Slice

Oops.

In my quest to do more “outside things,” I did several hours of raking and pruning yesterday. I started at 4:30pm because I was so damn lethargic. I think that was because I had no coffee yesterday. Much to my surprise I enjoyed myself. My fatigue wore off almost immediately and I was on my way.

First, I raked the gardens in the front yard. There was no problem there. I relocated my cleaning efforts to the back yard. I raked along the fence that borders Trent's property. Then I had a stellar idea: I could use the electric hedge trimmer to help me prune the overgrown bushes!

And it was fun.

I seriously reduced the size of a half-dead bush that nestles on the property line. I then cut down the bush that resides next to the compost heap. After I was done pruning, I stacked the branches with the intent of cutting them in half with the hedge trimmer, much like an ax or a chain saw. I was doing just fine at first.

Until I cut the extension cord with the hedge trimmers. That was my “oops” moment. Not only did I ruin a perfectly good piece of hardware, I also blew the fuse in the garage. So...I had to go to Trent's house and ask him where the fuse box was located. I find the fuse box, flip a few switches, and nothing happens. I got back to Trent and ask him to help me with the fuse box because my random switch-flipping activities aren't doing anything to power the garage. So: He does the exact same thing I did with the fuse box, but the lights and garage door come one for him. Figures.

So, I managed to do an outside thing yesterday, that of which I am proud of. I spend too much time indoors on the Internet; that I want to change. So, I'll see where my resolution takes me.

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Boxed in

Oh, brother. I get really sick and tired of ranting about the goddamn environment.

What gave me ire? Earlier today Kevin and I decide to do an "outside thing" today, and then run a few errands. So, he decided to go to the Lake of the Woods located just north of Champaign. We arrive there and the first thing I notice is how many sub-divisions there are surrounding that tract of land. If LotW is supposed to be a preserve, it sure doesn't remind me of one. What is the point of preserving a forest if it is completely surrounded by urban sprawl? What is the point of having a piece of land "set aside for nature" when civilization is nestled literally ten feet away from the edge?

There is nothing natural about that. At all. Lake of the Woods is no more a nature preserve than Central Park in Manhattan.

Like I've said before elsewhere in my journal, it saddens me to realize that people just don't give a damn. People don't care about anything as long as they get their piece of the pie. People don't care as long as they have the huge McMansion, the three cars, and their consumerist lifestyles. Just buy, buy, buy. Just eat, fuck, shit, vegetate, sleep, and buy. And then buy some more.

After that tragic excursion, Kevin and I go to Menard's to buy a new rain gutter for the rain barrel he bought last year. As I walked in that big-box store I had an epiphany: I now know why little kids like running around in big stores so much: There is open spaces in big-box stores. Wide opens spaces don't exist now in urban areas, and they won't exist at all anywhere in the future. Urban sprawl will destroy everything. American entitlement will destroy all the open, natural areas in its pursuit of the American Dream -- in pursuit of the McMansion with the three-car garage. Consumerism and entitlement is an addiction that knows no bounds, limits, or boarders. Yes, we should just cut down that forest, plow over that field, and cut into that mountain just so we can build sub-divisions and shopping malls and airports and sports arenas. We should just cut down everything and plow over everything and just build, build, build.

Since natural, open, untouched, untamed spaces are being destroyed, the only place where people will feel any grandeur and insignificance is in shopping malls and big-box stores. All the forests will have been cut down and put in tree museums. All the fields where people used to run and play will exist only in memories. Uncluttered natural vistas will only exist in archival videos of the past.

Then humanity will realize what it lost when it doesn't have it anymore. We should stop destroying the environment now and just take a breather. We should just stop and ask ourselves if having the huge empty house and three cars and closets full of clothes and kitchen appliances is really worth the planet.

Of course, conscience is the first thing to go when people only care about their selfish needs.

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Today was Shorts Day

The weather outside was too nice to pass up. Granted, I spent most of my time outdoors doing gardening, but I still had that feeling of "accomplishment" when I was done. I started at 11:40am and I knew that it would take me a while to turn over the soil in the remaining plot of land that Kevin wants to turn into a garden. Yes...I was out there for two hours.

From miscellaneous

After that escapade, I went inside and printed off the information for my second sale from my Amazon store. I am still excited that I am selling through the interweb. I bicycled to the Post Office, and sent off the Nintendo DS game Hotel Dusk: Room 214. During my bicycle trip, I took some pictures of crocuses.

From oregonstreet

From oregonstreet

From oregonstreet

From oregonstreet

I sent off the game, and then I took the bus to downtown Champaign. There, I had a salad at Aroma Cafe. The sun was hitting the Champaign County Police building just right, so I decided to take a picture.

From miscellaneous

From miscellaneous

Then, this begging bird was flitting around me trying to coax me into giving him food. I doubted he was hungry; Maybe he was just feeling gluttonous. I don't know. I tossed a walnut on the ground, and the little bird snacked voraciously on it. I tried to get a picture, but it came out blurry. I was a tad disappointed, but the bird was just adorable.

From miscellaneous

So, I had a productive day. I know Kevin will be pleased that a large portion of the new garden is turned over. That was a job-and-a-half. It took me a total of four hours and thirty minutes to do that small plot. I hope the smaller one goes faster.

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Mecha MMO

I just started (re)playing Front Mission 4. Anyway, I had a stellar idea: Why couldn't SqueEnix make this franchise into a massive multiplayer online game?

Just imagine it! Instead of tired old magic, swords, and medieval settings; instead of science-fiction superpowers, you could have tens of thousands of different kinds of Wanzer parts. There could theoretically be hundreds of thousands of different configurations. Literally. Every different player could have a different Wanzer from every other player: Your Wanzer could be yours truly, unique, with different stats and abilities. They could also have army PvP Wanzer battles on a huge map grid.

If SqueEnix can whore out mine Final Fantasy and turn it into a MMORPG, why couldn't they do it for Front Mission? There is already an established universe. The game play mechanics are complicated enough that it would satisfy even the most stat-hungry video game player.



Anyway, I am just musing. Even though I am cheap, I would pay to play that MMORPG.

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Ship off from Amazon

Hooray! This afternoon, I sent off Lunar 1, that a customer bought from me through my Amazon store. Who would have thought that Internet entrepreneurialism could be so fun! Could Amazon replace eBay? Who knows, right? It probably already has. Anyway, my main concern is making some extra cash. I need it.

Of course, my venture to find a box to ship the game was not without issue. I thought to myself that I could find a shipping box to send the game at the Meijer located in west Urbana. So, I hop on the bus and arrive at the big box. I managed to locate the section of the store that has all the packing materials, and they only have big boxes. I was vexed.

I leave Meijer and begin to bicycle up Philo Road. (It was a good thing I use a combination of public transportation and my bike to get to place.) I know that smaller shipping boxes can be found at pharmacies, so I go to the CVS on Philo. Nope. They only have big shipping boxes, too. Not giving up, I go to the Wallgreen's, and lo-and-behold, they have smaller boxes. They were bigger than what I needed, but at that time I was desperate to find something close to reasonable. (The sales associate at Meijer told me that I would probably have to go to Staples to find dedicated DVD / Book shipping boxes for my needs. I wasn't about to spend hours on the bus just to buy boxes.)

I ride back to the house was surprisingly treacherous. I brought my triangular backpack with me to carry stuff. Naturally, it wasn't big enough to hold flattened cardboard boxes. So, I tried to hang the bag from my handle-bars. That was a bad idea. The corner of the boxes were getting stuck in the spokes. Frustrated, reluctantly, I put the folded boxes in my backpack. That worked, but I was riding slowly on my bike because I didn't want to lose stuff.

I make it back to the house, tape up the box, throw in some packaging popcorn, and the game. I print off the shipping inventory from Amazon, throw that in the box, too, and seal the box shut. I quickly rode my bike (again) to the post office, and sent off the box. The shipping was two extra dollars more than what Amazon allotted me, so I had to cut into my net profits from the sale.

But...I had a blast. If someone wants my old retro games -- and if I can make some money back in the process -- I'll be more than willing to sell things online. So, I had a pretty eventful day. I just wish it was a touch warmer than it was outside. I froze my ass off riding my bike.

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Selling on Amazon

Well now. I am pleasantly surprised! Yesterday, I set up my store front on Amazon.com in my quest to unload my duplicate rare video games I managed to acquire over the years. I wake up this morning, and lo-and-behold, I already sold my extra copy of Lunar 1 for the PS1. Granted, Amazon has high seller fees, but so does eBay. Unfortunately, I can't rely on eBay anymore to make back money because of their new seller policies. It was fun placing auctions on that site, but the risk to sellers from unscrupulous bidders is simply too high to risk being ripped-off.

Who knows. Could this be the beginning of a lucrative venture for me? I would like to think so. Maybe. Of course, if I committed to this store full-time, I could possibly make more money, but that would mean I would have to scour re-sell shops, pawn shops, and real video game boutiques to find the rarities that would sell and fetch high prices online. I really don't have the means to do so but I could always dream.

I think I'll list my black-label edition of Final Fantasy VII. Surely, there is some rabid collector out there who wants this game.

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Scammer Trickery

I sit here on the Internet and wonder if it is even worth my time to do so. I am a bit aggravated because the medium -- the tubes -- is just a dangerous place.

Over the past two weeks, I've been listing items on CraigsList. I'm trying to thin out my video game collection simply because it is huge and I don't have the time to play all my games. Yes, I'll keep the rarities, but games I know I'll never play or enjoy that much have to go. Anyway, I listed some things on CR, and much to my surprise, I get a few replies. I shoot the interested recipients some emails, then the warning bells go off. I get replies that ask me to do negligent things: Cash money order checks from out of state, wait for the money to clear, then send the items.

ding ding ding

First off, I am not that stupid. Secondly, CraigsList emails all new signers-on about how to avoid scams and scammers; and in that email they specifically state "Don't cash money order checks!" CR also says to only deal locally as to avoid scams.

This real email I got from someone who was interested in my Nintendo DS was a near carbon copy of the real examples CR has on the site:

Hello Thanks for the quick response.I am Laura,located in Lovington,New Mexico USA,[Yeah, right]and I am highly interested in buying this item and will be offering you $230. [So, you are going to offer me twenty extra dollars than what I asked for for a used hand-held video game system?]I want to buy this item from you cos its a bit cheaper over there.[Even with twenty extra dollars added to my price? Sure...] pls i am okay with the price and the present condition of the item,and i will like you to make me be the only buyer for this item. my payment for this item will be through an Alertpay Money Order. i would have prefered to come down and discuss this transaction eye for eye,but i am not chanced for now and as for the shipment of the item[OK, so you are saying that would have driven from New Mexico all the way to Illinois just to buy a used Nintendo DS. OK.....],that would be done after the payment has been made and approved.pls you can let me have your the following information.[What is "your the following information"?]. The full name to be on the Alertpay Money Order and your full address your zip code and your contact number.[I don't fucking think so. I don't feel like having my identity stolen. Fuck you.].So that my secretary can issue out the payment to the address you have provided as soon as possible.. Till i read from you..Have a great day. Regards..

Go fuck yourself and die, Scammer!

Right after this travesty, I got another reply by someone who was interested in buying my copies of Lunar 1 and Lunar 2 for the PlayStation 1. Now, I am the wiser after dealing with Fake DS Bitch, so in my first email to this person, I specifically state that I only deal with cash and I only deal locally. There was no reply after that. I wonder why...?

These recent experiences are just a small iota of the bigger picture of what is wrong with the internet. From what I know about "the Internet," the actual network is a declassified military communication network that quickly became the way that communication, entertainment, and information are disseminated throughout the masses. There was a time when the Internet was young -- and dare I say, innocent? People could just go on line and putz around, look up information, play MUDDs, whatever. Then money entered the picture, and that was when things began to go to shit. Beginning in the early 2000's, viruses, which always existed since the dawn of the Internet, changed their modus operandi: They weren't just instruments of mischief, they became legitimate money-makers for illegitimate companies. The nebulous word "malware" was born. Now people have to spend their own hard-earned cash to fend off hundreds of attacks a day from Trojans, viruses, and other examples of "malware."

URGH! Is this was D/ARPANET was declassified for? Is the only reason the Internet exists is to try to steal my money, my identity, my PIN number? Does everything have to boil down to money, and the acquisition of it, even above morality?

But anyway...getting back to my original rant...where was I? I lost my train of thought. Maybe. I guess I am just incredibly frustrated at the fact the Internet is the only, and best, way to disseminate information, dissent, and entertainment, but it has never lived up to its potential. It never will, I would guess. The Internet cannot live up to its potential because it is overrun by scammers who are trying to get me to cash forged money orders...and Trojans...and identity thieves.

People wonder if the Internet will "die." Of course it will. It will die because opportunistic politicians, and telecommunications companies, will use the guise of "protection" to curtail dissent and free speech. This will happen because of all the scammers.

It will be a sad day indeed when that happens.

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