eBay: Freaks on Parade

31 Mar, 2006
Posted at 22.48 PST

Another bit from the other half of the site, an entry from last year.

So I’m selling an old iBook on eBay, and I get the following email:

“Hello seller, I will like to buy this item…cus i have been looking for this kinda item that will be packed..and will be exactly composed like this…..I want to buy it ..and will like to pay you in cash via Money Order…But i will like you to ship this item as soon as you have recieve a confirmation e-mail from Western Union that the money order has been confirmed… I also promise to add you an extra $350.00 to the reserve price of the item …to end this auction early for me….cus i need it very urgenttly…. i sent the information of this item to my customers for Year 2005 …and i have had enough of good offers from them..so i woun’t like to miss the offers from them nor will i like to loose any of my customer…So send me your address for the payment…and the total amount exclud shipping …I will like to handle the shipment myself by using my fedex discount account. Thanks”

I’m mostly amused by it, as this sort of thing is a well known scam on eBay.  It usually involves sending the item to Africa, but hey, at least he’s trying for a little variety.  At any rate, I’m amused enough to respond—and post the response publically on the item’s page—maybe it’ll let others know I’m not interested in ending auctions early and completing the transaction through email, not least of which is because it is against eBay policy.  Here is my response:

Are you insane?

Even ignoring the suspicious nature of the request and the blatant abuse of grammar, spelling, and ellipses, it is unethical to end an auction early solely for the convenience of a single person. In short, please find the nearest large body of water and jump into it.

Concise, unlike my would-be scammer’s rambling missive with its strange mix of misspellings and tense changes.  Why waste words, no?  And that, I figured, was the end of it.  It’s not often one gets to respond to something so unethical with a snidely humorous response—and get to feel a little self-righteousness to boot!  So I was feeling a bit pleased with myself. 

 And then it got better.  I got a response. 

Now  I am terribly tempted to play this through, but my sense of better judgment forces me to decline, sadly.  I mean…well…wow.  It’s apparent I’m in over my head.  After all, he uses lots of exclamation points!!!!!!! (Remember children, one will do)  And notice the use of ‘u’ in place of the word ‘you.’  Ooh, how l33t.   (And how terribly professional).  How can one respond to such an erudite display of wit and education?  Truly, I am humbled by this individual’s obviously superior intellect.  Out of my league, don’t you know?  Now that I’ve been so eloquently put into my place, I guess I’ll just have to take my toys and go home. 

Or, I suppose I could post this little exchange to the web, and put this idiot’s words and blinding display of intelligence up for all the world to see.  Yes kids, eBay can be fun! 

And remember:  one’s station in life is determined by his or her mastery of the English language.  Let this be a lesson to you.

Ramblings | Permanent Link

iBook HD Replacement

31 Mar, 2006
Posted at 22.40 PST

I was cleaning up the graphics side of the site, and ran into this bit: an excerpt from an email I sent a friend in London concerning the finer points of installing a new hard drive into an iBook long ago:

•The top shield has basically two sizes of screws, so it’s not as intimidating screwing it back on as it might first seem. The only exception (usually), is an extra small screw that goes in the corner at the top of the battery bay. If you get confused as to which holes need screws (assuming you didn’t mark the holes with a felt-tip or something similar), just rest the top case back in position and see if the screw holes in it have a clear path. If they don’t you’ve put one into the wrong hole. Easy to correct.

•The little metallic cloth doohickey/grounding strap at the top beside the display coming off the LVDS (Low Voltage Data Signal) cable screws on top of the shield. [If you’re curious, this is the cable that carries the actual digital signal to the LCD. The backlight is powered from the cable that attaches over by the RAM slot). The other cable, the one that attaches down by the HD is actually the mic cable. I have no idea why it attaches way down there.

•Don’t forget the reed switch magnet just above the battery bay inside the cd tray; it has a nasty habit of snatching the screw from your screwdriver. [The reed switch is a magnetically activated metal strip switch inside the display. It’s what signals the iBook to go to sleep when the lid is closed. Wave a magnet by the right hand side of the display and watch your machine magically go to sleep].

•Those four screws that are in the battery bay and CD slot?—the slightly larger two go in the battery bay, but no harm will come to the machine if you accidentally reverse them.

•Slip the top case back on over the DC-in port first, then the other sides will slide/snap down without too much issue.

•Don’t forget to attach the keyboard before screwing down the RAM shield! (I do this all the time, most irritating to have to unscrew the thing again, and a source of neverending amusement to my  coworker when he hears me say “Shit!” when reassembling one. ;-)

•AirPort card goes in text side up/Apple symbol down.

•If the iBook doesn’t power up the first time you press the button, don’t panic. Wait a second or two, and press again. It’s not uncommon. I think it has something to do with the power management unit being cut off from all current, but am not entirely sure.

•You can make the little round top case magnet jump around and chase your screwdriver pretty easily. This is vastly amusing, especially if you make little ‘Grrr, Grrr,” noises like a small dog.

•Your coworkers will likely laugh at you, not with you, if you do this.

•I speak from experience.

•Nudge the cables that come off the display back into place up under the shield’s edge as you’re putting the bottom case back on and it’ll sit easier. (This is another surprising Apple touch. Those cables are protected by wrapping them in capton tape. And because there’s a teeny-tiny chance they might show in the least bit, Apple paints them gray to match the case).

•Paying attention to the placement of the plastic shield around the ports can save you from having to remove and reseat the bottom case. (The bottom case’s edge goes under the ports shield).

•If you want some insanely strong magnets, take apart your old hard drive. If it’s been sounding as if there is a ping-pong game going on inside of it, the data is basically toast anyway. There should be two inside—they activate the read/write arm, plus a perfect mirror of a disk.

As you may have surmised, the means by which I make my living have quite a lot to do with Apple laptops.

Ramblings | Permanent Link

Stranger than Fiction

30 Mar, 2006
Posted at 22.42 PST

You can’t make this stuff up.

Second best headline ever. This, of course, is the best headline ever.

Ramblings | Permanent Link

O Brave New Layout

26 Mar, 2006
Posted at 19.17 PST

You know each time I wade into CSS, I feel an overwhelming urge to pull my hair out. It’s not that Cascading Style Sheets are so difficult to grasp, it’s just that so much time goes between my forays into CSS that I have to teach myself how to use them yet again.

It’s enough to chap your ass, you know?

Regardless, I’ve now finally begun unifying my written blog with the layout and apperance of the main graphics site. Some things still don’t work correctly, mainly the permanent links at the bottom of each entry. For whatever reason, they’re failing to make use of the new CSS. Eventually I suppose I’ll figure out why. Fixed.

So why the changes? I was pretty pleased with the old layout afterall. The old one didn’t fit in with the main site’s layout though. It was my first attempt at a page design suitable for blog entries, and I liked it, but it was pretty much a ripoff of a WordPress or Movable Type layout, I don’t remember which. I later took what I learned and rebuilt the graphics end of the site using the same principles, but with my own design sensibilities rather than someone else’s, tweaking the layout to suit my needs better. And that was a design with which I was extremely happy. Happy enough with it that I haven’t bothered with any significant changes in a year and a half, a new record for the site.

I’ve been meaning to backport the design to this blog ever since I finished with the graphics site, but have repeatedly put it off. Mainly this is due to the odd chimerical nature of Macalicious.net. The graphics end is driven by hand coded pages, but the blog is driven by Blosxom, an open-source plug-in based perl script that generates pages on the fly. Marrying up the two halves is something I didn’t have the patience for until recently. My interest in pulling the two halves together has grown though, and so I’ve finally begun the process. Now that I’ve gotten this half up and running I’ll soon propogate the new layout back to the graphics end. That’s gonna be a whole lot of fun, I can tell. Sigh.

Errata | Permanent Link

Belle and Sebastian, Redux

26 Mar, 2006
Posted at 01.03 PST

Just got in from Belle and Sebastian’s last show of their North American tour here in Seattle, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. It’s remarkable how much they’ve changed over the years. They’ve been tagged with the “twee” brush rather heavily, and I guess I’d have to say it’s been somewhat deserved, what with the violins and harpsichords turning up here and there in their songs, but the sound to which they’ve evolved is a far cry from the days of “The Model,” or “The State I Am In.”

I’d go so far as to say their sound has become more mainstream, if I felt I could make that argument. They haven’t really, but it’d be fair to say the band’s sound is a bit more standard pop than it was. There’s rather a strong 60s garage band/gospel influence going on that I find really interesting. And while the electric guitar wending its way through their recent offerings is somewhat startling given the band’s past musical history, I can’t say I dislike it. It’s wielded well.

At any rate, as any fan can tell you, it’s not Belle and Sebastian’s music itself that sucks you in, it’s the lyrics. Lead Stuart Murdoch delivers wicked keen turns of phrase that you don’t really notice till you begin paying attention to the lyrics. And I’m pleased to say that wry sense of humor is still present in the group’s music, and provides a welcome continuity to a sound that has been evolving at quite the unsettling pace for the past two albums. And more power to them. I wish more bands would take the time and effort to push back at the boundaries their fans expect of them. It has to be a bit frightening to strike out so strongly in new directions, and I admire the gumption.

Perhaps the most pleasant surprise tonight was the group’s song set for the evening. It was nice to see them pulling some of the more obscure songs from their back catalogue, such as “Electronic Renaissance” (not something I’d ever have expected to hear in concert), and “Slept the Clock Around.” It would appear, according to Mr Murdoch anyway, that they try to avoid repeating songs they’ve played before in the same venue—even though it’s been over a year. Rather thoughtful.

Opening for Belle and Sebastian tonight were the New Pornographers, out of Vancouver. I’d seen them last autumn at the Showbox in downtown Seattle, and I hate to say it, but the lack of Neko Case this time was evident. While they certainly proved they can hold their own without her, her presence does lend a certain energy to their performance that is otherwise missing. Ah well, she’s just released a solo album of her own, and I suppose she can’t be blamed for needing to focus her attentions on it. At least I’ve now gotten to see them twice in concert. Given the slapdash nature of the group, I keep expecting to hear it announced they’re going to call it quits, though I keenly hope they keep getting together periodically to record new albums. They’ve got a sound that is wildly infectious. Check ‘em out if you’re not familiar with them.

Music | Permanent Link

Unification

23 Mar, 2006
Posted at 22.30 PST

Don’t be surprised to see the blog go down, go crazy, look funny, or otherwise be a bit strange. I’m going to soon be attempting to unify the blog and the graphics side of the site. Sigh. It’s gonna be a frickin’ pain in the ass.

Errata | Permanent Link