At the end of last month I was supposed to send out flash drive sticks of the Paratopia archive to throngs of rabid fans. As luck would have it, the master copy coming from Jeff got lost in the mail. He sent another. It arrived. But as luck would have it, the $90 worth of USB sticks I bought from a seller on Ebay, who had a decent rating, were complete garbage. Turns out there’s a little-known thing as a flash drive scam, not to be confused with Greer’s flashlight scam. I became a statistic. And that sucks… sucks like a fox!
–Because now I’ve been forced to buy a pro account on Mediafire.com and put The Paratopia Experience there to live. Yes, that’s right, experience. Yes, that’s right, live. For now, instead of a dead archive reanimating its own corpse on a stick delivered to your door, for a mere $30 you get to stream and/or download everything from Mediafire–and I’m not trying to sell that as the better thing, no. The better thing is that I’ve got a ton of space to play with, so I thought instead of a dead archive, why not a living one? Why not update it every now and again with new content for you for free?
And then I thought, Hey! Since there are clearly people willing to shell out $30 for Paratopia–and since after years of nonexistence our Facebook page is still a lively, thriving place for new ideas–Why not extend this offer to listeners: If there’s an episode, a guest, an idea, that you heard on the show and you want to express your views, or your insights, or have questions keeping you up at night, let me know and we’ll record a chat together for the archive. Alternatively, if you’re shy, let me know and I’ll put the word out there to see if we can wrangle others to do a roundtable chat. It would be like a book club, except for a podcast. And instead of just talking to your pals, you can talk to one of the authors (or both, if Jeff’s available).
One of the things that made the podcast unique was our want to hand it over to the audience. I think that proposition might have been too intimidating at the time to all but a few. However, this is more intimate and you won’t be on your own.
Anyway, there’s that. If you’d like to be a part of The Paratopia Cult Experience, simply create a free-and-very-easy account at www.mediafire.com (I think they ask for just your name and email). Then send me your hard-earned cash and I’ll send you a link.
Get ready for hundreds of hours of the most dynamic “paranormal” talk show journey that ever was. And that’s no exaggeration.
UPDATE: I wrote to the seller of the faulty USB sticks saying I know it’s past the refund date and I don’t expect one. But these sticks don’t work and since you’re a top-rated seller, I assume you don’t realize you’re selling scam sticks. Here is the reply. Faith in humanity restored….
Seller’s message:
“Truly feel that you have had problems with this set. I have also had problems with some of them at the time to try them before selling. You can return them, no matter what the time is fulfilled. Your money will be refunded in full and the cost of shipping. I appreciate your benefit of the doubt. Having the category Top Rate Seller, my sales volume, not by accident it’s because we strive to solve problems and sell with Honesty. Now I also have to complain to the people I bought this set of memories. Let me know if you need any help on how much the shipping”
——
On another note, writing this now and an email to someone just prior is a huge deja vu to the extent that I feel as though I know what happens next in terms of a response from the seller or maybe someone else? … Except the flash of it doesn’t actually make sense. Unless there’s, like, a parallel world where this happened and it went slightly differently in a worse way.
If any of that made sense, you’re ready for Paratopia. lol
JayVay 