I've spent the last week on one website. It's exciting, interactive and time-consuming.
eBay.
No, I didn't just hit a few keys in the wrong order. That was it. eBay.
For those of you who have never been on the site, let me sum it up for you. It is, with no sense of hyperbole intended, The Mother of all jumble sales, yard sales, garage sales, car-boot sales, house clearances and charity free-for-alls.
I've heard a few stories about eBayers, the people that frequent the site as sellers or buyers... one person collected novelty lunch boxes for years. This person had invested the better part of a decade searching for an A-Team lunchbox that had the black van on it. A decade. Ten minutes on eBay and he decided to give up the collecting, simply because there were half a dozen people at that moment selling their A-Team lunchbox to the highest bidder. Seeing as most auctions on the site last for a week, so there'd probably be a few hundred of them up for sale a year, he decided his unattainable goal was too easy to acquire after all.
I have a similar story, in the form of a pristine 1978 Star Wars annual book (issue #1) that I bought from a jumble sale stall at Huntingdon racecourse. I thought maybe the thing was rare because... well; it was two decades old, designed specifically as a young child's Christmas present, and was begging to be scrawled in. I went on eBay and there they were. Dozens of them. All pristine. So much for uniqueness. At least I only paid 50 pence (80 US cents) for mine.
It's not just for 1970's kitsch either. I was recently looking to buy a PCI video card for our old G3 Mac computer (made before AGP video cards were thought of). The buying frenzy every time one comes up for sale would astound you. There are brand new ones for sale for $99, yet people will buy ones that are four years old for nearly that price. The older cards have a quarter the computing power of the newer cards, but that doesn't matter. Once you get two people that have their hearts set on something, a bidding war can start. In a matter of hours, a $20 object has bids for $50. People must take note, TO THE SECOND, when the auction is going to end because they'll hyper-bid with twenty seconds to go. I've seen the 'Bid History' on things go haywire. Just this week, a USB/FireWire add-on card for home PCs price went up 50% in the final minute as lounge lizard buyers pounced on what they thought was a low price.
Seriously, take a look at the site. Even if you don't buy anything, it's nice to see what folks are in the market for.
Listen: Edge Of No Control (Part One) - Meat Beat Manifesto.
Friday, January 31, 2003
Monday, January 20, 2003
This weblog is becoming more of an irregular thing than a regular thing. I have so much to cover.
This is a mild winter, so we were told before it began. El Ni?o, and all that. Christmas began with a foot of snow, which blew that theory clean out of the water. I was hoping for a DVD player and got one, but not on Christmas morning. I did get a load of Yankees clothes (can't wait for summer, and baseball, and daylight until bedtime). A CD-player which can play mp3 encoded stuff (handy for when we get a CD-RW) and a cordless drill, amongst other things. Which included four DVDs from work. That settled it; we went out and bought a $90 player. If you don't have one, here's a piece of advice. Get one. The quality over VHS, even on an older TV with only one spare set of AV inputs, is staggering.
New Year's Eve saw us wrapped up nice and warm. This mild winter gave us another foot of snow then too. My 33rd birthday came and went (I'm really 33... I don't feel as old as I imagined when I was much younger) and now it's almost a month since the whole holiday shebang started for us and there's no sign of this mild winter yet. We have two months of it to go, so it's early days I suppose.
Went to see Bent Blue again during the cold snap. They were a lot better than they were at their 'Red Room' set, even belting out songs like "Just" by Radiohead and "Lucky Man" by The Verve. Nice mid-to-late-90s British songs. Made me feel right at home. They're currently doing a West Coast tour, so maybe they'll hit the big time.
Work evaluation's coming up. After nearly fifteen years in a union job in England, I have no idea what to expect from an American work-talk. I did recently put in a bucketload of overtime and impressed people with my handling of a recent system crash. I hope that gives me a nice pay increase. I'll find out in the next few weeks.
Been working on the website again. The link is to the left. Completely overhauled the look, using a template design I downloaded (then altered beyond recognition). Added some CSS code to make text light up when you go to click on links. Looks quite snazzy. Give it a visit, sign the guestbook, thankyewverymuch!
The whole web design thing got me thinking that my talents are wasted. So I've signed up for courses at the local University. Macromedia web design. Hopefully, it'll lead to something with better pay and a more relaxed work environment. It starts in March, so I'll keep the 'blog posted.
Listen: New Dress - Depeche Mode.
This is a mild winter, so we were told before it began. El Ni?o, and all that. Christmas began with a foot of snow, which blew that theory clean out of the water. I was hoping for a DVD player and got one, but not on Christmas morning. I did get a load of Yankees clothes (can't wait for summer, and baseball, and daylight until bedtime). A CD-player which can play mp3 encoded stuff (handy for when we get a CD-RW) and a cordless drill, amongst other things. Which included four DVDs from work. That settled it; we went out and bought a $90 player. If you don't have one, here's a piece of advice. Get one. The quality over VHS, even on an older TV with only one spare set of AV inputs, is staggering.
New Year's Eve saw us wrapped up nice and warm. This mild winter gave us another foot of snow then too. My 33rd birthday came and went (I'm really 33... I don't feel as old as I imagined when I was much younger) and now it's almost a month since the whole holiday shebang started for us and there's no sign of this mild winter yet. We have two months of it to go, so it's early days I suppose.
Went to see Bent Blue again during the cold snap. They were a lot better than they were at their 'Red Room' set, even belting out songs like "Just" by Radiohead and "Lucky Man" by The Verve. Nice mid-to-late-90s British songs. Made me feel right at home. They're currently doing a West Coast tour, so maybe they'll hit the big time.
Work evaluation's coming up. After nearly fifteen years in a union job in England, I have no idea what to expect from an American work-talk. I did recently put in a bucketload of overtime and impressed people with my handling of a recent system crash. I hope that gives me a nice pay increase. I'll find out in the next few weeks.
Been working on the website again. The link is to the left. Completely overhauled the look, using a template design I downloaded (then altered beyond recognition). Added some CSS code to make text light up when you go to click on links. Looks quite snazzy. Give it a visit, sign the guestbook, thankyewverymuch!
The whole web design thing got me thinking that my talents are wasted. So I've signed up for courses at the local University. Macromedia web design. Hopefully, it'll lead to something with better pay and a more relaxed work environment. It starts in March, so I'll keep the 'blog posted.
Listen: New Dress - Depeche Mode.
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