Sorry.....



.....been sick, been traveling, been busy, been watching hockey.......



Anyways.....how 'bout them Sabres??? Jesus, slept through the Islanders Series, and still took it in five games, and woke up from their slumber midway through the second period of Game One against the Rangers.....Jesus, scary good is right!!!!!!!!!














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(No, Morseyboy....this is what's going to stay here! The Golden Slug logo will NOT disgrace this page nor should it be allowed to disgrace this great team!!!)

Islanders tried....Ted Nolan can only do so much, I mean, he had thee worst lineup in hockey WHEN IT WAS HEALTHY!!! When it was injury-depleted, Jesus, I could have beaten them, and I have never been on ice skates in my life!! With anybody else coaching that team, they would have ended up finishing 31st out of the 30-team league!!

Next year? Well, there is literally, seriously, NO WAY the Islanders lineup could possibly have less talent then it possesses this year.....and if Ted Nolan can stop Charles Wang from locking up "top superstars" with 10- and 20- and 30-year contracts (is this guy CRAZY....ten years for Alexi Yashin??? Getting robbed by Miroslav Satan??).....I seriously think they should finish 4th or 5th in the Eastern Conference next season!

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Jesus! Do they really have THAT many expenses where they NEED to raise their fees again????

I had gotten a free ski pass at Mt. Hood SkiBowl for a certain Friday for attending a Portland Winterhawks match! Well, I hadta work.....so it sticker prices at around $35 or $40.......so, I figure I'll pop it on eBay for, like, $5.00.....just to get rid of it!

OK, now understand, eBay has pretty much long ago worn out it's welcome with me! Thee one thing that really infuriates me is how they absolutely fucking DARE to increase their fees EVERY YEAR?? Excuse me....uuuuh, let's take a look at a few things here:

eBay has (and never has had) NO Human customer service agents you can actually phone and talk to immediately.....not even a call centre in the sweatshops on Bangalore!! You just can't do this! Got a major problem with an eBay transaction.....and you NEED to speak with someone RIGHT NOW??? Tough tittie!! Please wait 45 minutes for our next Customer Service Representative to assist you....and that's by live chat!!! So, if you can't type at least 35+ W.P.M. one error.....learn!!

And their costs of operating have remained fairly stable.......sooooo......no, WHY the rate increase again after making record profits?????

Well, eBay pretty much front-loads all of its commissions and fees (meaning, the person who SELLS ITEMS gets the fun job of paying out eBay).....so what has sharp rises in the percentages that eBay charges it's vendors who sell things on it done to sellers and buyers?

A LOT! At least from what I can tell you empirically.....

Items for sale are now having a higher reserve price.

There is a significantly smaller QUANTITY of items now posted on eBay then there ever was in the past.....simply, many sellers are afraid that between fees paid to eBay (that literally DO go up every year) and their own costs, that if they do NOT set that absolute minimum reserve price at X level, that they'll lose money! So they don't bother because even if it DOESN'T SELL, you STILL have to pay the eBay fees!

Sooooo.....in Mr. Rodger's land of make believe:

...I make widgets in my basement at home. I can dump 'em off to people who need reasonably-priced boxes of widgets! Pop 'em onto eBay! OK, so....last year, I got $8.00 a box for them, and we didn't do that badly :-)

NOW, NOW, you have this fee, that fee, the other fee, and every eBay fee, pretty much all of them, have just gone up again....from 150% increase in a fee charge to a 400% increase that eBay charges the seller for things like "listing fee, final value fee, insertion fee, more than ONE picture fee", and all that shit.

And......uuuuuuuuuuhh......if your widgets DON'T SELL? Well, congratulations!! YOU get to STILL pay to eBay all of those fees mentioned above, except the "Final Value Fee" (THAT you only pay if you DO sell).

Sooooooooooooo??

So, in order to stay afloat, and be able to pay all of these new fees, you have to have your widgets NOW go for ten dollars a box, EVEN THOUGH the world market for widgets RIGHT NOW is, like $8.50.....being generous. And, so....you're gonna make up that $2.50 per box HOW again?

Side effect of idiotic eBay fees? Prices go up on merchandise sold on eBay due to higher reserves being set to help sales people offset eBay fees!

Another side effect: Fewer like items being sold!

Thus, let's say you type in "Honda CB650 motorcycle" on an eBay search! Oooooh......four, five years ago: BUNCH of 'em came up....like 45+ listings for a Honda CB650 motorcycle for sale!!!

Now? They will be lucky if 20 to 25 listings show up as the search result. Shit, these people don't want to pay the outlandish fees for selling!!

Thus? FEWER people list thee same exact item (because they have to charge more to make up for eBays increased fees, and if the higher price scares off people and an item DOESN'T sell, the seller still eats the cost of the listing fees) and when THAT happens, the price of that item goes up due to scarcity (as well as to cover the increased fees), because there's fewer widgets for sale on the eBay sites!!!

Thus, the golden ages of 1998 - 2004 where eBay was RENOWN for being thee place to buy something cheap are waaaaay gone! Creating higher Auction prices and less CHOICES on eBay for buyers is not going to bode well for eBay's next quarterly fiscal analysis, since fewer people will be using eBay to buy things and thus, fewer fees for eBay to collect.....

Errrmmm......right. So, the new eBay formula: Fewer listings on eBay for the same item = minimal competition = more competitive upward pressure on bids = higher prices = greater profit for fucking eBay!

Case in point? My SkiBowl voucher.

Shit....OK....OK....hell, five bucks for the voucher would be OK...just git rid of these "new and improved" fees.....

So for a $5.00 voucher I was almost begging to sell, we have eBay charges for this NON-transaction (since nobody bought it) as follows:

Insertion fee:
$0.20

Insertion fee (2nd Category) (Fee doubled because of listing in 2 categories):
$0.20

Gallery Plus:
$0.75

Gallery Plus (2nd Category) (Fee doubled because of listing in 2 categories):
$0.75

Subtitle:
$0.50

Subtitle (2nd Category) (Fee doubled because of listing in 2 categories):
$0.50

Scheduled start time :
$0.10

Errrmmm.........right: So, for something that IF I DID sell it, I would have gotten back $2.00?????

eBay.....truly a dinosaur!!!

VIVA http://www.craigslist.org/ - ALSO, look for anything you are thinking of buying at "Google Product!!" You will find AT LEAST ONE of said item about 10% below the lowest price listed for the same item on eBay.

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The walking.......errrr, I mean...driving dead!!

Humour of the day.....

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a NEW Washington State record.....

And last but not least, a video to celebrate the U.S. Senate passing a bill requiring U.S. troop withdraw from Iraq.......

I'm gonna try geocaching and putting the new speakers speakers in my car this weekend......I ain't going anywhere this weekend......more Saturday Night!

-E-