Saturday, March 27, 2004
Another day, another E-bay auction
I finally won something on E-bay.
It feels like a relief. I now no longer feel the crazy desire to hunt for and bid on everything. Maybe that's just how they get you. Maybe it then comes back to haunt you and consume you from the inside.
I wonder if that's what happened to those people who end up buying all that really weird stuff online. I was amazed, first off, at how many different sites come up when I searched a string as simple as weird e-bay auctions. I wonder if there is someone out there cruising that auction site for strange things, or if your average buyer just...runs into some of that stuff every once in a while. I'm too new to know.
Either that, or the people who submit auctions to those sites do so as a form of acting out, their own quiet way of trying to get attention for their problem. I am sure there is a form of addiction that centers on E-bay; my dark descent into constantly checking the auction is all the proof I need that that is the case.
Neither really explains why someone would want a ram's head snuff mull, whatever the heck that is. Or why one would want one that would cost $760. Or why one would value his ram's head snuff mull so highly that $760 would fail to meet reserve. Or, for that matter, why one who valued his ram's head snuff mull that much would want to get rid of it in the first place.
Ours is not to question why (ours, says the demon, is to buy buy buy!).
Outbid!
I was at a battle of the bands tonight, which was just one more example of how Omaha's local music scene rocks (SlamOmaha is a site dedicated to it, and serves as proof enough).
I tensely checked my auctions, knowing that the one auction closed at a very weird time that doesn't fit into my waking schedule. Outbid! On everything!
I spent a moment mentally revising how much I was willing to pay for things and tried again. Outbid! On everything! Again!
Is it really always this tense?
Friday, March 26, 2004
Too cheap for E-bay
At least that's the going theory.
I don't know how many times I have browsed E-Bay and decided that it was just not right for me. A couple days ago, though, I decided to give it a shot. It took me about an hour to get registered, since I had a heck of a time selecting a screen name, and I don't like to use the random ones they try to generate for you.
Even so, I managed to get registered, and after about three moments where I almost bid on something, I cautiously did place my first bid. It was promptly outbid. It took a couple more days, but here I am, now, with a few auctions I'm watching. And watching carefully.
I just kept leaving and coming back to E-Bay because, while one can find great prices on many things, there are a great deal of them I can find for just as inexpensively by the time one factors in shipping. So I've just ignored it, but the other day I came up with a whole bunch of things that might be worth purchasing if I could find them for the right price--and E-Bay, I have discovered, is certainly the place to look for stuff you wouldn't think you could normally find elsewhere. It's amazing what people sell--and, I suppose, what people will buy.
The other thing I noticed that E-Bay is good for is slowing down time. I guess I've only been watching these couple auctions for a few days out of their seven-day postings, but that time moves very slowly. I keep looking at the auctions and thinking, "Jeez, is there really that much time left?" Yes, there is, and 1 day plus so many hours does not just mean, "it's almost over"; it can also mean "you're telling me there's nearly two days left on this dang auction?" or, "you're telling me there's nearly two days left on this dang auction, and this stupid thing is that expensive already?"
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Fixed!
I just looked carefully over the blog and noticed a couple things were dodgy. I fixed yesterday's link to agoraXchange, and deleted a strange duplicate-version post from the other day's blog about colonoscopies.
Tonight's just the night for touch-ups; it was also a night for a bank deposit, a car fill-up, and a car-tire-air-fill-up. The QT I visited for the car-tire-air-fill-up had free air, which I always love, but it was positively the worst free air ever, as the pump had no tire pressure gauge on it. I had to use the tire pressure gauge that is in my car, which is just a little less accurate than guessing. Plus, the pump spit out air the entire time, so by the time I got back inside the car my ears were feeling weird. I turned on the music in the car and could still hear that thing hissing madly on its rack. Maybe the hose was pissed that it didn't have a tire pressure gauge like all the good free air.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
The new new face of internet gaming
Jill posted something about the agoraXchange, which definitely sounds like something I need to check out--like the Sims gone incredibly crazy wild. But that's just a knee-jerk reaction, enough to show I'm interested, though.
All these new doors the internet is opening to gamers. I find myself less eager to play one-player console games, even, now that there's Xbox Live. And maybe all that'll come around full circle, because the internet is even making it easier to rent all those games I wanted to try but didn't want to rent for full price; my brother and I were talking about how they needed a version of Netflix for videogames, and he found it today--Gamefly. Cunning how that ten-day free trial is just barely enough of a chance to get you into the system. But I guess that's the whole point.
My brother signed up today. We'll see if I go for it or not. For now I'm going to check out agoraXchange.
Prevent Cancer! Put it in you!
Here's a weird story for you. Colonoscopy parties. I've heard of Tupperware parties, and Longeberger basket parties, and even adult toy parties. But this must definitely be the new wave of "high touch" medical technologies. Imagining the invitations is ludicrously painful. "Come to our party! We'll stick it to you!"
Perhaps what is more painful is the AP's unfortunate goof in the story. Just before the part where the interviewee professes how much fun they have at the colonoscopy party, the author notes how the interviewee doesn't organize such parties to see her friends in "uncompromising positions." This is silly, because if someone drops their pants for a colonoscopy, she is not going to be in an uncompromising position. She will be in a compromising position.
Sure, everyone makes an editorial goof once in a while, but it just seems a little professionally unfortunate when it's plastered all over the internet. And in a story about colonoscopies, nonetheless. My girlfriend--you'll remember her name is Susanne--thinks that spelling is going to change, thanks to the fact that people can just have their computers spell-check everything these days. Perhaps the issue is not that spelling and writing will destandardize, but that it will turn into some bland form predetermined by the words that are loaded in the spelling and grammar checkers in Microsoft Word. That's a bit much for me to bear.
Maybe I'm overreacting to what happened in the AP article. Maybe it isn't the harbinger of our language's dissolving digital future, but does indeed come down to a simple goof. It's not like they sit around in the AP newsroom and let Microsoft Word edit out all their spelling mistakes. The point remains the same--I just need to know if she enjoys seeing her friends in uncompromising or compromising positions. The whole article is at stake.
If she knows colonoscopies are potentially awkward, then the article should read "compromising positions." But if it was meant to read "uncompromising positions," it means something completely different. It means your standard colonoscopy patient isn't bashful and timid about the procedure at all. Rather, she is completely comfortable--in fact, in her element--to have that magic camera tube all up in her anatomy. And that's an altogether different kind of party.
Sunday, March 21, 2004
Mail-Order Mysticism
My father, who is the pastor at Our Saviour's Lutheran in Council Bluffs, had made some joke about having to cleanse and bless one of the rooms in the church for whatever reason. I think he Googled "blessing an office" and came up with Rowe-Staley's "Services Offered" catalog, where you can order, among other things, a blessing of an office space to cleanse it of the filthy residual energies left by the former occupant, or perhaps by whatever pent-up stress that your skull fails to contain. I do understand the psychological effect a space--and its design and cleanliness--can have, but this seems patently ridiculous.
Perhaps I assert my skepticism too quickly. As it says in her biography, Rowe-Staley is an ordained minister in the Universal Brotherhood, and has been a big player, it seems, in the Dade County Women's Chamber of Commerce. So maybe I jumped the gun on this; I do honestly respect a successful businesswoman. And my appreciation of a religious authority knows no boundaries.
So I checked out this Universal Brotherhood, because, you know, religions interest me. They're really quite flexible in who they are and what they believe; it seems like I can pretty much believe anything I want and be a member, because they aren't really big on doctrine in the Universal Brotherhood. Even better, I learned on their FAQ page that anyone can be ordained in their order, as long as they are willing to affirm the following pledge:
"I HEREBY DEDICATE MY LIFE TO THE BROTHERHOOD OF MANKIND."
Simple enough. Maybe I'll just swing by their store and add ordination to my shopping cart; heck, I spent two years in seminary and just got a master's; I have plenty of friends who are spending four years to get their MDiv, just so they can go stand up in a robe at some funerals and hitch some people. I wonder if they know about this gig--$75 bucks and I'm going to be out there marrying and burying 'em.
But wait--didn't I get this forward not too long ago in the junk mail? The one where I send them some money and they make me a minister? And didn't I learn from Bug-Eyed Earl that God would kill me if I abused the privileges of the mail-order ordination certificate?
You and I know that's just not my plan. Maybe I can get on the women's chamber of commerce if I get ordained. But I am a little surprised a self-respecting, forward-minded shaman like Rowe-Staley could agree to be ordained in a...erm...corporation like the Universal Brotherhood; has the God/Goddess stopped clueing people off to the incredibly insensitive lack of gender-neutral language in their dedication to the "brotherhood of mankind?" Skip them. I'm digging out that spam.
