This week's assignment from the
League of Extraordinary Bloggers:
Hello, my name is… Tell us a little about yourself — even if we all know who you are, there are plenty of new folks wondering if you’re in fact a dog.
My name is William Christopher Joseph Mapp. My mom didn't want to upset any ancestors, so she just gave me all of their names. Officially, I'm William but to all of my friends I'm just Chris.
I'm actually adopted, and my biological parents are still unknown. You know those stories about babies that get left on doorsteps? Well, I was one of them. I've spent most of my life here, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. We're separated from Virginia by the Chesapeake Bay,which means we're actually closer to Maryland. It's always a tough decision when we decide we want to go to a mall. Do we want to have to pay $17 in tolls to go to Virginia Beach, or do we want to drive to Maryland. Honestly, Va Beach still wins most of the time..
As isolated as the Shore may seem, I was still able to enjoy all the things kids in more developed areas had. The local stores may not have had the stock and selection of a Toys R' Us, but they carried everything I liked, which meant I was a happy child indeed. We had several movie theaters, and I remember at least 4 different stores that rented videos in our area. So, it may be a small area, but I certainly wasn't deprived.
Growing up, I had aspirations of being everything from an architect to a comic book artist. Fun fact, I actually drew up a couple of characters and sent them in to Image Comics. Unfortunately, they weren't interested in what was basically a Morbius ripoff. They did send me a couple of postcards, which I've regretfully lost over the years. After careful consideration, I settled on a career in law enforcement. I moved off to Richmond, where I attended VCU and earned a Bachelor's Degree in Criminal Justice. After graduation, I worked in loss prevention for Target for a couple of years. I had some fun there, but in the end it wasn't for me, and I moved back home. I was working as a technician at a clam hatchery, when the opportunity to join the local sheriff's office came up. I was a deputy at the local jail for several years, when I realized that I was working with people that should probably be on the other side of the bars. When you see the inmates are more trustworthy, it's time to go. I went back to the clam hatchery, and I've been there since.
I actually started a blog while I was working for Target. It was mainly something to do in my free time, but after I moved back home, it was sort of forgotten. I'm not sure what I wrote about on that blog, but I know it was nothing like the one I write now. I took it way too seriously, and it never felt fun. I guess I just needed the right inspiration, and I eventually found that when I met my girlfriend. Chelsea knew I was a bit of a geek, so our first Christmas together, she gave me the
Snake Eyes featured in my first post, as well as one of the newer Transformers figures. Like a snowball rolling down a hill, I started becoming more interested in toys and random stuff from my youth.
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"Ha Ha! Remember me? Oh wait, I'm not supposed to talk." "......." |
It was a random Google search that led me to
eclectorama, which led me to
Toyriffic, and so on. My bookmarks folder grew exponentially that first week. It looked like everyone was having a ball with their blogs, and I wanted to join in on the fun. Then I won a caption contest over at
Toyriffic (still my proudest moment), and that pushed me over the edge. Initially, I was going to go with StuntDouble, since that's the name I use on every forum I've joined. Fortunately, that name was already taken. I still wanted something that would be easy to remember, and would stick out in folks' minds. Then one day I happened to run across a photo of Evel Knievel, and I thought about how funny he would look as a zombie. A zombie dressed in a red, white, and blue jumpsuit performing stunts in front of millions. Zombie doing stunts...a stunt zombie! Yeah, it seems like a round-about way of coming up with a blog name, but I swear it's true. "But why is the url stuntzombies?", you may ask. That's because I somehow managed to delete the first blog I made, which means stuntzombie.blogspot.com is forever lost to me. My mind tends to switch focus on things rather quickly, so it's nice having a blog title that's non specific.
So there you go, more info than you ever wanted to know, without me sharing much at all. Who are some of my fellow bloggers?
Monster Cafe Satillo.
Las Vegas Yankee
Erik Johnson
Geek Show Ink
Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks
BooBobby
PopRewind
The Trash Man
The Holidaze