Release the hounds!

Okay, I'm selling a ton of stuff on eBay (username "piercepresley"; inventive, I know), lots of software and various tech items, figuring I'll get a better price that way than putting them on a table at our next garage sale (tentatively scheduled for the turn of the next millenium—we're still recovering from the last one). One of the items was a copy of Microsoft Office 2000 Professional, which someone representing themselves as representing a church bought (of course, online, no one knows you're a dog) bought using the "buy it now" thing where you pay a set price on an item that as yet has no bids.
Now, I know I like promptness when I buy something, so I did the golden-rule thing and printed out a shipping label and packing slip (sometime I'll wax eloquent in praise of the eBay-PayPal marriage made in heaven), put everything in a bubble envelope and took it to the post office this afternoon to get it right off ASAP.
After dinner, I took a peek at eBay and noticed that the items sold list was down one. In my e-mail was a letter from eBay saying they had removed the listing because, basically, Microsoft had asked them to because the latter thought I was selling a version of the software that is discounted and to be sold as part of a premade computer (or with significant hardware, like a processor or hard drive). It's called an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) version.
Now, someone had asked me whether the software was new or used, OEM or retail. I answered honestly, and I think I said that while I believed it to be a retail version, it was possible that I bought it as OEM with the approprate hardware. (EBay has pulled the listing altogether, so I can't check what exactly I said.) But I also made it clear that I was not selling it as new, and that I had used it myself.
While I think the "licensing" of software is a travesty almost on a par with "business method" patents, I can understand that Microsoft doesn't want people buying up discounted software under certain rules then reselling it without continuing to follow those rules; that's fraud, any way you slice it, and I hate fraud. But we're not talking about Lucky's Pawn and Software, we're talking about Pierce Presley, individual, selling a CD-ROM and manual from a piece of software that's no longer on any of my computers and that I have even purchased an upgrade to (and I was planning on using some of the proceeds from the eBay sales to upgrade yet again).
I've shot a letter to eBay and Microsoft explaining my position. I don't know that it'll do anything for me, and I expect that as the product has already been paid for and shipped that the transaction will stand. But I got to wonder, how much of the price of a Microsoft product goes into preventing that man, Pierce Presley, from selling Office 2000 Pro?
Just to cover my ass, all trademarks used in this post are used in an editorial, good-faith sense and are not intended to infringe upon the rights of the holders. Your mileage may vary. Caution! Coffee may be hot. This is not a lifesaving device.

Prayer letters

I got the damnedest (pun intended) thing in the mail today: A prayer "rug" of paper, a letter telling me to use it immediately and return it, and a form to check off my needs so this church can pray for me; when it's not busy innundating me with pleas for cash, check, money order or, let a thousand angels sing, a credit card number.
Apparently I got the version with pictures of black women in the testimonial letter, but the image of Jesus on the "rug" looks pretty caucasian, as usual. If you take it as a given that Jesus was in Palestine during the time in question, don't you think somebody would have commented on there being this strange, pasty white dude running around with Jews and Greeks and Samarians? None of whom needed a tanning booth for beautiful golden skin, a la George Hamilton. The letter advises the recipient to look into Jesus' closed eyes, which will open when you've prayed enough for them to do so.
It's not that I'm against prayer. Prayer, good thoughts, psychic karma love power or whatever is generally one of the most benign (and even alimentary) things in religion or spiritualism. (A big exception is when one prays only to hear what they want to hear: that they're a good person or doing God's will; see Bush, George W.) One of the amazing things about humans is our ability to do things that aren't easily explained, and the last thing I want to do, secular though I may mostly be, is to kill the sense of wonder one rightly feels when observing human beings or our mother, Nature.
Then again, I'm not so sure that religions, especially those on the fundamental side of things, want us to feel wonder. Shock and awe, fear of an angry God, terror that one might be having too much fun in this world and won't get to rise up out of one's clothes when the Raputre comes; these are okay by them. Was it Mencken that said something about Puritanism (and God knows we've got a heaping helping of that crap running around) being the fear that someone, somewhere might be having a good time? Or Ben Jonson? Mark Twain?
Thing is, it's one of those phrases that people repeat, misquote, paraphrase and twist so often that it's hard to know whether you've got the right citation or not. (Another is the germ of the phrase, "Today's trade, tomorrow's competition". I know I've read several versions of it, and that may just be the version that stuck in my head, but finding the source is beyond me.)
One thing I will give St. Matthew's Churches of Tulsa, Okla.: There was nary a mention of the hellfire and damnation that I might suffer if I didn't pray on the thing. To support the positivity, I would send it back, for the next recipient to use and find benefit from, but they've put identifying marks on the return envelope. I suppose Matt. 6:3 doesn't apply to prayer rugs by mail.

FilmForce: Audio Clip: Robin Williams Sings Pixar's Freedom

I will admit that sometimes Robin William's riffs just don't seem as funny as I remember him being back in the comedy club days. That being said, this is one of his better recent ones, and it's on the Disney-Pixar deal ending. "That's like Apple saying, 'Fuck the iPod!'"
FilmForce: Audio Clip: Robin Williams Sings Pixar's Freedom

And now for something completely different ...

After all that political stuff, maybe you feel like making a killer bumper sticker that uses fonts based on rock band's logos, or maybe just a mock up of that Concert T-Shirt you were too broke, lame or young to go and get yourself. If so, I got ya covered. (Via Boing Boing, probably the best damned nonspecific geek blog on the planet.)

The "World's Smallest Political Quiz"

The Advocates for Self-Government (a self-proclaimed non-profit, non-partisan libertarian educational organization) has what it's calling the world's smallest political quiz, and while the current crop of Republicans' quiz could be constructed in a single question--"Will you drink the kool-aid?"--five personal and five economic ain't that bad. In the single-point anecdotal data of my own results, it seemed accurate.

Ja, ja, left of center, high on the personal side, low on the economic, verry interrestiing. Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about... your mother. Ten points to the first to respond with the movie referenced in the previous line. Redeemable wherever PiercePoints^TM are accepted.)

Then again, it seems that political revelation is in the air. Just before the election, an acquaintance who routinely tossed her votes away on Republican candidates when she lived in Pulaski County, Ark., for several years said the Bush lies on Iraq, the economy, etc. were going to force her to vote for John Kerry; lately, my best friend, who enlisted in the Ark. National Guard at 32 , basically said, "Wait a minute! I'm a Teddy Rooservelt Republican! What the nether hell am I doing supporting this bunch of thieves?" These aren't complete reversals, or even that much of a movement toward sanity (both still blame Clinton for everything from psoriasis to heartbreak), but rather an epiphany that the current White House gang and its enablers, facilitators and funders couldn't care less about them (and the "them in this case is those making less than a cool 10 million a year). Most on my side of things are wondering "where have they been", but we have our own blind spots, so do be hatin'.

Cutest damned kids ever.