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Leave Britney alone !

Savvy eBay trader makes US $500,000 in two easy steps

2 September, 2007 It’s a brave new world out there, and one can easily underestimate the skills required to make full use of the internet. Here’s one example that’s sure to illustrate the importance of basic internet trading savvy, and tickle your sense of schadenfreude - an eBay trader who leveraged the mistake of another to make himself a tidy US $500,000 profit, for a small amount of work.

The item in question is a bottle of Allsopp’s Arctic Ale - brewed in 1852 for an expedition to the Arctic led by Sir Edward Belcher. The ale had the special qualities of a freezing point well below zero degrees, and antiscorbutic properties vital for the period.
The initial seller made a vital error - he misspelt the name of the brewery as Allsop’s, rather than the correct Allsopp’s. This meant that an eBay user executing a search for Allsopp’s would not find the auction. One eBayer who recognized the value of the item managed to locate the auction - either by luck, or more likely, a tool such as Auction Intelligence which searches for common or obvious misspellings of words.
With the greatly diminished competition resulting from the inability for normal searches to find the item, his bid was only the second to be placed, and he subsequently won the auction for US $304. He then re-listed the item on eBay, this time with the correct spelling. The auction received 157 bids, and the winning bid was a whopping US $503,300.
The moral of the story is, if you have something of undisputed value such as a museum quality bottle of beer from 1852, you’d best quadruple-check your spelling before listing it on an auction site where you have no legal grounds to deny the sale to the winning bidder.
That’s gotta hurt.
j.

WTF happened to CC’s?

They think we won’t notice, but WE DO. Arnotts, I hereby boycott you and all you stand for.
It seems CC’s have gone the way of the DoDo (and Wagon wheels you couldn’t fit in your mouth in one go). No fanfare, no nothing. Just removed from the shelves! I’m outraged. Now, as any connoisseur will tell you, Doritos are a pale imitation of the original tasty cheese CC and should NOT for any reason be confused with the former.
This confirms my suspicion that the world has finally gone completely crazy, and once again, our parents and grandparents were right on the money. Everything WAS better in the olden days. Next thing you know the crinkle-cut salt and vinegar chip will suddenly disappear.. and we’ll all be looking at each-other saying.. “umm.. is it just me? or can you not find the salt and vinegar.” Replaced with fricken “nacho-cheese-ranch-delux-supreme Lays” or some other “international generic bastardised” chip. Lays? WTF, they’re THINS !! Arrrrrggghhh!
I’ve noticed enough of these anomalies lately to go on for ages, but I know I’ll just whip myself into a frenzy. Suffice to say, if the next time you try to buy some Tim-Tams you are confronted with a wall of Oreos, don’t say I didn’t warn you…

j

“G’day Sophia”

I stood shoulder to shoulder with Sophia Loren today.
Completely by accident,
smiled at her and said nothing..
I’m regretting not giving her a big grin and saying “G’day Sophia” !
OBSERVATIONS:
I’m an idiot.
She’s very old… and her driver drives a Maserati.

j.

Bob Dylan: Pays his “suckcess” forward.

KINDERGARTEN kids in ritzy L.A. suburb Calabasas have been
coming home to their parents and talking about the “weird man” who keeps
coming to their class to sing “scary” songs on his guitar. The “weird” one
turns out to be Bob Dylan, whose grandson (Jakob Dylan’s son) attends the
school. He’s been singing to the kindergarten class just for fun, but the
kiddies have no idea they’re being serenaded by a musical legend - to them,
he’s just Weird Guitar Guy.

The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss. My hero.

Have you heard of the New Rich? These folks aren’t waiting until their pension to enjoy life — they’ve figured out how to live in luxury right now. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss ($12) teaches you the ins and outs of this lifestyle, including how to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want, eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using principles of a forgotten Italian economist, and get free housing worldwide. Live the life you want, now.
Ok then, I will…
j

Virginia Tech cellphone video:

Some gunshots
Very uncool.
AU: 3.15pm. Police have a prelim I.D but will not release info.

READER SUBMISSION: Ask a Ninja interviews the cast of “Blades of Glory”

Thanks JoC

Starbucks Vending Machines Suck More Soul Out of Espresso

Dear god, It gets worse?
Starbucks has been on a downward slide for years quality-wise, exchanging solid product for McD’s-style viral growth, ubiquity and speed. Since it’s not enough that their crap coffee is on every corner in NY, they’ve decided to invade every room too, with a new automated vending machine co-produced with Pepsi that churns out your favorite poorly crafted “roasted coffee, various lattes, and hot cocoa.”
In truth, it’s not a far cry from the automatic espresso machines that reside on ” baristas’ “counters in Sbux already, so the decision to go full-blown automaton was probably an easy one.
Coffee is dead in the US, There’s one place that can make a coffee in the entire country in my experience.
j.