Like I Came Out Of The Lockdown OK

Hackers Turn E-Bay Into "Needless Things" Store

I have gotten refunded by e-bay the entire amount of $31.15 after the 11 Mel Bay books that I had thought I bought from some seller with only 2 previous sales through that particular market.

I have a conspiracy theory, and I wouldn't bet that the guy didn't actually wind up selling them for more, somehow.
But, I won the auction and paid the money; but no 11 Mel Bay books arrived. And e-bay said they were unable to reach the guy, or something, and they refunded the money.
I don't think some guy tried to dip out of town after scamming my 31 bucks. And, apparently he had only sold 2 things before on e-bay.
Perhaps the guy had a ton of items for sale this time. Maybe the account was established using the first 2 good, highly reviewed sales, and then a million different items went up for sale, all by the same guy (but you wouldn't notice, unless you were shopping for light bulbs and rat poison and other divers items and noticed the same guy selling it, or something).
But, to the present, but not away from the theory; maybe there are artificially intelligent robots actually doing the heavy lifting over at e-bay, and maybe the fact that, if you hadn't noticed, some not necessarily person is acting a heck of a lot for a Power Flatpicking book from Mel Bay.

I blogged about (on Google's platform) how the 12 bucks that the opening bid was for the set of 11 books, I would have paid for the flatpicking book alone.

And now someone, apparently, is trying to fetch the cost of a playable used acoustic guitar just for the flatpicking book.

The exercises, I hoped would be good meditations, through the fact that you have to walk around the house with the guitar around your neck, playing them while you watch TV, or even if you're listening to Beethoven, I've found; in order for them to sink in. There will be shortcuts found that only someone who can feel every nerve in your body could ever suggest to you, often "using the muscles in a certain way," as Mark Marquis, a teacher I had in 1987, once said.

That being said, someone could have hacked Google and then made appear to everyone who went on e-bay, their dream items, and all darned cheap, too.

Kind of like the store in the Steven King novel, "Needful Things." 

That book ICYNRI (in case you've never read it) is about a supernatural store where every member of this fictitious town would see, when they looked in the window, the one thing that they would pay the most for.

The towns people wound up in a bloody battle, though, because the store keeper would, in exchange of the item, require people to pay, by carrying out errands that he would give them. So, the people all got their coveted items, but the town broke out into war as, all the little errands worked in symphony to bring the war about, although they were as "innocent" as maybe spray painting a certain word on the side of a certain barn. I recommend the book.

So, the hacker is doing the same thing; only his algorithm needs tweaking, as the one book I mentioned coveting is ridiculously priced.

And now for something completely different.

It would seem like whomever compiled the information below was trying to point out how funny it is that the most popular presidents are also the least popular.

That means that the pol takers asked 2 questions: "Who do you think was the best president?" and of course the second one...
It could be argued that a lot of people had a love/hate attitude towards presidents in general, and answered the survey like Charles Dickens might have "He was the best of presidents; he was the worse of presidents..." and wax philosophical on it.

But, those respondents aside, It seems that Trump and Obama and a president that actually did get impeached, have cornered the market on dissaproval, with the "weapons of mass destruction" Bush, showing a respectable amount.

I think Kennedy takes the cake, for being 3rd on the good list, and not appearing at all, on the second one. That probably has something to do with people not wanting to "talk bad of the dead."

Nixon is dead, too, but not so publicly, and obviously, I guess.

Not to keep whipping a dead horse but. So, pollsters walked up to people and asked "Who do you think was the best president?"

Well, most of them said Ronald Reagan; or Obama.

So, now it is easy to visualize them as having polled equal amounts of Republicans and Democrats, and they provided the neck and neck finish between the two. Most Republicans said Reagan and then, I think, went and checked Obama for the worst.

So, out of all the people answering the "worst" question, there were equal amounts Reagan Republicans and Obama admirers. I just think it's funny that so many people checked off a president for worst one, when there was a 1 in 3 chance that he is the guy standing next to you's all time favorite...

Ebay Apologizes  

Ebay did send me an apology and a $5 coupon, good for another 4 days or so.
Unfortunately the Easy Piano Pieces book is "out of stock" right now, and is the only thing I can think of so far that I would want to spend the $5 coupon on..

I sent off for a new bag to carry my guitar in, a pretty heavy duty one that has a shoulder strap instead of just backpack style straps. I usually wear my backpack on my back, so the shoulder strap is the only option for that.

As far as I can see, short of getting some kind of trailer to pull behind a bike, I'll be stuffing a small amp in my backpack when I go out. The pockets on the bag are enough to hold the harmonica and tuner and spotlight....
I at least want to be improved somehow when I go back out.

Like I came out of the lock down OK...