Author: Andrew Huey

Jonathan Coulton

Jonathan Coulton has been getting a bit of attention lately. I remember hearing his “Mandelbrot Set” song some time ago and enjoying it greatly. He’s got a new one named “Code Monkey” that’s pretty good. And I really like “Skullcrusher Mountain” too.

eBay and other stuff

The 15 eBay auctions I put up last Saturday are all done. I sold everything, though a few items only sold for the $1 minimum bid. Well, the purpose of this was more to clear up space than make money, so I guess that’s OK.

Meanwhile, I got a few DVDs in the mail Friday via Peerflix. Everything looks good, except for the Dune miniseries, which is missing disc 2, so I don’t have the last episode.

Alternative Style Sheets

My dad has trouble reading this page since I switched to the fancy CSS layout. Apparently, all the fancy positioning and sizing screws things up when you’ve got your computer set up to use large fonts, a high-contrast color scheme, and so on. I’ve been meaning to implement an alternate style sheet for him, and I’ve finally gotten around to it, with the help of this article. If you look over at the link bar, you’ll now see buttons to switch between the “normal” style sheet, and a “basic” style sheet, which simply turns off most of the fancy stuff and basically switches back to a one-column design, with the left bar at the bottom of the page instead. The JavaScript code behind the buttons should set a cookie, so the style sheet choice will be persistent. Let me know how it works!

getting rid of stuff

Of the 15 books I posted on eBay on Saturday, I’ve already sold two at the “Buy It Now” price. Only one other book has any bids on it, though. Hopefully, I can get rid of at least 5 books, if not 10 or 15, before the auctions close.

It’s been a while since I’ve sold anything on eBay. I like a lot of the new features. The shipping calculator integrated into the listings, and the ability to pay for and print shipping labels on-line is great. I picked up a small scale at Staples, so I can make sure I’ve got the weights right. Now I don’t need to go down to the post office at all. I can just weigh the package, print the label, and dump the thing in the mail. Nice.

I’ve sent out eight DVDs through Peerflix so far. I’ve received one DVD (Mystic River), and six more are on their way. The six DVDs coming in are not ones that were near the top of my want list. They’re all basically what I’d consider second-tier titles. That’s OK though, since that’s basically what I was trading off.

I’ve also discovered PeerFlixTalk.com, an independent discussion board site for Peerflix. There’s some interesting discussion going on over there, along with some pretty esoteric stuff about people’s preferences for mailers. A couple of Peerflix employees hop on the board now and again, so that’s a good sign. A few people seem to be dead-set against the new “peermailer” system, where you just print out a template on two pieces of paper, then fold them into an envelope of sorts. Apparently, Peerflix used to send out envelopes, like Lala does.

I only just got the mailers from Lala, so I wasn’t able to send anything out until today. I sent out 3 CDs, and I’ve now got 3 CDs coming in already. Two of the CDs I’m getting are titles that I have on casette; I’m trying to gradually replace all my old casettes and LPs with CDs (or digital files from iTunes or wherever), and Lala seems like a good way to do some of that.

So, in a nutshell, I’m gradually creating a bit more shelf space, without resorting to fire. With Peerflix and Lala, even though I’m probably getting in about the same number of titles I’m sending out, I’ll still be clearing some space, since I’m tossing out some old clamshell and jewel cases. The new stuff will either go in paper envelopes or thin cases. And, for the DVDs at least, I’ll probably trade some of them back out right after I watch them.

eBay

I just posted 15 trade paperbacks to eBay. I posted everything with a $1 minimum bid, and a $10 “buy it now” price. Hopefully, most of them will sell.

I used Turbo Lister for the first time on this stuff. I hadn’t sold anything on eBay in two years, so there have been a bunch of changes to the way things are done. The last time I posted anything, their off-line listing program was called “Mister Lister”, which is a nicer name, but maybe not as descriptive of the purpose of the program.

Good Friday

I took my “floating holiday” today, for Good Friday. I managed to get a few things done around the apartment. I ran out to Staples and bought a shredder. I’ve had a pile of old credit card bills and whatnot that I intended to take into work and shred on our big shredder, but I kept forgetting to bring them in, so I decided to just get a small shredder and take care of them. I had credit card bills going back to 1988 in there. Looking at them brought back some old RPI memories — eating at Holmes & Watson, picking up CDs (or casettes) at Music Shack, stuff like that. But they’re all confetti now. Goodbye 1980’s!

Meanwhile, I sent off two DVDs through Peerflix. Both were DVDs I’d gotten for free anyway, so if I can get a couple of good DVDs in return, all the better.

Peerflix

Since I’m on this whole trading kick, I decided to sign up for a Peerflix account, which is a DVD-trading service similar to Lala. They operate a little differently from Lala; trades are $1 each, like Lala, but you have to pay in advance for them, 5 at a time. And they don’t use prepaid mailers like Lala. Instead, they generate and send a two-page custom mailer to your printer. You’re supposed to put the DVD between the two pieces of paper and fold them into an envelope of sorts, which you then tape shut. I’m really not sure a DVD would survive the rigors of the Somerville post office without any padding, but I guess we’ll see how it works out.

Meanwhile, I’m ready to send out a couple of CDs via Lala, as soon as I get their mailers. And there’s one CD on the way to me already.

The one thing that bothers me a bit about both services is that they encourage you to throw out the packaging and booklets that come with CDs and DVDs. I realize it’s cheaper to mail that way, but my collector mentality just thinks it’s wrong to toss that stuff out. There’s stuff I’d never put up on Lala or Peerflix, just because I couldn’t bear to toss out the packaging and/or booklets. I guess I’ll have to stick with eBay for that kind of stuff.

Zunafish

Well, I signed up for Lala and posted some stuff yesterday. We’ll see how that goes.
There was an article about Zunafish in the NY Times today, and now I’m curious about that too. Zunafish lets you trade DVDs, books, and other stuff, not just CDs like Lala. But it seems to be less flexible, if I understand things correctly.

Risotto

I took a shot at making risotto tonight. It turned out OK, but not great. The rice wasn’t quite the right consistency, but it tasted good. I’m not sure if I screwed something up, or if the rice I was using just wasn’t good. Either way, I’m definitely going to try again at some point.
I basically made up my own recipe, using this random recipe and this Alton Brown recipe as a basis, along with this very useful page of general information. I saw the Good Eats episode on risotto quite some time ago, and I’ve been meaning to try it since then.
Just for future reference, I used mushrooms, asparagus, vegetable stock, Pinot Grigio, and fontina cheese, along with the other obvious ingredients (rice, onion, etc).