in support of the real shoeperwoman

I’ve been following Amber’s Shoeperwoman blog for a few months now and she’s been running it (and constantly updating it) for a couple of years. Today, in my quest for pretty stuff to look at (isn’t that what the internet is all about?), I headed over to the blog, only to find that, instead of pretty shoes, Amber had been forced to post this disheartening post about how someone in the UK (where Amber lives too) is trying to steal her shoeperwoman identity and, with it, a great chunk of her livelihood.

The person in question has applied for the “shoeperwoman” trademark and, if successful, Amber will have to close her shoeperwoman blog. I’m crossing my fingers that whoever looks at this trademark stuff does a bit of research and realises that this person has no right to take ownership of a name Amber coined years ago (she registered the domain in 2008!).

Amber’s asking for support from her big community of readers, in an attempt to ensure her livelihood (and her husband and adorable dog). Here’s what she says:

Obviously this is a source of huge concern to us, so we would welcome any support our readers and friends have to offer us, in the shape of comments, re-tweets and advice. If you are a blogger, and would like to mention this issue on your site, I would be eternally grateful, not just for my sake, but because as I mentioned above, this is something that can happen to anyone, and it is devastating to work so hard on something for so long, only to see it put at risk like this. Also, any links back to Shoeperwoman.com (especially those using the word “Shoeperwoman” as the link text) would be a huge help to us right now as they will help cement our position in search engines and support our right to the trademark when we file our dispute.

Shoe-loving girls have got to stick together so do spread the word about this. I could go on and on about online identity issues and intellectual property on the internet but there’s really no point. This is wrong, no matter how you want to look at it.

P.s.: If companies such as Asos, Dorothy Perkins and Schuh knew how much money they’ve earnt from shoeperwoman advertising their shoes on her website, I’m sure they’d be backing her up too.

Oh how I love the sun

On another run (9.5km), we ran away from the sun down this strip of road next to the motorway:

After which we had dinner and went to a Fringe Festival show which was fantastic! We sat middle front and center and were forced to become part of the show, at one stage I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. The actor was amazing and the show was entertaining the whole way through!

Stacey Marie

Time out

A much needed break was had over the weekend, first up I ate myself sick on the sweet grapes at a friends parents house up north, then worked my way through four country pubs and their characters on the way to a campsite where we slept with kiwi running around outside the tent

 

My Bad

I have been very crap lately, but I moved house and have only just got internet at my new place today. And on the weekend I dropped my camera in the water and won’t buy one till the after Christmas sales, so I will only appear in Emma and Vera’s posts till then. It was nice knowing you all ha ha! I will still be checking out all your posts of course!

Here I am celebrating the move to a new house with friends on the deck after the sun had gone down:

And the most magical weekend I’ve had in a while… back up at my friend’s house in Pataua South,

drinking games involving hermit crabs, while perched in trees over the water (ultimately the perfect formula for dropping ones camera into the ocean…)…

But look it’s sooooo pretty:

That night there were bioluminescenes in the water, and me and amy stayed out swimming until around 1.30am. I now no longer need to do acid (if I ever did), as that experience was pretty trippy!

THEN the next day in the very same water in the photos above, we were swimming and saw splashing in the water, and swam over and it was a pod of four, maybe five dolphins having a good old play. We swam closer and they stayed for about 20 minutes, going through the entire repertoire of dolphin tricks. A dog from the shore even swam out and they played with him! It was so awesome!

So that’s it from me for a while, I hope you guys all have a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!! OXOX

Stacey Marie

The very first Latino Albino

The Portuguese girl and the Kiwi girl went for dinner last night (after their run up the mountain).

We have decided to use Vera’s legs as lighting when there are powercuts, or as flys when we go fly fishing (all those times we go fly fishing).

Stacey Marie

SCORE for summer!

Went to the second-hand store today, I love searching through and finding books. None of them had prices so I grabbed all the ones I wanted and took them up to the counter…

… $5… for the lot! There are all my favourite authors in there… Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Bryce Courtney, Kapka Kassabova, a couple of hardcovers and some randoms! I am well excited about embarking on these books!

(Except I am moving house this weekend, and am supposed to be getting rid of stuff… oh well!)

Stacey Marie

Bestest Sunday Ever

Vera already wrote about our lovely Sunday afternoon, and here are the pictures. It was such a great day that if it was a date she would have been able to have her wicked way with me later on!

My tootsies on the top of the mountain, while eating takeaway and drinking beer:

Vera’s peids:

Group shot!

Now we are going running up the mountain in about an hour. No curry or beer waiting for us today. Grumpyface.

Stacey Marie