There is one BetterThanTheBay auction still active, so I'll wrap that up as soon as it's done. If you have open transactions, I'll get those finished as soon as possible. Any other issues, you are welcome to email me, just be aware that I may not respond quickly. Just wanted to remind everyone how much I love being repeatedly pestered when I'm busy and stressed. Which is to say, not in the slightest. Please, don't be this guy.

A previous bidder contacted me, seeming to indicate he was expecting to receive this, even though I don't have him as winner. I'm not finding the item here, so I've asked him for clarification. I deleted the auction listing (even though I'm loath to do that) until the confusion gets straightened out.

Normally the flea market is one Sunday per month, but in November they're doing another on the 9th, so I signed up for that one as well. I have a small gold mine of consoles I'd like to get tested so I can bring them to sell, but I'll also try to get a few more BetterThanTheBay items up.

I know I'm always ranting about the issues with the USPS's website, but this time it was my fault. Let it never be said that I'm unwilling to self-criticize.

If you're ever in the Chicago area, be sure to check out the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield. It's by far the best video arcade I've seen since the glory days of the 1980s. The building is larger than it looks on the outside, and it's got several rooms crammed with arcade cabinets, most of them original, all organized by genre. My cousin and I had 4 hours fly by here, barely realizing it. I spent a good slice of that playing their Ikaruga (kit-built, not a Japanese original), Darius, R-Type, Mars Matrix... pretty much any 2D scrolling shooter you could possibly want. (Radiant Silvergun, alas, was down for repairs.) Brought back a lot of memories.

I've listed my loot from VCFMW and ECCC below and on the sale pages. Mostly Amiga and Commodore items. I also came across a Wing Commander III Collector's Edition, in the huge box with the metal film canister, and I'm debating whether to list it in the Shoppe or on BetterThanTheBay.

Segueing into BetterThanTheBay, there are more auctions ending this weekend, and almost no competition. I can't help but notice I've been listing (what I think are) a lot of awesome items, but they just aren't drawing many bids, and I'm wondering why. So, please tell me: What's holding you back from using BetterThanTheBay? Is it that I'm setting the starting bids too high? The fact that you only get to bid once? Not being able to watch the price go up as the auction runs? The "no reselling on eBay" clause? Please let me know. I'm a bit disheartened by this, and am considering switching the rest of these items over to the trade-only system if things don't pick up soon.

1337 haxx0r, 3h?

Remember my Chinese script kiddies? YOIS experienced another hack attempt earlier this week, this time in the form of a full-fledged automated assault that probed for all kinds of security exploits and vulnerabilities. This one came from Canada. And we all know what Canadians are like, don't we? Heh. I hope the source of my next hack attempt is American. I already have a clip picked out. It's a good'un.

The script ran for about an hour before I noticed it, but didn't do much actual damage, aside from creating a crapload of fake survey responses I had to clear out, and hammering my inbox with an avalanche of automated emails generated by all the webpage calls. At first I thought it was a denial-of-service attack, but I could still get to all the pages, so I was able to view my private logs. Fun fact, I've had a lot of warning systems and precautions in place to monitor the site since the days of the first attempted Shoppe "hack", the twatnougat who went nuclear on me after I busted him selling self-printed Infocom T-shirts as originals... Remember that guy?

So it was easy to see what was happening, and the undoubtedly hockey-loving script kiddy's IP was blocked after a quick email to Stefan, the IF-Legends admin, who suggested it was probably eBay, Microsoft and Sony all ganging up to annoy me. ;) Forwarding the relevant portions of my logs to his ISP seems to have fried his Canadian bacon for good.

I've also installed a honeypot in a remote corner of the Shoppe, to help catch other miscreants who would attack sites in a similar manner and/or harvest emails for spam. In the spirit of Zork, I've christened it "Flood Control Dam #3".

The first and most important change is that users now need to declare that they are not going to resell BTTB items on eBay. Given my long history of disgust with eBay, not to mention the name of this site, I didn't think that was something I needed to explicitly state, but apparently I do. I've added another checkbox to the registration process for this. Existing users, this means you will need to register again. I've sent everybody who signed up before a notice about this.

The original intent with BetterThanTheBay was to get these rare items into the hands of fellow collectors who would appreciate them. It was not to make myself a cheap source of rare items that people could immediately resell at a huge personal profit. When I bought this lot of promotional Infocom items from my source, I made a promise to her that, should any of them end up going for an insanely high price, I would share some of that windfall with her. Flipping items on eBay at a huge markup will rob her of that. This is not just about me or you. Out of respect for her, I'm asking everyone nicely not to do this.

There is now a (not-so-nice) contingency plan in place, so I won't get blindsided like that again. If I catch anyone flipping these items on eBay -- and I have automated searches set up through multiple sites -- I will switch the remainder of them over to a new system which is already set up, tested, and ready to go. This will permanently replace BetterThanTheBay, and the BTTB page will feature the full contact information of whoever is responsible, and it will never, ever be taken down.

Oh, and as a little gift to myself, the first auctions are set to close on my birthday. So you'll be spoiling my birthday present if you take them to eBay. Just a little extra guilt-trip there. ^^)

Second, I'm streamlining the shipping process. Both U.S. and international shipping will be via insured Priority Mail only, since the boxes are free and uniform in size. It saves me the trouble of hunting for the perfect one. Also, to speed up turnaround and further discourage flippers, any combined shipping will only be done with auctions ending on the same day. Otherwise, everything gets paid for and shipped individually. (This does not apply to YOIS. You can still combine items from the regular Shoppe, like always, and you can still combine YOIS and BTTB items. Just no more holding auction items while waiting for other auctions to finish.) To reflect this, I've also shortened the expected transaction turnaround time from 30 days to 10 days.

Third, I've added another checkbox to the registration process, asking people to verify that their YOIS mailing address and their PayPal mailing address match. With the original batch of auctions, I had a couple of cases of mismatched addresses, one of which resulted in a package being sent to the wrong place. (It seems to be PayPal's fault. They keep bringing back people's old addresses for some reason.) I'll be comparing them myself, and if they don't match I will cancel the payment and ask you to resend it once they do match. This will delay the shipping of your items, so please check in advance.

Fourth and finally, all bids are now hidden until the auction is over, with the exception of the minimum starting amount. This will eliminate any influence one person's bid might have on another's, which is something I noticed happening during the trial run -- People bidding $1 more than the current maximum. From now on, bid what you feel it's worth, not an amount based on what any other bidder before you has said. Once the auction is over, all bids will be revealed in the usual manner -- amounts including the winner's true max visible to everyone, user IDs only visible to the seller and participants. Again, with BetterThanTheBay, you bid once, so always enter your true maximum.

Not specific to BTTB, but still worth mentioning: I have fixed the issue with the international shipping calculator. Again. I still loathe the U.S. Postal Service's website. Should that ever change, I will shout it from a mountaintop. I do not suspect that it will.

That's everything. I appreciate everyone's patience while I sorted all of this out.

I had one package undeliverable because PayPal merged the buyer's old address into their new account. Still waiting on that mess to be resolved.

Then there's the address in Canada that the USPS (yes, THEM again, *sigh*) doesn't recognize. I tried to buy the postage online because it's a bit cheaper that way, but you have to choose a city and province from a drop-down and then they give you a list of valid postal codes... Only my buyer's isn't showing up there! So I get to diddledick around with that, too.

The third buyer is paying with a wire transfer. Don't worry, it's someone I know and trust, or I wouldn't even accept that method. But I still can't wait to see what could possibly go wrong with THAT.

Unfortunately, with the weather turning good, outdoor projects and bicycling are calling me, so I don't really have time to mess with it right now on top of everything else. Plus, the whole experience of seeing the BTTB items immediately flipped on eBay sort of pissed on my fire a little. I need some time away to get past that and think about the best way to handle future auctions.

All that effort. All the hours of hard work coding and testing I put into BetterThanTheBay... and the very first items I sell immediately get listed on the very site I was trying to get away from. It just... feels like a real slap in the face.

The idea was to get rare promotional items to collectors who wanted them, at a price dictated by the bidding itself. It was not intended to give people a cheap, secret source of rare items they could turn around and flip at a huge profit.

It's my own fault, really. I'm too naive and trusting. I try to be honest and fair, and I tend to assume other people will treat me the same way. But apparently greed still trumps friendship in the vintage game collecting world.

I wonder if he was ever going to tell me, or just keep using me? Needless to say, this individual is blocked from any future bidding. I won't take back the positive feedbacks, since he did pay on time. But I don't have to keep putting up with this.

At least he's not attempting to pass them off as originals, but that wouldn't stop someone unscrupulous from buying and trying. Unfortunately my days of fighting counterfeiting on the front lines are long over (I don't have the time or energy, and the last time I ended up feeling distinctly unappreciated), so the best I can do is put the information out there so people can be aware.

I've got a full schedule of yard work and family obligations planned, so I won't be able to monitor the site as closely as I'd like. If you're planning to bid on one of the 3 items closing, please don't wait until the last minute to request BetterThanTheBay access.

More items coming once I have time to list them. This week has been insane.

I've started things off slowly, just a few listings at first, to make sure the impact is minimal if there are any issues. (Shouldn't be, as I tested the heck out of things.) I have many, many more awesome Infocom goodies to list, and I will begin adding them in a few days.

My thumb is much better. Still a little pain and stiffness, but I could hitchhike if I wanted to. I should probably hold off on declaring any thumb wars for a while yet.

I need more hands.

Because, whoever coded the U.S. Postal Service's online rate calculation API and wrote the documentation for it, I want to punch them in the stomach, the throat, the nose, the mouth, the genitals, and both eyes, simultaneously. To do that, I need more hands.

I have figured out the problem I was having with the API, and it was head-poundingly stupid and infuriating. This is an example of the API call I was passing them, which was failing:

http://production.shippingapis.com/ShippingAPI.dll?API=RateV4&XML=
<RateV4Request USERID="XXXXXXXX" PASSWORD="XXXXXXXX"><Revision/>
<Package ID="1ST">
  <Service>EXPRESS</Service>
  <ZipOrigination>61612</ZipOrigination>
  <ZipDestination>90808</ZipDestination>
  <Pounds>8</Pounds>
  <Ounces>1</Ounces>
  <Container>RECTANGULAR</Container>
  <Size>LARGE</Size>
  <Length>18</Length>
  <Width>12</Width>
  <Height>12</Height>
</Package></RateV4Request>

(Obviously I've withheld my login and password, lest others misappropriate it.) And here was the error I got:

Invalid XML Element content is invalid according to the DTD/Schema. Expecting: Height, Girth, Value, AmountToCollect, SpecialServices, Content, GroundOnly, SortBy, Machinable, ReturnLocations, ReturnServ....

The maddening thing is, I was clearly including Height. And all of the other elements are listed as optional in their online documentation, which admittedly in the past I have found to be infested with errors, so I had no reason to suspect that now is any different.

But thanks to this wonderful, WONDERFUL thread, I was able to figure out the problem. It expects width BEFORE height! Yes, everywhere ELSE on their stupid website, it prompts you to enter length first, then width. But here, it wants WIDTH first, and will fail otherwise.

http://production.shippingapis.com/ShippingAPI.dll?API=RateV4&XML=
<RateV4Request USERID="XXXXXXXX" PASSWORD="XXXXXXXX"><Revision/>
<Package ID="1ST">
  <Service>EXPRESS</Service>
  <ZipOrigination>61612</ZipOrigination>
  <ZipDestination>90808</ZipDestination>
  <Pounds>8</Pounds>
  <Ounces>1</Ounces>
  <Container>RECTANGULAR</Container>
  <Size>LARGE</Size>
  <Width>12</Width>
  <Length>18</Length>
  <Height>12</Height>
</Package></RateV4Request>

When I switched the positions of the two items in red, IT WORKED. Posting this here so others might find it and avoid the aggravation I went through.

Now, I'll admit, in their online documentation, they do list Width before Length. But, one, they could have called attention to the importance of the order somewhere in said documentation. And, two, my frustration was compounded by an error message that had NO BEARING on the actual problem. Why not change the error to something like "Expected Width before Length"?

To the person or persons responsible for coding the U.S. Postal Service's online rate calculation API and writing the documentation for it:

I HATE YOU.

I will not track you down, because I have more important uses for my time.

But if the randomness of the universe ever presents me with the opportunity to punch you in the stomach, the throat, the nose, the mouth, the genitals, and both eyes, simultaneously? I am carpe-ing that diem.

I'm also kitty-sitting for a family member this week so I don't have as much time. But it is coming, I promise.

In the meantime, has anyone else successfully used the USPS's rate calculation API? After days of non-response, they're telling me they don't provide the level of technical support I need. The issue I'm having involves packages over 4 pounds, where you have to specify the box dimensions. I've quintuple-checked the XML and their documentation regarding what is required, it looks right, but obviously something is still wrong since it's not working.

UPDATE: I've changed the error message for packages over 4 pounds so it's a little friendlier, until I can get this fixed. Just contact me and I'll get you a quote manually.

I have to take this seriously, because this is the sort of crap that happens to me. Whenever I have a customer service issue, I seem to fall through every single crack in their support system. It happened with eBay, it happened with Microsoft, it's happened with a few local businesses I've dealt with. I've found the best way to avoid it is to imagine the worst-case scenario, and take steps to derail it.

*clap*

*clap*

*clap*

This is ridiculous, and more than a little bit horrifying. Any joker could simply walk in and walk out with several armloads of packages, and no one would ever know what happened! Hell, I could have done it if I'd wanted to. Needless to say, I gave my YOIS packages to an actual person at the counter after buying the postage from the automated machines. And I pointed out the situation to them. Hopefully they addressed it shortly after I left.

Here are a couple of pictures I snapped using my Vita. (Yes, Vita. I still do not, and never will, carry a mobile phone.)

Has anyone else experienced a sharp decline in the quality of the U.S. Postal Service, starting around mid-December? Since then I've had:

• One package sent to me that showed no tracking information for almost a month until I filed an insurance claim, then said it was being returned to sender because of an error in my delivery address, then finally turned up on my end, with absolutely no address problems whatsoever.
• One $300 money order, sent to a local business, that has not been delivered after a week, and for which I must wait 60 days to file a claim of loss.
• Consistent long lines at the counter after 5PM, waits of 45 minutes to an hour, with only one person manning them.

Some kind of power short, that's the final diagnosis. The good news is, they were able to transfer the hard drive contents, so I didn't lose a ton of work and settings. The bad news is, for now I only have one and a half working USB ports (one that's fine and the other which is a little finicky, but I've figured out how to work with it). Going to pick up a powered hub and see if it can handle that. Short of replacing the mainboard entirely, there doesn't seem to be much else I can do about that.

To celebrate this... well I wouldn't call it a victory... "mitigated clusterfuck" has a certain ring to it. To celebrate this mitigated clusterfuck, how about a few new items? (Scroll down.) Couple of greys, a folio, an Ultima cluebook, and the rest of the Building Applications with Cornerstone copies I was able to obtain. These are most likely the last ones I will ever get, for realsies this time.

*sigh* December was pretty much a perfect shitstorm. Work was aggravating and stressful, then there was all the holiday-related crap I had to run around and take care of. So when the computer screwed up I pretty much shut down for the rest of the year. I can only deal with so much aggravation at once, and when I hit my limits I tend to hit them HARD.

Just ask the guy who is now blocked from using the Shoppe. I warned him on this page, and I warned him over email, and he just would not stop asking, "Are we there yet?" And finally I just turned this car around. (I'm not worried about losing his business. He was attempting to lowball me at every turn. $20 for the sealed Infocom sampler? Puh-leaze.)

After Christmas I started shopping around locally for a repair service or replacement computer, because I just didn't have the energy to dink with it myself. Then the winter storm hit, and the cold and the roads were bad enough that I didn't want to drive anywhere. But this weekend, I should finally have a working computer again. Which means I should be faster at filling orders now, and I can pick up coding the new functionality for selling the rare items.