The Sopranos Return

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It's great to have new episodes of The Sopranos again, especially because I get HBO in High-Definition now. I think we're going to make Sunday nights a regular thing at our house for a few friends who don't have HBO but are still fans of the series. There's only one episode left of Curb Your Enthusiasm for this season, and I'm going to miss it when it's done for the year. I didn't "get" the show the first time I saw a few minutes of it, but now I absolutely love it. It's as funny as Seinfeld ever was, but they can tackle issues a lot more controversial than NBC would have ever allowed. The show matches my sense of humor quite well, it's usually inappropriate, but hilariously funny.

Missing eBay feature

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Here's a feature that eBay needs to implement: a method for notifying a user that their e-mail address doesn't work. It sounds like a stupid idea, right? Well, it's not. Here's what happens, a user buys something at an auction, but their e-mail address with eBay is incorrect, and the user uses the eBay interface to mail the seller asking about the auction. The seller replies, to an address that bounces, and has no way to contact the buyer. The buyer e-mails again, via the eBay form, complaining about the seller's lack of response, and the seller is left powerless. What eBay needs is a way for a seller to flag a buyer account as having a bouncing e-mail address, so that the buyer is presented with a notification about it the next time they login, hopefully in an extremely non-subtle manner.

So, as it stands, right now there's a guy in Italy who'd really like to pay for my Nikon Digital Camera, but I don't have any way to get the shipping price to him because his fmarazzi@libero.it address keeps bouncing. Great.

Blinded by the light

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I spent much of yesterday afternoon unable to use my computer after having my eyes dilated by the optometrist. I'm glad I don't need to do that again for a while. I had to stop into Radio Shack to buy a new battery to fit the motherboard on one of our servers here at work, and I had to ask the kid behind the counter to compare the new battery to the one I brought in, as my vision wasn't working well on anything closer than 10 feet. The good news is that I'm not significantly more blind than I was at my last checkup, 2 years ago, but my prescription has changed slightly (as always) so I'm getting some new glasses. I'd also given up on wearing contacts, as I really didn't enjoy my Acuvue Toric lenses that I'd gotten last time. However, the doctor said that he had some new lenses that he thought I'd like better, made by CooperVision. Unfortunately, it's going to be a couple weeks while they get them in before I can try them, the same for my new pair of glasses. So, I got out my last pair of Acuvue lenses today, and am trying to get my eyes used to wearing contacts again before the new lenses come. Hopefully I can at least make it 4 hours or so before I start feeling the need to claw my eyes out....