Here is another perfect example of the absurdity of my life: I�ve been a victim of a form of identity theft, but it isn�t me whom someone was impersonating � it was my sock monkey. Yes, my SOCK MONKEY. Who steals a sock monkey�s identity? It sounds ridiculous, but yet it has happened to me not once, but TWICE now. Granted, it�s the same person who is doing it, but still�my sock monkey?

The perpetrator is actually a 14 year-old boy who is abnormally obsessed with my website about my sock monkey, Tim. Judging by the e-mails that the kid has sent to me, it doesn�t seem like he gets the whole joke. Dude, we�re all in on it. But he keeps sending questions all about my monkey, including where he gets his clothes, what certain parts of his body are made out of, etc. I stopped answering him months ago. Then early last fall the boy put up a website on some free server that was just a cut and paste version of my site. He literally just took whole pages from my site and pasted them onto his. He even left the images so they linked to their home on my server. Idiot. I e-mailed him and asked him nicely to please take down all of my material, telling him about the whole notion of copyright protection, but he didn�t respond. Thankfully, my abuse report to the host site shut him down. He even put up a message on the site, �Sorry Pam and Tim!�

Obviously, not so much.

So yeah, he did it again. This time there was a new, disturbing feature involved. He stole a few pictures from my site, but then he made one page where he used my text from one of Tim�s adventures, but used his own pictures which were replicas of mine, but using his own stuffed animals. Now I know many of you are not sock monkey connoisseurs like myself, but the handmade ones are like snowflakes � no two are alike. (We sock monkey diehards frown upon the mass-produced monkeys, Old Navy) Anyone who owns this awesome book (my coffee table book) can attest to that. They all have a certain je ne sais quoi about them. Anyway, so this kid used a monkey that looks like it was altered to look exactly like my Tim. It was eerie. I�m dealing with a 14 year-old Dr. Frankenstein here. Creepy! So not only am I pissed that this kid is passing my work off as his own and is posing as my sock monkey (stupid kid should have at least changed the name), but now I am disturbed by his Jame Gumb potential. Lucky for me, I was a young Veronica Mars back in the day, and my detective skills are still pretty sharp � I knew a lot more about my young stalker than he thought I did. Right before I was about to send my abuse report e-mail to the new site host, the idiot kid had the balls to send me an instant message saying the he saw that someone stole my site again and he couldn�t believe it! When I flatly told him that I knew it was him, he denied it until I sent him back a response listing all kinds of information that I knew about him. He promptly signed off, and the site was down that night. I still reported the abuse as well. Kid, Smack, Down.

But seriously, how sad do you have to be to impersonate someone�s sock monkey? And how sad is it that I have to worry more about someone stealing my monkey�s identity than my own? Such is my life.

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My vacation to L.A. is now officially booked, and I'm looking for ideas of places to go and things to see while I'm there. I'm not talking the usual tourist-y stuff - most of that doesn't appeal to me. My plans so far consist of meeting up with my girls, eating at In n' Out Burger, and going to a taping of The Ellen Degeneres Show. The rest of the trip is wide open. Hit up the comments if you know of some things that are must-sees! (I'm going in late May if that helps) Thanks!


before & after





2007-09-26 - Follow Me!
2006-09-30 - Site Move & Favorite Entries
2006-09-25 - Evil Easter Bunnies & Rock Climbing!
2006-09-22 - Shameful-Purchase Hiding & A New Dentist Plan
2006-09-19 - Birthday Picture/Video Diary & The Wheelmobile





Copyright 2003-2006 by Sockgirlie. Stealing is wrong.