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I have these thoughts and random bits of anecdotes floating about, and I spend most of the day analyzing them, deeming them worthy or not of a post, rejecting them but then going back to reconsider. Then I remember that I write first and foremost to make myself happy and to hell with everyone else. What am I, a clown? Do I amuse you?
I'm trying to sell my old laptop on eBay. After the bidding closed and the smoke cleared, I was slightly dismayed to see my winner, jimmiesfan, had but one feedback to his name. I always see sellers insisting that bidders with a feedback score of less than 10 email first (to what? Send proof of credit ratings and pay stubs? They aren't buying a freaking house). I always thought that was kind of silly. As the seller I have all the power, I hold all the cards, there is zero risk to me. I am the puppet master, the decider. I don't get paid, I don't ship the item. The buyer has the much heavier onus of trust, it always seemed to me. But that was before I had to deal with a nonpaying bidder. Now those carefree days of naiveté are behind me.
I sent the winner an invoice as soon as the auction ended. 3 days later I sent a gentle reminder. Exactly one week after the auction closed I sent another reminder, maybe not quite so gentle, and he finally responded. "Hi, I'M sorry, I'll send you a money order this week. I lost my job friday. They told me that friday afternoon." Oh, very smooth, jimmiesfan. Cleverly turning the tables so any subsequent nagging for payment would make me a heartless bitch. Except did he expect me to believe he'd been pounding the pavement in search of another job for a week solid, 24/7, without a single spare moment to drop me a quick line earlier? I can be infinitely more reasonable if you just communicate with me. More likely, it took him all week to come up with this excuse.
I bided my time for another whole week, and as expected the money order never came. Now I was getting pissed (I know, contain your shock). Being unable or unwilling to pay is one thing, but stringing me along with false promises to pay was another entirely. And I said so. "Look, it's been two weeks since the auction ended. I'm sorry you lost your job. Things are rough all over. I work two jobs and sell things on eBay to survive. If you aren't going to pay me, at least have the decency to stop wasting my time and be honest with me. You have until Monday before I report you to eBay and relist the item. I believe I've been more than patient." Let me never be accused of beating around the bush. I should have been a gorram loan shark. Don't come to me expecting sympathy because you lost your ONE job, fucking crybaby.
Either this scared him away or he sold his computer to avoid bankruptcy, because I haven't heard from him since. I then made two second-chance offers to the next highest bidders in line, both of which were rejected and which wasted another week of my time. And unexpectedly made me ineligible for a free relisting of the item. Hang on a second, why am I being penalized here? Stupid nonpaying bidders. Stupid eBay. Stupid Canadians (jimmiesfan (if that's even his real name) lives in Canada).
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I was gratified by a recent post by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
schatze where she explained for apparently the umpteenth time that she doesn't like "Family Guy" so stop assuming she does (to which I protest that I never made any such assumption). I myself have tried watching it a couple of times, but I agree, it just isn't that funny to me. Plus what the hell is up with the father's scrotal sac chin? I had gone so far as to add season one to my Netflix queue at the urging of my sister, but after attempting to watch a random ep that happened to be on TV at that moment and becoming so bored I went back to reading Snarry (and Tery went back to doing hospital paperwork), I summarily removed it from Netflix.
I have no problem with animated comedies. My "South Park" DVDs put tears in my eyes even after 5 or 6 viewings. And our new favorite show (which I DID get from Netflix) is "Drawn Together," recommended by the hated Chris Tilley and produced by the makers of "The Man Show," certainly the stupidest waste of a half hour of programming to ever cross the airwaves (besides "Family Guy"). But "Drawn Together" makes us laugh. There might even be some tears. We love Ling-Ling (the Pikachu-like character) and his bitching in Japanese about the dirty dishes his housemates leave in the sink, but especially, especially, especially Xandir, the gay Zelda-like character. We love him so much we're changing the spelling of our ferret's name, Xander, and adding the surname "P. Whipplebottom" because a.) every child needs 3 names so you have something to call them when they're in trouble, and b.) because ferret Xandir (nee Xander nee Casper) is so, so gay.
Oh, and all the hot girl-on-girl action between Princess Clara and Foxxy Love doesn't hurt either.
The reason I am so focused on animated entertainment is because one of my birthday presents from JeffyJeff was a DVD of the series "Monkey Dust", a bleakly drawn "urban nightmare" filled with black British humor (or "humour" as I can now spell it, having been made an honourary Englishperson because of my skillful use of the word "wanker" to insult Jeffy recently). "...where you go when you graduate from South Park," the box proclaims. I won't bother recommending it because you need a PAL or multi-region player to watch it. It's morbid, at times grotesque, covering with gritty realism such topics as internet pedophiles, recidivist mass murderers and a gay man's bungled attempts to go cottaging.
It took some growing on me, but it eventually did, and now I want to return the favor. But I'm afraid that "Drawn Together" might rely a little too heavily on American culture for laughs. For instance, cameos by Hanna-Barbera's Snagglepuss and Elmer Fudd at Xandir's coming out party, and the most unexpected appearance of the pudgy naked couple from the book "Where Did I Come From?" which I remember fondly from my childhood but Tery does not. And for all I know he already watches it, since I know he can get "The Daily Show" over there. I just don't know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This has been another spectacularly pointless post brought to you by Miss Elaineous and the letter R. (R is for Reaver which is the meaning behind my icon, also a sticker I ordered from Cafepress.com)
I'm trying to sell my old laptop on eBay. After the bidding closed and the smoke cleared, I was slightly dismayed to see my winner, jimmiesfan, had but one feedback to his name. I always see sellers insisting that bidders with a feedback score of less than 10 email first (to what? Send proof of credit ratings and pay stubs? They aren't buying a freaking house). I always thought that was kind of silly. As the seller I have all the power, I hold all the cards, there is zero risk to me. I am the puppet master, the decider. I don't get paid, I don't ship the item. The buyer has the much heavier onus of trust, it always seemed to me. But that was before I had to deal with a nonpaying bidder. Now those carefree days of naiveté are behind me.
I sent the winner an invoice as soon as the auction ended. 3 days later I sent a gentle reminder. Exactly one week after the auction closed I sent another reminder, maybe not quite so gentle, and he finally responded. "Hi, I'M sorry, I'll send you a money order this week. I lost my job friday. They told me that friday afternoon." Oh, very smooth, jimmiesfan. Cleverly turning the tables so any subsequent nagging for payment would make me a heartless bitch. Except did he expect me to believe he'd been pounding the pavement in search of another job for a week solid, 24/7, without a single spare moment to drop me a quick line earlier? I can be infinitely more reasonable if you just communicate with me. More likely, it took him all week to come up with this excuse.
I bided my time for another whole week, and as expected the money order never came. Now I was getting pissed (I know, contain your shock). Being unable or unwilling to pay is one thing, but stringing me along with false promises to pay was another entirely. And I said so. "Look, it's been two weeks since the auction ended. I'm sorry you lost your job. Things are rough all over. I work two jobs and sell things on eBay to survive. If you aren't going to pay me, at least have the decency to stop wasting my time and be honest with me. You have until Monday before I report you to eBay and relist the item. I believe I've been more than patient." Let me never be accused of beating around the bush. I should have been a gorram loan shark. Don't come to me expecting sympathy because you lost your ONE job, fucking crybaby.
Either this scared him away or he sold his computer to avoid bankruptcy, because I haven't heard from him since. I then made two second-chance offers to the next highest bidders in line, both of which were rejected and which wasted another week of my time. And unexpectedly made me ineligible for a free relisting of the item. Hang on a second, why am I being penalized here? Stupid nonpaying bidders. Stupid eBay. Stupid Canadians (jimmiesfan (if that's even his real name) lives in Canada).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was gratified by a recent post by
schatze where she explained for apparently the umpteenth time that she doesn't like "Family Guy" so stop assuming she does (to which I protest that I never made any such assumption). I myself have tried watching it a couple of times, but I agree, it just isn't that funny to me. Plus what the hell is up with the father's scrotal sac chin? I had gone so far as to add season one to my Netflix queue at the urging of my sister, but after attempting to watch a random ep that happened to be on TV at that moment and becoming so bored I went back to reading Snarry (and Tery went back to doing hospital paperwork), I summarily removed it from Netflix. I have no problem with animated comedies. My "South Park" DVDs put tears in my eyes even after 5 or 6 viewings. And our new favorite show (which I DID get from Netflix) is "Drawn Together," recommended by the hated Chris Tilley and produced by the makers of "The Man Show," certainly the stupidest waste of a half hour of programming to ever cross the airwaves (besides "Family Guy"). But "Drawn Together" makes us laugh. There might even be some tears. We love Ling-Ling (the Pikachu-like character) and his bitching in Japanese about the dirty dishes his housemates leave in the sink, but especially, especially, especially Xandir, the gay Zelda-like character. We love him so much we're changing the spelling of our ferret's name, Xander, and adding the surname "P. Whipplebottom" because a.) every child needs 3 names so you have something to call them when they're in trouble, and b.) because ferret Xandir (nee Xander nee Casper) is so, so gay.
Oh, and all the hot girl-on-girl action between Princess Clara and Foxxy Love doesn't hurt either.
The reason I am so focused on animated entertainment is because one of my birthday presents from JeffyJeff was a DVD of the series "Monkey Dust", a bleakly drawn "urban nightmare" filled with black British humor (or "humour" as I can now spell it, having been made an honourary Englishperson because of my skillful use of the word "wanker" to insult Jeffy recently). "...where you go when you graduate from South Park," the box proclaims. I won't bother recommending it because you need a PAL or multi-region player to watch it. It's morbid, at times grotesque, covering with gritty realism such topics as internet pedophiles, recidivist mass murderers and a gay man's bungled attempts to go cottaging.
It took some growing on me, but it eventually did, and now I want to return the favor. But I'm afraid that "Drawn Together" might rely a little too heavily on American culture for laughs. For instance, cameos by Hanna-Barbera's Snagglepuss and Elmer Fudd at Xandir's coming out party, and the most unexpected appearance of the pudgy naked couple from the book "Where Did I Come From?" which I remember fondly from my childhood but Tery does not. And for all I know he already watches it, since I know he can get "The Daily Show" over there. I just don't know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This has been another spectacularly pointless post brought to you by Miss Elaineous and the letter R. (R is for Reaver which is the meaning behind my icon, also a sticker I ordered from Cafepress.com)
