eBay announced yesterday that as of February 18th they are incresing thier rates on a lot of their auctions. Here are some examples:
Gallery
Gallery fees will be raised from $0.25 to $0.35 per listing.
10-Day Duration
The fee for 10-day duration listings will be raised from $0.20 to $0.40 per listing.
eBay Stores
The fee for the Basic eBay Store subscription will be raised from $9.95 to $15.95 per month. The subscription fee for Featured and Anchor Stores will be unchanged.
Now mind you these are just SOME of the increses, not all of them. This is outrageous. Sure, the amounts don’t seem that big, but on a percentage basis they are insane. A 100% increase to 10 day duration? WHO RAISES FEES 100% IN ONE WHACK? Well apparently eBay does.
So these new fees take effect on February 18th…guess what….eBay will make NO money from me on that day. I am not listing or ending auctions on that day. They can enjoy their first day of these new fees without my help. And in case you are wondering, I run about 200 – 250 items a week, so I am not talking only one or two items.
I had just been thinking “Wow…there has been NOTHING to comment on lately.” Then, like a gift from on-high came this little gem. Thank you Philadelphia!
It seems that 10 year old Porsche Brown has committed that most heinous of all crimes…she had scissors! *pauses so the audience can stop gasping*
Yes, I can see where there was a potential for a problem, but come on folks, they were in her bag. Was there really a reason to haul her off in cuffs? For that matter, was there even really a reason to call the cops? Yes, I know the article said that this was the law, but come on! And now, on top of all this trauma, a 5 day suspension? The possability of being sent to a special disciplinary school seems wrong to me in the extreme.
What I really love is where the article goes on to say “and new policies give administrators the power to expel students for infractions as minor as violating the dress code, chronic tardiness or habitual swearing.” Dress code violations? DRESS CODE VIOLATIONS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
I am *so* thankful I do not have a child currently going through any school system in America, as they seem to have ALL lost their minds!
Could someone please explain to me why people go nuts for the Bawls drink? A store in my town finally started carrying it, and after hearing people rave about it for years, I bought one abd gave it a try. Yep…I love paying $1.49 for what tasted to me like a 7-UP that had gone flat.
Maybe it is the fact my body gets no kick from caffeine from years of drinking several cups of coffee every day. For the life of me though, I could just not find anything exciting about this soda.
What are they thinking? I read one article where this burger is 1420 calories! Are they insane? 107 grams of fat? Folks, I love a great burger, but this thing makes my veins hurt just looking at a picture of it!
WOW! Two stupid news stories in the same day WITH a common theme! This rocks!
The first one relates to a high school senior who had his yearbook picture taken with his skeet shooting shotgun. (You can see the story here) The school informed him they couldn’t use that photo. After a compromise vote it was determined the picture could go in the community activities section, and his senior pic could have other tools of skeet shooting, but not the shotgun.
Excuse me, but do photos of guns now constitute a threat to people? “Look out! He’s got a picture of a rifle!” The kid is proud of his accomplishments, let him be! The kid, understandably, is not happy with the compromise and his lawyer is fighting the school over it. Here is where the school messed up though as they have a written policy which states ““We encourage the use of school sponsored publications to express students’ points of view. They shall be free from all policy restrictions outside the normal rules for responsible journalism.””
Um….which part of responsible journalism did this violate?
____________________________________________________ Story #2!
It seems a high school student was suspended for having a replica of a civil war era musket in his car trunk. The kid was part of a civil war re-enactment and had left his costume and replica gun in his trunk. Someone spotted the musket while his trunk was open and he was reported to the police and arrested for it. He is now facing school disciplinary action.
Folks…it’s a musket…a replica musket at that. If the musket had been in his trunk without the costume, I might understand people wondering, but the costume was right there. He has numerous witnesses that he was at the civil war battle….how can ANYONE with any sense in their head view this as a danger to anyone? “It was horrible! He fired a horrendously inaccurate shot, took 5 minutes to reload and then missed again! The horror! The horror!”
Shall we add in the fact the musket was in his trunk? You know, not in the school…not out in the open, but in his trunk? This is just beyond silly. Now admittedly, I would like to know if the kid had a history of discipline problems, that might explain some of this, but if he didn’t, than this school is out of their minds.
Let’s face it folks, Columbine was a horrible and dark day in our county’s history, but I think we may be carrying things a little far when we ban a picture and go after a kid for having a musket.
You know, I hate “emo” blogs where people get all up inside their own head.
That being said…somedays I don’t understand myself. There is something going on right now that I have so many mixed feelings about, and have no clue WHY the feelings are mixed.
Time.com has an interesting article on blogging. It says “Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they’re fast, funny and totally biased”
See, that’s *my* problem, I can’t be biased. Every day there are 2 – 3 articles I would love to talk about, but can’t for fear of one of my customers finding this blog, disagreeing with me, and hence I would lose all their sales. Somedays I think “Ah screw it Sean…you’re a human, talk about anything you want to talk about!” Then I remember though the one major food chain I am boycotting (and have been for YEARS) due to the CEO’s politics.
I know I have talked about this before, but this article brought it back up for me. There really is nothing I can do. I have to be more concerned about my public image because this company pays employees. Employees who need money. Darn it all to heck….I have things I want to say though. *sigh* Really is no way for me to win in this situation.
It seems that a University student is going to sue the University of Kent at Canterbury for not catching him EARLY in his plagerising. That by giving him good grades on his papers, by taking his tuition, that they essentially gave into his plagerising. To say this guy needs to have his head smacked repeatedly is an understatement.
First off, is there anyone, anywhere, that does not know that plagerising is wrong?
Secondly, there is now software to check papers for plagerising, but in the past did he expect professors to check every word of every paper? Get a grip you little idjit.
This angers me to the point of my blood boiling. Grow up you little cheating pain in the behind. What’s next? “Well no one told *me* specifically killing was wrong….”
Michael Eisner has to go. It is official. No matter how you look at it, the man has become an unqualified dunce. The man DID, at one time, do great things for the Disney corp, but now he is not even a shadow of his former self. The kicking out of Roy Disney. The loss of Pixar. The nastiness with the Comcast takover bid. The laughable box office returns on “The Alamo”. He has lost his mind.
Now comes Michael Moore. You may not agree with the man (sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t), but the idea that Disney has told it’s Miramax arm that it can’t release “Fairenheit 9/11″ is just mind numbing. Michael Moore’s movies have ALWAYS been profitable. Spell it with me Mikey..P-R-O-F-I-T-A-B-L-E. You know, what “Home On The Range” and “The Alamo” both weren’t? What ABC isn’t? Mikey needs to go back to accounting class and see that turning down a sure fire profit, when in his current condition, is just idiotic. Not only has he lost profit, he has bought himself more negative press than you can count.
SO why is he turning down Michael Moore’s new film? Well the story that is circulating is because it is critical of the Bush family. Where is Disney World? In Florida. Who is Governor of Florida? Jeb BUSH. So apparently Mikey is afraid of a backlash on the landmark theme park. Well first off, the Governor can not wave his hand and just punish them with taxes. Secondly, would the Governor be dumb enough to harm the state’s cash cow industry of tourism? It is doubtful. Jeb is already on thin ice after the 2000 Election debacle, would he want to get himself more bad publicity? Doubtful.
If it sounds like I am rambling, it’s because I am. The amount of stupidity in this story is literally jaw dropping. The movie WILL see the light of day somehow, and Mikey will then have even more egg on his face for letting a profitable movie slip through his fingers for fear of phantom consquences.
Somedays it is just too easy. Somedays my blog entries are just written for me, and all I have to do is post the link for you. This is one of those. Ok, first off, click here.
Now, in case the link goes dead, here is the summary. It seems a 15-year-old girl in Pennsylvania took some nude photos of herself and would send them to people she met in chat rooms, and yes, some of them did involve sex acts. When the local police found out (which they won’t say how they found out abut her) they checked her computer and found several more pictures she had. And now a direct quote from the article “She faces a number of serious charges, including possession of child pornography”
Ok, before I say anything, let me say I do NOT condone what this girl did. Her parents should be talked to and they should have a better idea of what she is doing. In NO WAY do I think 15-year-old girls should be sending out naked photos of themselves.
Ok, that being said, let’s talk about the concept of the charge of “child pornography”. If by some random chance this girl actually gets convicted of this, that would mean she would have to register as a sex offender. Registered sex offenders have to inform their neighbors when they move into the neighborhood. So what does this girl say when informing her neighbors “I have to inform you I live in the neighborhood. I am a sexual danger to… myself” And this thought comes from a friend, does this mean every teenager who has taken a picture of a bare ass is a child pornographer. What if a teenager takes a picture of a covered crotch, but in a suggestive manner, is that child pornography?
So again, yes, this girl did a naughty naughty thing, but is it real child pornography when it is pictures of… yourself? Like I said, this one kind of wrote itself.
So McDonalds is discontinuing the Super Size option. (story here) So you mean to tell me that no longer will you be allowed to spend an extra $.39 for about 10 more french fries and a few more ounces of watered down Coke? Wow….just watch the waist lines of America change overnight! Wowzers! Talk about an empty gesture. McDonalds, whose sales have been sagging up until the latest quarter, is just trying to buy themselves some free good publicity. There are far more things wrong with the eating habits of this country than just “Super Sizing” your meal. Shame on McDonalds for such a empty gesture, and shame on the media for jumping at it like trained seals.
Anyway, I just LOVE this one (story here). Ok, this is either really bad reporting or there is a huge loophole in this. It says in the story ” Tourists and business travelers on short visits from 27 mostly European nations are exempt from the new measures.”
A) If this is a reporting error, will only residents of those 27 countires be exempt, or will ANY arrival from those countries be exempt? Because if it’s the second part….
B) “Well I want to terroize America. If I leave from country X they will fingerprint me and take my picture. If I fly to country Y first and THEN on to America I can just walk through. Gee….which should I choose”
The article also goes on to mention ” The program was launched at 115 airports and 14 cruise ship ports across the country, but not yet at land borders, which account for a large part of traffic into the United States.” Can you imagine that headache at ground borders? Oh my goodness. “Well I got in line on Monday….it is now Thursday.”
Folks, I am all for protecting our country, but this one just reeks of all show and no substance. I really do not see how this will protect us. It appears to me be all for show to make us feel safe.
And by the way….whose going to store all these pictures and prints?
