I love my XM, make no mistake. XM hit the mark by giving listeners an alternative to Top 40-wasted radio land. That doesn’t mean though, that they get every station right, something that Soma set out to do from the begining:

“We look for music and formats that aren’t available on commercial radio, or formats that are ‘not being done right’ as Rusty puts it.”

Check them out. If you like the stations they offer, give them some money.

http://www.somafm.com/

I love eBay. I really do. I’ve used it for a long time (buyer and seller since 1998) and am always surprised at the things I can find (and sell). I’ve gotten on a kick recently to clean out my repository of all things usused and thus occupying-other-useful-space. It’s a life-changing decision that I haven’t yet fully motivated, but it is, no doubt, in progess. eBay allows me to get rid of stuf and make (well, recover) some money at the same time. I can even sell shit that’s broken. My wife is always surprised when that happens.

Something happened today that reminded me of a feeling I had before. A thought about eBay. If I had formulated a theory then, I’d have been proved right today. eBay is becoming more and more detached - this is both a cause and a result of the shrewd efficiencies in the mechanations of buying and selling. You can faciltate an entire transaction without direct human interaction. This might not sound exciting to some people. But I’m not just referring to painless transactions where the buyer pays quickly and the seller ships exactly the right item. In my history on eBay (200+ transactions), I’ve had VERY few problems. But it’s those problems transactions that give everyone else involved headaches. You might think that at some point, in a problem transaction, you’d have to “ask for help”. Hell, pick up the phone and call the other party. …Wait, you mean talk to someone? Why should I have to do that?

I’ve completed a few of my “liquidation” auctions and a couple of the buyers have not paid. It has been about five days or so since auctions ended. I can submit a “unpaid item dispute” which dispatches to the buyer an email from eBay reminding them to pay the seller. Huh, look at that - I didn’t have to call anyone! Woohoo!

One of my other auctions was bidden artificially high (in my own opinion) by a user with a feedback of -1. Normally not a good sign, but I’m a trusting soul. However, I was expecting this auction to be one of my best and I didn’t want it mucked with. So I cancelled the bids from this user with the request (automatically included in the bid cancellation email sent by eBay to the user) that he contact me if he wanted to bid. The user bid again! Rather than email the user myself, I cancelled the bids - again, hiding behind the automatic emails sent by eBay. This happened a couple more times still and then I missed the end of the auction. Mr. -1 won with his five-time original bid. Mr -1 still hasn’t paid, but I can’t file one of these unpaid notices - at least not for a few days. But at least I didn’t have to talk to anyone.

I love my XM radio. The newer SkyFi2 has a 30-minute buffer (like the TiVo) and it wasn’t until recently that I really put it into use. I have, on a good day, a 30 minute commute to work. On a bad day, it’s more like an hour. I like to listen to the Comedy channel (#150), it helps relieve that stress. It is, however, one of the non-music channels, so it has commercials. And there are, of course, some comedians I just don’t care for or bits I’ve heard too often.

So, the tip: Tune your receiver to your favorite channel, then hit pause. Go about your listening business on something else like a CD or your mp3 player… When you go back to your receiver, you’ve got some songs or juicy bits of comedy cued up, ready to be enjoyed or skipped at your leisure. Just like skipping commercials with your TiVo…