Evil Ebay

Well despite the title, actually ebay is not evil. But some of the people that use it are as I have sadly discovered. I have bought stuff on there before and have never had a problem at all. Ive always been a good buyer, quickly paying for my items and I have never complained. Well several months ago I bought a pair of Nike Shox running shoes on there in size 13. I usually wear Adidas I must admit, but I liked how the Shox looked, so I thought I would try out a pair. So I get the pair I bought, but they didn't fit. Turned out they were too small. Now I just figured it was because Nike ran small. Or really that tennis shoes run small. Cause for me, I wear 13 in most shoes(take note if you would like to buy me a pair of Frye calvary boots in brown), but often a 14 in tennis shoes. My Adidas are in fact 14. So they sat around my apartment for awhile and finally I decided I had no use for them so I put them up for sale on ebay. This was my first time to attempt to sell something on ebay so I was a little hesitant, but I figured it was a pretty straight forward item so there really shouldn't be any difficulties. Well I was certainly wrong about that. This guy with a rating in the 500s tried to negotiate with me for them, and when I didn't he just bought them outright in the auction. Obviously with a rating like that he uses ebay quite a lot. Well everything went well at first. He was a little obnoxious when he was trying to deal with me because he acted like I was supposed to make a deal with him and I must be strange to not want to. But he paid promptly and I shipped them out. I thought that was the end of the story, but no.
So he got the shoes, and they did not fit him. And he decided to tell me about it. Not only that, he tried to then accuse me of fraud by saying there was no way these were size 13 and I knew these were not a size 13 and so he demanded a refund. Well perhaps at this point I should point out that the tag sewn into the shoes says Size 13, as does the box they came in. So I was not on crack when I listed them as size 13. I should also point out that I am not Wal Mart. Sure, maybe they will give you a refund on anything you aren't happy with, but they can afford to. I can't. I'm not a merchant. I'm just some guy auctioning off shoes on ebay. And in my opinion, when it comes to buying on ebay you get what you buy, whether you like it or not. If it had been listed wrong I would get his complaint. But it wasn't. It was listed as they are and there were nice little photos of the shoes.
Well I of course denied to give him a refund. What exactly does he think I am going to do with the shoes? So then he went and left negative feedback. Oh how I wish ebay let you change your feedback. I had already left him positive feedback and had said he was easy to work with. That is so a lie now. He is the buyer from hell. Personally I think he saw how low my feedback rating was and decided he could take advantage of me and try and push me around. So when I didn't give him a refund he filed a complaint with Paypal. This put a freeze on the money he paid for the shoes, and I think was an intimidation tactic. Oh, I should also point out that in the meantime he has now listed the shoes for sale himself...as a size 13!! No indication at all that they might not actually be 13s or that they run small. So he is now a hypocrite. Well so I think I am totally right, and I think he is just an ass, so I escalated things with paypal and they are now going to arbitrate. How fun. I don't think he was expecting that. But I am so in the right. His complaint with paypal is that the item he received is not as described, but its exactly what was described. Bum. So keep your fingers crossed that the paypal person sides with me.

Awards

So I went to my mailbox at the law school today, and inside I found this flyer for Nominations for Student Awards. This isn't the first time the word award has appeared at the law school. They also have this thing called the Boyd Service Award that they are always harping on about, plus there are all these writing competitions you can enter and win an award. But as I scan the list of awards and their requirements on this flyer, I realize that I don't really qualify for any of them. All in all, I am not an outstanding or stellar student. Unlike back in high school, I'm not involved in law school student organizations. I don't volunteer outside the law school. Though I am gay, I don't really work towards increasing the diversity of the law school in any way other than just being here. I don't work towards the furtherance of Human Rights, and I'm not at the top of my class in terms of grades. So by any measuring stick the law school would use, I'm not that great. Which might explain why I still don't have a job. But I have to say...that's bullshit. Because I am great!
I look at these awards, and they seem to me to be fake distinctions. Or rather they award things people actually did, but they don't really care why you did them. Most awards in the world are like this, probably because we like to have heroes and because determining motivation can be very difficult. This sort of begs the question, if you have two people that go volunteer in New Orleans for Spring Break, and one is doing it to be charitable and the other is doing it just so they can win the Boyd Service Award, are they equal? Does it matter that one is being altruistic whereas the other is serving their own needs if they both do the same work? And if you can answer that one, then compare the one acting for selfish reasons to someone who chooses not to act. Is the person who doesn't go worse than a person that goes selfishly? These are rather philisophical questions with no easy answer. They pretty much ask what is the worth of a person. But then again, when we give awards such as the ones on this sheet before me, that's exactly what we are doing. We are saying this person is worth more than others because of what they have done, regardless of why they did it.
So this brings me back...to me! Am I somehow a bad person or a bad student because I don't qualify for any of these awards? Does it mean I am lazy? Or does it mean I lack ambition? That last one I will probably concede. I have no desire to be the world's greatest lawyer, or President, or managing partner of a law firm. I just want to be me. To live my life and be happy. Which is very unAmerican actually. Because we are told from a young age that we live to work. Not in those words of course, but we are encouraged to work hard and long and get called lazy and a slacker and looked down upon if we do not. As much as I love my brother-in-law, he is a prime example of this mentality. He has a military background, so that probably explains much of it, but he is all about hard work all the time. But I whole-heartedly disagree. Why should I bust my ass for something trivial? And for the record, about 99.9% of what any given person does in their job is trivial. The only exception is perhaps people like doctors, teachers, police officers, and such, but they are a small minority and even some of what they do is trivial. In the grand scheme of things work is really a necessary evil of society. And most nations in the world realize this. I once had someone contrast the United States with Europe by saying, "Europeans work to live, Americans live to work." And it's so true. And I would like to say I think the American mentality is wrong. So go ahead, call me lazy and a slacker. But to me there are far more important things in life than work. Family, friends, and most importantly, love. I can't fathom those who would pass up on love so that they could get ahead at work. It's not worth it. I don't want to be remembered as someone who was good at their work. I want to be remembered as someone who was loved and who loved others. Call me a romantic, but I think that love is what gives life meaning. Perhaps love is my form of religion. Without it, life is meaningless to me. But I could do a whole post just on my thoughts on love, and it's not really the topic of this one.
So anyways, I continue to look at this sheet of awards and while I commend those who will get these (well maybe-I dont think the two people with different motivations are actually worth the same), I'm not sad that I don't qualify. Because I am content with just being me. While others have been out working towards the furtherance of human rights, I've been working on me, and forging lasting relationships with those around me. Well that and a modeling career. This whole law thing isn't all its cracked up to be. They rely on these award things too much. But I don't think that makes me a slacker or lazy. It just makes me...well me.

The End

Well the suspense gets to be over a lot sooner. It occurred to me today that perhaps the porn star wasn't interested in dating at all. While that is not what he ever told me, there were signs that indicated perhaps he had no intention at all of dating someone while pursuing his porn career. So I finally just asked him and got the response a few minutes ago. He confirmed my suspicions. He is not in a place where he wants to date anyone, so we are finished. And I am now totally single instead of in some weird limbo state. So if you know any single hotties let me know. Although I don't think it will be happening while I live in Iowa. Sigh, doesn't it suck when you know you have to wait before you can start living?

Snow Everywhere

Happy MLK Day. It's now halfway through January and Iowa City just got its first snow storm. This is about two months late, since it normally snows for the first time just after Thanksgiving. While normally I would say the snow is fun, it ended up being a hassle today. It snowed last night and into this afternoon covering everything, including the roads with a white layer. I was supposed to have a photo shoot this afternoon with a photographer, but we had to cancel because he couldn't get out of his driveway. Mainly because here they don't plow until it stops snowing, and that didn't happen until about 4pm this afternoon. Anyways, it was kind of interesting to watch the UPS man out my window. I didn't even know they delivered today, since the post office is closed for the holiday, but sure enough they do. And he got his truck stuck in the parking lot next door. He was able to drive in, but there is an incline, so he couldn't get out. It took a good hour before he was finally able to make it back out to the street. I have to admire his determination though. Especially since you couldn't actually see where the street was. You just had to guess my the location of the parked cars.
I was also planning on doing reading today for my classes for the week. But most of my books are at the law school, and since I couldn't get there, no reading for me. Of course that didn't turn out to be all bad since it turned out of the books I didn't have that I only had one reading assignment. Thank you Cornell for having the UCC online. So really I am prepared for class tomorrow despite the snow. Take that mother nature. I was, however, bored off my ass all day. I couldn't go anywhere and there is only so much you can do in your apartment by yourself. Normally Im not in favor of it, but today would have been a good day to have a roommate. Hopefully they have plowed the streets enough now that I can make it to the gym later.
I wish there was more for me to report, but I spent the entire day in my apartment doing nothing. Ooh, I will say that I watched a documentary last night called The Ground Truth. Great movie! I would recommend it to everyone, no matter your political affiliations. So go rent it if you haven't seen it.

Life and Love

Well it has been quite a long time since I have posted anything on here, so I have lots of updating to do. Well first, it's january, so that means this is my last semester of law school. YAY!!! The end cannot come soon enough. I remember back in high school that thing called seniorities where you just didn't care about school anymore because it was almost over. Well that's nothing compared to what I have got. I am so ready to be out of here and live in a city again with my own place, and friends to go out with, and places I actually would want to go out to, and maybe even a love life. Imagine that...me going on a date. I'm not sure I would know what to do with myself. This intense desire to leave is so strong I am finding it hard to focus on anything. Ack! I just want a life.
Anyways, I guess on to updates in the love life. Well back in september of last year I sent a message to a guy online just on a whim, and lo and behold I actually got a response. So we talked for awhile and he eventually invited me to his Halloween party in Chicago (of course he isn't in Iowa). So I went to Chicago for Halloween and dressed up in my kick ass latex Superman costume...yes I said latex, and met this guy. Well I went to his party and ended up staying for almost 3 days. That wasn't expected, but he turned out not only to be incredibly sexy, but also to be a really cool guy. Before you get dirty thoughts, while I did see him naked, we did not do the nasty. Well between then and now I have been back to Chicago a number of times to visit him, and when I went home for Christmas I even left him my car to take care of. My pillow too, but that was entirely on accident.
Now since we are talking about my love life, there is of course a wrinkle. In this case it would be his job. You see this guy is a gay porn star. Believe me, I had pretty much everyone tell me I was crazy for trying to go out with a porn star, but this guy was just so great and its just a job really. But it did in fact impact the relationship in several ways. First, though, let me dispel any sterotypes. No, he does not do drugs, something I would never tolerate. Nor is he promiscuous. Being in porn has actually ruined his desire for sex, so hook ups don't appeal to him. And he doesn't escort, something that also is a deal breaker for me. Now on to his job and its impact. Well because porn has ruined his desire for sex, and because he has sex as a job, when it comes to someone he likes, he won't have sex with them for a long time. So let me just tell you that I have never had sex with him. He was also very hesitant about getting into a relationship. He wanted to take everything very slowly. I thought he was just talking about the sex part at first, so I was a little surprised when he said we weren't "dating" yet, but I was willing to go with it. Only later did I find out that his hesitation to date was because since getting into porn (he has only been doing it for about a year and a half), his relationships have always failed because the person seems not to mind his job at first, but in the end it always becomes a problem. I only found this out last week actually. But everything was going well. I would go visit him and stay for a couple days. We weren't the most exciting people by any means, but I enjoyed being with him. Well since much of this is in the past tense, you can imagine that something has happened. You would be correct. The point came when I had a problem with something he did as part of his job.
As a porn star there were several things he did that I had no problem with. The movies don't bother me since they aren't really like real sex. There is all the starting and stopping and lights and make up and fluffing, and it takes like 8 hours to film a 20 minute scene. Not very much like real sex at all. I also had no issue with club appearances and go go dancing or photo shoots, or the notoriety. Now as part of his promotions he has a website people can join if they pay. Well until last week I had no issue with it. He had a blog, and photos, and his appearances, and some clips from some of his movies, and these home movies of him essentially masturbating. Again, nothing that I have a problem. But that changed on tuesday. I signed onto it tuesday and found a new video, "Matt breaks in Fabion." Well as you can imagine, Fabion is not a sex toy. He was a real live wanna be porn star who I got to watch my guy have sex with in his bed. I was irate. And of course he made me feel like I was being a dick by not understanding why this would bother me since I knew he did porn. There are actually a number of reasons why this little video was different, but I wont go into them here. You may not see them either, but I do. So we had a very long argument on tuesday, and I think he has decided to pull away and has abandoned even the idea of us maybe dating. Since I have had a 5 day weekend I have had a lot of time to think about this. Everyone keeps telling me how nice a 5 day weekend is, but really no. When you have something like this on your mind for this long its more like torture. And he is in Vegas all weekend, so there isn't really any way for me to talk to him further until he comes back on wednesday. So we shall see what happens from here. I will do my best to keep you updated.
Oh, and since I seem to have a lot of free time, and I need a hobby, I think I will be posting here more often. Be good!