Letters to you

http://www.ecrater.com/ - a cool little alternative to eBay, now that eBay increased its bottom-feeding behavior.

And it's not even blocked by my workplace. (Dangerous times, heh).

"What is eCrater.com? eCrater.com is both a free web store builder and a free online marketplace. Sellers can easily create their own free online store in minutes. Buyers can easily browse and compare between thousands of products.

Sellers receive free website hosting, a free subdomain and a powerful admin tool to manage their free online stores. All products are posted to the world's most famous product search engine as well."

So far, close to 9000 sellers have been reported leaving eBay due to their recent policy changes demise. I'm sure they will continue to do so as we speak. Many have gone to eCrater and even more to OnlineAuction.com. (according to CNN: http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/15/smbusiness/ebay_strike_update.fsb/)

There was a new shop at the ren fair - Greentree Weaving.
Their hand-woven cotton fabrics are gorgeous.

They weave magical fabric with an enchanted loom...

Oh dear.

"The Executioner", billed as the latest in 'Bug Zap Fun", is an electrified racket that one supposedly uses to vanquish biting insects. However, I don't think that's the only use its creators had in mind. In the upper left corner of the page is a media player (it takes a couple of minutes for it to finish loading). Click that to hear their blurb.

Hint - No bugs are zapped in the entire ad, and there's a lot of screaming. To my utter shame, I thought it was hilarious.

Natural Zing raw Cacao beans and nibs - all you could ever want... (ordering now).

We're getting a Bat House!! Yay!

http://www.bestnest.com/bestnest/bat-houses.asp?src=googleaws&kw=bat_house
http://www.bestnest.com/bestnest/bat_house_basics.asp
http://www.bestnest.com/bestnest/lc/lc_bat_benefits.asp
http://www.bestnest.com/bestnest/lc/lc_bat_faq.asp

They say one bat can consume up to 1200 mosquitoes in an hour. Most of these bat houses can support a good number of bats - the low-end one supports 12, and the deluxe model supports 600 bats.

I could probably do this more cheaply at Amazon by getting a bat house kit:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=pd_sl_aw_tops-1_blended_13583614_1/104-6442422-8074357?search-alias=aps&keywords=bat%20house%20kit

Today we went to the thrift shop to drop off a TV and microwave. Since we were there already, we decided to take a look around. I got a dinner set for two (well not entirely matched, but almost). The set consists of 2 glasses, 2 bowls, 2 dinner plates, 2 side plates, and 2 each of knives, forks, and spoons. Not bad for ten bucks... I also found a CD by a celtic band called Lunasa (consists of instrumental celtic background music). rialian found some shirts, some of which are pretty nice, and one of which is an, ahm, uniquely patterned creation...

Then as we were about to check out, I saw a little blue mountain bike in seemingly great condition for $34. All bikes were half price, which reduced the price, after taxes, to about $18. I picked it up... I really was not expecting to buy a bicycle today, but I did. So now I have a bike that's short enough for me to ride, and it's a girl's bike (the main reasons I never rode Eyovah's bike before it was stolen). We put it inside since we're pretty sure there's a ring of bike thieves posing as handyman types in the general DC area - but it's small enough not to really take up that much room so I can clear out some space in the utility closet for it.

After that we went to Brookside gardens and traipsed around the place, learning various botanical names. The sun was bright and it was kind of cold, but very nice. Among many other things, we encountered three gazebos, a stone labyrinth that we walked, many trees and shrubs including 2 bald cypruses, 3 ponds, a large bird made out of rusty motorcycle parts, and a couple of fountains... (which one of these objects doesn't match the others?)... The bird was actually for sale ($4,000.00 - too bad since it was very nifty).

After that we went to Conscious Corner shopping center to eat at Great Sage and shop a little at Roots. Unfortunately we think they used soy to fry the potatoes, because rialian had to go home and sleep shortly after that. When he wakes up, we're going to our friend's house for a to watch a video on string theory.

One thing that really bugs me is when I go miles out of my way to a store that carried something I really like, only to find that they've run out of it or don't carry it at all anymore. Just last Saturday we went all the way to Roots at the Conscious Corner shopping center (yes, there really is such a place, and we really do drive for an hour to get there). One of the reasons we took the trip was to find Larry's Cool Beans Sumatra Blend Shade Grown Fair Trade Coffee for reasons only another coffee nut would understand.

When we got there, we found the Cool Beans section, only to find to our disappointment that Roots had run out of Larry's Cool Beans Sumatra Blend Shade Grown Fair Trade Coffee (LCBSBSGFTC) and had not yet restocked.

AGGGGGHHH! Yet another instance of a store restocking every OTHER blend except the one I want. The last time this happened, everyone ran out of Dagoba Xocolatl Organic Hot Chocolate with Chilies and Cinnamon. Someone told "Them" that we really liked it, so "They" suddenly made it disappear from ALL shelves everywhere, no matter what store we went to. Even the Great Sage restaurant didn't serve it anymore.

Then I remembered what I already knew... I think amberite had a lot to do with my enlightenment about 3 years ago when she showed me http://www.chocosphere.com. It was then that I realized once and for all that I can get just about anything I want on the Net. I searched and immediately found http://www.larrysbeans.com/items.php?subsection=2 and bought two bags of LCBSBSGFTC for myself and two for my brother. Xocolatl is available from http://www.worldwidechocolate.com/shop_dagoba.html