Weekend Review

All in all, it was a good weekend.

I won't go into tedious detail, though. But I will say that I've noticed that the weekend seems a lot longer when I do something fun on Friday night.

Scattered notes: Mowed the lawn for the first time this year. Got an amazing number of spontaneous fierce little hugs and kisses from the boy. Got some shopping done. Gave Sebastian lots of rides on the swing out back, and played with him a lot indoors as well, both on Saturday and Sunday. For one thing, we played in his bedroom, setting up furniture houses and pretending to be kitties, ghosts, and ghost kitties. I was able to keep the TV watching to a minimum.

This morning, Sebastian slept late. Teri got up and went to his room, and I slowly followed. He hadn't quite woken up yet. I crawled up next to him, and he broke into a huge smile. Then he opened his eyes and said sleepily "When is it going to be a just-you-and-me day again, Daddy?".

That sort of thing doesn't thrill Teri, understandably. Right now I'm the favorite, and have been for, oh, maybe a year. And he's anything but diplomatic about it. I need to find some way to make him be more balanced!

Currently Reading: In Joy Still Felt, the second volume (1954-1978) of the first autobiography of Isaac Asimov. It's 798 pages long not counting the index and bibliography, and the first volume (which I just finished) was about as long, but it reads easily and quickly. Of course, I've read it before. It particularly tickles me to come across so many familiar points: he mentions having lunch with his editors at the Marliave restaurant, which is an old family favorite (my family, that is), and was run by one of my mother's relatives for a long time. He went on the cog railway up Mount Washington, as did I. He lived in the Boston area for quite a while, so I know the areas that he talks about.

And of course I recently read Fredric Pohl's autobiography; Asimov and Pohl were friends, fellow Brooklynites and about the same age, so it's interesting to read what they say about each other. Good books. Note to self: check to see if any other science fiction writers have autobiographies.

Weekend Review

All in all, it was a good weekend.

I won't go into tedious detail, though. But I will say that I've noticed that the weekend seems a lot longer when I do something fun on Friday night.

Scattered notes: Mowed the lawn for the first time this year. Got an amazing number of spontaneous fierce little hugs and kisses from the boy. Got some shopping done. Gave Sebastian lots of rides on the swing out back, and played with him a lot indoors as well, both on Saturday and Sunday. For one thing, we played in his bedroom, setting up furniture houses and pretending to be kitties, ghosts, and ghost kitties. I was able to keep the TV watching to a minimum.

This morning, Sebastian slept late. Teri got up and went to his room, and I slowly followed. He hadn't quite woken up yet. I crawled up next to him, and he broke into a huge smile. Then he opened his eyes and said sleepily "When is it going to be a just-you-and-me day again, Daddy?".

That sort of thing doesn't thrill Teri, understandably. Right now I'm the favorite, and have been for, oh, maybe a year. And he's anything but diplomatic about it. I need to find some way to make him be more balanced!

Currently Reading: In Joy Still Felt, the second volume (1954-1978) of the first autobiography of Isaac Asimov. It's 798 pages long not counting the index and bibliography, and the first volume (which I just finished) was about as long, but it reads easily and quickly. Of course, I've read it before. It particularly tickles me to come across so many familiar points: he mentions having lunch with his editors at the Marliave restaurant, which is an old family favorite (my family, that is), and was run by one of my mother's relatives for a long time. He went on the cog railway up Mount Washington, as did I. He lived in the Boston area for quite a while, so I know the areas that he talks about.

And of course I recently read Fredric Pohl's autobiography; Asimov and Pohl were friends, fellow Brooklynites and about the same age, so it's interesting to read what they say about each other. Good books. Note to self: check to see if any other science fiction writers have autobiographies.

eBay Adventures

Teri and I did our first bidding together on eBay over the weekend, and got two rare books in the "Tim" series by Edward Ardizzone for a good price. In the process I realized that the smartest thing to do is to place your first bid bid as close to the close of the auction as possible, with a backup maximum bid a few dollars higher.

Yes, that's probably obvious to almost everyone, but it was a discovery for me.

At one point Teri started bidding on a book for herself, and discovered the power of eBay's maximum bid scam. It's pretty sleazy; for those who aren't familiar with eBay, when you place a bid they invite you to put a maximum bid in as well. Then if anyone else bids, eBay automatically bids you one increment higher than them.

The problem is that if more than one person does a maximum bid, the price automatically rises to just over the second-highest maximum bid. Since eBay takes their cut out of the winning bid price (sort of), this encourages high prices and enhances their profits - but it isn't good for people who want to buy things cheaply!

Anyway, Teri was bidding on a book online, when I had a sudden suspicion. She'd last bid $19, and if she wanted to stay in the lead the new bid would have to be $21.50; that sounded like an awfully high price for a relatively new book, even one in hardcover. So I had her wait on that bid, and popped over to Amazon.com...where I found the exact same book, NEW, for $7.98. With shipping, a little over eleven dollars.

We let the auction go and bought the book from (choke) Amazon.

It's important to be a smart shopper.

eBay Adventures

Teri and I did our first bidding together on eBay over the weekend, and got two rare books in the "Tim" series by Edward Ardizzone for a good price. In the process I realized that the smartest thing to do is to place your first bid bid as close to the close of the auction as possible, with a backup maximum bid a few dollars higher.

Yes, that's probably obvious to almost everyone, but it was a discovery for me.

At one point Teri started bidding on a book for herself, and discovered the power of eBay's maximum bid scam. It's pretty sleazy; for those who aren't familiar with eBay, when you place a bid they invite you to put a maximum bid in as well. Then if anyone else bids, eBay automatically bids you one increment higher than them.

The problem is that if more than one person does a maximum bid, the price automatically rises to just over the second-highest maximum bid. Since eBay takes their cut out of the winning bid price (sort of), this encourages high prices and enhances their profits - but it isn't good for people who want to buy things cheaply!

Anyway, Teri was bidding on a book online, when I had a sudden suspicion. She'd last bid $19, and if she wanted to stay in the lead the new bid would have to be $21.50; that sounded like an awfully high price for a relatively new book, even one in hardcover. So I had her wait on that bid, and popped over to Amazon.com...where I found the exact same book, NEW, for $7.98. With shipping, a little over eleven dollars.

We let the auction go and bought the book from (choke) Amazon.

It's important to be a smart shopper.