So I was the receiving end of this stalking (my name is Mark and I work at Shopify). I just want to point out how effective his tactics were. At no point did I have ANY idea what was going on behind the scenes. I simply thought, "oh - he's a cool guy, he likes my blog, and seems to enjoy Tweeting / commenting a lot." To learn about his wildly elaborate strategy now is not just amusing, but it's impressive as hell. If any of you guys are having trouble finding quality blogs to write for, or are simply looking for another way to get traffic to your site - give this a read.
Awesome Mark! Glad it didn't creep you out too much. For the record, while I did have an agenda in mind, I also DID like the blog and genuinely enjoyed sharing your stuff. I think you can't authentically get behind the content and quality of a site you're trying to land a spot for, you should re-consider how worthwhile it is to write for them in the first place.