If you deal in china or stonewear that has a decorative rim around the plate (dinner or dessert) and you have a broken item that you cannot sell, contact me! I can take 'usable' pieces (with enough of the decoration undamaged - flowers, figures etc.) and make them into pins and pendants.

Rather than throw something away and get nothing for it, I may be interested in obtaining the item (with reasonable shipping costs, of course). If you sell things other than china on eBay, we may be able to work together (I do not sell on the site) to create a unique item that you can sell on your site.

It is a shame to see something beautiful discarded simply because it cannot be used for its original purpose when, with a little bit of "creativity" it can be turned into something else that is beautiful. :p

There has to be something the matter with a culture that requires people to be 'linked' to one another technologically while avoiding what appears to be all but the most casual of personal contact. Mothers and fathers talk to their children and each other more by cell phone than in person. No one goes anywhere without his (or her) cell phone and thinks nothing of having it beep, chime or whistle at any time and in any place. People walk around apparently talking to themselves to the point at which, if this were 'the old days', they would have all been committed (talking to oneself when I was young was considered a sign of mental illness). It's gotten to the point where people don't live in the here and now, but for some 'future' time - this evening, tomorrow, this weekend, next week etc. Actual human interaction is frequently interrupted by cell phone calls about things that could reasonably have waited until one's involvement with the actual person standing in front of one has ended. But no, rudely, the person on the phone simply 'tunes out' the person with whom he or she was talking or otherwise interacting until the conversation is finished. It is almost as if ignoring a cell phone call is somehow illegal and makes one subject to a fine or worse.

I have seen a driver of an 18 wheel tractor trailer trying to pull out of a tight driveway into a narrow congested street with a hand held cell phone stuck in his ear! Recently, in all the hullabaloo over the 'gaps' between the platform and the trains on the Long Island Railroad, a five year old child boarding the train with his mother fell between the platform and the car. He would have been killed if a passenger behind him hadn't pulled him to safety. His mother? Oh, she was talking on the phone at the time! After all, what's more important - chatting with a friend or supervising your five year old! There was even a video shown on TV one night of a man on a cell phone actually having a 'fender bender' and commenting upon it in his conversation - which, by the way, did not end until he had to hang up and go exchange license plate and insurance information with the guy he ran into!

New York State has passed a law that one cannot drive with a hand-held cell phone (ha!) but the fact is, talking on the phone (even if it is implanted in your backside with the ear and mouthpiece run up through your adenoids) is distracting and the way people drive today, distraction is the last thing that anyone needs!

The cell phone used to be marketed to the public as a means of contacting help in the case of an emergency - and that's fine. But it has become a plague. Far from 'freeing' people, it has bound them even more tightly in a constant state of contact not with the people with whom they are actually in contact, but with everyone and anyone else as long as they are far enough away to require a cell phone to initiate contact. What used to be groups of people having conversations now is often five people talking to five other people who are not present and therefore whose only 'interaction' as a group is physical proximity.

I can only hope that the cell phone and all that it has come to represent is merely another passing fancy like the 8 track tape. :(
 

Does anyone begin to wonder what happened to our culture? Certainly one example of a 'dumbing' or 'watering' down of the culture is the removal of various days of national celebration and/or remembrance in favor of making a 'long weekend' for working folks. Instead of Washington's (and everywhere but the South, Lincoln's) birthday, we have 'Presidents' Day - on a Monday. Instead of May 30th being Memorial or Decoration Day - the day chosen to honor our fallen dead in our wars - we have the Monday closest to that date. Instead of Columbus Day on October 12th, we have the Monday closest to that date - and so on. I can't wait until they move Thanksgiving to the third Monday - or possibly Friday - in November to effectuate yet one more 'long weekend'. Of course, that  might not happen because quite a few people now take Friday as a vacation day and have an even longer weekend!

Right now they can't do much with Armistice Day which is celebrated on the day that the armistice ending WWI was signed (or put into effect, I don't remember which), but as our youth become ever more ignorant of the nation's history, soon enough Armistice Day will either disappear entirely or be replaced by some generic 'holiday' which, of course, will be celebrated on a Monday! New Year's day is set by the calendar and even Congress doesn't seem to want to fool with that. And, of course, the days chosen to honor St. Patrick, St. Valentine and Christmas were from the Church, not the State so at least they seem to be fairly safe. For now, that is.

Doesn't anyone find this depressing? I know I do. I find it so because it is taking all the reasons that we as a  nation celebrate various aspects of our identity and making them 'irrelevant', first by moving the day of celebration to a day that creates something everybody wants (another day off from work - where, of course, that applies!) and then, eventually, by removing the 'reason to celebrate' altogether. Thanksgiving even now is called by many in a sort of 'joshing' way,  'turkey day' and for many people simply means the beginning of the Christmas (oh, sorry, WINTER HOLIDAY) shopping season. Presidents' Day, Memorial Day and Columbus Day are now thought of more in terms of sales in the stores than a recollection of the people they are supposed to represent and the meaning of those people's lives - and deaths. Certainly, there are still groups and individuals who remember what each holiday means, but how much longer will that be the case as our education system works hard to 'homogenize' the culture to the point at which our national identity will be of less and then finally of no importance.

I like a three day weekend as well as the next fellow, but I believe that the days of celebration as originally chosen by our nation should have been left where they were. But then, that's just my opinion.

I've read a lot of complaints by sellers (don't sell myself so I'm rather neutral) and it seems that certain matters come up again and again amongst you all. Perhaps eBay could provide (or you could corporately create) a 'sellers' corporation' which would enable those problems that appear to affect a great many sellers to be addressed more fully rather than the individual sellers bringing their complaints to eBay one at a time. Large numbers of complaints tend to have a greater impact with the 'Powers that Be' than individual gripes. That's why petitions are often quite successful. One complaint presented over the signature of lots of sellers would probably gain far more attention from the target audience than 100 letters which - because of they way they are written -  may appear to be complaints about 100 different problems.

I don't know if eBay has an 'ombudsmen' for those who sell on the site, but it certainly should have if it does not. Knowing that someone is working for the good of the seller with the management helps to make everyone more comfortable. After all, the relationship among the 'triumverate' - eBay, Seller and Buyer - should not be one of conflict but of mutual assistance and respect. eBay is NOTHING without the Sellers and the Buyers - what business would it have without either or both? The Sellers are NOTHING without eBay and the Buyers - for how would they sell and to whom? And Buyers are NOTHING without eBay and Sellers - for, again, what would they buy and how?

An enterprise as large as eBay is bound to have problems. However, I do believe that eBay is no longer alone in offering this service on the net. That means that it cannot afford to simply ignore problems since neither Seller nor Buyer has anywhere else to go (and besides, that's not a very constructive attitude anyway!). So now is the time to begin to put into place a system that will receive complaints and concerns and work with both the Sellers (especially) and the Buyers to do all that can be done to address those issues. Of course, it will not be perfect, but I believe that most people will at least be reasonable with regard to their expectations if they know that their concerns are being heard and addressed. If that does not happen, however, rest assured another entity or entities will follow eBay into this field and reap the benefit of disgruntled former eBay members both Sellers and Buyers.

I am trying to get an 'alert' removed from my account. The 60 day period is over and eBay has been more than adequately shown that I addressed the issue (see previous blog post). I hope that in the next day or two the damned thing will be gone, but the problem I find even more annoying - if that is possible - is the difficulty I have had contacting eBay to ask about the matter.

Every effort I made does not 'fit' in any of the neat little 'boxes' they have regarding just what you want to contact them about. And if you cannot pick a 'subject', the process just stops. On the other hand, if you pick a subject in hopes that you will finally be able to describe the problem, I find that you continue to get further and further away from the issue you want to discuss until finally, what you wind up with is a 'question' that has nothing whatsoever to do with the matter at hand!

ATTENTION EBAY!! Not every issue a member wishes to discuss fits neatly into a few categories so you either have to allow for MORE categories or have a 'none of the above' or 'other' category which would enable the member to go further in the 'contact' process if he cannot find something that is an absolute 'fit' for the problem at hand. Furthermore, if I or any other member wishes to contact you, WHY DON'T YOU JUST LET US DO SO instead of making it into one of those auto-dial things where the member has to listen to and answer question after question hoping to find the right one - or at least one that finally connects the member with an eBay representative. It is damned annoying and very frustrating trying to contact a nameless, faceless entity on a computer!

In fact, eBay has even changed the 'live help' section to the point that I as a non-technical type and a Mac user cannot access it! At least before if I couldn't get through any other way, I could do the 'live help' option and get some answers. The way things are now, I am stymied; I cannot do anything and just have to hope that someone remembers to take the 'alert' away before I start painting over parts of my computer screen so I don't have to look at the thing!

I would ask that eBay PLEASE make member contact easier. There is no reason why a member should find it easier to talk to God - and get a reply! - than to eBay.

Thank you.