mans_best_friend

Trials & tribs.- Went abroad prt.2

2011-06-01T21:52:00.000-07:00

I"ve been very busy so haven"t updated the blog lately ( how time flies) After checking in I did catch that early morning flight to Amsterdam (from there changing flights to Manila) It was a beautiful sunny day and after taking our seats. It seemed like an age before the plane finally took off, very quickly climbing to 31000 ft.
Looking out the window there were hardly any clouds to obscure the view of a huge patchwork of English countryside interrupted by small masses of grey (the towns) I actually saw the Wash near the horizon although Boston was hidden by mist & cloud. I never saw the sea because it was hidden by mist & fog yet in what it seemed like no time at all the plane started to descend. As it came through the mist there were rooftops a few hundred feet below. After landing I waited for my luggage on the tarmac (it was only a smaller plane) but I didn"t realise at first that it"s atomatically loaded on to the next flight. The airport was huge but I had over 4 hours to kill to the next flight so tried to get a bit of sleep.
I woke up and after going the wrong way a few times, I eventually found my way to the gate for the Manila flight (the part of the airport where you wait for your flight) I was just in time but I needn"t have worried because it was late taking off anyway they usually are. This plane was huge with seats ten abreast. Naturally I had a window seat but this time there was DVD screens on the back of every seat. This time it wasn"t long until take-off and the plane rose much more steadily. On the screen you pressed a button & it told you the expected flight time, speed & altitude, which country we were flying over even the outside temperature. I was more interested it entertainment and after being given little folding headphones, I was spoilt for choice for films & music with radio stations etc. even games. cont later

Trials & tribs.- Went abroad

2010-10-25T21:41:00.000-07:00

I don"t know but I may have mentioned in the past that I chat on Moko (a social network site) but I started speaking to a nice beautiful young lady from the Philippines last July. It was great because my friend who I"d been speaking to for over a year had just left Moko. Anyway, after a month things had developed between us. We even talked on the phone after I managed to set up a special cheap call rate on the net, and she really wanted me to go over to see her in Philippines. Well I haven"t traveled on my own to any other country before but I thought why not so I sent off for a new passport. To my surprise, This only took a few days. I had some money left from redundancy and savings so booked the flights & found a cheap hotel for 14 days. I discovered that even the cheapest hotels & rooms looked pretty good from the pictures (all had air con (which I found out was very desirable if not essential over there). Time then seemed to drag by for the next few weeks and we spoke on moko every day. The day finally came when I set off from my home at just gone 6pm. on the 29th Sept. I arrived at Birmingham airport just over 3hrs later by train,. there was even a short monorail ride to get to the actual airport from the station. Trouble was the flight wasn"t until the morning so I went out the airport and checked out a few hotels but they were too expensive. £66 to £89 per night so I found a comfy chair in the airport. Was very hard to sleep because of all the announcements so got up in the early hours by which time other people were also waiting for early flights so I found some people to talk to (I realised that it could get pretty lonely traveling such a long way). Cont later

Trials & Tribs.

2010-08-19T03:41:00.000-07:00

I haven"t posted for a while because not much was happening and I"ve been busy with my little online buisness, mostly selling on Ebay & Amazon both for myself & other people. On ebay, I started off with records & DVD"s & some diecast model cars thatI had from childhood. With the good weather the records & DVD sales slowed to a trickle, only realy rare stuff seems to sell at any time of year. The diecast vehicle sales though have gone very well. I also picked up some (old school) video games at an offline auction & they"ve done very well.
On that same auction I picked up a 20 watt guitar amp for just £4. It just needed a new plug, cleaned it up and is now as good as new. I even plugged my keyboard through it and sounded clear and powerful, ideal for gigs with Creepy Cool (if we ever get any). I went to that same auction this week and met mad Shawn (who is an ex DJ) who seems to appear when you least expect. He was having chickens because he"d just got a box of records for £4 which turned out to be a bargain. After giving away the ones not wanted, (which I didn"t want either) he was left with a load of pretty valuable 12" singles & Lps including "Blue Monday by New order" He now wants me to sell them on Ebay (or Amazon)for him. I actualy checked the value of "Blue Monday" and its sold for about £5 on ebay to a whopping £15 on Amazon. There was also Equinox by J M Jarre which is listed for £25 on Amazon, I couldn"t even find it on Ebay. The rest were mostly DJ & re-mixes which are his speciality.

Lightning strikes

2010-08-19T03:21:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago after a hot period I shot this video on a phone. It looks pretty close. Click Link below to see.
YouTube - P2122964.MOV:

But not as close as this that someone shot in America.

EMBED-Lightning Strikes Twice - Watch more free videos

Trials & tribs.

2010-01-27T14:15:00.000-08:00

Hooray! I can now get online without being cut off all the time. amazing. well done Talk Talk for taking over from Tiscali which was my old provider. As this is the first time I!ve posted this year I!ll use this opportunity to wish everyone a happy new year - if its still possible to have one in these economically strait jacketed times. A lot"s happened already this year such as the big freeze which was fun at first but annoying after a while as it was too cold & slippery to go out. Pavements turned in to lumpy sheets of ice so you couldn't walk safely without a stick. The birds (the feathered variety) didn't like it and the river forty foot froze up. There were also ice flows in the river Witham (see pictures) Was also my birthday earlier this month & even though it was snowing quite hard that day (the 8th) I went to the I.Q. and got lathered - during the day as well The landlord even bought me a pint. I went to a women friend"s 21st B/day at the I.Q. a week later and there was a fancy dress. Trouble was, I just went as myself as I only found out about the party the night before and I got chased down the stairs by the "Incredible Hulk" or maybe someone with green slime smeared all over them. Anyway, I didn't know them from Adam but Derek the landlord told them to leave me alone as he thinks people pick on me because of my handicap but I think it was just fun. Since then I haven't been out much because I caught a dreadful cough & cold - just hope its not swine flu.

Rage against the machine"s Killing in the name wins the race to No 1

2009-12-20T13:00:00.000-08:00

After a hugely popular facebook campaign, Rage against the machine"s Killing in the name wins the much coveted Christmas UK No 1 slot. Over half a million people downloaded the song which is not available as a CD single, making it the first ever Christmas No 1 to be achieved on download only. X Factor winner Joe McElderry was only 9.000 copies behind until a download frenzy in the last few hours before the weekly deadline (12am Saturday night) put Killing in the name 50.000 copies in front.
The campaign wasn"t a stand against Joe McElderry personally but against ITV and Simon Cowel dominating the No 1 slot year after year. The band Rage against the machine has promised to donate their royalties to the UK charity "Shelter" and play a gig in the UK nest year if the campaign is successful.

Met my soul mate

2009-12-08T04:48:00.000-08:00

I"ts been a long time since I last posted. Reason: I broke my laptop so I tried to get online with our desktop PC but failed. It just wouldn"t stay online or even connect at all. Naturally I thought my machine was at fault but I checked with the neighbours and they were having exactly the same problems. Anyway, the Internet provider"s call centre is based in India & won"t send an engineer out unless they know exactly when we"re cut off - in fact I was cut off while in the process of writing this but managed to save it. What the hell is happening? I"ve also made a very special friend from the Philippines called Pam. She is lovely but haven"t been able to send messages much because of this fault but the good news is that I just could have met my soul mate. This is like a dream come true - As the old saying goes: Dreams DO come true

Trials & tribulations - update

2009-10-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

Wow! it"s been so long since I last posted on here. I have been busy selling on EBay which went well at first when I started in July (about the same time I wrote my last post) but has gone a bit quite of late so I"m back here.
First Creepy Cool has been going well. We actually applied for a competition ages ago called LincX Factor - nothing to do with the Simon Cowel one -. Over 80 singers & bands applied, 20 made it to the heats and guess what Creepy Cool was one of them. We didn"t know we were in until our name appeared in the Target paper. Anyway, the first of two heats was yesterday (Wed \night) which we were on. Out of 10 acts only 2 could go through so it was nothing like the real X Factor. After several evenings of intense band practise, we were as ready as we ever could be. (Brian, after a period of absence from the band came back in on bass guitar.) and got to the rugby club in the princess Anne sport complex. The sound check was starting at 6.30pm instead of 7pm the original planned time Luckily, it wasn"t too difficult to find as it was still light when we got there but Brian was nowhere to be seen - he had all our equipment in his wife"s car. His mobile was turned off so we assumed they were lost. They finally rolled in at 7pm - the original time - unpacked the car but near disaster struck, he"d forgot his bass guitar. So we went in the venue and managed to stall our sound check while Brian went all the way back to Swineshead to pick it up and got back just in time. We played one song straight after the break so we could set up the equipment. The song we played seemed to go down realy well - the audience clapped and cheered. All of the other performers sang to a backing karaoke track although the standard was pretty high. We were the only band there. In the end though, we didn"t get through. We were later told that there was only one band in each heat because of the time needed to set up. The second heat is on Fri night. All in all though it was well worth entering and the hosts treated us well - even filming the video for us which will appear on YouTube & Moko mobi soon.

Trials & Tribulations

2009-07-18T02:27:00.000-07:00

Last Monday (or was it Tuesday) a friend was on holiday for the week & rang to see if I wanted to go down the pub. I thought why not? I don"t drink much these days but it was a sunny day & I needed to get out the house ( I do most of my work from home now) so thought why not? We went to Weatherpersons first which is always good as drinks are so cheap.
Then I suggested going to the Axe. Hadn"t been there for a while. I only go in there now if some women friends of mine come down from Sutton Bridge usually to see a band. Anyway, we were having a conversation with matey behind the bar about music & I inadvertently said that some of the newer bands such as Kasabian were better than the stuff that they played in the Axe. With that Del the landlord (who I"m usually OK with) overheard us talking & told me to leave. He said if you dont like the bands why come in here? Fair point but I only go there in the daytime these days so no-one would be playing then. Then this tw*t joined in "yeh get out!" Who the F*** was he? No-one"s seen him before but earlier on he said he was a builder who was in charge of 30 people - what a joke. Who in their right mind would work for him. He didn"t even look like a builder.
I went straight to the I.Q. after that. My friend later told me that he (the builder) tried to cause trouble with him & our other mate who came in a bit later. As I said when I first started this blog. "What"s happening to this world" Nuff said.

News update

2009-07-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

I saw the news today and was shocked to read that scientists have found a way to make sperm artificially from the DNA in skin cells. If this were to come about would women need men anymore? (they don"t seem to need them where I live anyway) What are the implications for mankind if this came about? I could imagine a scenario where men would be the fairer sex and women would be the dominant power.(perish the thought ha ha!) This may already be happening with girls doing better at exams at school. But at least in the most popular sports men are still the main contenders. Tennis is a good example. Lower seeded women players played their matches on centre court as long as they looked good on TV - the organisers actually admitted this. The men's game still garners the most interest though. The Federer Roddick final was an epic battle of the will to win and lasted over four hours, whereas the women"s final was far less tough even between the Williams sisters and was over in little over an hour. We just have to hope that this development doesn"t become mainstream as it would mean that a woman could be both mother and father to a child. I just hope and pray that we as a society will not let it happen.

Trials & tribulations - went to London

2009-06-30T05:43:00.000-07:00

My band Creepy Cool went to London on Sunday with a friend who was traveling there to a festival in Hyde park. Bands such as The Killers & Starsailor were playing there with a final 3 hour set by Bruce Springsteen. He played a storming set at Glastonbury the night before which I saw on TV.
Anyway, we got there by around 2.30pm. We actually traveled there to do some busking somewhere near the festival but it proved more difficult than we first thought. We caught the underground at Epping in North London to get to Marble Arch and there was a busker playing in the tunnel. As soon as we got out the station, we were met by those wretched ticket touts trying to charge 80 quid for the festival tickets when the real price is only 40 this later turned out to be a scam. We found Marble Arch and set up & played there but the traffic from the road was too noisy, meaning that people walking past didn"t hear us properly and we only got 2 pounds in 1 & a half hours. We also had someone taking pictures, poking their long camera lense in our faces and didn"t even ask our permission. If that wasn"t enough they didn"t even put any money in our guitar case which I thought was very underhanded.
We then made our way over to Hyde Park and met the busker from the underground who looked Chinese with long hair yet spoke realy posh & he told us of the best places to play. We managed to find somewhere in Hyde Park which wasn"t too loud with the music coming from the festival & it was much better. We had a woman"s daughter singing a song on the mike which was great. The woman said it"s a pity more people didn"t play like us but busking is still seen as a down & out occupation & the authorities make it difficult. Security people there saw that we were collecting a bit of money & said that wasn"t allowed in the park because they said that people don't want to be hassled for money but they knew we weren"t doing that - we weren"t exactly holding people at knife point to give us money. We closed the case after that but opened it again a while after they"d gone. This is the good thing about busking, people choose to put money in because they like you & people liked us and we still managed to get about 20 quid.
Although Bruce was a bit loud, we ended up playing until 9.30pm. We were supposed to be meeting our friend at Tottenham Court Rd after the show. As it happened he turned up behind us at marble Arch station. Anyway, the train turned up and the others got on but people pushed in front even though I was carrying a heavy keyboard bag and a stool which is sure to slow you down. This stopped me from getting on the train & it went without me, I was livid. You would think that people would slow down and give way a bit on a Sunday but hey this was London and no-one bats an eyelid for anyone else. It"s not the kind of culture I would put up with for long.
Luckily I managed to get on the next one a few minutes later and met the others at Tottenham court Rd. and we traveled back to the car park at Epping and set off back to Boston.

The "king of pop" dies

2009-06-26T00:31:00.000-07:00

Micheal Jackson: 1958 - 2009

I was just flicking through channels late last night on TV when a newsflash came up and reported that the king of pop Micheal Jackson had died in Los Angeles at the age of 50. I must admit I wasn"t a huge fan ( apart from the Thriller song & video) but a shock all the same. My aunt is actually here from America at the moment because her sister is having an operation & she"s a fan of his. It seems bad luck that he was supposed to be performing in London in July at the O2 arena & people had bought tickets. There was actually a busking band who had booked a smaller hall in the arena months ago which had been arranged on the same day as the Micheal Jackson concert. Micheal & his crew wanted to use the room for their after show party but this relatively unknown band refused (They had a single in the charts in 2004) they won"t have to move their show now.
I bet there"ll be loads of M.J. nostalgia now just like after Elvis"s death but at least it will take every body's mind off all the normal boring news as he was a remarkable character, surviving everything that the newspapers & the TV channels threw at him until now.

trials & tribulations - Hundreds of applications

2009-06-19T06:47:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I went for an interview for a part-time job at QD stores which has taken over the old Woolworths store. There were 600 applicants for 25 jobs - an indication of the dire job situation in the area. The interview went pretty well though as I was interviewed by a nice blond women so I should have a better chance than I would have done.
I"ve just started an ad words add campaign on Google after they sent me 2 Adwords vouchers worth 125 pounds. I"m trying to get more visitors to my Cult & tv reviews sister site which I"ve had up and running for a few months now. Up untill now, I"ve mostly posted articles on Ezine articles and Hubpages with my website url included. I also use banner exchange & a few other site promo directories but with limited success so far.

Trials & tribulations - Things looking up

2009-05-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

A lot"s been happening lately, what with the bank holiday weekend and the weather"s been good for a change. Anyway our band (Creepey Cool) played in the Indian Queen Sun evening. My friends came down but the landlord wouldn"t let one of them in which was a bit unfair because he hadn"t done anything wrong either now or in the past. The crowd was ok but it wasn"t as good as last time as I hardly recognised anyone there. We were the very last to play but we didn"t have a bass player so I covered that on the keyboard which turned out very well.
Last Thursday, we went to the Standard newspaper to see if they"d do a piece on us {Creepey Cool) because we will soon be busking for cancer research. It"s actually being sponsored by Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart & Fender Guitars of all people. so the paper want to interview us in the town centre which is great publicity for a good cause and us.
On Bank holiday Mon it was another sunny day so I thought I would pop down to a car boot sale held at Somerfield car park. Anybody who knows me would know I like a bargain. First I came across a set of pristine Coca cola coasters & a Carlsberg ashtray for a quid each. I then bought 4 DVD"S for 50p each & 3 for five quid so that averaged out at a quid each. My biggest bargain though has to be the cassette tapes (remember those?) I was trying to decide which ones to choose but couldn"t make my mind up, so the man said I could have the whole lot for 4 pounds. I thought yeh but how will I carry them as there were over 200 so I said I"ll be back when I"d finished looking round. I went back and said ok & he said 3 quid will do & tipped the tapes into huge plastic bags which weighed a ton. When I got them home, I wasn"t disappointed as there were nearly 140 albums & 75 singles on tape and the great majority is decent stuff. I even had 8-10 of the albums on LP vinyl & cassette already. The music was mainly a few from the 60"s 70"s, more from the 80"s & 90"s and some more recent tracks on cassette singles/ep"s. There was very little rubbish which is very unusual for a job lot and the great thing is that I"ve found enough storage for them all.

trials & tribulations - Google Success Kit is A SCAM

2009-05-11T10:17:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I was looking at these work at home business ideas a. I"m sure many of you will have received loads of e-mails with these offers to make money online. There is one in particular that I"ll be naming and shaming today and its called Google Success Kit. What happened is that they offered the kit on CD for just $1.or 67p. I thought yep! this seemed like a great deal. It also seemed to be from Google who are obviously among the best known brand names on the Internet.
Trouble was, I completely forgot about it. It was only months later when I checked my bank statements that I was debted not only for this amount but about 8 quid (give or take a few pence) every month. On top of this, I was charged for so called identity Security for nearly 7 quid a month and if this wasn"t enough I was also charged for so called Fraud protection for about 3.40p a month. All of this seemed to be triggered by the initial $1 purchase of the kit which I incidentally never received.
I also realised that its nothing to do with the real Google after googling the kit and found that people have complained about exactly the same thing happening to them. I"ve now reported it to the F.B.I via their website. I"M also writing to BBC watchdog.
I"ve also found the 3 separate websites responsible for these illegal transactions courtesy of one of these other people. These are listed below:

www.quickcashsupport.com
www.fraudprotectionhelpdesk.com
www.idthefthelpdesk.com

There are also phone numbers which are free but only to those in the US and some people have had their money back from there but what about people outside the US?
I"ve reported it to my bank and if any of you have any ideas please comment below.

Click Here to visit the FBI website to report this type of fraud if you have no joy with the above

What"s happening to the world? Now we have swine flu.

2009-05-01T02:25:00.000-07:00

The title of this post brings me back to the comment I wrote in my profile page when I started this blog back in November last year. Yet it ha never been so relevant as it is today. First with the credit crunch and now with this swine flu outbreak. Confirmed cases are being reported from several continents throughout the world which have so far killed 160 people in Mexico and 1 in America.
Has anyone ever heard of swine flu before? I certainly haven"t. Will it be as bad as a Survivors type pandemic? (from the BBCTV series of the same name}. This is highly unlikely because, according to reports, the swine flu virus is easy to dissinfect. Even washing up liquid aparrently kills the virus if it"s used to wipe contaminated surfaces. The problem starts when humans catch it. Like ordinary colds or flu, it can be spread just by someone sneazing without a tissue. Face masks are being produced in their millions but according to TV doctor Dr. Hilary Jones, face masks only give limited protection. In a recent TV inteview he said that as you breathe into the mask, it becomes moist within a few hours making them porous which allows particles to get in. Only people such as health professionals who come into contact with lots of people will need to use them. -- more on this topic later:

Trials & tribulations -- What a weekend!

2009-04-18T08:14:00.000-07:00

This Easter weekend"s been really great with lots of stuff going on in the town and I was in the thick of it. First we resurrected our old band after nearly six months and renamed it "Creepey Cool" - (misspelling is deliberate) a much better name that The Fezz which you may remember from an earlier post). Anyway, we practised for the first time in the lead singer"s flat - the first time we"ve been able to do so as his new neighbours love music unlike his old one. This was in preparation for a gig at the I,Q. in Boston which is also a first for us. We were meant to"ave played there several times before but the gigs fell through.
On Saturday, although it rained we managed to find cover and busked outside near the market stalls for a couple of hours and even flogged a T shirt with the new band logo. We also played a new song that the lead singer had just written which went down really well. The true test of course was yet to come at the I.Q. (Indian Queen) on the Sunday night. I"ll come back to that later.
I nearly stayed in that Sat night but thought "what the hell" after getting a call from another friend and went out to the Axe & Cleaver ( another well known local pub & live music venue) He was telling me that a barman there got his ear bit off the weekend before by a crazy Irish bloke and had to go to the hospital in Nottingham to get it stitched back on. Apparently, he was trying to stop this bloke from causing trouble in the pub. I actually saw him that night but couldn"t tell whether the hospital succeeded in doing so because he always wears a cloth around his head.
We then ended up in "The moon under the Water' a Wetherspoon pub and we met a girl & her auntie who I"d known for a few years. I remember us telling them that we"d been to the local strip club 2 weeks before & the girl said to me "next time you go just ask for me and I"ll give you a free one." I was amazed, I didn"t know that she worked there but I"ll definitely remember that.
I then went to the I.Q. and met yet another friend. There weren"t many people there although there was a band playing, the punters were obviously saving their pennies for the Sunday event. We then went to the White Heart hotel bar - not the sort of place I usually go to - I ordered my first drink which was one pound fifty. I gave the barman a tenner but mistakenly he gave me more than that back. I thought "what has he given me?" I got back to the table and without thinking blurted it out to my friend. I said that I wanted to return it because I could not work out how much more they"d given me. The friend, who is a born again christian said you must do or else it would be dishonest.. I realised that he"d given me a ten instead of a five pound note and returned the money to the bar.

Trials & tribulations -- What a weekend cont:

2009-04-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

The next day, (Sunday) I went out for a meal at the new Italian restaurant where the Trustee Savings Bank used to be -- very fresh & modern inside . It was actually my brother"s partner Clare who took us. I had spaghetti, bacon bits sprinkled with Parmesan cheese with a cappachino which was very nice, except I didn"t have enough.
The timing was good because the I.Q"s live mini music festivle was starting at 4pm.which meant that I had a couple of hours to kill. I went to the IQ to check to se what equipment they had, had a pint and then went to the lead singer"s flat to run through the songs. At that point we had no idea how long or even what time we"d be playing so we got down to the I.Q at 4pm. The first bands were pretty good but very loud and the place was soon packed to capacity -- I stood outside most of the time because of this.
The bands played various rock covers vintage & modern. not bad considering it was only supposed to be a jamming night and the crowd were pretty wild compared to a usual Saturday night. We were beginning to wonder how we"d fare with the crowd in there -- plus Dave, our lead guitarist hadn"t turned up. We were also getting a bit concerned if we"d even get to play. We needn"t have worried though, cause by 9pm most of the bands had played and we set up and a very experienced drummer, lead guitarist & bass player joined us. We played several songs including "Walk on the Wild Side" as well as our own songs and it went down a storm -- even though the other players hadn"t played with us before. The crowd went crazy, dancing & jumping about -- one girl started fiddling with the knobs on my keyboard. There were one or two things which went wrong, two of the lead singer"s guitar strings broke and my keyboard power lead played up a bit but none of this affected us or the crowd. Overall an amazing night.

Are you stuck in a rut?

2009-03-29T03:29:00.000-07:00

Like me, many of you probably know what it"s like to be stuck in a rut. Maybe you"ve been made redundant in this present financial crisis and can"t find new employment. If you go for the jobs in your old sector and you're not having much luck, then it"s time to change -- to list the things that you"re good at. The list may include skills which you"ve only ever used in your spare time or you may have had an earlier career which you would like to get back into again. This can actually be pretty difficult because that career may have changed with the times -- with newer technology or extra skills for instance.
This is where new training can help. I don"t mean full time training courses (unless they"re only for a few weeks.) but part time distance learning with tutor support. You can then still continue in your present job or be claiming unemployment benefit and not be penalised. People with disabilities can get special help. although in my area most employers won"t consider them unless they are a large company and they have to fill their quotas. There isn"t actually a law anymore to force them to do that -- Mrs Thatcher in her wisdom got rid of that back in the eighties.
Next problem, once you do some training then you won"t have any (recent) experience and don"t get considered what can you do?
One solution could be freelance work if it"s the kind of industry where you can do that. Problem is freelance work can be sporadic so you would need another means of income, especially in the beginning. -- more on this later:

Life Beyond ebay - Is there a viable alternative auction site?

2009-02-16T10:54:00.000-08:00

NOTE: For readers who have come directly from
EzineArticles go strait to the post below this one.

For years if you wanted to sell your unwanted stuff online, ebay was the only viable option. For a long time this was OK It was a fun site to use with a great community. Problem was , it got too big and lost sight of it"s customers needs, (which often happens when companies get too corporate). For the buyers, the bargains weren"t so much bargains anymore. This was due to sellers having to pay ever increasing fees, feedback changes & being forced to use Paypal.-- not to mention the scam buyers as well as sellers - a fact that paypal (when used in conjunction with ebay) doesn"t seem to recognise This is surely a recipe for decline. Predictably, the final quarter of 2008 saw a big drop in revenue for them. Whether this is due to the recesion, sellers starting their own web sites or even listing on other auction sites, I suspect it"s a bit of all three.
One site which is doing very well is Bonanzle started in June 2008 from Seattle, in the US. Initially it served the USA only but I understand that it will (or already is) available to international buyers and sellers. The best items to list Bonanzle says is not your shiny new and highly mass-produced stuff, Amazon caters for that area very well. It"s everything else and the rarer stuff, collectibles etc Does it get a lot of traffic? Well according to Bonanzle, in Sept 2008 they had over 10.000 items listed. Now (feb 2009) they have over 1.200.000 listed - more than a ten fold increase. This suggests that they must be getting a lot of buyers as well as sellers. This could be the answer to the prayers to of many sellers and even buyers.
Bonanzle at first glance looks very simple and in use it"s as simple as it looks. You can choose to show items you"ve searched for as listed or gallery which will be very familiar to those who"ve used ebay. You can use Paypal if you like but you aren"t forced to. They are also planning to add Google cart. You can also pay by postal order, check etc.as well as cash. How much does it cost? For Paypal, money order or Google checkout the fees are as follows:
First of all, any cash-based transaction is and will continue to be free on Bonanzle. For transactions on Bonanzle that are closed through other forms of payment, such as Paypal, Money Order, and Google Checkout, here is their pricing - which, they guarantee will not increase through to 2010.
Price to list items for sale FREE. which includes four photos -- now beat that ebay.

You can visit Bonanzle Here

Fed up with eBay fees? Longing for a better way to sell?

2009-02-15T08:19:00.000-08:00

If you're a seller on ebay and fed up with the ever rising fees & feedback changes, there are quite a few other websites you can list on. Some don"t have listing fees - a big plus when you are selling expensive items. No requirement to use Paypal - which is great for sellers who have suffered from scam buyers as Paypal used with e"bay always favours the buyers. Here are 3 of the biggest rivals although there are many others too numerous to mention here.

ebid
e"bay may dominate the online auction market, but eBid is one of the bigger sites hot on it"s heels.
A lot of sellers are now listing items on both sites, and some have even migrated from eBay all together because eBid fees are lower.
Free listing: It costs nothing to list items on eBid.
Sellers can subscribe to ebid in two different ways
You can subscribe to eBid as a basic seller for free. You"re then charged a final value fee of 3% of the sale price of each item you sell.
This approach usually makes financial sense if you only plan to sell occasionally.
In seller+ option, you pay a subscription fee for a set period of time (7 days = £1.99, 30 days = £6.99 etc. You can even subscribe for life for say #99.99 seller+ also has additional use of various site features.
Seller+ subscribers also don"t pay the 3% final value fee. This may be a good choice for you if you think you're going to sell regularly.
Photos: It's usually free to list a photo with your item, although if you use the gallery' format you'll have to pay a final value fee of 2% of the item's selling price & it"s only available to seller+ users.
Payment system: eBid's preferred secure payment partner is Pp pay (several other methods of payment, including PayPal, are also available).
As with eBay, you'll have to pay the relevant Pp pay/PayPal transaction fees.
Downside: Although there"re plenty of items listed, there doesn"t seem to be a many buyers as sellers but you can list for as long as you like. (until the item sells of course) I also personally found ebid a bit fiddly to use.
It"s definitely worth looking at & ebid may just be the wake-up call that ebay needs - and the fees are much lower.

Amazon Marketplace
Amazon Marketplace has fast become one of eBay's biggest online rivals. you can buy and sell new, used and refurbished items, which is on the same page that Amazon displays the item new.
It's not an auction site though - sellers must set the final price of each listed item
When using Amazon Marketplace, you don't pay a listing fee. So, if your item doesn't sell, you don't lose any cash.
Plus, listings generally last 60 days (most items on eBay can only be listed for a maximum of ten days before you have to pay to re list them).
You pay a completion fee of £0.86; and a sale closing fee - which is 17.25% of the sales price & 11.5% when selling electronic and photo items.
Amazon also sets the postage costs, not you. It takes a fee from the buyer, keeps an ‘administration fee' for itself, and passes the rest on to you as ‘postage credit'.
This can work out as more or less than the actual cost of postage and packaging, so sellers need to accommodate this in their product price.
Photos: You can't normally use your own photos next to your item, because Amazon uses single detail pages on the site, where the product details already exist.
With certain products, you can provide a photo link - but they still won't appear next to your advert (they'll be made generally available to anyone browsing in that category).
Amazon operates a secure payment system of its own (the equivalent of PayPal). this service is free for all sellers to use.
Downside: What you can list is somewhat constrained by the choices of category available. For example, there's no section for ‘vehicles', so selling a car or motorbike would prove difficult.
And although you can list an item Amazon doesn't have in its catalogue - you'll have to create your own page for it first. It also seems expensive compared with other sites but for higher value items which take longer to sell it is definitely a good be
Gumtree
Gumtree was started in 2000 as a local London classified ads and community site. It now covers 60 cities in six countries, with millions of people listing everything from flat rentals, jobs and dating ads to CDs, furniture and motors.
It costs nothing to sell an item on Gumtree. You just type out the ad, attach a photo (if you want), and post in the relevant category.
What's the catch? Just stay safe when buying or selling stuff in this way. Face-to-face payment - and item handover - is recommended to avoid getting ripped off (either as a buyer or a seller).
For example, Gumtree offers no protection if you post an item and then don't see the cash. For this reason, selling locally is probably the best way forward.
Worrying developments? In 2005, Gumtree was bought by eBay. Its fee-free status, thankfully, remained unaffected.
However, Gumtree is now introducing a facility called ‘Featured Ads'. These are ads that appear in a special section at the top of the listings pages for either three or seven days.
And guess what? You're charged a fee to use this service. The price depends on how long you'd like your ad to appear in this format, and which category it's in.
Of course, there's nothing suspicious about this. The good positioning will maybe mean that more people will read and reply to your ad.
But let's just hope the free listing option remains firmly in place, too.

Trials & tribulations - Updates of previous stories.

2009-02-06T06:24:00.000-08:00

Wow! what a cold & snowy week it"s been. We"ve had snow Sun/Mon and now yesterday and today. Never lasts long though (apart from masses of compacted snow which refuses to budge) which is just as well because I need to take the dog out soon - after I"ve finished writing this in fact. It"s been the worst down the south-east of England with the London buses being cancelled for the first time in their history. Obviously, we haven"t had it that bad here.
Anyway, do you remember that in one of my earlier posts I said that I had a nasty fall? Well the solicitors rang back some weeks later to say it was only a 50-50 chance of winning the case so they weren"t pursuing it after all - yet another setback. There has been some good news though, When I traveled to Dudley in early Jan for my course, I remember being disappointed that I didn"t meet my friend who just happens to live there. Well I haven"t mentioned this before but I"d met this new friend online over 2 months earlier and after exchanging loads of emails, I told her that I was going to Dudley soon and could we meet sometime? She agreed, but to cut a long story short she didn"t reply in time to arrange it before I set off there. I assumed she was busy, what with her divorce going through etc. When I got home she still hadn"t replied, so I sent an email no reply. It wasn"t like her as she was always quick to reply. Anyway, I forgot about it and started to email someone else - and guess what! - I looked in my inbox last night and her name was at the top of the list. I checked to see if the inbox had gone to the next page, like it often did when my Internet Exp. was playing up - but it was new alright. I nervously opened it and it read "sorry I couldn"t reply in all that time because I had a virus on my computer. Speak to you soon" That"s amazing I had a virus on mine as well. Also, when she first contacted me she didn"t know that I was going to Dudley for my course. Two amazing coincidences - or just fate? I don"t know but there"s a good chance that we"ll meet next time I go down there.

Trials & tribulations - Does Your Computer Ever Slow You Down?

2009-02-05T18:26:00.000-08:00

I"ve had loads of problems with computers lately. First we had a power cut while the computer was on which was a few weeks ago, only a small one mind (less than 1 sec) It came back on but the flat monitor screen had gone funny, the screen had a blank space on the left-hand side & it had stretched out to the right so only half the screen was showing. The picture was also fuzzy. I rang my brother & he reckoned it was the monitor so I changed it for an old bulky style one and hey presto - it worked, Anyway, it was OK for about a week when I unintentionally downloaded something - cant remember what. My security firewall warned me but it was too late - I"d downloaded spy ware, a virus, Trojan horses etc (I dont think I would want to ride one, ha ha!) It was bad cause it wasn"t even my PC that I was using. As a result, I couldn"t access the Internet, the McKee virus killer that was installed was out of date so although it scanned the system & picked up all the malicious software etc, It couldn"t eradicate them. so I jaunted down to PC World and bought Spy Doctor. The ticket said just under a fiver but it turned out to be nearly half price, great! so I got it home & it got rid of most of the malicious stuff apart from one virus. It still wouldn"t log on the Internet so I gave up and used my laptop instead. I had quite a few probs. with that as well. First Internet explorer kept crashing, so I updated it to the very latest update, Internet explorer 8 beta. Because of my ignorance, I didn"t know what "beta" meant - I thought it would work like a dream but it was rubbish. It was slow & kept crashing. I found out that I needed a registry cleaner - so back to PC World and discovered "WinCleaner Complete PC Care" which turned to be a bargain - listed at 20 notes, it also turned out to be half price. I got that home and ran it - it did a great job, it even has a virus killer (for one PC only) included which I can use on the affected machine. although things loaded up faster, the dreaded internet Explorer 8 still played up. I then cleaned my system using the seperate features on the PC care kit (I"d used the one click auto cleaner before and things worked even better. Still, explorer 8 wasn"t right. so I gave up and installed explorer 7 and Eureka! it now runs perfectly. I later found out that "beta" means it"s a test version for developers and not the general public - aghh! I wish I"d known that before it would"ve saved no end of time.

Trials & tribulations - Great Free Survey Sites: Never pay to belong to one

2009-01-15T18:11:00.000-08:00

I think it"s about time I mentioned survey sites where you can earn some money filling out market research surveys. In my experience, the higher paying sites require you to sign up for some sort of trial of a product or service - not a lot of good if you, like me are in no need for weight loss products for example. Often you"ll be offered a free trial of the product but you have to submit your credit card number. This is not so great if you have a memory like a siv because at the end of the trial, money gets deducted from your account This is perfectly legal of course but you would have to be vigilant
The paid survey lists are only really any good if you live in America but for the UK there"s plenty of free lists of the main sites. Good ones include Toluna [see add opposite] where you can earn points which you can redeem for vouchers from various stores. You just sign up for free & you"ll be sent surveys pretty regularly, although as in my case you won"t qualify for all of them. You can also participate in sponsored polls where you earn points and even create your own on any subject you want I personally created quite a few on music for instance & received thousands of votes.

Trials & tribulations - Went to Dudley

2009-01-10T08:13:00.000-08:00

With Christmas & new year gone I still had my birthday to celebrate on the 8th Jan. which I don"t really look forward to as I"m not getting any younger & my friends always forget it with it being so near xmas. The good thing though is that I get two lots of presents.
Last Monday, I traveled down to Dudley, W Midlands by train for a course & it was so cold that the rivers in Birmingham [or canals] were frozen over - just hope no-one tried to walk across then. When I eventually arrived in Dudley by bus, it was dark & the pavements were like ice rinks. Also I didn"t know the town at all so I tried to use my mobile as I had a list for accommodation but there was hardly any signal & my battery was low. Anyway as I was on foot, I made my way towards the town centre - it was a case of picking any direction & following it. Luckily, I picked the right one & ended up in the nearest pub. It was great there as the people were very friendly & gave me a number of The Lamp Tavern pub which did B&B which I couldn"t ring as my battery had given up - maybe because of the cold. Anyway I made my way towards there & stopped of at another pub. They let me charge my battery up there so I rang The Lamp Tavern but they didn"t have a room so I rang some numbers on my list but they couldn"t help as It was too late by then. As I was facing the harrowing prospect of sleeping outside in the snow, someone gave me the name of a hotel & they had rooms for £50 a night - more than I wanted to pay but much better than the alternative. I got a cab to the hotel & the on-suite room was really good. - cont.later:

Trials & Tribulations: Happy 2009

2008-12-27T14:50:00.000-08:00

I just hope It"s a better year than 2008. Personally it"s been a horrible year. My oldest friend whom I"ve known for nearly 28 years died back in June so I"m going to pay a little tribute to him here:
I was actually ill in bed with a virus, when I got a phone call from his dad saying that he had a fall, banged his head on the pavement & later died in hospital from the injury he sustained. He"d hurt his head only a few weeks earlier. I immediately realised that he"d had a seizure. [he suffered from epilepsy] I just couldn"t take it in. Luckily, I was better by the time of the funeral & met all these people that I"d never seen before from his home town of Chesterfield. I could talk to them straightaway which shows human beings are brought together when they"ve suffered the same loss.
He was one of the most warm hearted people I"ve ever known so will be greatly missed by me and many other people, especially his mum, dad and his many relations from Chesterfield.

Trials & Tribulations - Walking the dog

2008-12-13T08:17:00.000-08:00

I don"t think I"ve mentioned the dog in the picture. You"re maybe wondering who he is. Well he"s not actually my pet. He belongs to the next-door neighbour & his name is PJ although I call him boysy. I take him out regularly because the elderly neighbour can"t manage him herself.
Trouble is, he likes to gallop like a raging bull even when he"s on the lead. When he"s just walking he walks too fast, pulling me along aswell if he can get away with it. There is a field that I go to so I can let him off. but he sees other dogs & runs up to them to try to make friends. He never fights them as he"s very placid but other dogs can get nasty. The owners have been great so far [touch wood] but I know some can be funny.
I once took him in the pub but he won"t settle & starts misbehaving yelping & jumping about. He always wants to keep on the move even when I stop to talk to someone but I still love taking him out - that"s why I called this blog "Mans Best Friend"

For more on PJ & dog handling in general click here:
By T.R.Dunn @copywright 2008

Trials & Tribulations - The Dating Game

2008-12-05T09:19:00.000-08:00

I know this is quite a tricky subject, but I like to try to be very open about things which happen in mine and I"m sure in some of your lives aswell.
Just recently, I had a message from one of those social networking sites from a woman [won"t mention her name] looking for a serious relationship & gave me her yahoo mail address.. I nearly didn"t reply but as I was getting on a bit [I, always the oppotnistic type] replied and we exchanged a few mails. It turned out that she had a South African mother & a Turkish father. I got a sob story that her mum had died in 2001 so she came over here to study bio chemistry at Guilford University in Surrey. Her dad had gone back to Turkey.
Trouble was, she said that she wasn"t in the country at the time. She had gone to see her grandma in Nigeria. I being the sympathitic sort lent a "distant" sholder to cry on. She was saying that after reading my profile page she hoped that I would be her kinda man & she also sent me photos, which were very nice "seriously" Anyway, her mails grew increasingly intense [almost like extracts from a Mills & Boon novel] which basicly said that I was the man whom she wanted to spend the reast of her life with. Of course I was by this point flattered - & replied that no-one had ever said things to me like that before - arrrhh!
Anyway, the second from last mail said that she was due to catch a plane to the UK but realised that she had mislaid her pastport on the way to the airport. She then returned home & amasingly, it was there. She them found out that she"d missed the plane and would need a new ticket - here"s the catch, she needed £450 for a new ticket & to revalidate her passport and asked if I could help out. I replied saying that the ticket could be used to catch another plane & could I have her number so we could speak. The last mail that I got said that she didn"t have a contact number. Immediately, I smelt a rat. How could anyone be on the internet without a phone line? [If I"m wrong, feel free to email me] In any case how could I send money to someone whom I"d never met. I grew suspicious & emailed the website where we first met. They replied saying that her profile was due to be [or already had been] suspended. So that usually means that she must have "spammed" loads of users. I then cottoned on that he or she must"ve been copied & pasted the same email to lots of people with just their names altered. This is apparently easy to do. I mention "he" because for all I know, she could have been a sad short fat baulding man with no friends trying to pull a scam. I"ll never know the real truth and I obviously never fell for it. I think the moral of the story is: "Don"t get sucked into a relationship online".

Trials & Tribulations snow!

2008-11-23T01:33:00.000-08:00

Would you believe it! A few days ago it was mild, even warm in the sun. Now snow! with a bitterly cold north wind so I thought I"d write on here, best place to be. I had to brave it this morning to fetch my tobacco but it wasn"t so bad then. Right now [around 9.30am] the snow"s realy comming down & settling on the ground well. The birds who my mum fed in the spring when they were bringing up their young have come back with a vengance. They dissapeared during the summer months but like most animals, they come when they want feeding.

Trials & Tribulations with the Fezz

2008-11-21T19:19:00.000-08:00

I sometimes play the keyboard with a couple of local musicians and our band is called The Fezz. A few weeks ago just before bonfire night, we got asked to play at a wedding in Kirton. The groom was going to play drums with us so we agreed as we were looking for a drummer.
Anyway, we made our way there on the bus & waited in the church. We didn"t know at that point where we were going to play. As it turned out, it was in the groom"s house where there was also going to be a disco. I wondered how that was going to work out because live music doesn"t mix with disco. We got in and of course there was no room for our equipment but we made room in the end. They turned the disco off when we played which amazingly went very well & sounded better than the disco, even with the singer"s tiny amp & the sound from the built-in speakers on the keyboard plus the other guitar player.
Trouble was, The last bus back home was at 7.30pm which came and went. I started wondering how we"d get back home. The singer rang his sister who said would give us a lift but she wasn"t in so I panicked a bit & got a bit restless. anyway the groom stormed into the room & shouted something at me, [can"t remember what] so I shouted back and he just punched me in the mouth. Blood dripped on the floor although I didn"t fall down as I"m pretty strong myself. I wanted to hit back but our guitars, amplifiers, microphones etc was just behind them & could have got smashed and we didn"t have insurance.
In the end, the dj took us home. I asked him what it was all about. He told me that I had said while in the room the groom should have took us home instead of dancing with his new wife which I didn"t say at all. In any case, he was too drunk to drive so I wouldn"t have said that. Needless to say the drummer isn"t gonna play in our band now.
The singer/guitarist has made a new CD with the Fezz with loui on drums & Tony on keyboard. Brian also plays guitar. There are sample songs mixed on video from the new cd as well as live video clips & info. These can be found at http://www.myspace.com/thefezzle

Click Here for to view my site on guitar related stuff, the history of the guitar & it"s main exponents, lessons etc.

Trials & Tribulations cont - Nosy people

2008-11-21T19:01:00.000-08:00

I went back to where I fell this Friday night & guess what, It"s much better lit now. anyway, I went to get a takaway nearby & someone in there said I"d have no chance of a claim. How would they know? They said they worked for the council but this matter had nothing to do with them.
So my question is: Why do strangers always try to disagree with me all the time even though I know I"m in the right? Food for thought.

Trials & Tribulations cont - Call from lawyers

2008-11-20T11:10:00.000-08:00

Today I responded to an unsolicited email I recieved from solicitors [exuse the pun] who specialise in personal injury claims on a no-win no-fee basis. What a stroke of luck, considering what happened to me last friday night as explained in my last post. I got a phone call strait away & took my details of injuries etc.. They wanted some photos of the schene where I fell which I took today. In daylight, the wood planks were painted in red & white stripes. These are perfectly visible during the day but not at night. They wanted to know who owned the building so I contacted the local council but they said I would have to contact the land registry. The good news is that I"ve got a very good chance of compensation.. great as I"ve had quite a bit of bad luck lately.

Trials & Tribulations - At the pub

2008-11-19T10:26:00.001-08:00

The next day {Sat} we went to the pub in the afternoon bcause it was better in the day & played pool and also had a go on the punchbag machine. Trouble was , my first two goes on it didn"t register the score because we hadn"t set it properly. We then set it right & had a go again but my friend & I both missed. Oh well! at least we got some good videos of it. I then thought that I would have a go on the pinball machine. Trouble was, It was turned off so I got underneath it & turned it on at the wall. I then had several goes, not realising why it had been turned off in the first place. Matey from behind the bar came along & pointed out that the score window was smashed so I turned it off again. As I was doing that, I heard a funny bang noise which gave me the fright of my life. It turned out that my friends made it.

My Trials & Tribulations - A fall

2008-11-19T08:21:00.000-08:00

There"s quite a lot of things that have happened in my life lately. Starting with last week {Friday night} when I was walking out of a pub and I was just crossing the road when I tripped on something & fell flat on my face. It turned out that I"d tripped on some planks of wood on the road which running alongside scaffolding on a building. There was no lighting on that part of the street & no warning signs. Luckily, not too much damage was done. Has anyone have any thoughts on this?

Someday a little poem,song

2008-11-18T03:33:00.000-08:00

Someday, you"ll fill my heart
with the sunshine and stars
and I"ll feel alright

In this place
I see your face
My heart beats apace
and that"s no discrace

When I think of you
my mind"s askew
Oh. my broken heart
will it ever heal
Oh those gloomy days
keep my mind in a daze

For the first time in a long long while
my heart is healed and frown turn to smile
I"ve trailed the world for many a years
to see you for real and your face full of tears

Previous verses repeat once: