facebook. In fact, I probably would’ve “gotten into” Facebook a lot sooner if it weren’t for the design. I had finally gotten used to it when they changed it. However, it feels like it was more of a downgrade rather than an upgrade.

Why the need to be so similar to Twitter? What is the benefit of this?

I know I’m not alone on this rant as other Facebook users have actually started petitions against the new design. Everything got shifted around and it is almost impossible to figure out what is going on. Instead of being Facebook, they should’ve just renamed itself Twitter #2.

Facebook: gain some individuality!

I will stick with Facebook, twitterized and all, as long as I can, but I truly hope that the designers bring back the old design and work up from that one; not Twitter’s.

Yes, I said shtuff.

A few people have been wondering what is going on with the blog and where I have been. There actually has been a reason for the lack of posts and I have realized just now that I should’ve kept you all updated with the reason. I apologize for that.

The reason for the scarcity of the blog posts is pretty simple: I’m making a website.

That’s right, www.mantodea.net will soon be the new home of my blog, my YouTube videos, my tweets and pretty much anything that is going on with me at the current moment.

So what will happen to my wordpress blog?

I’m looking at ways to move this to my website (I’ve heard it is possible) but just in case I can’t, I didn’t want to put too many posts here that would be lost.

However, since everything is taking much longer than planned, I will keep posting here a bit more frequently. In fact, I should have a new post, that isn’t an update, on here either later today or tomorrow.

I shall let you all know how everything progresses. There are some really cool things coming so stay tuned!

I usually don’t like talking about politics, nor blog this often, but with this Sarah Palin business, I need to get this off my chest…

…why is everyone buying into this?

Now, let me start off by saying I consider myself independent, and really hold no “affiliation” with either political party. The only reason I’m currently a registered democrat is because the stupid city where I live said in order to vote in the primary, even though it was said independents were allowed to vote in the primary for either republicans or democrats, I had to declare a side and vote for only that side. So, since the democratic vote seemed more worth the effort, I became a democrat just for those few minutes in voting.

What I’m ranting about and annoyed about here, is people using Palin as a platform for the feminist movement. Now, I’m all for women’s rights. Trust me, I’m a woman. For me not to be would idiotic. However, I don’t support the whole Sarah Palin issue.

My reasons as for why are as follows:

1. This is an obvious attempt to get Hillary followers from the republican party. This wasn’t done for the movement towards equality in genders. This was done purely for votes and publicity.
2. To even put a woman on the ticket to try and “sway” female voters insults the intelligence of women in America. Now if you support the platforms McCain and Palin stand on, then by all means, vote for them. Vote for what they stand for, not for what gender they are.
3. Some of the people supporting Palin are just completely brainwashed idiotic people, in my opinion. I watched a few bipartisan discussions regarding McCain’s pick of Palin, and whenever anyone from the democratic side merely mentioned they were worried about her experience, it automatically became an insult to all women in America. WHAT? Are we SERIOUS? If we as women in this country want to be treated as equals, as independent strong individuals, then stop GENERALIZING EVERYTHING!

Now I know, probably in me saying all this, I’m going to get some comment or some message saying I really don’t support feminism in the United States, and will sway it in some way saying I’m really writing this just to support Obama, or some other fabricated bullshit.

Let me get this out of the way. For all of you who think this way of me, SHUT THE FUCK UP!

I’m not trying to make either party seem better than the other. What I’m annoyed with is how people are getting soooooo bent out of shape over Sarah Palin being McCain’s pick. Yes, it is nice we are in a time where a woman can possibly be vice president of the United States. And yes, it is also nice we are in a time where an African-American man can possibly be president of the United States. I’m definitely proud of how far we’ve come as a nation that either situation can happen. And I definitely support equality for both race and gender. However, I feel a big step towards equality is to stop generalizing, stop pointing out the differences and to start pointing out on the similarities.

We can only come together when we stop segregating and classifying ourselves. Race, nor creed, nor gender should be a factor in ANYTHING. ESPECIALLY in a country that is considered a melting pot!

We are human beings. Period.

As far as the election goes, yes, this is a historical election. My only hope is no matter how anyone votes, it is for the issues. Not for the fact one has all penises and one has a vagina in the mix or ones all pale and the other has a dark man in it. SHOCKER!

Remember, we are all just one race, the human race. And we all want to be treated as equals.

Let’s start acting that way then.

Right now, I’m really beginning to hate cars.

Not only is the gas crisis getting to me, but just the actual make of the cars, and also my own ignorance with automobiles is bothering me.

Right now I have a 2005 Nissan Sentra, and I bought it pre-owned in 2006 with only 15,000 miles on it. Now I know it is pre-owned, and I know there might’ve been previous problems with it, but for the time I’ve had it, it has been somewhat good to me. It was in one bad accident where while everyone ahead of me had stopped, the person behind me just decided to try and plow through me. It was about $7000 worth of damage and I got a new “butt” on my car. And even though I’ve racked up over 70,000 miles on it from my random trips over the past two years, it seemed to be just fine.

So we come to the end of this most recent labor day weekend where I’m trying to drive back home after visiting family, and I witness typical Garden State Parkway stupidity ahead of me. Someone just decided to swing into my lane, with no directionals, just to pass someone slower ahead of them, and totally forgot I was right behind him. So I, along with a few others as he passed over several lanes, had to slow down pretty quickly in order to avoid a nasty accident. All the cars slowed down, including mine, and it should’ve been fine. However, for some reason, my brake lights wouldn’t go off after I had taken my foot off the brake pedal.

Worried I might have done something to the brakes of my car, I pulled over to the right-most lane and when no one was behind me, tried to press on the brake a few times to make sure I could stop. I still could slow my car down just fine, however the brake lights refused to go off.

I then noticed I was nearing a rest area. “Great! I can pull in and see if I can make the lights go off,” I thought as I quickly pulled into the rest stop. I pulled into a parking spot, turned off the car, and much to my dismay found the brake lights still on.

I had tried slamming the trunk down, pressing the brake pedal multiple times, tried turning the car on and off multiple times to no avail. No matter what, these brake lights weren’t going off.

Friends came over, my mother came over, I pretty much had a mini car fair going on in the parking lot of the rest stop with people trying to figure out what was mysteriously wrong with my car. And between all of us, we couldn’t figure it out.

Thankfully, I had AAA, and I had called them to at least come and tow the car as I couldn’t just leave it there. I then found out in New Jersey, due to our wonderful state legislation, AAA can’t come out to disabled vehicles on the Parkway or the Turnpike. State Police had to come over. And what also pissed me off is I then noticed that even though I had paid my member dues to AAA for another year, they still had not sent me a new card! I knew it was a risk calling them with an expired number but I had hoped I’d be in their computer records so they could look it up. But no such luck, I had to deal with a third party. So I was transferred to the state police to a very nasty guy on the phone. I understand it sucks dealing with people and probably half the time, people call about really stupid things. I’ll even go out on the limb and say out of all the things to call the state police about, my situation was probably a common annoyance. But, you still don’t need to cut me off and be snappy and rude to me. I think I’ve already had enough bullshit to deal with for the night!

So state police never show up but they send a mechanic over who takes a look at my car. Within about ten minutes, he’s able to tell me what’s wrong with my car and also showed me how to override the shift lock in my car. Now this is when I question the make of the car. I want to know who had the bright idea to make a small hole near the gear shift in the middle console where you need to stick your ignition key into to finally move the gear shift if stuck. And then, I want to smack the person upside the head who didn’t put this in the driver’s manual. I had pretty much read that manual by the time everyone came to my mini car fair and the mechanic showed up. NOWHERE did it even mention a shift unlocking feature in my car. You would think you would want to mention that, especially since after researching online, this seems to be a not so uncommon problem.

By then the car was freed, the mechanic told me my brake switch was loose and needed to be replaced, did a temporary fix so I could get home and drive it for a day or two with no problems and was on his way. I will tell you this much, I nervously drove that car back home, wincing everytime I came to a stop, hoping the lights won’t stay on again.

Right now the car is in the shop, and actually as I was writing this blog, just heard back from them with them telling me the replacing brake switch might take a few days to arrive. Lovely. Just more car issues to deal with.

So now you find me here, currently car-less, annoyed at having to deal with cars breaking down so soon. The car is only three years old and I have spent about as much money as fixing up my previous car, a ‘94 Pontiac Bonneville, easy. And that car had a broken sunroof which would leave pools of water in my car during the rainy season!!

I’ve dealt with three vehicles during my “driving lifetime.” A ‘94 Pontiac Bonneville, a ‘93 Nissan Pathfinder, and the ‘05 Nissan Sentra. And right now I’m baffled that the two older cars seemed to be in better shape than my newer car. The Bonneville was a hand-me-down from my mother and I only got rid of it because the engine was finally going. It was an old car, with about 190,000 miles on it and it had a good run. I still have the Pathfinder, but it was my father’s car that I inherited after his passing and it does still need work. I’m currently still saving up for that, since it doesn’t have too many miles on it and when fixed up would work just fine, but everytime I save up just enough to fix it, THE SENTRA BREAKS!

Why is the newer car breaking so often? I don’t know. It could be the accident. It could be the fact I put so many miles on it in a short time. It could be because something happened with the first owner before I got it. I’m not really sure. I just know between the AAA craziness with NJ State Legislation and them still not sending me a renewed card (makes me wonder why I even paid for another year), the obvious gas and economic crisis going on in the country currently, and just the reoccurring mechanical repairs I am getting sick and tired of automobiles. I know learning about cars and car repair might help save money when my car does break, and I’ve been considering it for a while, but until then, I’m stuck at the mechanic’s mercy as I pay more money for a machine that will take more and more money out of me either due to repair or gas later on.

I’m just getting sick and tired of the whole automobile scene.

Not that it isn’t too much better, but I’m seriously considering getting a motorcycle or a scooter. They have better miles per gallon, the insurance is lower, and, in all honesty, I’ve always wanted one. Obviously safety is an issue and also, I know my family would have a conniption over me doing that. But with the way the economy is going, I’m getting very near to not caring.

Well, time for me to get back to work, back to wondering how much my car is going to cost me now, and back to me trying to plan out a scooter or motorcycle purchase without too much resistance.

Random Question: What does anyone think of Lifan motorcycles and scooters? This is the brand I’m currently looking at and have been recommended by an online friend who owns one. While they seem much cheaper than a regular scooter or bike, my concern is obviously the need for repair. I don’t want to keep ending up in the garage with a Lifan. I can do that just fine with my Sentra apparently. Comment below and let me know your views on Lifans or direct message me on my twitter.

Almost a week since I came back from Otakon, but I figure any recap is better than none. Also don’t mind some of the pics as they were taken by my phone. For even more photos, check out my twitter.

The reason for the delayed blog regarding Otakon is the fact that I used more my twitter account to keep track of the events at the convention as they happened. But, after a few days back into the swing of things, and now this blog being underway, I decided to put all my findings in one easy-to-find spot.

I had taken off last Friday in anticipation of all the driving I would be doing. I knew it was at least going to be four hours travelling from New Jersey to Maryland. And yes, sadly I was the driver. I had to drive three others besides myself down there and then four people on the way back up. In a tiny little ‘05 Nissan Sentra, we definitely had limited space. Needless to say, we all tried to pack just the essentials for the weekend.

Once we had gathered everyone and packed all our things as best we could, we drove the long road known as I-95 (or the Turnpike if you’re in NJ) to reach MD. Took us SIX HOURS to finally reach Maryland, and with our usual luck and fashion, not without a few “side adventures” taking place as well.

For example, we pulled into the last rest stop before the Turnpike turns into I-95 in Delaware for a quick break when we noticed walking back to the car, a woman laying out in the middle of the parking lot. A man, who we assumed to be her husband, was hovering over the woman, holding an umbrella over her to give her shade. It seemed like she was having an issue with heat stroke. We knew we had a big 24 pack of bottled water in my car and figured, if she was dehydrated or having a heat stroke, water would be the best solution; especially since cars were swerving around her and all people were doing were gathering in a circle to stare at her.

My friends and I walk up to the husband and the woman and offer to help by giving her water we had in our car. But we were turned away, saying she was fine and to leave her alone. We were perplexed at this answer, but backed off as they wished, and simply watched from our car as we ate our snacks. Once we saw a police officer come over and help out the situation, we felt it was our cue to continue our journey.

Also, along our way there, my one friend’s boyfriend was working in the Funimation booth and was telling us of the “line horrors” that were occurring as we tried to get there. We heard how people were lined up almost to the harbor, that pre-registration and regular registration were in the same single line, an audience cap might be enforced since it was such a massive amount of people, etc. This motivated all of us to get there as quickly as possible, especially since one of us wasn’t pre-registered.

We finally reach Baltimore and since we were worried about my one friend, I dropped off two of my passengers right at the convention center. Then my other friend and I got back in I-95 south to go to the other side of Baltimore to reach our hotel. We checked into the rooms, rested for half an hour, and then went back to the convention to meet with everyone else.

By the time we got there, my non-registered friend had gotten her badge and the pre-registration had it’s own line, and it was small!! So we got in line and got our badges rather quickly compared to what we were dreading. Another group of friends of mine had left later in the day on Friday and sadly didn’t get into Baltimore till 10:30. So we went and had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and then went to the registration booths to ask if they could still check in but they had put a cap on registrations for the day. Their day at Otakon would have to start on Saturday.

After watching the Friday Night Fan Parodies, we headed back to the hotel for the night where the second half of our group that came up later was waiting. That was when my one friend mentioned to all of us how a weird note was left in the safe in her hotel room. The note said on one side: “Always trust your instincts! Yes, there are cameras in the room.” And other side it stated a recommendation towards a local sub shop. Confused at the random note left, also find some humor in it, we went to sleep for the first night to charge up for the next day.

Saturday arrives and we all head straight to the convention. The late-comers get their pre-registration in order, we run into a few college classmates of ours, and we all head into the Dealer’s Room. Anyone who has been to Otakon before knows just how MASSIVE this Dealer’s Room is. We pretty much try to walk around just to take in everything and make “shopping plans” when we ended up at thatpaganchick.com’s booth. We saw a bunch of “Dark Path” grab bags there. Being slightly evil and dark ourselves, we couldn’t resist and three of us bought one. So, if you wanted a Dark Path Grab Bag, sorry, we took them! After grabbing our paranormal evil, we went forward towards perverted evil, aka. Hooters.

After our lunch amongst bouncing boobs, we decided to enjoy the Inner Harbor. We had a guy take our picture at the Inner Harbor as we trecked down towards the Barnes & Noble. Being Barnes & Noble junkies in Jersey, we automatically fell in love with this one. They had converted an old power plant into a Barnes & Noble, but used the power plant as decoration. Huge copper-painted cylindrical towers came out from the middle of the room with a little pathway you could walk through. And if you went up the stairs, a beautiful aquarium was there with many different fish. We gazed at all the different kinds of fish. A blowfish was what caught our attention the most as it darted up and down one side of the tank wildly, like it had a personal agenda to attend to. I think I related to it since it was the “fattest” fish in the tank and I know how stressful it can be being the biggest person!!

We then returned back to the convention after finishing our coffee drinks. We headed to the Artist Alley next, where my one friend’s foot began to swell up. We all sat with her and as it looked like it was finally going down, I zig-zagged through the booths to do some “shopping.” I found tons of unknown, “underground” mangas or online comics turned into mangas. I like finding unknown or new things, so I pretty much picked up all I can. After having so many books in my little Otakon bag that it was about to burst, we headed over to the Saturday Night Fan Parodies.

Around midnight, we decided to head back to the hotel. It was around this time when the next big “side adventure” happened during our trip. Two of my friends went up to the second floor when someone threw something out of their hotel window, almost hitting one of them. They quickly finished what they needed to do in their rooms, came down to the rest of us waiting in my car and told us what they saw and what had happened (well… one of them did, the other was completely oblivious). We had already decided to go to the diner down the street for a late night snack and since the manager of the hotel already came out and called the police, we figured it was a good time to go.

After our late night snack/breakfast, we returned and heard from other people how the police had came and escorted the people in that room out. As we walked past to go back to our rooms, we had noticed that they had thrown a glass bottle out the window. We suspected it was drunken rowdiness and someone trying to make the waste basket and horribly missing. That party must’ve sure ended fast after that.

Sunday morning comes (for me it came fairly quickly as after our return, I joined some more friends to drink some American Honey and watch some TV before returning to my room around 4 am) and we all pack up and check out. We parked back in the parking garage, packed the last of our belongings, and headed back inside. This time, we returned to the Dealer’s Room and actually bought a couple of “otakuish” things and we stayed there until it ended. So by 3 PM, we walked out of the Baltimore Convention Center, wondering what to do next.

We had discussed going to a Charlie Brown’s before returning home and we had thought there was one in the Inner Harbor, only to find out after walking there, that it was a Cheesecake Factory and not a Charlie Brown’s. So we decide to still head to the cars and head to the one off I-95 before you leave Maryland. We all gathered there, ate, and then saw a pretty horse on our way back to our cars to continue our journey back north.

After Charlie Brown’s, it was a long traffic-induced SIX HOURS before we finally started to drop people off at their houses. By the time I finally reached my house, it was around 1:30 AM. Needless to say, I pretty much collapsed onto my bed, not doing too much unpacking, trying to get some sleep before I headed into work in a few hours.

All in all, it was an awesome trip as usual. There are a few things I will probably change for next year (I was thinking of trying to be a gopher this year but with me driving everyone, it just wasn’t going to happen). One thing I hope for next year is that I get to do a “tweetup” with all my twitter buddies. I feel bad that it didn’t happen this year but everyone seemed to agree that this Otakon was just so massive and action-packed, a lot of people forgot to remember to BREATHE! I also had wanted to spin my LED poi around either by the BCC or at the rave but feared I’d either be escorted out for having a “weapon” or look nothing more than some random street performer and probably would get a ticket or arrested with my luck. As we had left, we received the dates for Otakon 2009 and already have started to make plans.

Hope you all enjoyed my little recap and hope to see you all next year!!

No, this is not a paid review. This is actually just me thinking about these types of shows and how rare they are on cable.

The Mole television season has come to an end and just as I was about to lay back and wait in anticipation for the next season, thinking it was finally back for good, I find out that it is in danger of being discontinued YET AGAIN! And why? Because ABC feels it isn’t attracting enough of an audience.

Now, I’ve watched The Mole since the first season. It was a television show my whole family would get into. We’d watch the first episode and make our predictions on who the mole was, and then watch out for the clues up until the last episode. None of us got it right on our first choice. Ironically, this season was the first season that who I picked from the first episode was actually the mole (you didn’t fool me Craig)! But we usually made the whole mole show a nice family event. We’d all watch, see if our choice survived for another episode, try to find the clues and throw a little mini party for the last episode.

But it seems ABC just doesn’t know what to do with this wonderful show. They kept moving the day and the time (and this season they made it late night on Mondays which I’m sure didn’t help) to try and get more viewers but with their indecision came a lower viewer count. And because of their poor judgement, The Mole might be taken off the air once more.

The reason why I’m ranting in this blog is because I find this very thick-brick-headed (woo, made up a term) on the network’s part. They either kept putting this show in non-popular TV viewing times or had it up against a very popular show. In fact, when it first came out, if my memory serves me correctly I believe they had it up against Survivor. Who is doing the scheduling at ABC? And the worst part of the whole issue is that the ABC executives feel that this show isn’t getting good ratings because it is “too smart” for the general TV audience.

I find this insulting. Now, I do watch TV and while, granted I watched more television as a child than I do now, I still like shows that make me think. I’m sure people of my generation remember “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.” Was I the only one who liked that show? Was I the only one who actually waited to do their homework, rushed from school to sit in front of the TV and actually try and figure out where the red-coated thief was? And better yet, was I the only one who got the computer video game and played it back then? Well, maybe I was one of few playing the video game as I am a geeky person. However, most twenty-year olds I talk to, know who Carmen Sandiego is and always tell me, “Oh, I remember that show!”

Why can’t we have “smart programming” now? The Mole is quite similar to Carmen Sandiego if you think about it. You’re looking for the “thief” in the group, you’re reading the clues until you figure out who the mole is. Its pretty much an adult version of Carmen Sandiego. While I do feel the human race is going down the stupidity drain, there are still exceptions to that. There are still others who want to think and are not completely idiotic. We’re not all brain-dead, ABC…

So I researched this debate a bit more online and found a website called savethemole.com. It seems the show’s producers are trying to prove this very point. There’s also on ABC’s message board for the show and a few youtube videos with people petitioning against its removal. I only wished I had seen these places sooner. It seems that ABC moderators are deleting the petition posts and the savethemole campaign ran until August 2nd. What’s wrong ABC? Don’t want to be reminded that some people have a brain?

I appreciate that ABC did bring The Mole to our television worlds, however, I’m against their treatment of it and how they visualize their viewers. We’re not all like Wipeout contestants. If only they’d listen to the fans of the show and schedule it more appropriately, maybe they’ll get the following they want for it. If you feel as outraged as I am about how ABC may be throwing away an actual smart show, then spread the word. Don’t let the mole get “executed” without a fight!

Yes, this is a back blog (or could be called a back brick blog, but that is just too much of a tongue twister) that I feel does more justice here now rather than on my myspace page. But it is a funny story and happened when I was heading out of a diner one night to go home. Check it out:

People are getting really stupid… and I think it’s getting worse.

Last night was just proof of that. I’m sure a lot of you are looking at the title of this blog and eyebrows are beginning to raise. But this is a funny story and I can explain, so bear with me here…

Last night, I was working in the office really late (till midnight) trying to fix a router for our phones. It was one of those fixes that had to be done when no one was using the phones in our office. So it was one of those, go home, eat dinner, and come back and fix it situations.

So after giving up with not much success on fixing the phones (I’m STILL trying to fix the problem today) I met up with friends at a diner for some coffee. When we all finally parted ways to go back home, I was trying to leave the parking lot when I noticed the reflection of headlights coming in my direction going the wrong way in the parking lot. Anticipating stupidity, I stopped and waited for whatever to come to come around the corner, and pass me, so I could get out. Sure enough, a car with five guys in it pass by me, looking pissed, like “how dare she be in our way”. I ignore it, head toward the exit and start heading home.

All of a sudden, the car of five guys in it started pulling up next to me, following me home, flipping me off, making faces, etc. Pretty much a lot of typical immature BS. I ignored it and tried to go slower to let them go ahead of me but they just slowed up to stay right next to the left of me (this is a two-lane road). And, to top it all off, my luck of the evening had to entail me hitting every single red light on this road so they got to pull up next to me and continue their BS assault.

By the time I hit about the fifth light, I’m now annoyed and also getting a little concerned since they also seem to not be giving up in trying to torment me. I then realized something; these are stupid people beside me. I have remembered from past times on wearing my new patch jacket my mom put together for my birthday (thanks again mom!) a lot of stupid people pointing to my Salem Police badge, asking if I was a Salem Police officer, totally ignoring the numerous other random badges I have on the jacket. The “Happy Alcohol Time” badge, or the Children of Bodom Badge, or even the Green Man and Night Owl badges mean nothing apparently, compared to the almighty Salem Police badge!

So realizing the badge happened to be on my left arm on my jacket, and that I was dealing with stupid people, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to just lift my left arm to have the badge in view. I didn’t point to it or even make it blatantly obvious. I just lifted my arm and rested my head on my hand, which I sometimes do at a light anyway.

But these einsteins next to me just saw the colors, the words “police” on that patch and when I looked over, their faces were extremely pale. They peeled out of the lane next to me, when the light was still red mind you, made a sharp left and sped down the street as fast as they could. All I could was stare in amazement at the stupidity and also laugh at the situation.

So because of this, I’ve come to the conclusion that, sadly, a lot of people are just becoming more and more increasingly stupid. You would think the words “Salem” or the huge Witch decal on the patch would’ve been a hint. Or hey, maybe even that I’m not in a cop car, nor in cop uniform, or look to be in the physical condition to BE a cop would’ve helped them out. I literally think they just saw the colors, the shape, the words “police” and flipped out.

I should be a bit more frequent now so I shall hopefully see you all real soon in the next written blog. I know I have a few exciting things coming up, so I’ll keep recording and writing about them for those interested. Until then, go forth officers of stupidity and thank you Salem PD for giving out these badges. It possibly saved me from a very bad altercation that I was able to avoid by just moving an arm.

If you guys want info on how to get a Salem Police badge (the money from getting the badge goes to charity so it is for a good cause) just reply to this blog and I’ll reply with the link of where you can buy the badge.