cbustapeck's New Writeups

Make your own jeans (review)

2007-07-12T16:44:21Z

Another perspective

I'm tall. Those of you have met me know that this is an understatement - I'm probably the tallest person that you know - and accordingly, I have a hard time finding clothes that fit without paying a significant amount over the retail price of normally sized clothing. When a pair of slacks that fit cost $50, you start to consider other options.

As a result, I've been buying clothes online for quite a while. Though I drooled over the amazing selection of sizes offered by internet clothing retailers in the late 90s, before they realized that they couldn't make much more money than by just offering a standard range, I never purchased anything from them. Most of the clothing that I've purchased in the past couple years has come from eBay. The items have all been new, but purchased there because it's easier to find what I need and cheaper than buying through the usual retail outlets.

When I read Sharq's review of this business,…

Aspects of American race relations that may be new to you (person)

2007-03-30T13:41:25Z

Oh dear library patron, I am sorry about the problems with our computers, I really am. I wish I could figure out how patrons are changing the default homepage on the web browsers because when I try to change it back, it seems to require administrator access, which I do not have. I'm sorry that the technology people can't come down here right this second and fix it. I really am. This frustrates me as well.

This does not, however, mean that I am racist. This is a problem for all of the other computers in the library - it is not directed at you personally, nor is it directed at the other users of the African American Department, no matter what you say about it being directed at you and the other black people. Further, "the other white boy" and I are not the ones who conspired to change the homepages on the computers or caused the pop-ups to occur - if we were doing that, don't you think we'd change them to something advantageous to us, like, say, my eBay…

Shelfwear (idea)

2007-03-24T15:03:48Z

Shelfwear or shelf wear
The wear caused by a shelf.

Oh. Wait. I'm not Webster 1913. Shelfwear is usually the damage that occurs to an item once it arrives at a retailer. It can be indistinguishable from, and therefore include damage that occurs to an item during shipping, providing that the damage is not so bad as to preclude retail sale.

Shelfwear generally refers to the scuffing of the outside of an item, most often books or the packaging of an item. Items rub together on the shelves or through handling and are slightly damaged. From a collector's perspective, items without shelfwear are often more desirable than those displaying it, though due to the nature of the materials used and the age of an item, shelfwear may be inevitable.

For some items, shelfwear is inevitable. These include books with extremely glossy dust jackets and large car body parts.

Car body parts do…

new old stock (idea)

2007-03-23T18:41:48Z

New Old Stock - ah yes, perfect, unmolested, parts for your vintage car or whatever else you need replacement parts for.

If only it were so easy. It seems, however, that there is new old stock and then there is new old stock.

Many buyers will accept that although an item is unused and still in original factory packaging it may have some very light shelf wear, just from sitting around in a box for 40 years. Furthermore, although these are essentially new parts, they may not have been finished to the quality standards that buyers currently expect and therefore may require refinishing.

Larger items, particularly body parts, are more succeptable to damage. Thus you may see new old stock sheetmetal with minor dents or even light surface rust, due to storage conditions and the sometimes poor quality of factory primer.

All this said, the next time I see someone on eBay listing…

rust free (idea)

2007-03-23T15:02:57Z

Rust free, a term commonly tossed about in advertisements for used automobiles and parts for the same has so many different meanings as to be almost meaningless.

It can mean "no rust that I can see, though I really didn't try very hard, and if you look at the bottoms of the doors or the underside of the car, or heck, any of the usual places, you'll find some significant surface rust". Or it can mean "light surface rust in the usual places". Sometimes, when you speak to the owners of these vehicles, they will repeat the assertation that the vehicle is free of rust, yet when you look at the vehicle, the rust is there, plain as day. I've meant to ask them what they meant, or what they thought the orange colored material on the vehicle was, but I haven't felt up to the fight.

In cars from the 1960s and before, it tends to mean that the item only has surface rust,…

Hints for indy publishers, from a librarian (idea)

2007-02-07T18:46:52Z

How to keep your librarian happy and keep your books on the shelves of the local public library

As a librarian purchasing material in a specialized subject area, I've dealt with all sorts of books and publications, ranging from the most popular fiction and non-fiction to the most obscure rants and pamphlets. Heck, some of the material is even self published, or published by organizations with little experience in publishing. This isn't bad per se, but I sometimes wish that I could talk to these people, as a librarian, and get them to make my work easier. Making my work easier would probably help to get them into more libraries. Selling and marketing your books is a completely different matter, one that I'm not terribly familiar with, and thus am not able to properly address here.

Here I present several problems that I've had of late, as well as possible solutions.

Don't hide information

Make the…