I sold a camera on Ebay last week. The buyer paid for it promptly, and I mailed it out quickly. You couldn't ask for a smoother transaction. Then today I get an email from the buyer:

"Dear [my Ebay name retracted],

Thanks for not leaving me any feed back, I enjoy leaving it for others and not getting anything in return....

- [Stupid Person Who Named Him/Herself a Stupid Abbreviation of the Phrase "Too Hot To See"]"

I was automatically filled with rage. First, that was incredibly disrespectful. Second, I should have expected this from some idiot who calls him/herself "Too Hot To See." That kind of creative naming comes only from an ego so massively inflated that you could hang signs from it and have it float over stadiums like the Goodyear Blimp. I started to write this idiot back a nastygram of my own about how I'm not a professional Ebayer/compulsive feedback checker and a simple "You forgot to leave me feedback" would have been just fine, thank you, but I stopped myself just in time because God knows I don't want to start some back-and-forth hate mail war with this troll. I also knew better than to leave negative feedback, which would open up the door for "Too Hot" to go back, change his/her original feedback to negative, and leave nasty comments on my profile. But I COULDN'T leave positive feedback; you can't seriously think that you can b*tch at me and then earn something from it. So I left a neutral, with this comment: "OMG BEST BUYER EVER WHEE WHEE SO MUCH FUN LIKE A DAY IN HEAVEN WHEE!!!" Taste the sarcasm. Feel it wash over you like a wave of lava from my volcano of impotent rage. I hope it burns all the way down.

One sort of interesting gimmick that I've noticed most bands employ is an audio-visual introduction that plays just before they begin their set. Ostensibly this gives the band a little grace period in between the moment when they victoriously appear on stage, pump their fists in the air, and point out which fangirls they wish to spend quality time with that evening, and the moment when (places, everyone!) they actually begin playing their instruments, usually in a manner that suggests that they were not actually present in the studio when their album was recorded.

Katie's note: I wrote this up today for one of my students, who is struggling to write an introduction to an analysis of a series of poems by a South American author. I'm posting it today because really, anyone who puts pen to paper (or fingers to keys) could benefit from this advice.

I google myself. It's a 100% fear-based reflex. Some other news outlet - probably CNN - ran video last year on college students' use of sites like RateMyProfessors.com, and I was appalled at what I saw when I poked around on that website. Students were rating and commenting on their professors like they weren't real people, like they were YouTube videos or Digg posts. A lot of the comments were either salacious ("I highly recommend this sexy beast of a man") or disrespectful and dismissive ("A complete tool. Like a demented big bird babbling and babbling about nothing.")