Last night was gaming, and
thomasm and jkusters's Polycon friend Melinda was down and joined us, along with ben_raccoon and brahma_minotaur. Actually got Ben away from the PS2 for a game of CE, then a round of Grave Robbers from Outer Space. Did laundry simultaneously. Melinda stayed over.Myke took the day off today, so he and John are off doing fun things I'm sure before John starts back to work on Monday. Me, I'm at work. Low-stress day, but plenty of work to do - fiscal year-end is coming up at the end of next week.
Tonight is the LYC EC meeting (we're wondering if Paul got the letter yet), and tomorrow I may go over Ben's and watch "Queen of the Damned" (which I haven't seen yet) and take a dip in the hot tub. :D
Saturday I pick up the ceramics, and go to coffee and dinner. Sunday is the Pride Guides car wash and Gaylaxicon meeting.
I have nothing on my calendar next week - w00t!
Got an interesting call from Peter on Tuesday about some eBay woes before the stroll. He's currently making a living reselling stuff on eBay (he does know his antiques, and does a lot of estate sales and such). Seems he bought a vase for $65 and put it up on eBay for a $150 starting bid and a $250 "Buy It Now" price. He quickly got an opening bid, but then got an e-mail from someone offering him the $250 up front (since the "Buy It Now" pride disappears once the first bid is made). He cancelled the auction and took their money. Then he got more e-mails from people asking why he cancelled the auction, including someone who offered him $750. Now he wasn't calling me because he was in a moral dilemma, he wanted to know how to get out of the $250 sale as delicately as possible so he could take the $750 sale. I started to get into how unethical this all was and how he'd be breaking two written agreements (first the eBay auction, which is considered binding, and then the e-mail agreement, which was in writing, plus he'd already taken the money through PayPal), but he started to get a little angry - seems yes, he is feeling bad about throwing over both the auction and the independent agreement, but money is such an issue for him now (and of course $500 is a lot of money) that he's accepted it and is doing it anyway and didn't need another lecture. My take on it was he never should have cancelled the auction in the first place, but instead should have played his bidders against each other - invited the second guy to go ahead and bid $250, if that's what he was willing to pay, and if the first guy didn't go that high, the second guy would get a bargain, but if someone else outbid him (like, say, the third guy with $750), then he's SOL and Peter wins. That's the nature of the eBay beast. I feel bad for Peter, because I know how he feels and I've been where he is money-wise - it'd be a tough call if I had to make it, too.
