Scott Cramer wrote this.

Follow-up to my eBay story trying to bid on a Gmail invite.

eBay = EVIL-Bay. I’ve heard it said elsewhere, but now I’m saying it too. Some jerk misrepresents an auction for a Gmail invite and gives me an invite for an already free service elsewhere. I only lost a $1 but it was the principle of the thing. I left negative feedback for the guy and in RETALIATION he left negative feedback for me. Of course, eBay does NOTHING about it. What’s the point of leaving feedback for someone – if you’re just going to get an unfair retaliation back?!? Might as well just have a stat of completed transactions.

On the plus side, got an invite from my bro – AND an offer from another kind individual who read my angst on the blog. So far, I think it has potential. Needs some work. But hey, it’s still a baby.

I’m not getting any work done.

It started innocently enough. I wanted a Gmail account. So sue me – I’ve got geek in my blood and wanted to try it out. *I* didn’t have an invite. Grrr. Tried to buy one on eBay (“e” is for EVIL) and got scammed by a seller who passed off another free service on the web that I’m not going to mention because I don’t want to give them free advertising (to the three of you out there reading this; 2 excluding me). btw, I left a negative feedback for the cretin and *he* left one for me (umm, the VICTIM) in retaliation and eBay will not do a damn thing about it. I only lost a $1 but it’s the principle of the thing.

Anywho… I posted to the blog about the Gmail account because I was feeling self-guilt for never writing in the blog anymore. Life supercedes writing about life.

And – I get a message from Amy offering a Gmail invite. She was killing time cruising around Dave’s site and ended up at my derelict blog. I did already get a Gmail account from my brother who stumbled open an open invite link inside Blogger – which is SO unfair since he posts like once in a billion years and his site isn’t even public right now. Sigh.

Anywho2… I don’t know Amy very well, but Ken holds her in high esteem and he’s picky. Plus, if I ever went into a coma I’d give Ken proxy on my brain. Lucky him. Note, if you know Ken, I must really trust him, becasue he’d probably lose my brain in his apartment.

Anywho3… So, I surfed around Amy’s site, and Dave’s site, and Ken’s site… And would have surfed around my brother Keith’s site – EXCEPT HE DOESN’T HAVE ONE LIVE AT THE MOMENT – and started feeling all nostalgic about blogging and my lack thereof and now I’m writing this (at the office of course).

But I’ve got a Gmail account to e-mail the city about foodstamps when I don’t have any money because…

I’m not getting any work done.

Click the Format button on the Supplementary toolbar.

Grab the nearest book.
Open the book to page 23.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions

From “Essentials of Programming Languages” – or so it said on Ken’s blog.

Hrumph. If gmail won’t invite me, I’ll crash the party.

Long live ebay! (I can *not* believe I just said that)

I’m a ho for 1 gb. Sigh. 😉

Agggh. I stop blogging for a while and I miss the chance to snag a gmail account. Grrr. That’s what a break in loyal patronage does to you!

Unlike the rest of us, maybe Lyle Lovett wakes up with perfect hair…

Normal Hair Day for Lyle

Congrats Rosie!

Ironic when you think about it, though…

She chose to get married to another woman as an anti-Bush statement.

Rosie O’Donnell kisses Kelli Carpenter Former talk show host Rosie O’Donnell, right, kisses her partner Kelli Carpenter, after their marriage at the City Hall in San Francisco.

When I walked up to my computer at work there was a network message on the screen saying, “UPS Overload Averted”.

Damn UPS terrorists trying to shut down my server.

I’m switching to Fed-Ex.

After the last washing day I determined that I was no longer going to put up with matching up five different similar but not-the-same types of tube socks. Plus, I had thrown away any singles with holes and I was in the position of pairing socks up “close enough”. One foot gets a little cozier ride and one leg gets an inch of extra sock warmth. That sort of thing. This worked from a practical standpoint, but the disparity still bugged me. It’s really not good to go through the day thinking about your socks. I’m not Mr. Excitement (TM) or anything, but this isn’t a good path to go down – especially walking on mismatched socks!

I’ve got this problem that I can’t throw away anything still useful. However, I have the “gift” of rationalization too, so all I needed to do was prove that socks wear out and need replaced. Tires are kind of like socks for your wheels and you replace them right? So, with the internet at my disposal, I was going to once and for all put this out of my mind. Turns out the government and consumer-watch industries do studies on absolutely everything – except the lifespan of socks.

The closest thing I found was a 1996 article from an online publication entitled Suck (which is very very close to the word sock so they gained legitimacy – hey, I didn’t say I needed *good* rationalization to make this problem go away for myself). The article is here for any interested (spelled “you – need – therapy – too”) parties. The gist of it is that it’s easier and more economical to just buy new socks than spending time worrying about the issue in the first place. I believe there is an implied “duh” somewhere in there but I wasn’t going to take too much offense from a couple of guys who call themselves Suck. Duh.

After an embarrassingly considerable time searching for more references I did finally stumble upon a gem from justsocks.com if you’d like to take a look. DISCLAIMER – click at your own risk – my lawyers told me I needed to add that to avoid being sued as an enabler to the “overly anal excessive compulsive” types who might actually visit these links. The good folks at justsocks recommend “replacing your socks at least on an annual basis.” It’s not like they are an online merchant or anything. I mean, “greater good” or “sell more socks”? I’d like to think they have my best interest in mind. And, of course, they are published on the internet so that gives them more credibility. Right up there with the Origami Boulder Company.

All in all – good enough on both counts for me. I’m now the proud owner of 10 pairs of nondescript white cotton mix-and-match-any-way-you-want socks. As for the old socks? Hey, I’m still practical. Can you say sock puppets?

Do they match?

No.

Are they the same color?

Yes.

Do they match?

Yes.

When a man runs out of socks.

Oh, the horror of it all. It’s not that I *have* to have the web address of my own name, scottcramer.com. However, it’s just wrong that someone with my name would build their website with Microsoft’s FrontPage.

So very very very VERY wrong.

What’s worse than diet cola?

FLAT diet cola.

Although, why I picked up the cola can from the night before and thought it was a good idea to take a sip is a complete mystery.

Hey, does anyone have a claim on those potato chips on the floor over there???

My life as a cartoon…

Working with my brother and business partner I seem to end up knee deep in code while he test drives the programs. I’m Tinker, the goofy mechanic (green jumpsuit) from Speed Buggy and he’s Mark, the suave hipster.

Plus, after looking back at the picture, that’s how my hair looks when I wake up anyway.

During commercials, though, I think Tinker gets the girl, so nyah!

The newspaper in our area recently reported on a set of conjoined twins. They listed the weight as 8 lbs 5 oz. A good friend of mine heard this and asked, “Is that how much they weigh together or seperately?”

[Note: Come on folks… They can’t very well weigh them seperately, eh?]

[Note 2: See Amy, I didn’t use your name or make any blonde jokes!]

I went to eat at a Chinese buffet tonight. They have a wall length mirror that runs alongside where you get your food. I wouldn’t think this would be in their best interest. It’s as if you can see yourself get fatter every time you go up for another plate.

Pink candles and an umbrella.

37 must be the “I’m comfortable with my heterosexuality” birthday.