Personal

For starters I don't even really like people.

Now that I've pissed everyone off and don't have to worry about site traffic anymore, let me amend that to state that I like certain people who are clearly not like the majority of humanity that has its head up its own ass.  If that's you (meaning someone who does not have their head up their own ass), hopefully you already know this (and if not I apologize in advance for not telling you) and if that's not you then you can take this opportunity to fuck off.

Let the hate mail commence.  Let me point out that you could simply change this situation by pulling your head out of your ass for a change, at which point we could be great friends.

But I digress.

So for a good long while there I held out.  No fucking MySpace, I said.  Fuck LiveJournal, I said. Then I had friends that devoted themselves to keeping in touch with each other on these spaces, and nobody could be arsed to get their own Blogspot account like I had done (not that I use Blogger anymore, I'm doing it right with my own personal LAMP server thank you very much), so suddenly I needed a LiveJournal.  I had LiveJournal for several months, posting this and that.

After Hurricane Katrina, I said fuck you to LiveJournal after I noticed there were a certain breed of anonymous commenting trolls that liked to sporadically appear on and mock people's misfortune, which wasn't the sort of positive support one needed after surviving a major natural disaster that forced us back to square one in terms of possessions, home and employment.

A few months later my wife was pointing out to me all of our friends from New Orleans that were now on MySpace for us to reconnect with.  Fine...(sigh...[clickety]) ok I've got a MySpace account (shudder).  Ok I've got contact with my old friends now.

Of course eventually everyone shifts over to Facebook, causing the inevitable transition to Facebook, resulting in the mounting aggravation as Mark Shuttleworth turns out to be a complete douche who wants nothing more than to ownz all yer private personal secretz and sell it to the highest bidder.  Aggravation rises further as I find myself fighting an ever losing war to maintain my security settings in such a way as to protect pictures of my kids and loved ones from being available to any perv surfing the web.  And they are, make no mistake.

So Twitter comes along, and seems basic, clean, no friggin malware advertisements, pretty straightforward, groovy. Then they start dissolving how they do things and initiating an evil plan involving the use of Java on their entire goddamn site.  In the meantime I've deleted my Facebook account, but due to overwhelming demand created a new one with the hopes that I could better protect my data by not loading as much of it and poisoning the well by submitting inaccuracies regarding my physical location, age, etc.

So along comes the almighty Google, promoting their solution of Google+ with its circles of trust that you can maintain.  But you still have to use your real goddamn name, first and last, no funny stuff, or risk having your account suspended.  If it's someone like me who has a Droid phone that would also become less useful in the process as a result of account suspension, I can't even tempt fate. So it sticks in my craw something fierce, even though I quite like the rest.

But then I watch as Facebook attempts to become more Google+ like, while Google+ seems to steadily become more Facebook-like and it seems inevitable to me that everything will implode.  Add a little YouTube nonsense involving someone reposting footage of my kids without permission and all hell starts to break loose, because it becomes painfully obvious how easy it is to track me down, whereas before Hurricane Katrina I didn't even exist online.  I dump my initial G+ account and create a new one under a different user to throw the possible stalkers off the track, but thanks to Google's caching of search content the original stuff still floats somewhat in the results, attached to my real name.  Thanks Google, your real name policy did cause a legitimate issue after all.  Fuck.

So I start listing shit on the new G+ account and after a while it hits me.  Fuck this, I'm just setting myself up again.  At some point G+ is going to follow the path of Facebook and MySpace and sell out everyone who has an account registered.  Furthermore, if I've really got something to say why the hell can't I just say it plain right here? I mean seriously, isn't that why I still have a blog?  It's not so I can waste my time posting inane vacuous shit on some other social media site, that's for damn sure.

The problem is laziness.  It's easier to post a quick blurb about how Taco Bell gave me the shits than to sit down and write something long-winded like this post.  And everyone's at the same site already posting about how their own feces turned liquid upon eating some other fast-food laced with parasites and human body bits that came off at the factory from some poor worker.  I mean, fuck, it must be really hard to type fatedtoend.com into the address bar of your Internet Explorer that you won't get rid of no matter how many times it's the direct portal to the viruses and spyware that turn your personal computer into a swollen bloated infected mass.  I can see why you'd rather just set your home page to http://www.facebook.com and forget that there's even an internet out there.  It's kinda like the shopping mall.  Or Walmart.

Sarcasm phone, it's for you.

So yeah, fuck it.  I deleted all content on my G+ account under my real name.  If you need my real name, G+, you can have it and a two year old photo of me without facial hair.

If you do check my website from time to time, check it more frequently because due to the sudden lack of social media sites I no longer post to, I should theoretically have more to spout off about here.  I apologize in advance for the technobabble, I'm a geek and that part won't change.  I likes me LINUX.  Maybe you could give it a go instead of rolling your eyes and heading off to http://icanhascheezburger.com for the rest of the night.  You might learn something.

Before August 29th, 2005, if someone asked me what I immediately thought of when I heard the name Katrina, I would reference the Walt Disney animated short film, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and say that the name always made me think of Katrina Van Tassel, daughter of the wealthy Baltus Van Tassel.  Following the hurricane, for the next five years I would immediately reference Hurricane Katrina upon hearing that name.

I've noticed lately that I've started thinking about Katrina Van Tassel again.  I think that's a good sign.

In four days it will be the 6th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and we presently have Hurricane Irene bearing down on the eastern coast of the United States, expected to make landfall in North Carolina.  I sincerely hope no serious damage results and nobody is harmed by the hurricane or its aftermath, in North Carolina or anywhere in range of Irene.  To those of you in this region, my heart goes out to you and I hope you and your loved ones remain safe.

I still get depressed.  I used to tell ghost stories for a living, and I did it well.  Well enough to support a family, and live in the old French Quarter of New Orleans (albeit sans automobile).  Well enough to live where walking out the front gate would lead to Royal Street, where a jazz parade might be passing by.  Where down the street one could find an old French patisserie, a cafe or a famous bar.  Where further down musicians might be performing on the corner, where people dressed up like statues would be posing, and nobody worried too much about how you looked or the way you chose to dress as you wandered through the streets.

Where I used to be easily recognized by a fairly significant number of locals.  Would they still easily recognize me today?  I'm not so sure.

But overall...life is good.  I can easily acknowledge that now, and feel it.  I used to talk about how lucky we all were to have survived the entire ordeal.

I'm disregarding my personal advice, even I've long known that the internet can be the worst possible sort of forum for sharing anything about religion, dogmatic views, and so forth, because people feel free to be complete jackasses due to the anonymous nature of the forum.  I'm disregarding it because I've learned too much to not share, even though knowing that 99% of those who read this will either become deeply offended or otherwise blow it off.  I'm disregarding it because that 1% who find this information useful are well worth the likely troll swarm that I will soon be up against upon publishing this.

What also doesn't help is the vast amount of 2012 controversy that has reached epic proportions, spawning a disaster porno and various films, documentaries, books, websites and more, to the point that anyone even remotely interested in the subject will immediately be inundated with "We're all gonna die!" screams by those who have spent way too much time obsessing the subject.  I'm also of the opinion that the Mayans are being given way too much credit in terms of knowing exactly when the exact moment this End of Times is due to begin, the fateful date of December 21st, 2012, which only invites ridicule from those who have already been plagued by the Year 2000 Bug end of the world controversies that yielded no such thing, and countless other accounts by Doomsayers that, "The End is Nigh".

That said, please bear in mind that you are now reading a site that has been titled "Fated to End Sometime" since its inception back in ... 2004 I think.  I don't know for certain because the site has gone through transitions and a complete purging of old articles.  But since I have owned a blog it has been called Fated to End Sometime, because I've known at some point I would stop contributing to it, and the reason for this would most likely be something outside of my control.  Regardless it's a website that has known that it is doomed to end.  That doesn't mean there won't be a new beginning when this happens.  I just like to be up front about these things, and since I'm a cup-half-empty kind of person I tend to lean toward the less optimistic outlook.  I tend to get less rude awakenings that way.

Also, for those of you who pay attention, you may have noticed that there are runes in the sword blade at the top, taken directly from the Norse Elder Futhark.  In Norwegian, these runes roughly translate to "Ragnarok Approaches" (I apologize in advance to anyone who speaks/reads Norwegian and finds fault in this translation - after all I used Google Translate which is known to be fallible).  The image of the sword blade is 1680 pixels wide, so if you are using a screen smaller than 21" you may not be able to see the entire thing, plus part of it is covered by the amber gemstone with another rune in it that one typically will not find in the Elder Futhark.  But that's another story.

My point is, I've been thinking about the End Times quite a bit over several years, and as the seasons do not change as expected, and trees begin flowering in Autumn when they normally only flower in Spring, and the hot summer seems much hotter than before, and the cold winter seems much colder than before, yet in both seasons less precipitation occurs than used to fall when we were children, when the clouds in the sky have been replaced by the trails of exhaust from jet airliners, and when birds and fish mysteriously fall from the sky or rise up from the bottom of the river, dead, for reasons nobody can explain, it is plain to see that something is not quite right.

When the North Pole is no longer true magnet north, this might help answer some of the above.  No matter how many officials or specialist try to claim that it is not a big deal, I am already in full understanding that there is more to come.  The Earth is just warming up.

So I've finally come to the conclusion that I may as well provide my personal ideas as to what will be next in the following months, as we enter 2012, pass into the chaos to follow in 2013, and begin to get used to things after the dust settles in 2013, to those who are interested in what I might have to say.

When this begins, we are going to start seeing some spectacular things.  We are going to think we are hallucinating, and as far as scientists and medical professionals are concerned, we will be.  The source of this will be the combination of our planet's shifting magnetic field as the north and south poles approach the equator and complete their reversal.  The reason it will affect us is because the magnetite attached to our pineal gland and found throughout our bones will change with the earth's magnetic field, and this will directly impact our perception of the world around us.

This is the part of this article where I start to go off "the deep end" so to speak.  But please bear in mind in our news reports, as the poles have already begun shifting, the dramatic increase of incidents of violence, especially where the violent crimes were committed by someone who was later not understanding how or why they committed the misdeed.  People on this planet are already affected, especially those in Egypt who have been suffering under the same regime for thirty years and are only now resorting to violent revolution in order to bring down those in power.

I have long believed in elves, fairies, dragons, werewolves, vampires, valkyries, gods and goddesses, magic (not just the sleight-of-hand kind, though they are related) and various other things that people profess to know are "NOT REAL".  I believe in angels and demons, the bogeyman, ghosts, aliens (although I'm not sure that they are really little green men from Mars), UFOs, Bigfoot, the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster and Champ, telepathy, telekinesis, out of body experiences, and much much more.

I keep an open mind.  I do not dismiss out of hand what other people dismiss because they can find no evidence for the above, or not enough concrete evidence to feel comfortable supporting these ideas.  They do not want to be thought crazy, or stupid, or both. I risk these things by publishing this statement, but at this point in the game I really don't care so much about what other people think of me, so I'm letting it ride.

This is not superstition, this is not hearsay, this is not how I was brought up.  This is the culmination of decades of information and personal experiences that cannot be easily explained.

Why can't we see these supernatural beings all the time?  It is my opinion that they are visible only to those who are able to see their frequency of vibration.  Similar to how a dog can perceive sounds that the human ear cannot, and yet very different, these beings are in our world enough to affect it, and enough to be seen in glimpses out of the corner of your eye.  They do not fully occupy our world, and are separated from it by what has been long called "the veil".

With the changing magnetic fields and the shifting poles comes the dissolution of this veil, or at the very least our ability to see past it and perceive these otherworldly beings.  Simultaneously they will also be able to see us.  It can be assumed that many of these beings will not be friendly, and some will most likely be openly hostile, angry with how the humans have treated their Mother Earth.

This "veil" has been addressed multiple times in folklore and in fiction, and even in modern storytelling, including the recent films Hellboy II: The Golden Army and The Spiderwick Chronicles.  These films use artifacts or old-world devices to penetrate this hidden world, but there are other ways this might occur.  For those who immediately disregard these statements because it is merely fiction and therefore not true, I would like to point out that in many cases fiction contains nuggets of truth, nuggets that might be otherwise considered dangerous information if it were not shrouded in the form of a fictional tale.

For those who do not believe, this will undoubtedly be a rude awakening as things they simply do not believe in are suddenly found in abundance everywhere they turn.  

There will be chaos when the End Times approach, and not just because of our collapsing economies, the drastic earth changes resulting in cataclysmic events, the shifting magnetic poles and the threat of a planet-wide calamity caused by a severe solar storm striking and penetrating the Earth's weakened magnetic field.  When the veil dissolves, we will suddenly be exposed to another world long hidden from us; a dangerous world filled with beings who will undoubtedly despise humanity for all of its ills.

There is more to be written on this subject, for this is just the tip of the iceberg.

At the end of last year I received an interesting e-mail message from the host of the Moebanshee's Lair internet radio show.  She had found me in this video when researching the LaLaurie mansion and invited me to be a guest on her show.  

During the broadcast we discussed my experiences during and following Hurricane Katrina while Brigitte listened to the show while chatting on the radio website with other listeners. We were invited back to the show to discuss our experiences in greater detail on April 6th, and the above link is a podcast of the show itself.  It's roughly two hours in duration, with music breaks every thirty minutes.

You can listen to Moebanshee's Lair every Tuesday evening from 10pm-Midnight EST at http://www.gameconradio.com, and you can also listen to podcasts of her shows here. Below is the podcast from this same internet radio show about the LaLaurie Mansion, otherwise known as the most haunted building in the city of New Orleans. We were invited to participate in the Hurricane Katrina show immediately following this one:

So this weekend Willow asked me to install Darkstone on her computer, because she's lately been pretty keen on all things related to Lord of the Rings, however indirectly.  So I obliged, and then she asked for help getting connected with Autumn over the network so they could play together, which I haven't done with the game in a long time.

Turns out this would take a bit of doing.  Everyone runs either Windows XP or Ubuntu in this house (or both), and what I did not initially expect was to have to add an exception to the Windows XP firewall on each machine in order to get the games to communicate with each other.

Darkstone, by the way, is very similar to Diablo.  Released between the original Diablo and Diablo II, it has remained one of my personal favorite video games of all time, and if I had to point to one video game that has managed to suck up the most of my free time out of all video games I have ever played, I would point at Darkstone.

Like Diablo, Darkstone has network support, but unlike Diablo it does not use a dedicated host to do so.  The game includes its own built in server/client system, and can allow for connections either on an LAN by way of IPX, or over the internet by way of TCP/IP.

Because I had not successfully gotten the kids to be able to play networked Diablo via IPX (and I now suspect the problem was firewall related) I started them off by using TCP/IP to connect to Willow's computer.  Not only was this very cumbersome, but it seemed that the game had a tendency to kick the players out if there was too much latency, which was driving me nuts.  Any time Autumn got kicked out, I would have to go to her computer, manually punch in Willow's IP address (192.168.2.106, for those of you who are very curious) and reconnect her.

I looked around for a simpler way to connect via LAN.  The only thing that seemed even remotely useful was Gamespy Comrade (formerly Gamespy Arcade) which offered better support for internet play.  LAN play, however, would still be a complicated affair because Willow, Autumn and even Elish (yes my 3 year old plays this game, and does pretty well) would each need separate Gamespy IDs and would have several steps to go through before even launching the game itself.

As it turned out, three of the computers did not even have IPX/SPX installed, which I rectified.  That, combined with the firewall exceptions, made everything gravy.  Now the kids can launch, host a network session and connect to it all without needing my assistance.  And as you can see, I even jumped in for some playtime too ;)

I highly recommend LAN play on some classic games with your kids - especially games that are cooperative in nature.

 We just received this message from eBay today:

We're contacting you about the following item:
WOMENS CUSTOM CLOTHING LOT PERSONAL SHOPPER SERVICE

This listing didn't follow the guidelines in our policy. We haven't removed it, but we wanted to let you know about the problem because future violations could result in listing removal and limits to your selling privileges. Please use the information below to edit your listings so they follow our policy: 

Listings that offer a choice of different items aren't allowed on eBay. Sellers can offer a choice of sizes, colors and configurations of a particular item within a listing, but the listing can't offer buyers a choice of completely different items.

Sellers are generally permitted to offer a choice of sizes, colors and configurations of a particular item within a listing. However, a listing may not offer buyers a choice of completely different items. This is considered a form of fee circumvention.

Using systems and techniques to circumvent, or avoid, eBay fees isn't allowed. Fee avoidance, or "circumvention," is damaging to the online marketplace, puts sellers who pay their fees at a disadvantage, and damages members' trust. 

For more information on this eBay policy, please visit: 

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-circumventing.html

We're sorry for the inconvenience, but our policies help keep eBay safer for everyone. Thanks for your understanding.

Sincerely,
eBay Trust and Safety Team

So effectively our last two remaining eBay auction listings are considered in violation of eBay terms.  To be more specific, we were running two "personal shopper" auction listings on eBay.  In each listing you could choose your size and also how many clothing items & jewelry you would like to receive, with different price ranges for each "lot".  The buyer would send us their payment, we would then go shopping for them (as a SERVICE), photograph what we purchased for their review, go shopping again if necessary, then package and ship their clothing directly to them.

Because there were variations within each listing, eBay apparently determined that we were selling "different" types of product in one listing and therefore attempting "fee avoidance".  Strangely, they did not cancel the listings, so apparently this message was intended to be some kind of warning.  To me that makes things really unclear - because according to this message from eBay we were in violation of eBay policies, but it was still okay to keep the listings up.  My interpretation is that eBay knows that we were not in violation of their terms, but they decided to bully us into splitting these two auctions up into ten separate listings so they would receive more revenue from insertion fees.

For those of you who do not use eBay regularly or have never sold anything on eBay, this past October a number of changes on the site were initiated to make eBay seem (in my opinion) less like a flea market and more like a professional site such as Amazon.com - in fact it appears to me that eBay is attempting to move in on Amazon.com's market.  These changes include degrading Powerseller (which is a title achieved by selling a certain quantity or dollar amount within a 90 day period) to little more than a title, increased emphasis on seller star ratings which focus on accuracy of listing description, shipping time, shipping fees and communication, and the inclusion of a new title called Top Rated Seller which can be easily lost by receiving one or two low seller star ratings or a serious listing violation.  This title is also very difficult for new sellers to achieve.

The reason it is hard to become a Top Rated Seller is because the seller star ratings are entirely dependent on the customer.  If the customer has a grudge, or maybe wants more than what the auction offered, or didn't bother to read the auction description or the seller's terms before they made their purchase, it is still the seller who has to pay the penalty.  Also, because eBay sellers are forbidden from leaving any negative feedback on a buyer's record, there is nothing a seller can do to protect themselves from bad customers, or worse - scammers.  There are many buyers on eBay who take advantage of eBay's policies to attempt to get products without paying for them.  Failing that, they can also take advantage of Paypal's policies and get their money back for a purchase by lying.  In all cases, it is the seller who ends up paying, and the sometimes the costs of these bad customers don't go away for a VERY long time.

What is especially obnoxious is that only Top Rated Sellers can purchase enhanced listing advertising (Featured First) which puts their listings ahead of everyone else's that fall under a similar search category.  Featured First is very expensive ($25.00US per listing) and there is no guarantee that your listing will even show up first - eBay rotates different auctions that have paid for Featured First, typically showing only two at a time, and only auctions that are "popular" (people click on them to view the description and/or place a bid) will show up at the top of the search on a regular basis.  In other words, if your auction looks cheaper than everyone else's, or seems to be offering more than anyone else's for the same price, you will get more traffic than other auctions, and if you have purchased Featured First, as the auction progresses through the week it will start to show up at the top of the search results ALL the time.  However, if you are not willing to take the risk of your auction selling for less than what you are paying eBay to list it, you will not receive as much traffic as those who do.  Either way - Featured First is like gambling at a casino - more often than not you end up losing.

What this means for a seller who is engaging in the sale of a popular type of product (popular meaning tons of other sellers are offering the same thing & that the search results for the product are several pages long) is that you either pay eBay $25.00 to ensure your listing receives the proper traffic throughout its duration, or else you pray that your auction performs well on the final day of its listing duration because that is the only time it will be easy to find for the average eBay shopper.  If your auction does not sell, you still owe eBay your insertion fee (although they may allow you to attempt to relist it and will credit your second insertion fee if it sells on the second try).  If you have purchased Featured First and your auction does not sell, you still owe eBay the $25.00 fee + your insertion fee.  If someone wins your auction and does not pay you, you still owe eBay the $25.00 fee + your insertion fee, although you may be able to get a credit for your Final Value fee.

Let me break this down for you:

• Listing Insertion Fee - To list an auction you must pay an "Insertion fee" which is a basic listing charge - the amount varies depending on the beginning dollar amount of the auction ($0.99 auctions cost $0.15 to insert, and the insertion fees increase from there - check eBay policies for specifics).  If your item does not sell and you "relist", you may receive a credit on your insertion fee as long as it sells on the 2nd attempt.
• Upgrades - To increase the "visibility" of your auction (how easy it is for the average eBay shopper to find) you may purchase "upgrades" for your listing such as Subtitle, Bold, and Featured First (to name few).  Featured First is the most helpful "upgrade" because it positions your listing first in your search category, however it is expensive ($25.00 US) and thus should only be used by sellers who know they will definitely receive more than $50.00 in bids for their auction.  You may also add features such as Buy It Now to allow buyers to end an auction early by paying a set price, which costs an additional $0.35 per auction.
• Final Value Fee - After the auction has sold, eBay takes a percentage of the final transaction price of every auction - the percentage varies based on how much the auction sells for.  Final Value Fees can be refunded if a buyer never pays for your auction, although this process takes up to two weeks to complete and effectively gives the buyer additional time to pay for an item beyond the seller's specified terms.
• Paypal Fee - Every time you receive money in Paypal it takes a percentage from the total amount (in the case of eBay transactions, which REQUIRE that you receive payment via Paypal, this means the total price of the auction PLUS shipping).  In case you were not aware of this, Paypal is owned by eBay, so this constitutes an additional source of revenue for eBay for their auctions.

So what does this mean?  It means that eBay receives payment from their sellers UP TO FOUR TIMES from ONE TRANSACTION.

Throughout 2009 we were selling "lots" of womens clothing.  This is a great market and also a difficult market.  If you are able to obtain large quantities of women's clothing for cheap, you could do quite well.  Yard sales, garage sales, thrift stores and so forth are excellent sources for this - thrift stores with clearance specials tend to be the easiest place to get good deals.  For a time we were obtaining a majority of our product from a local thrift store, but the details of that story fall under a different rant entirely.

Our plan was to resell our product on eBay with the initial goal of bringing in $600 or more each week.  Our initial trials indicated that this was quite possible with the sale of approximately 200 clothing items per week, in three to four auctions each offering roughly 60-80 articles of clothing.  There were other eBay sellers who were selling less articles of clothing and earning well over $1,000 per week.  All throughout 2009 we struggled to reach this goal, never quite achieving it.  Other factors were at play, but a number of our issues stemmed from an inability to find a set technique of selling the auctions that consistently worked.  We would have certain auctions that performed well, but duplicating these auctions typically resulted in what I called a "failed auction" - basically an auction where the clothing sold for less than $2.00 per item.

It is also important to note that these clothing lot auctions were more of a service to our customers than anything else - we purchased the product, organized it into like sizes, created "collections" of matching items, dressed a mannequin with each outfit, photographed them, cropped & resized the photographs and created a listing with additional information about the pieces such as measurements, size, color and so forth.  This was a very time consuming process, and a single auction could easily take several hours to create.  Regardless of the amount of money we had invested in our product, we needed our auctions to sell for a certain dollar amount to properly compensate us for our time.

Unfortunately, from the buyer's perspective, we were offering discount clothing for cheap, and it is in the smart shopper's best interest to purchase from the seller who appears to be offering the best deal.  Other sellers who included accessories with their lots such as cheap plastic jewelry, belts and handbags typically received the majority of bids from eBay shoppers.  These sellers would end up receiving anywhere from $200 - $400 for a single auction.  We tried selling the same jewelry with our auctions after finding a source for it on eBay for less than $1 per item, only to find that our listings still did not perform as well as we had expected.  To try to differentiate ourselves, Brig started creating her own jewelry to include with these collections, and while it did make an impact by improving most of our auction listings, it was unfortunately not enough to allow us to reach our expected goal.

As Thanksgiving approached we ran into difficulties with our source of inventory, and at the same time our sales began to plummet.  In an attempt to protect our remaining inventory we began offering Fixed Price "auctions" - they were listed at a high price, and we also accepted Best Offers from our buyers.  This allowed us to sell auctions for much higher than $2.00 per item, but they did not sell as frequently as regular auctions, so we still did not meet our weekly goal.

The Saturday before Thanksgiving eBay's search engine broke, making it impossible to find anyone's listings.  eBay claims that the problem was caused by an unexpected number of sellers creating new auctions so they would end on the Friday following Thanksgiving (Black Friday).  As a result of the problem, sellers could not even find their own listings for the entire day, and the problem was not entirely resolved until sometime on Sunday.

It is common for eBay sellers to schedule their auctions to end on Saturday because Saturday is the most active day on eBay.  This search engine outage therefore not only resulted in lost revenue for thousands of sellers, it also undermined buyer's confidence on eBay - especially the confidence of new buyers.

We had practically no business from that point forward.

eBay then added insult to injury by offering the 12 Days of Christmas sale, promoting manufacturers of major clothing brands such as DKNY by offering 70% off their clothing right on the front page of eBay.com, among others.  Effectively, eBay was competing against the majority of its own sellers by offering these promotions for Christmas.  I'm sure that eBay made quite a bit of money as a result of these promotions, but it left a really bad taste in my mouth, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this.  We took the time to view other auctions being sold in the womens clothing lots, and throughout the entire holiday season and even up to the present, these auctions are not performing nearly as well as they had been before the holiday season.

So this brings us up to the present - based on what I consider our failed eBay business attempt I went out and got a new job, for which I am incredibly grateful in this awful economic climate we are now in.  We had decided to continue to offer auctions on a more limited basis as an extra source of income, and had decided to consolidate our regular auctions into two custom shopping service listings.  They were identical, we just used different search keywords in each one to increase our visibility.

I also closed our eBay store (which is an additional source of income for eBay, it cost us $15.00 a month) and also ended our image hosting service subscription.  I ended all of our individual jewelry pendant auctions as well (we had over 100 listings of hand crafted holiday pendants and earrings running throughout the entire holiday season, and sadly only received purchases from our friends who knew of our listings thanks to Facebook).

Consequently, it is my opinion that the letter we received today from eBay is based on the fact that we are no longer a dependable or significant source of revenue for eBay.  Therefore, even though we were doing nothing wrong, this letter was their attempt to bully us into creating more auction listings so they could have a bigger cut of our profits.  If this is true (and so far I have no reason to believe otherwise) this is yet more despicable behavior committed by eBay, and as a result I no longer desire to have a part in it.

While we may purchase things through eBay from time to time, I do not intend to allow them to rape us any longer.  I paid the $3.70 we owed eBay for the month of January so far, and ended both of our last two clothing listings.

A Sunday morning fastly eroding and soon to be afternoon and it will be once I finish this composition of this missive.

The days, the weeks and months now just fly by.  They say it has something to do with getting older, perhaps.  I'm also hearing alot that time or our perception thereof has accelerated greatly as the vibrations in the universe increase and more galactic waves push through our galaxy in preparation for the paradigm shift.  I've heard it said now that our typical day is now that of a 16 hour one.  The clocks still measure the same 24 hour day, the sun rises and sets on the same times as it did centuries ago.  Now if it feels like you can't get the same amount of things done in a day as you did 20 years ago??, this is why. I know I can't and no it's not because I'm moving slower with age, I'm not that old, yet!  Time is basically all relative with just us humans really the ones that measure it out in increments and how our minds perceive it in this three dimensional realm within a multi dimensional universe or multiverse.  Yes time has sped up and will continue to do so exponentially now.

As I compose this missive it's now past Mid August and my most favorite time of the year is rapidly approaching that being Autumn. I'm already planning Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas or the more Pagan variations thereof. Planning on how to observe it more in tune with my Pagan beliefs.  Seems like last week I was out bike riding on Memorial Day weekend planning the 4th of July. Feels like a couple days ago it was July 4th, the day was filled with magic. I have the photos that captured that magic and it was one of the best I've had in my adult life. I always know that once the 4th of July passes the rest of the summer is a blur and such is being the case.

Labor Day weekend now just 3 weeks away.  My favorite time of the year is autumn. Maybe I'm what is known as an "Autumn" Person. My favorite colors are Reds and Oranges, browns and yellows, I love the warm spices of cinnamon, allspice, cloves.  Labor Day weekend I'll go to the shed out in back of house and lug out the autumn decorations and adorn the house inside with the festive colors of autumn leaves and dried floral arrangements. 

Living in the Florida Keys the summers here are regarded as many northerners regard winter. Northerners are glad to see spring/summer after the drab, harshness of winter, the warmer days mean more activity outside up north in spring/summer. Reverse that for the Florida Keys.  Summers here are wickedly brutal with torrid heat and humidity.  Yes you can do everything out of doors but expect to be drenched with sweat, get dehydrated.  We look forward to the cooler days of autumn and winter as folk up north look forward to the warmer days of spring and summer.

As much as I abhor commercialism and capitalism I still look forward to the store displays that mark the turning of a season none other than autumn.   The first signs clearly evident with the Back To School merchandise but that's only a small part.  Suddenly one day you go into the grocery store and you see those familiar orange, yellow bags of candy popping up in a display. It's just a small section at first. A closer inspection reveals this to be Halloween candy and that should start appearing in the next couple weeks if it hasn't already.  Suddenly those candy displays and bags like a virus multiply. What was just  a small section or two of shelf of a few assorted bags mushrooms and envelops an entire store aisle. Suddenly like mushrooms after a rain a store display erupts with candy and then Halloween decorations.  Now the stops are pulled as commercialism makes the best of the coming months.  It's all mental programming for the BIG HO HO (Christmas), get you in the spirit. Think about it.  First the candy and then you start seeing Halloween decorations for sale.  Suddenly you notice the baking supplies making a prominent feature on store end caps and eventually a section of store relegated just for the upcoming baking season.  That is probably the most favorite for me of the season is the baking, I just love food and sweets and its all comfort foods.

Notice that one day in the coming weeks you will enter the grocery store and immediately your eyes will be greeted with the autumn decorations of the colors associated with the season. What is more noticeable is those Cinnamon scented brooms and that spicy aroma permeate an entire section of the grocery store. It more often burns ones nostrils and makes the eyes water it's so strong.  Nothing gets ones mind thinking more about autumn and the Holidays than Cinnamon.  It's my favorite smell on the planet. I keep our home filled with Cinnamon essential oils year round.  I think because it's a strong comfort smell to me.  Capitalism knows this also to use as a form of mind control basically to get you revved up and nostalgic.  A building crescendo commences with the colors, sights, sounds of autumn.  As days grow shorter, the nights cooler and the trees change.  The stores proudly display the autumn harvests of colorful gourds, pumpkins. Entire sections are relegated to Halloween.  You are thinking Halloween is still aways off but you notice something else that is looming amongst the autumn displays.  This usually happens in the shopping malls first and like a plague it spreads into the chain stores.  Suddenly trees sprout among the shopping midways adorned with the gaily colored lights of the upcoming Saturnalia still months away.  The jolly fat man in the red suit starts appearing. You think to yourself. Gee let's at least get Halloween over with first. No wait.  I'm still in shorts and sandals in New York let me have a couple more barbeques, a weekend out on the lake before I even have to think about Halloween that is still yet such a long ways off.  Not in the accelerated pace of time.  The youngins will be yelling trick or treat while you scratch your head thinking we just did the 4th of July and oh wait that pile of dirty clothes has my summer shorts still in it. Yep I better wash them before the whole damn laundry pile walks away on its own and put them away for the winter, clean?? that's an option.

I personally look forward to Labor Day.  My mood and focus immediately shifts to Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and the Fall TV. lineup. It's the first sign that cooler weather will be coming. I look forward to the upcoming baking season, the house filled with the smells of baking and the colorful decorations that undergo the same process in our home such as the commercial stores.  Some autumn decos festooned throughout, an explosion of Halloween adornments and even more so out in the yard. Quickly replaced by Turkeys, Puritan figures and cornucopias. That can't be swept away fast enough to get ready for the grand finale of Saturnalia, The Big Ho Ho or Christmas.  We hold onto these traditions as they are comforts. Comforts to most of our youth, of happier and or simpler times.

As I grow more in tune with my Pagan roots and beliefs I shift my focus more each year away from the commercialism and celebrate the season itself.  I won't adorn our entire front yard into a massive spook yard.  Awesome yes I must admit. Too much work and effort for just a dozen kids to come and see. Then I have to take all the crap down and put it away! I still have open plastic totes of unused fireworks from the 4th of July sitting on the treadmill and floor of the garage. My Excuse? It's just too damn hot to mess around sorting and organizing. I don't like going into our garage this time of year. Its average temperature hovers around 100.

I will still observe Halloween though but more along the lines of Pagan custom of All Hallows Eve or Samhain. I'll still buy some bags of candy just for us two adult kids in the house. I'll still carve a jack o lantern or two or three and sneak a few decos up in the yard. I just have to remember I have to take all that crap down!!!. Then Thanksgiving.  Wow where else do you spend what you would on an entire weeks worth of groceries and more if you entertain for a meal that takes days to prep for, hours and hours to cook, minutes to eat and is all doing down the toilet the next day.  We however give in and do it.  Yes I do enjoy Thanksgiving it's on my list of favorite holidays, I enjoy it immensely. I keep saying each year I will simplify. Each year I try but it just don't feel right unless you go full tilt, overboard.

What gets me is the Thanksgiving turkey is not even cold yet and many Americans are heading out to the stores to stand in line all night for Black Friday.  A Commercialism nightmare, one of the biggest snake oil scams the greasy wheels of Capitalism has going.  You think your getting a huge bargain?  Just remember where this stuff is made that cost pennies on the dollar to mass produce, has a HUGE markup then put the word "SALE" on it and sell it while still making a HUGE profit because now you are selling mass quantity.  I have no part of that day at all.  I have no desire to stand in line all night nor get mowed down in the screaming stampeded while going in the doorway. I don't live in the north so couldn’t imagine standing outside in 30 degree weather.  Ya know I wonder though?  That Thanksgiving meal folk gorged on?? A gut load of food now digesting.  You know the saying, food in, poop out.  You’re in line for the sale of the century. That Wii Play station that will be on sale for $50 bucks, the store only has a limited amount, Your freezing your you know what off and "Duty Calls"  Most parking lots don't even have porta potties and you don't dare step outta line and loose your spot. Folk are out for blood for that SALE, that spirit of giving and being nice is already in the toilet ahead of your bowel movement when it comes to messing with getting that latest deal.  I even hear of some "Hard Core" shoppers wearing adult diapers.  I draw the line there. No Thanks. I'll stay at home and be very entertained by the You Tube clips of the fights breaking out, the mayhem, and the people squatting behind whatever gives them a sense of privacy to relieve their bodily functions for all to see on the World Wide Web.

Yep no thanks.  My partner and I stopped buying gifts for that one day, spending money we don't have. Instead we have Christmas year round. You just surprise one another with something when you get a little extra money during the year.  I think I will put up a small tree this year, one of those table top jobs just so I can puts some of those high tech LED Christmas lights on it.  I used to go crazy decorating. It looked like Santa puked inside and outside the home of everything/anything dealing with Christmas. Talk about over kill!!  I am a person that takes things to the extreme.  I think the last time I put Christmas lights up outside I lost count when the lights got near the 100,000 mark.  Let's see that would be 2006. Yep I remember. I almost burnt the garage down on Christmas when I overloaded the garage circuit trying to reroute extension cords.  A line of thunderstorms was moving in.  Most of my outdoor outlets were GFCI type. Rain, extension cords and GFCI's don't get along and not conducive for Christmas lighting.  I was scared shitless when I saw the scorched outlet when I unplugged everything in January.  I'm glad the circuit breakers in the main box kept tripping and I wasn't a fool to try and over ride that!  Christmas night of 2006 our yard was mostly dark as heavy rains pounded, GFCI's had all tripped. Weeks and weeks of work putting it all up, fretting over burnt out stands in the meantime. All for one day and the night it was most important it didn't work.  About had a bowel movement in my pants come January at the sight of the electric bill also.  Then what goes up must come down.  I think I wound up taking all the stuff down somewhere around Valentines Day or was it St. Patrick’s Day of 2007.  As a matter of fact there are still about 800 white twinkle lights now a tangled mess in our orange tree as of August 2009, Screw It!!.  I keep it there to remind me not to undergo the yearly madness of giving into the madness for just one day.  Nope I look most forward now to having the Yearly Yule bonfire in the yard, observing the Winter Solstice rite with ritual, followed by some small feasting.  This is where the whole birth of Christmas stems from even the birth of Jesus. Ask me sometime I've done the research.  Halloween comes from Samhain and alot of lore, legend and tradition to get taken by the conglomerated, convoluted grubs of commercialism.

Nope this year I look forward to observing the true rites in accordance to my Pagan beliefs and Spiritualism, the way it's meant.  Talking too and thanking the Spirits/Creator, keeping it simple.  If I do want some nostalgia to remind me of my youth and bring some comfort I keep it small and simple. Remember... I have to take it all down!

It all seems so far off but really isn't, it's coming and very soon.  I talk about this now because before I know it I'll have to write it in the past tense.

I promised Fil that I'd start contrubuting more here to the group so here goes.

As I begin to keyboard this missive it is still raining. A clear line of blue sky to the north marks a distinct demarcation of heavy overcast and rains to the south. The blue sky slowly advancing.  We sure get some unique weather here in the Florida Keys.  All this means that at some point in the next couple of hours I have to go to work.  Always seems like a dirty 4 letter word to me "WORK".  BUT. Until a better modality of sustainability comes along the bills gotta be paid and food bought by partaking in the dirty 4 letter word called "WORK"

I like the barter system. Equal work for equal trade.   Have a client that owns one of those hair salons.  Never thought I'd be caught in one of those!!..LOL  I felt change in my appearence was needed to accomdate the changes ongoing within and my entire world changing.  I was a natural blonde as a youngin up until teen years.  Seems as soon as I hit the age of 20 my hair just got darker and darker to now a dark ash brown at age 46.   A wild hair up the backside oneday I thought hhhmm what would it be like to see that blonde 20 somethin dude again.  I did one of those home box  beach dye jobs... UGH!!! disaster!!!!!  Brassy Orange and I do mean Brassy.  Went to my one client that owns the hair salon and said "HELP"!!!

She said to come on in the shop.  I was hesitant about going until she told me they have a private room, okay cool.  We agreed upon me doing some extra work at their property in exchange for the bleach job. This is in addition to the twice montly service I provide. Fair Enough.  Got the hair done to blonde and I felt younger. "Hey that's me again"!!!  It has been over 20 years since I even had any length of hair!!. I always kept my hair cut in a military/USMC high and tight and I was very fastidious at maintaining such.  The past year I started slacking and letting it grow, buzzin it off, letting it grow again. Then I decided to just let it go and grow. 

So here I am a 46 year old dude in the midst of mid life crisis but I felt good at the old but new me.  The mirror reflecting an aging 21 year old who is now being constantly reminded by the ole body that we just can't do that like we used to. The Screw You  body attitude, I can do this, do anything to my body's signals no longer apply.  I pay for reckless ambitions  for such vicarious behavior these days.  As long as my mind don't age then it's all good.

The barter worked very well and I was happy to provide in exchange about 2 hours of labor on there property putting down mulch in landscape beds.  A follow up 2 months later to keep the look followed by "just deduct it" from the bill.  I'm good with that.

I needed a small push lawn mower. Ya know just one of those cheap 6 horse power jobs. I have a large commercial walk behind lawn mower I call "The Beast" it's heavy, awkward and cumbersome but not a lick of trouble/problems with engine, belt or blade in the now 7th  year of owning it and very hard use. Other than the rear wheels are falling apart in the axle hubs and the frame handle needs a weld job it's still in remarkable working condition. I have the handle jury rigged with heavy gauge wire.

Wouldn't you know a push mower came available from some folk moving.  There lawn needed cutting before they vacated the home and if I cut the grass I could have the mower... fair enough.  Now I have a little mower to do the small jobs with and zip in and zip out.

I like this barter system. If only I could get the grocery store to do the same and maintain the parking lot we'd be really good. Big Corporate store... nope and the account already taken.

I can only hope in the New World the current monetary system will be of no use.  Each can use there skills, talents and abilities in exchange for goods and services.  We can hope.

Okay time to fnish up here, post and carry on with the day. The sun trying to make an appearence now.  My plans are to be here on this forum more often.  My priorities are changing and focus being redirected.  Things are moving and shaking in the realms for me now as my Guides finally come through speaking to me and giving me directions once again.  I'm to start doing again among other things.

Will post an El Nino update for the group here.  It's something that is going to affect all this coming winter with some of the wildest and strangest weather probably yet to be seen if the trend continues to intensify and amplify like I feel it's going to. That however is another post.

My legal given name is Kev but  I also go by JD, Cowboy, SouthernRebel for those that remember me from the older forums and Friday Night Chat rooms. I continually evolve as years go onward it seems.  Feel fee to use any.

Kev

For those of you who keep up with this blog, I've decided ultimately to ditch OpenWYSIWYG in favor of Drupal FCKEditor combined with Image Browser - Image Browser is a much more intuitive image insertion tool than the one that was included with OpenWYSIWYG, and quite frankly I add a lot of images to my posts and don't want to have to spend up to five minutes navigating folders on my server to find the one I need without even a thumbnail to help me.

However, this post is about eBay.  I stopped working as a manager for a computer repair shop in town for a number of reasons, but in this day and age it is still necessary to earn an income.  However, as we are in the End Times, the Time of Kali, or whatever your personal belief system calls the final days on Earth as we count down toward whatever happens next, I have a strong desire to be with my family as much as possible.

Brigitte wanted this too, and in 2008 spent a lot of time researching sellers on eBay to get an idea of how they do what they do and how much money they tend to earn.  We also did some test auctions of our own and found to our amazement that it was possible to earn just as much, if not much much more, than I was earning working 40 hours a week for someone else.

So when it came time to put in my two weeks, I became determined that we must succeed at all costs, and that this was going to have to be a serious endeavor for this to be possible.

The problem is, my idea of making a serious endeavor on eBay is not only to be as professional as possible, but to also lay down a series of ground rules for our auctions to ensure that we would not get screwed by those "bad" customers out there.

After working on this, and taking some time off when Brigitte neared her delivery date for Yaddo to take over the other functions of the house, and getting back into the swing of it again over these several months, I have come to a simple conclusion about eBay that makes me feel a little stupid.

Most of the customers who buy things on eBay will not buy from sellers that have a lot of rules.

Also, most of the customers on eBay are not trying to screw the sellers.

Furthermore, no matter how many rules you may have, you will probably still end up getting screwed, because there will always be the customer who uses their option to leave you negative feedback as leverage to get what they want.

I wanted to make this a more detailed post regarding this, but since it is late I will leave it at that for now.  If you want to do well on eBay, one of the best things you can do is keep your auctions simple.  We have only just figured this out, and oddly - it works.

Also, eBay is no easier than any other job.  In fact, in a lot of ways it is much harder work.  But it can also be much more rewarding than the average job, and the sky is the limit.  You earn as much as you want to, as long as you are committed to doing the work.