eBay continues to beckon like a breathtakingly beautiful Siren on a lush shoreline. It's effortless to continue bidding and bidding and bidding, as the price for whatever item you've decided you *must* have spirals past the point of reason and into the thin atmosphere populated by those who should be attending a meeting that starts with "Hi. My name is Susan and I'm a compulsive (enter name of your addiction here)."

Every time I'm outbid on something I *must* have, I want to know who had the audacity to bid more than I have, where they live and how quickly I can get there to slap them.

Reading the feedback comments from buyers about sellers whose positive rating is a good deal less than 100% is usually fairly amusing. Here is what one neutral comment said (meaning the buyer was too much of a wimp to state that the seller was a goddamn fraud): "pretty ring, but band is way too thin to be sized, so will give it as a gift". In other words – "this piece of crap isn’t good enough for me, but my mother/sister/cousin/aunt sure does love junk like this".

As another enticement I today received my "yellow star" from eBay (not to be confused with the "yellow stripe" designation, reserved for those who leave neutral feedback). This indicates that I've had 10 positive comments from other eBayers, which, due to eBay's miserly 80 character limit on feedback, consists of some condensed message such as "A+++++ highly recommend great ebayer". I am ashamed to admit that I even downloaded my Yellow Star Certificate and printed it. Apparently, I received too little positive affirmation of my specialness as a child.

Spamfiction (this was, uh, inserted at the end of a particularly obnoxious male enhancement ad that sullied my work email-box):
I shall appear of my own accord
Thank you, murmured the boy
The Demon bowed and spread his hands in the form of a semi-circle

Does somebody actually write these scraps, or are they automatically generated by some unhuman AI?