"Rants & Reasons"

A lesson to be learned about selling on eBay. Always block any bidder that has less than 10 feedbacks (as they're obviously new to buying from on line auctions).

Case in Point:

Last week I sold two different lots of comics to one buyer. One lot consisted of 46 comics and the other had 10 in it. I stated $10. shipping for the 46 lot (as I didn't know for certain if I could cram that many into a $8.95 flat rate box) and $6.25 for the one with 10 comics in it (as, quite frankly, I wasn't sure how much that one would cost me to ship with that many but I figured more than $5.25).

As it was, I was able to fit all 56 comics into a flat rate $8.95 box, so I combind the shipping for the buyer and instead of charging him $16.25 postage, I just charge him $10. and even tell him that if the postage is less than what I charged him that I'd insure it and put confirmation on it at no extra cost.

When I shipped it, the total was actually $11.25, which was $1.25 more than I charged him, but I just ate that extra cost myself.

So I get a feedback, albeit, a positive one on this deal today, but he states in his feedback that the shipping costs should have been LOWER due to him winning multiple lots and that they were all shipped together! Then...I get an email from this buyer stating that he accidently left that statement on my feedback and that I did indeed give him a lower shipping fee, and that if I wanted to, I could remove that feedback! How can I remove that feedback?? The only way would be to remove the whole thing! (GGGRRRRRR.......!)

Oh well...at least it WAS a positive feedback, and I guess I'll take 'em anyway I can get 'im!


(End of Rant.)


The house feels a bit warmer since we had insulation blown into the walls yesterday. Yes, we now have a fully insulated house at last, after living here nearly 7 years. Next will be a new metal roof and gutters, and then if we can afford it, new carpet and I want to replace some bad ceiling tiles. Things are slowly but surely finally shaping up in this old place (if only I could get my wife to clean up or at least straighten up and stack all of her "junk" neatly around here).

Watched "Smallville" tonight, which introduced their version of "The Black Canary". Can't say that I was too krazy about it. The shaded eyes reminds me of the makeup on the female android from "Bladerunner". The sonic scream was handled well, tho', and I like the way "Green Arrow's" costume looks as it's similiar to the later versions by Mike Grell. Looks like they'll have her in the junior Justice League on that show.

Big complaint has always been that this is just too much of a soap opera for me to really consider it a favorite. The whole "Lana-Lex-Clark-Lex's father" saga drags down this show. Clark just needs to completely dump Lana and start his relationship with Lois and try to save maybe just a little bit of the continuity from the comics.

In other things, work has been VERY steady here lately. Don't know if it's from people getting back income tax returns or just the first of the month, but sales have really picked up and we need extra help sometimes (but that just isn't going to happen). In fact, soon one of the off-season workers will be leaving for her Summer job elsewhere and there'll only be three of us working retail. Tools are the main selling point and it's next to impossible for me to keep up with them by myself. I pulled 5 pages yesterday and 5 today. That's 10 pages just in two days, and a total so far of 20 pages since Monday. Each page has 20 items to list, so that's 400 seperate items (of 1 to 6 each) I've restocked this week by myself, pricing and putting them on shelves plus rearranging for new items, etc., etc. I'm glad my weekend off from there approaches quickly!