mcgees.org

So, the issue comes up: where to buy stamps online now?  eBay has priced themselves out of the game (so there is no way for people to profit sell cheaper stamps there any longer) and, after dealings with Mark Rosenberg of StampWants (who, incidentally, wrote a threatening letter to me to remove my original statements from this site) I learned several things:

1. Live in or collect a country other than the United States?  There is a good chance that you do not warrant a category on StampWants in Mr. Rosenberg’s assessment.  Check the site’s categories for yourself.  Mr. Rosenberg considers this a business decision.  I see it as an important sample point in ensuring that the rest of the world remains a “special interest group” on StampWants.

2. Mr. Rosenberg is happy to claim experimental results that show that adding that country you care about as a category would ruin StampWants, but is unwilling to share the data (as would be standard practice in the scientific community.

3. I find Mr. Rosenberg tremendously cocksure when it comes to his own opinions, answering questions in a way that I consider rude and to perpetually dodge the point, with logic I find fallacious.  To add insult to injury, he then accuses me of continuing to change the topic.

There are more reasons, but that should suffice for most readers, I suspect.  Contact me if you want more.  As I alluded to earlier, I received an absolutely adorable attempt at a cease-and-desist letter written by Mr. Rosenberg, in which he continues to behave in a manner I consider rude in the same breath that he denies ever having been rude in the first place.  So instead of waiting for a frame-worthy cease-and-desist letter written by someone with, oh, say, training, I’ve rephrased the preceding (as a courtesy) to explicitly state my interpretations of Rosenberg’s behavior.

In any case, my First-Amendment-protected recommendation (which follows my First-Amendment-protected opinions) is: avoid StampWants.  And the funny thing?  My rephrasing, driven by Mark’s tired letter, extends the length of my negative assessment of his site and him by a couple orders of magnitude.

His non-StampWants email is markcrosenberg@gmail.com, by the way.

So, instead of StampWants, I turned to the awesome Delcampe auction site and went to Moneybookers to pay, as the dealer had requested.

Moneybookers is the European equivalent of PayPal, and it’s kind of neat to deal to deal with overseas companies as an American, and think about what it’s like for overseas citizens to do the reverse.  It’s like walking around with your arm in a sling.  For instance: ways to fund your account.  You can pay from your bank account, if you find the carefully-hidden place to add an American account (because American banks don’t support IBAN, and Moneybookers pretty much assumes your bank does.)  You can also fund your “wallet” with a credit card, for a 1.9% fee.  Worldwide, they take Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Diner’s Club.  Except in the States.  There you can use Visa, American Express, or Diner’s Club — but not MasterCard, due to unspecified “security issues”.  Does anyone have the slightest idea what is going on there?  I am so used to Visa and MasterCard being uttered in the same breath.  They even show up together on the same store window decal.  And I really wanted to use a Mastercard (specifically, my PayPal MasterCard).

Starting this October, U.S. television network NBC will be running an action series starring Christian Slater.

Startled, I contacted NBC/Universal, and was given the following explanation:

We at NBC were initially reluctant to risk a high-budget series with Christian Slater in the lead roles.  But that’s before we secured Scott Weiland to score it and Terry Gilliam and Orson Welles as co-directors.  With this combination of talent, we decided there was no way we would lose our time and money.

(Nerds, hover over that Christian Slater link.  He is assigned a number that implies that he was the 225^th added to IMDB.  The first?  Serq Afgnver.  Bracketing him?  Nyvpvn Fvyirefgbar at 224 and Jvyy Fzvgu at 226.  WEIRD.)

Check out 960946038000 and marvel at the über-efficiency of FedEx!  They really are frakking unbelievable.  I think it’s time to invest.

Some of you have already gotten this in an email from me, but I strongly advise you to sign up for Obopay.  In short, it’s a secure way to send money from your mobile phone to another person’s mobile phone, even if he or she has not signed up yet.  It’s much like Paypal, with the killer app being the restaurant phenomenon of no one having enough cash: this way, everyone can text their contribution to one person, who then puts the bill on a credit card (it needs a PIN, so if someone steals your phone, they cannot empty your bank account or credit card.)

Also useful for movie tickets, splitting parking costs, paying for auctions, and so forth.  Unlike Paypal, which takes a (large!) percentage of the money from the seller, Obopay just charges the sender a small fee (for now it’s a dime, but it’s going up to a quarter next month.)

OK, here’s the pitch: sign up using that link I’ve provided, and I’ll get a referral bonus.  I could really use the cash.  As soon as you add a funding source, you’ll be set up as an Obopay registered user.  Then, I’ll send you $1 (via Obopay) — your first Obopay receipt — as thanks.  OK?  Please sign up your mobile phone, and use one of the links.

U.S. only for right now, sorry.

Merci.

Everybody now!

Some fucking motherfucker stole my bike
Some fucking motherfucker stole my bike
I’ll tell you what he’s like
He’s a fucking parasite
This dickless fucking punk who stole my bike (from my porch!)

Second verse, same as the first!

Some …

I’m going to the hospital tonight, after doctor’s orders.  I have a wound on my injury site, and they are worried about a bacterial infection tracking down to my dura.  I’ll check my email on my T-Mobile MDA (HTC Wizard).  If you want and don’t have it, email for my phone number or mobile email address.

I don’t believe in prayer, cosmic vibrations, or wishable luck, but if there is some action that would help you feel like you’re doing something, please go ahead and do it.  You have my blessing, and my thanks.  No sacrificing of animals, please.

On an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Detective Tutuola (played by actor and rapper Ice-T) walks into a bodega and asks for “Two coffees: one black and one regular.”

Huh?  Question for New Yorkers, please: what is “regular” coffee if it’s not black, drip, American-style coffee?  When I was a barista mumbleteen years ago, if someone asked for “regular coffee”, I’d probably ask them if they wanted “room for milk”.  That’s it.  The black, drip, and American-style would have been automatic.

The ACLU will be running a Vietnam Memorial-style ad in the New York Times, protesting FISA.  They will try to print thousands and thousands of names of supporters, presumably in really tiny print.

Get your name on the ad by visiting the ACLU FISA Action site.

Don’t wait on this one, their submission deadline is less than 24 hours away.

This is awesome.  It is a Google Maps mashup that locates blue mailboxes as well as UPS and FedEx locations, on a Google Map, complete with the times of pickup or hours of operation.

Apparently, according to international law, items that are the product of “genius of nationals” of countries in the world are worth more (morally) in the country where they originated.

However, export of these materials — which include some books, furniture, stamps, and coins — “increases the knowledge of the civilization of Man, enriches the cultural life of all peoples and inspires mutual respect and appreciation among nations”.

UNESCO is intimately involved in walking this tightrope, evidenced especially by their 1970 convention text.

As I read it, this law has no retroactive applicability.  So, Native American artifacts in Asian collections, Chinese artifacts in American collections, and relics from pretty-much-everywhere in British collections, are exempted, as long as the import occurred before 1970.

Why is this relevant?  It might be, if you sell online.  As far as I can tell, if you are American, dig in your backyard, and find a flint arrowhead, you are prohibited by international law to sell it on eBay to an overseas buyer.  You may, however, be able to sell it to someone in Alaska.  I don’t really know.

What I do know is that eBay links to that page, with very little clarification of the laws.  Check out that eBay page.  It basically reads as CYA.

For more information — fascinating information — see the list at the United States Postal Service that deals with import and export restrictions for each country.  It’s really, really, really interesting, and you should really check it out.  We can even get a game going, finding the most interesting prohibitions.

Most places ban obvious things: money, radioactive materials, infectious materials, body parts, but many ban weird stuff.

For instance, I can ship to Libya, but my shipment cannot include tea, salt, or tobacco.  For Kiribati, you cannot send things colored with dyes made from coal tar.  For Nigeria, it’s “hardware of all kinds” — whatever that means (nuts and bolts are banned?)  For the UK, the list includes CB radios and horror comics.  Turkey?  Silver coins are banned, but gold coins are allowed.

This is why I have a list on every one of my eBay auctions that tells foreign shoppers to check their import restrictions.  I am certain that many citizens of those nations are unaware of what is banned.  And I’ve certainly sold tea, dyed items, hardware, and silver on eBay.