boink!

Last night (Saturday, August 4, 2007) yet another eBay/PayPal purchase was consumated, thankfully without one bit of the hairpulling insanity that accompanied the previous eBay/PayPal purchase.
This time was a Ducati-patch for a new denim jacket — last time (last week) was Apple-stickers.
No insanity because this time I was prepared — I guess......
eBay wants a log-in (why I’ll never know — I don’t want to be an eBay member).
So I tried logging in with “Robert Hughes” and my hallowed secret password, and I got unceremoniously tossed into the street.
I tried “Robert J. Hughes” again, boink!
Then I remembered my user-name at eBay is “Bobbalew25” — so I tried that and bingo!
The offerer, Steadfast Cycles, wanted $19.99 buy-it-now.
Well that ain’t bad, so I clicked “buy-it-now.”
I was presented with PayPal as a payment-option — that or bog-slow 20th-century fallbacks: certified check, postal money-order, etc.
(Linda used a money-order to buy a replacement pitcher when PayPal ran her in circles.)
PayPal wants —nay demands — my old RoadRunner e-mail address I haven’t used in years.
It also wants a secret password I remember only because I made it last week.
PayPal also refuses to allow anyone other than me (or logged in as me) to use it: e.g. my wife, or anyone else authorized to use my credit-card. (Um, we only have one credit-card; a disgrace!)
The next eBay/PayPal purchase will be years from now, but hopefully it won’t prompt any hairballs — who knows? I have everything inscribed onto a prompt-card on my monitor, but madness usually occurs — the geeks like to change things; a management thing (“mindless-management-minions”).
Amazon.com has my ancient AOL-address as my user-name, and flatly refuses to let me change it.

“Ducati” is a brand of Italian-made motorcycles. I had one once, a 1980 900SS — never should have traded it.

“Apple” is Apple Computers; my rig is a G4 Macintosh.

“25” is my birthday: February 5 (1944).

“Linda” is my wife.