eBay, schmeBay!

Last updated: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 12:01:00 GMT

schmeBay, I say!

Actually, I quite like eBay. It can be a bit of a bitch over my ISDN line from home, but that's what I get for living out in the sticks. Lately, I've been buying and selling fairly regularly.

Buying, because I need to get my crashed motorcycle back on the road on the cheap -- low-volume Japanese imported bikes are expensive to repair, and easy to break, but that ease of breakage works both ways and this, tied with the fact that my bike's just reaching the right vintage for it to be a popular club racing model, means that the cosmetic parts are plentiful enough that I can get what I need.

Selling, because we're planning to emigrate next year, and we plan to do it wholesale, hardcore; one bag each. I exaggerate -- we'll probably fill all of our 40Kg baggage allowances, including that of our child, Process.

But this means that we've got a whole lot of crap to shift between now and then.

Of course, I am aware of the contradiction inherent in selling crap to emigrate while buying crap to repair my bike, but I'll very likely put the bike in storage over here, along with a few things I can't bear to get rid of. And you've got to go on living your life now, even if you've got plans for your future.

Just In Case.

Just in case we don't go, (but I think we will.)

Just in case we come back, (but I don't think we will, not for a while, anyway.)

Back to the subject of eBay. The bump in the eBay highway for me is those mandatory feedback comments. I want to leave feedback, don't get me wrong. I think it's probably the only scalable way to moderate usage. But I waste minutes of my life deliberating over what to write.

I'll read them if I see that someone's got a strike against their name, of course. Or maybe if they've got a low rating. But who wants to trawl through 200 lines of gibberish, sprinkled liberally with plus signs, CAPS LOCKed crap and murdered English? Not me. They really shouldn't be mandatory.

I used to write "zany" comments like "you can sleep with my wife any time," and "you have given meaning to my life" but, for some reason, people don't take too kindly to that.

I think that my Allenesque dithering (ooh, ooh, I'm a nervous Jew) is down to the fact that I don't want to hear anything bad said about me, and I don't want to provoke anyone into saying something I'll regret. But at the same time, blowing smoke up someone's ass isn't really my thing.

The other thing that they could do that would make life cooler, would be to store a search and mail me when a new item matches it. Or even just trawl through every four hours and mail me a list of new items that match my search.

But I guess that'd stop me impulse-buying.

[Oh, wait they do, and they call it "My Searches". Pats on the back all round.]