Phrankus' Lair

So I was browsing the infinite archives of eBay, looking for some other soulless material possession that I desperately need in order to justify my existence, as you do, when I noticed something rather peculiar. As those of you closest to me know I have somewhat of a routine, and part of that routine is looking for such aforementioned items of burning desire on eBay, such as zoo guides, sealed copies of Halo and the like. One such item is Stouffer. Stouffer, for the inevitably uneducated deprived majority of moronic soap-watching cretins out there, is the blue rubber feline hand puppet sidekick of a certain Harry Hill. I wish to obtain such a puppet, and although  these are available from The Harry Hill Merchandise Store, I have some funds kicking about in my Paypal account that I need to use. I say “need to” in the way that people “need” terminal diseases.

I tend to search for these “Objects of Desire” on a daily basis, one after another, and as I observed the other day, this appears to be having an effect on eBay. Essentially, as I gather from “socializing” with the masses, the majority of people have not heard of Sir Stouffer. As a result, it can be hypothesised that my daily searching must therefore account for a large proportion of “Stouffer Traffic” on eBay. This appears to be the case, as another regular search item of mine is “Xbox Halo Sealed”. Upon searching for “Stouffer”, this now appears under related searches on eBay, presumably due to the frequent nature of my own personal searches. I have created an artificial related items artefact!

As one of my housemates aptly put it, my repeated searchings have given a false projection of demand in a market that does not exist. eBay now assumes that people searching for Stouffer are also going to be searching for sealed copies of Halo for the Xbox. This appears as though it is all down to myself, and although these retail desires may not ring true for the majority of the population, they certainly do for me. Incidentally, the same phenomenon has also occurred regarding the search for “Zoo Guide”. It now lists “Stouffer” under the related items searches offered. These occurrances must be down to me..how many people do you know in the market for sealed copies of Halo, rubber blue hand puppets of cats, and old zoo guides?!

Speculation with my housemate continued, until the abrupt end upon formation of the acronym for the Creation of Artificial Market Projections.. or C.A.M.P.

So there you have it, C.A.M.P.ing it up on eBay.

You know you're old when you can’t understand a word of someone’s space.

Ok so I understand how busy everyone is, that they can't be bothered to take the extra few microseconds of their life to type words out properly..Fair enough, no skin off my back etc.

It’s just a little frustrating when you cannot understand what is being written. Now I'm only 20, and I don’t consider myself old by any means (although as I can still remember when there was a grand total of only 6 DVDs on the shelves, so that probably makes me old to anyone born in the last 16 years) but I find some of these spaces totally incomprehensible.

Case in point, I saw the word “4rm” the other day on some space or another. Ok so I can understand “txt” language from the days in which I was paying 10p per text message and needed to cram a lot in a small space to save money, but seriously, “4rm” says to me “forum”.

How on earth can “4rm” mean from? Surely, if you must bastardise the English language with a notably extreme shortage of time on your hands, it’s easier to write “frm” than “4rm”. Not only is the “F” key comparatively nearer to the “R” and the “M” keys than the “4” key, thus saving 0.0000000000000000231 milliseconds of your life, but it would also save me 20 minutes attempting to decipher what should (and ultimately is bound to be) an easy-to-read, brainless page of drivel about how painful life is or how your rabbit died or your granddad has a cough or something..

So, maybe it’s not the case that I’m too old, maybe everyone else is retarded. Comments welcome.