• Posted 12/19/2024.
    =====================

    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Things I hate....

WebSlave

WebSlave

The world looks differently to me now.
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Today, it's Ebay. I'm trying to buy some tools off of Ebay from a single seller using the shopping cart. This dumb piece of software just totals up the shipping charge on all of these small items. Seven (7) items total and they are showing a shipping charge of $91.00. Yeah, right.... But wait! They have a button saying "Request a total price from seller"! Yeah, that should get them to combine shipping so it is more reasonable, shouldn't it?

Well, you would think. However, when you click on that button, you get a notice that says:
You must commit to purchase these items before requesting a total price.

To request a total for this purchase, you must first commit to buy all the items included in this order.

You can still uncheck items if you do not want to commit to them or do not want to include them in this request.

Remember, you are already committed to buy items that you have won in auctions or through best offer.
Click to expand...

Yeah, right...... Well suppose they just say that this is the shipping charge, and tough luck. I won't want to BUY these items with that shipping charge attached, but I have COMMITTED to buying them. So why even HAVE that button where it is located in the shopping cart page anyway?

Nuts, I tell you, just plain nuts. :crazy03:
 
That's nuts, Rich. I'd NEVER commit to a purchase before I saw the price. That seems fishy/scammy/and almost illegal?

Things I hate....

The last couple hours of work before vacation
Not having cash when you really want a candy bar at work
.. whelp .. that about sums it up.

Life really isn't too bad lol!
 
Adding to the list of things I hate....

YELLOW FLIES!

Basically teeth on wings that will first aggravate you to death by buzzing all around your head before find the perfect spot (for them) to land and take a chunk out of you where you can't easily defend yourself from.

If I had a button to make them extinct....... <click>. Time elapsed: one heartbeat.
 
Oh yeah, I really, really, REALLY hate yellow flies!

They've gotten WORSE!

They are biting the crap out of Connie and I whenever we venture outside. Got four Mosquito Magnets set up and they are doing a number on the population, but their are a LOT of them out there, apparently. Never seen them this bad before....

http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/livestock/yellow_fly.htm
 

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Hopefully they don't make their way up to north ga. The tick problem is huge this year. Already pulled 6 off me so far. Last thing I need are biting flies...
 
I remember those when I lived in Florida. Back in late 60's and early 70's Orlando was infested with them.
 
This is the worst year I've seen for them since I've been living here. This evening I was checking the mosquito magnet in front of the house and when I saw the number of yellow flies on and around the magnet, I just ran for the house. I jumped through the doorway and slammed the front door shut behind me and watched at least a dozen of them bounce off the window insert in the door trying to get inside at me. :eek:

Lord only knows how much worse it would be if those magnets weren't killing a BUNCH of those flies. I am NOT looking forward to changing out those filled catch bags in the traps! But dammit, it's going to have to be done.
 
OK, I can't speak to the yellow flies here where I am in GA, because I don't really know what bites/stings the hell out of me whenever I am outside my car, my house or in my yard. All I know is, it's really worse this spring & early summer, and it doesn't matter because I can stand right next to another person and I will be the one that the biting, stinging gnats, flies, mosquitoes will be attracted to. The person next to me will not be the bug magnet.

I had to wash my car this past weekend. It had to go to the shop for repair and I was embarrassed it was so dirty :)

While I was washing it, I kept getting bit/stung by miniscule flying insects. Nothing unusual about that, but then I got so annoyed, I actually started paying more attention to the 20-30 tiny little blood-suckers flocking like birds around me. I would bat them away, they would retreat exactly like a flock and then return. Only then did I notice they had red heads. I tried to snatch them repeatedly to look closer, but they were so fast, the 3 or 4 I did catch flew off when I opened my hand to take a closer look.

I've never seen red-headed blood-suckers here. Anybody have a clue what kind of gnat, fly, mosquito or whatever they might be? Everything else about them was black or dark gray, totally unremarkable. Only their heads were a pronounced red. I got no clue, but I am curious, especially since they hovered and moved exactly like a flock/swarm/school when disturbed.
 
The only thing I could think of would be fruit flies or small house flies. They swam, have pronounced red eyes and are attracted to co2. They don't suck blood but they could of been testing if your were a piece of fruit lol. I can't imagine they are very smart.
 
Damn.... it appears that it is getting worse rather than better! Lots more of them around and they are getting even more aggressive at biting and hanging on. Forget about waving your arms around thinking you can scare them away.

I have 5 mosquito magnets running and they are getting filled with the biting SOBs. There are large swarms of the flies all around each of the magnets so they are definitely doing the job. Can't imagine what it would be like around here without those magnets making a dent in the population. This is the worse year, by an order of magnitude, that I have ever seen of these things. It is absolutely no fun whatsoever going outside. We are having to use the back door so we can use the screened in porch as a sort of staging area to try to kill the flies that followed us in there so they don't get into the house.

I sure wish that whatever eats these little monsters would hurry up and have their own population explosion to keep up with them.
 
Lucille said:
I did a search and found this beekeeping clothing store, maybe some sort of protection would help when you have to go empty the mosquito catch bags.

http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/Hats-and-Tie-Down-Veils/products/12/
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've looked at similar clothing. Even have some screened hats around here somewhere that we used when skeeters were really bad. The problem is that these flies can bite right through clothing unless it's really heavy material. Which here in sunny Florida puts you in the position of either maybe dying from fly bite, or from heat prostration from the heavy clothing.

Personally, I'm thinking about looking into designs for flame throwers. :dgrin:
 
On another line of thought that is irritating me lately....

Well, apparently some Ebay sellers are acting as unofficial resellers for Amazon. I've gotten three packages of items I bought from Ebay sellers that came from an Amazon Fulfillment Service. The first two I opened up and saw that the invoice was marked that the merchandise was sent to me as a "gift". So I guess those Ebay sellers are using this as a method of drop shipping from Amazon. Anyway, I sent the second package back for a refund and explained exactly why. I would have sent the first one back, but it didn't dawn on me what was going on. I thought it was just a fluke of some sort.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't bother me, except for the fact that I refuse to do any business with Amazon. They screwed me over last summer concerning an order of a bushel of steamed crabs through one of their affiliates, not upholding their professed "A-to-Z" warranty, and I haven't had a thing to do with them since then. Nor will I.

So I got another box just today from Amazon from an Ebay seller that is going to go back to them. Wish those sellers would disclose their acting as resellers, because now I'm getting pretty gunshy of buying anything off of Ebay as a result.
 
WebSlave said:
On another line of thought that is irritating me lately....

Well, apparently some Ebay sellers are acting as unofficial resellers for Amazon. I've gotten three packages of items I bought from Ebay sellers that came from an Amazon Fulfillment Service.
Click to expand...

Had this happen once as well. I generally like amazon although I hate getting 'new' dvds/blurays that are missing the security sticker. This happens all the time, I've just sucked it up and taken them because I get tired of returning shipments.

Also, if you buy something from target online, it's shipped and fulfilled through amazon, just fyi.
 
Apparently these redirected shipments from Amazon are labelled as being "gifts", so it's not like this is some sort of authorized reselling network through Amazon. I have an email from this past seller who tried to sell me more of the octenol cartridges claiming that she just got more in her "shop". So she is purposely trying to defraud sellers. Of course, never could understand why people will lie when obviously their lie will become apparent just as soon as the package is delivered. I guess I'm from the dying out generation who gives a crap about their word, credibility, and reputation. :shrug01:

So far she hasn't replied to my contacts about returning the merchandise. I hope she doesn't think I am shy about leaving negative feedback on Ebay. :reddevil:
 
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