CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Stickywingz won the Hideous Dish for $27.37 !!!!

and has thereby become the eight person  to join the illustrious "club" of Hideous Dish owners!  The Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary thanks you! 

Such generosity!  Such wonderful taste (?) in art (?)

So, we WILL see it on eBay again -- meanwhile, here are fireworks for you!

(REPOST)  I am wondering why some people get the dreaded code and others do not.  So far it has never hit me.  However, I am also running Spybot anti-spyware.  I wonder if the code could be a hijacker program.  That's a malware that sends you to some other page rather than the one you click to goto.  

  You can get Spybot for FREE at http://spybot.com/en/home/index.html and there are free updates, too.  I recommend running this or some other spyware detector to check your systems....

I got this lovely art for $2 at a garage sale.  The title is "The Peacock"  (logical) and it has such wonderful detail! 

I looked it up & it's not a particularly valuable item -- there's one like it on eBay already for $15.95 plus another $15 shipping so it would cost $30 to buy -- not a bad deal for two bucks.  And it is SO BEAUTIFUL I intend to keep it.  As soon as I find a nice frame to replace the crappy one it came with, I will hang in my living room.  It goes well with 2 prints of swans I have already.  Our house may be old and junky but we do have nice art!

What kind of art do you like? 

And while you are at it, here are some of my original digital photos you can get downloads of for only $1.80  -- royalty-free, buy once and use them forever!

and I'm not at all upset about it.  I earned every one of my grey hairs!  I don't know why people worship youth so much -- I would hate to have to be a teenager again. 

And for a gift she bought me a white Amaryllis bulb that I've been wanting.  Now i've got red, pink, double pink & white. 

Because they actually WORK!  The eBay widgets give error messages half the time and load very slowly when they do work and are a pain to set up.  The Gallery tool developed by ISDNtek (long before eBay tried to copy it) is available to use online FREE.  It makes great little ad galleries like the ones below and I have NEVER had them give an error message. 

Here's the link to go there: http://www.isdntek.com/tagbot/qsell.htm

Happy Selling!

What brainless idiot designed THIS stupidity?  Have you noticed the new "Item Specifics" drop-down menus on the SYI form lately?  They are proof that computers will NEVER take over the world.  The auto-generated info is ridiculous.  Examples:

On a sale listed inder "cat lover products" the "animal" category came up filled in as "dogs" !!!  And "cats" was not a prefab option -- I had to fill it in myself!

My peacock feathers came up as "color: gold."  How was THAT determined?  Actually, they are mostly green with blue eyespots.

My WHITE peacock wing feathers came up as "blue."

Plus, theses drop-downs take FOREVER to load if you have a slow connection.  GRRRRR!!!!!

 Earlier tonight, two of my "Help cats" sales vanished and, being the paranoid sort, I thought eBay had pulled them for violating the charity rules (these are not through Missionfish, just private sales to help "fix" and feed cats -- and it SAYS that in the lsitng, but a lot of the edBay staff are funtionally illiterate...)  There were no messages saying eBsay had canceled them, but the message function has bee weird lately, too...

Anyway, I relisted them, one with a better version of the pic and both with a red-letter statement to the eBay police that these are NOT billed as charity auctions.  So far so good, they stayed up there. 

Then just now the FIRST sales -- the ones that were missing all day -- showed up again.   So now I have duplicates.  Rather than end the extras, I went in and edited to make one version $2 and the other $5 -- gives people a choice how much to give. 

Even stranger:  I updated the pic in the first sale shown belwo to match the pic in the 3rd one.  On eBay it look fine -- but the ISDNtek tool picks up the OLD pic to make this gallery?  Go figure... 

Sherlock, the little Schnauzer we adopted, who was rescued from a puppy mill (see my previous post, "The newest member of our family" for his story) grows more in confidence each day.  Yesterday evening we took our first real walk.  By that I mean that he actually walked around on the leash, sniffing and exploring outside.   This morning when I took him out, he led me back up the steps to the door when he was done.   So he knows where he lives.  This may not sound like much, but when we first got this dog on Friday, he was so scared that he just stood there and shook.

He still does not "get" following me on a leash -- I have to carry him in and out.  But he will.  He seems to be an intelligent little guy, he just didn't have much to stimulate his interest when he was living at that awful puppy mill. 

He still howls at night but not as much as before.  We have some mild tranquilizers to help him through the night during this adjustment period.  We don't just drug him, we wait to see if he needs them first.  Last night he didn't wake up and start howling until about 4AM which was almost through the night.  So I think it won't be long before he'll feel secure enough to sleep peacefully here on his own.

I'll try to get some more pics up -- the cats are welcoming him and come right up to sniff and rub nose-to nose.  Really cute!  (Of course, I've never got a camera in my hand when I need one...)

Meet Sherlock -- a miniature Schnauzer who was rescued from a puppy mill here in Minnesota.   When my wife's miniature poodle, Pooh, died a little over a year ago, she said that when the time came, God would send her the next little dog.  So, when we got the opportunity to adopt this little fellow, we took him.  

Right now he doesn't look a whole lot like a Schnauzer because he was so badly matted I had to clip him practically down to his skin.   (Which is why he is wearing Pooh's old coat -- one of the ones my wife made for all our dogs for hunting season so they would not get shot by some idiot who can't tell a dog from a deer.)   Poor Sherlock had horrible inch-thick mats on his feet that were caked with dirt and worse, and were so heavy they had pulled the hair out and rubbed his toes raw.   I had to clip them off bit by bit with a scissors.   One I got the first mat off, he seemed to understand what I was doing and was surprisingly patient through the rest of the clipping, considering that this dog probably never had a grooming in his life.  His tail was so badly matted to his butt he could not even wag it -- in fact, he hasn't wagged it yet even though it is now free.  I'm wondering if he knows how to wag.

This little dog is about two years old and spend his whole life in a cage.   I doubt he ever had any loving human contact, because he has no sense of following me around or responding like a normal dog.  He had obviously never been on a leash before, is so afraid of the big outdoors that he  doesn't pull on the leash like an untrained dog, he just stands there and freezes.   He is also terrified of the silence of a sleeping house (probably because he was used to being around lots of barking dogs) and howled constantly the first night.   The second night was better, but he is still afraid of quiet -- it must make him feel alone and abandoned.

 He is such a sad, heartbroken little dog who doesn't seem to have much of a personality developed.   But our other two dogs have already accepted him, and so have most of our cats, many of whom come up and rub against him.   In just the two days since we got Sherlock, he is becoming more confident and exploring around the house.   I have confidence that, with love, attention, patience  and time, he will come out of his shell to be a reasonably normal dog.

Sherlock is a sad example of how neglect and lack of affection can stunt the emotional growth of an animal.  It is an out and out crime to treat a dog that way.  These horrible puppy mills would not exist if people were not willing to pay hundreds of dollars for pedigreed puppies.  A lot of the puppies you see in pet stores come from these places.  I find myself wondering how healthy a puppy could be -- both physically and emotionally -- if he was born and nursed under such horrible conditions. 

I've never bought a dog in my life -- in fact, Sherlock is the first pedigreed dog I've ever had, and that's not why I got him.   (He does have papers, but I have no intention of breeding him.  He is going to be neutered.)   If you must get a purebred dog, get one from a reputable person who is willing to let you come and meet the mother dog, see her together with her pups, her living conditions, etc.   Otherwise, try your local animal shelter.

More on how to find a happy, healthy puppy NOT from a puppy mill

That's what the ebay computer thinks LOL!   

Voodoo economics! 

Seems the new details section of the SYI form needs some tweaking.  I was listing some of my Sell on eBay ebooks as Fixed Price to take advantage of the listing sale.  The ebook is listed under "Sell on eBay" -- natch!  So what pops up as a product choice?  "Spells and Potions."  REALLY! 

I'll admit I'm willing to try just about anything to sell stuff, but this was hilarious!    Or is it the latest Halloween marketing strategy?  Light a candle and chant the Ferengi mantra:  Sell, sell, sell, sell..... 

New to eBay?  Looking to increase sales?

Got an eBay Store? Thinking about one?

then get this ebook COMBO --

 

BOTH of my bestselling ebooks in one PDF file!!

Over 100 pages of good solid info with full-color graphics in an easy-to-read style and font. Save it to your hard drive to read offline -- and you can print it out, too!  It's yours forever!

You will be able to download your COMBO immediately after paying.

Get started SELLING BETTER right away!

You will get BOTH: 

 "The Happy Rooster's Guide to 

Successful eBay Selling"

and

"The Happy Rooster's Guide to

eBay STORE Success!"

 

Learn from my mistakes -- don't re-invent the square wheel !!!

This is not one of those HTML-based "books" that are just a bunch of hyperlinks to more products on the Net. And it's not some multi-level marketing "chain letter" scheme where you (supposedly) make money by selling more ebooks to your friends.   And no, I'm not "feedback farming," either.

This is REAL WRITING!!!

As you can see, I'm not some hot young guy using sexy (???) pictures of himself and his girlfriend to lure you to a marketing scheme.  I'm just a down-to-earth, rather homely over-50 codger who knows how to sell things.  Check out my feedback -- my customers are satisfied, and they keep coming back. 

How do I do this? With magic?

No, with hard work. Anybody who tells you that you can strike it rich on eBay without working is scamming you. On the other hand, if you are trying to push a square-wheeled cart uphill, you are wasting your time. That's why you need these books -- to learn where to best focus your energy. 

Only $2.99  for BOTH ebooks combined --

that's $1.00 off the regular price!

(If you want them separately, you can still get them for $1.99 each in The Happy Rooster store)

And yes  -- I leave VERY FAST feedback --

usually within 24 hours, faster if I'm online at the time

I believe in being PROMPT!!!

>A few of my eBay items - qsell

Happy Roosters eBay SELLING STORE success COMBO ebook $2.99 NEW Happy Roosters eBay STORE SUCCESS selling ebook $1.99 Happy Roosters eBay selling tips success secrets ebook $1.99

Free Quick*Sell Gallery from ISDN*tek

This has to be the strangest excuse I've ever had for not paying.  A buyer with zero feedback bought a download of my ebook anthology of articles on reincarnation that I wrote.  I sent 3 invoices, 2 emails, no answer so, after 3 weeks, I filed a dispute.  In the dispute I explained that I was being very patient but a lot of sellers would not be, so please pay up.

What I got back was a reply telling me how she was in her 70s and has always had perfect credit so I should not go ruining it.  I patiently explained that this had nothing to do with her regular credit record, only on ebay, and since it was $1.99 why not just pay and get it over with?

Her reply was that she now felt "negative energy" surrounding me so she did not want the ebook.  What the heck, it was only $1.99 and not worth the hassle so we agreed not to complete the sale but I also told her that "negative is as negative does."  

Frankly, I think she was just mad that I filed the dispute, period -- how DARE I claim she was a slacker!   (Returning from the Twilgiht Zone now...)