eBay Spam, Crystal Light Addiction, And Fun Installing A Sirius Satellite Radio Antenna
Quick-hitters:
- 99 degrees (102 RealFeel) yesterday; 103 (108) today.
It’s only June! Help me!
It’s so freaking hot that I have to turn on the A/C…at 8pm!
(More on the heat later.)
EDIT: We just had our first lights-flickering moment of the season! Rolling blackouts, here we come!
- The Dodgers are on a three-game winning streak! W00t!
Oh wait…they swept Cincinnati. Never mind.
(Now I hear that Rafael Furcal won’t be back until the All-Star Break. Sigh.)
- So after a several-month long absence from eBay (8.25% final value fees + 3% PayPal fees!!!!!), I posted a few things for sale that I couldn’t move on Amazon.com.
Two days after listing the auctions, nine eBay-related messages showed up in my inbox. Of the nine, two were legitimate questions about my auctions, four asked for shipping costs to a foreign country (obviously, these bidders missed the boldfaced part of my auction description that says that I will not ship to international bidders), and three were emails that looked something like this:
Subject: [eBay user] thought you might like this item on eBay
Body: We’re a big shipping company in China [blah blah blah] We specialize in wholesale electronics [blah blah blah] cell phones, laptops, computers, LCD TVs, plasmas, etc.
[blah blah blah] [contact info] We hope to conduct business with you.
One week later, and I got a total of nine or ten of these stupid emails. Never mind the number of phishing emails from fake sites like signin-ebay.com, e.g.
(Tangent: Every time I log on to my eBay account, I see an ad for a discount offer on an eBay symposium. Yeah, like I am going to pay to hear eBay explain why they need to raise their fees even more.)
- So I think my family is officially addicted to Crystal Light. Armed with a $15/39 coupon (SUMBEV39), I ordered the following flavors of Crystal Light for my sisters:
- Crystal Light On the Go, Immunity Pomegranate Cherry, 10-Count Box (Pack of 6)
- Crystal Light On-the-Go Metabolism Plus Green Tea Peach Mango, 14-Count Packets (Pack of 6)
If the temperatures around here stay in the low-100s, these Crystal Light packets probably won’t last more than a month.
- At about 7PM last night, my sister asked me to assist her in installing her Sirius satellite radio antenna in her car. When we started the install process, we noticed something immediately: it was freaking hot!
(Her car thermostat reported 84 degrees, although I don’t think it was that warm. It was still really warm, especially for 7PM, though.)
So the installation of the antenna involved attaching above the rear windshield—the antenna itself is magnetic, and there’s a small piece that is adhesive-backed, which further helps to secure the antenna to the car, as well as protecting the antenna cable from kinks. The antenna wire is then to be fed under the rubber molding that surrounds the rear windshield, followed by threading through the trunk, into the back seat, along the floor, and eventually to the radio itself. Sounds easy, right?
We had three different plastic putty knives (the instructions suggested that we use a putty knife), and a small pocket blade (and by that, I’m talking about those “blades” on a Swiss Army knife), and had nothing but trouble threading the cable underneath the rubber molding. That’s when my sister got this great idea to use index cards to push up the rubber molding, allowing us to push the cable underneath the molding.
The idea was brilliant, although I think I punctured the antenna anywhere from one to a hundred times when I used the putty knife to force the antenna underneath the molding. Once that was complete, we fed the wire through the trunk, down the back seat, along the floor of the passenger side of the car, and that’s when we ran into another snag.
There was enough wire to connect the radio only if we kept the radio near the cup holder. There went any ideas of sticking the radio on the dash! However, my sister loved the idea of leaving the radio near the cup holder!
(Whatever floats her boat, I suppose.)
Overall, installation of the antenna was relatively painless. I just fear that someone is going to rip off the antenna. And if you think I’m crazy, recall that I live in a complex where our “Welcome” mat was stolen…right in front of our front door.
Next time, I’ll mention what else happened with my sister and Sirius customer “support.” Until next time!