Somebody posted an image from Gary Larson's Far Side to Facebook earlier this morning...

It was of one of the Far Side Christmas cards.

I remember seeing them on sale in shops around Cork and Limerick back in the late 90s and I think I might have bought a few for friends at the time.

Unfortunately, however, it appears that Larson had withdrawn them from sale.

You can still pick up a few "vintage" ones on eBay, but your choices are going to be limited to whatever people are selling.

Pity. They are hilarious. Generally you'll have a better chance of finding ones in the US eBay auctions ..

US Auctions Australian Auctions Austrian Auctions Belgian Auctions Canadian Auctions French Auctions German Auctions Irish Auctions Italian Auctions Dutch Auctions Spanish Auctions Swiss Auctions GB Auctions

Best Match Items Ending First Newly-Listed Items First Price + Shipping: Lowest First Price + Shipping: Highest First

The Far Side, Gary Larson Christmas Cards Dogs Christmas Party, Cat Snowman 1991
	$7.50 (1 Bid) Time Remaining: 38m

The Far Side by Gary Larson Christmas Cards Airplane Hitting Santa 1989
	$9.88 Time Remaining: 1d 16h 1m Buy It Now for only: $9.88

The Far Side by Gary Larson Christmas Cards Gold Fish 1985
	$12.88 Time Remaining: 7d 12h 41m Buy It Now for only: $12.88

The Far Side by Gary Larson Christmas Cards Howly, Jowly Christmas 1985
	$12.88 Time Remaining: 9d 17h 4m Buy It Now for only: $12.88

The Far Side by Gary Larson Christmas Cards Dino 1999
	$12.88 Time Remaining: 7d 12h 47m Buy It Now for only: $12.88

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I've had an iRiver H340 for a few years. I think I picked mine up a few months before iRiver stopped making them. I used it on and off for a couple of years, but for the last year or more it's been gathering dust. I used to watch films when travelling so I didn't really listen to music, but between Netflix, iTunes and the cinema there's less and less that I want to watch on flights and I'm probably a lot happier listening to a bit of music.

So I decided to "dust off" the iRiver..

It turns out that if you leave an iRiver for too long the battery gets completely drained (no surprise). What was a surprise was that it got so drained that it simply would not charge over USB. And of course I'd misplaced the mains charger a long time ago. So I had to go off and buy a replacement on eBay.

Once the iRiver was charged up I was able to rediscover its contents - a mixed bunch of movie soundtracks and a quite random selection of other albums.

Of course it's been so long since I actively used the iRiver that I now face an interesting problem. Since I now uses Macs everywhere I'll have to rip any music I want to listen to on the iRiver all over again, as it doesn't support the iTunes / Mac format - it simply can't see it.

So now I have to find a sane tool for ripping audio onto the Mac ... now if I could rip to ogg format I'd be delighted!

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This year mark's the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

A lot of people died when it sank

A lot of them were Irish.

A lot of them were poor.

A lot of them were en route from Ireland to the "New World" to start over.

So any "celebration" or other ceremony surrounding the Titanic needs to handled very tactfully.

Tayto obviously didn't get that memo:

And since people seem to find it hard to believe that *any* company would do something like this I did a bit more research .. and you can actually bid on some of these crisps on eBay:

Titanic crisps on ebay

This post discusses the marketing faux pas some more and adds a few alternate flavours ..

So if you're in marketing do you really want to use the Titanic (or any other disaster) for your marketing?

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Marketers just love knowing what we all spend our money on, so that they can formulate better ways of getting us to part with our cash. Some people find this disturbing. Personally I don't really mind. My buying patterns have always been a bit odd anyway, though I'm unlikely to to end up on any watchlists:

XKCD - sheer genius! Pity that there aren't that many (if any) ebay sellers willing to ship to Ireland for free...

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I took delivery of my Tag Heuer watch earlier today.

Here's a photo:

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Image via Wikipedia

As I've mentioned before, I really like eBay. The range of items you can find on eBay at any given time is simply amazing. Of course that's also a source of frustration.

I currently own a Swatch watch. I've had it for about 6 years, as I was given it for my birthday by a very lovely Italian girl.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, the watch is showing signs of usage, as I have worn it every single day for the last 6 years. The face of the watch is showing signs of wear and tear, while humidity leads to a "lovely" fogginess on the fascia ie. the seals are pretty much gone.
That the watch has lasted this long is pretty amazing - all of its predecessors met with unhappy ends much faster than it has done, so it shows that buying a reasonably good watch does pay off.

Of course now the time has come to get a replacement. I'd prefer to get a replacement now, while my faithful Swatch is behaving, rather than wait until it dies completely and I'm forced to get a cheap replacement to tide me over.

So what kind of watch should I get?

While I was in Paris a few weeks ago a friend was showing off his Rolex. He'd had it for over 10 years and it was practically new, even though he wears it every single day. The problem with a Rolex is, of course, the price tag. You could easily spend several thousand euro on one and that is not something that I am willing to do.

Other brands that have caught my eye are Tag Heuer and Omega.

While the Tag Heuer pieces seem to cost a lot less than Rolex the prices vary a lot.

My main problem and source of frustration is that I have no idea of how much I should be spending on a timepiece. It's not a question of budget. If I decided to spend 300 or 500 euro on a watch that would last me 10 or 20 years I'd see that as money well spent. If you put it in perspective, of course.

Perusing the listings on eBay I can find fantastic looking Tag Heuer watches going for prices varying from a 2 or 3 hundred euro upwards, but I honestly don't know if that is the correct price to be paying for them.

I'm really outside my "comfort zone"!

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One of the things that drives me mad is when a "cheap" item has a high shipping price.
You know the scenario I'm sure. Item "costs" about 2 euro, but by the time you pay for shipping it's suddenly 30 euro.

If you're using eBay.com from Ireland there's an option to show the estimated shipping cost as part of the display columns. If I can't see a price or it's simply too high I won't bother bidding.

Now there is a difference between "too high" and simply "insane"

Check this out (click to enlarge):

It's obviously a glitch in their system, as the items' listings show a much saner shipping price.

Don't you just love computers?

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eBay Ireland have unveiled their helpline for their "most valued customers" ie. those of us who spend lots of money.

The guys in eBay had told me about this a few weeks ago, but I had been asked not to mention it in public until it was ready for primetime.

It will be interesting to see what kind of support levels they are going to offer via this new support service.

I'll have to try it out to see!  (I currently have a couple of minor issues that I'd like to get resolved)

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I've been using a very handy tool to help my eBay addiction over the last few days.

Bib Burglar is a "sniping" tool which basically bids for you in the last few seconds of an auction. Since it's a remote service you don't have to worry about leaving your desktop computer on 24/7.

The interface is very simple. All you need to do is provide the item / auction ID number, the maximum amount you want to bid (it will automatically use the currency of the eBay site) and how many of the items you want.

If your bid is too low you'll get an email to let you know that you are losing, so you can easily increase your max bid.

The only minor niggle is that the system works primarily based on the auction ID, which is probably faster than polling eBay's servers for the item name. So when you get a warning message about a potentially losing bid you've no way of knowing what it actually refers to until you login.

Apart from that one little issue it's a really nice service and you only pay the really low fees based on the items you win ie. if you don't win the auctions you don't have to pay for your bids.

If you signup you can get an unlimited trial account for a couple of weeks. I'm currently having fun abusing mine.

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The frontpage of the main eBay site is probably worth visiting every few days, as they tend to highlight special auctions.

If you're a Scrubs fan then the one they're highlighting at the moment is probably a dream come through - a day on the set of Scrubs.

Current bidding stands at just over $1000 and is open to anyone who can work in the US (that's me out so!)

All proceeds to charity, naturally.

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