Hopefully, everything is normal now and we can resume documenting our lives

>>Posted By: paul >>Updated By: paul 09/04/04 16:05 >>Updated By: paul 09/04/04 16:07

Word around etown is that you are some sort of local scam artist. Although I haven't dealt with you personally (nor would I at this point) I have heard many people talking about bad experiences they have had dealing with you and your various businesses. I would like to encourage you to go ahead a start a journal to defend yourself, because right now you are looking like quite a jackass.

I wasn't really too interested in the issue until it occurred to me that some people are beginning to delete their online identities and thoughts because of a fear of retribution from you. Nothing makes me crazier than people having to delete what they wrote because they are afraid. It's like deleting a little piece of history.

What I do know is that several years ago, my friend Jessica (e:hodown,22584), rented from you and had some unpleasant experience where she never ended up moving in but did end suing you over the issue. I remember specifically that she won the case but unfortunately, you never paid the money. It made her really angry as she was very poor at the time and needed that money for her new apartment. Being a naive young woman at the time, she mistakenly thought that once you win a case in court you actually get the money awarded to you. That was before we realized that there is no real enforcement for those types of cases and that people like you can easily move money around. I guess you have to know an officer in order to get your payment. I couldn't help her out at the time.

It seems another friend of mine had a similar problem with you (e:maidencateyes,26637), winning a court case against you, followed by you never paying out. What makes you do that? It cannot be good for your reputation to lose in court and never pay out. Someone obviously thinks you are legally "guilty" of something if you lost twice in court. Is there more to the story that we are missing out on?

This ability for the public to expose people that scam others should not be taken lightly. It is a way for people to protect themselves from businesses that have unsavory practices. The forum I developed here was highly influenced by my mothers experience as the Director of Call for Action on Channel 4. What they do there is expose scam artists on the television news. Here the process is a little easier. There is no mediator between the user and the medium. Unfortunately, that can lead to a situation where one is falsely accused. So go ahead and defend yourself, unless that is you can't even defend your own behaviour.

EBAY UPDATE

Here is a to the ebay business he was running. Thanks peter for looking it up here, so we could connect it all. This is the ebay business that got closed down and was reported about in the Buffalo News as ajay reported (e:ajay,20093) a while back.

This guy has the worst feedback ever. No wonder the DA was investigating his business.

jazzman357: Ripped Off, never sent product, no reply to email or phone, no refund, Avoid!

brandy91057: NEVER AGAIN: Payment made/no merch. sent! No calls/emails returned!

de0457: have not received item. very disappointed.

schwarb3: DO NOT BUY- OUT OF BUSINESS AND HOLDING MY MONEY- $1,200!!!

eaglecontractors: E bayer out of business cancelled paypal

chipchaseBuyer eaglecontractorseagle Paid& never recieved merchandise! This piece of garbage still has ebay listings!

rsknapp: Per Buffalo News, bidwell is out of business. I cancelled PayPal.

ditwad: emails and 2 phone calls & still haven't received item or refund.
        
billiecruns:     I never received the order. This person is a crook! You owe me $100.00

paddymimms: Major conartist, liar
,
thief and a cheat.Misrepresented item and ripped me off!

ceverinod: I have not recieved anything please me my money back or send the item

Happy 21st birthday (e:mike). We hope you enjoy it.

>>Posted By: news

People can sign up for the site once again after another period of me not noticing the signup was down. Because of this I am thinking about opening the chat box to the public, so that people could leave notes like, "hey idiot, the sign up page doesn'work."

This was an exceptionally bad period of time for it to be down considering the fact that the festival brought many people to the site after seeing the banner by the main stage. I am so disappointed in the fact that I forgot to check it and make sure after I chnaged the configuration file on Friday. The error was only the difference between "signup" and "signUp."


>>Posted By: paul

(e:paul) , (e:southernyankee) , and (e:terry) are showing off their homemade elmwoodstrip t-shirts at the elmwood art festival.

>>Posted By: matthew >>Updated By: matthew

It's sunny now and we are going back out to the festival. It's back in full force with drummers on the main stage.

>>Posted By: paul

The festival is just about cancelled because of the rain. A bunch of people are still out there but the msuic has been canceled and a lot of the vendors are packing up and leaving. :(

>>Posted By: news

Paul, might I recommend www.dict.org as an alternative to Wiktionary? It is open-source, and uses non-copyrighted dictionaries. Yes, the latest words like "chillax" might not be there, but for the older stuff, it is quite complete.

>>Posted By: ajay

In an effort to keep with the comunity based media idea, I have switched the elmwoodstrip offical dictionary from the commercial dictionary.com to the open source wiktionary.org .

Wiktionary, like wikipedia, lets users define their own entries which are editable by others. There are some rules so check out the site for details. I added chillax [dict]chillax[/dict], as coined by Jesssica Ho in 1993. The definations are often different from dictionary.com e.g. geek [dict]geek[/dict] is defined how it should be and not as some circus sideshow freak that eats the heads off of chickens. Some definations are very well written. All can be very well written e.g. appearance [dict]appearance[/dict]. Test it out if you get a chance.

>>Posted By: paul >>Updated By: paul

You can finally upload multiple media files!! Thanks to (e:holly) for the suggestion, I had been planning it for a while, I just hadn't had the time. Right now you can upload up to five files in one swoop. Simply choose the number of media files you want to upload in your journal write box and then browse for them. When you are done, click th eupload media button. You will get feeback if there are any problems. Email me if you find any problems.

>>Posted By: paul