The Blissmeister shares his point of view

The now famous EBay poster the Blissmeister came forward on Friday to give his side of the percolating story over BC Ferry log books and the controversy that has swirled around him for the last 48 hours or so.

It was a poor choice of words and some regrettable editing on the EBay site that led to his sudden rush to fame. As the Vancouver media grabbed onto the story and as things seem at the moment, got a tad ahead of it.

The main point of the story, those now infamous log books turned out to have been purchased at The Bargain Store of all places, purchased as blank month to month, two year planners designed to go along with the theme of the auction. According to the Blissmeister, he at no time described them as having been retrieved or acquired from the ill fated BC Ferry.

But as we have learned over the last few months, any suggestion what so ever that something involves a BC Ferry and the story can run a red flag up the pole, in this case turning what should have been a simple on line auction into a mystery worthy of Le Carre.

The Daily News featured the story on its front page and on its website on Friday. Which we provide below for our Podunkian audience, with a reminder that Daily news content is available online at their website in its entirety on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Logbook outcry a big mix up says would-be seller
Man says proposed sale has nothing to do with missing books from ferry
By James Vassallo
The Daily News
Friday, November 24, 2006
Pages one and two

A Prince Rupert man who caused a stir with his EBay auction of Queen of the North pictures and so-called ‘logbooks’ says the whole ordeal is a big misunderstanding.

“That these are the logbooks missing from the Queen of the North, those words are not my words,” said the Ebayer known as ‘Blissmeister’. “This (radio broadcaster) from Vancouver didn’t know the whole story, so he just decided to fill in the blanks, well those blanks shot me is what happened.”

Since the story of his online auction broke Tuesday, the Rupertite said things have been a nightmare and his phone hasn’t stopped ringing all because of a poor choice of words.
Blissmeister said that when he posted his auction, EBay cut off the bottom picture of his upload which showed what the ‘sealed’ manila envelope he was selling along with 75 pictures contained — two day planners, one of a lighthouse and one with two teddy bears in sailor hats.

“They only give you 25 characters to put your auction in the title,” he said. “Month-to-month two-year day planner never would have fit in the auction title, but they’re log books, they’re nautically-themed logbooks designed to compliment the nautical theme of my auction.”
The intent of adding the planners was simply to make the auction more of a packaged deal, with the photos being offered as the main part, their sale was as part of a collection to memorialize the ship, he said.

“I thought I’d let it go to a more deserving collector,” said the EBayer. “The logbooks, they’re brand new I just bought them to go along with the theme of my auction — sellers do it all the time.

“But EBay pulled the auction for the reason of it being ‘stolen property’, which is what B.C. Ferries told them. Ironically, I still have the receipts of the two logbooks I picked up at The Bargain Store.”

Blissmeister said he did not even know that B.C. Ferries kept logbooks aboard their vessels or even that some had gone missing until a reporter had asked about it.

“They just assumed, whoever did the reporting, that these were the logbooks from the ill-fated boat, but if you read the description (of the auction) I never said that,” he said.

“If I had said I had the logbooks from the sunken ship it would b a totally different story.”
The EBayer has not yet spoken to B.C. Ferries, but said he has stopped answering his phone.
He said he will check the numbers of those who have called and call the company back to tell them he doesn’t have their property.

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