After my first fabulous success with renewing some magazine subscriptions via eBay, I just got this email from my eBay seller:

Hello. You are receiving this message/email from me since you’re one of the buyers from my store.Today, Ebay implemented their new policy regarding Pre-Sale items and they
consider Magazine Subscription as a violation to this policy. We might not
be selling magazine subscriptions on Ebay but our store will be open and
selling different item instead. We will keep it open so we can answer any
order status and refund requests (if any).

So, does it affect the order you already placed? Absolutely not. Your order
was already processed and will still be received within the timeframe provided.

We will still continue selling magazine subscriptions, but not through Ebay.Com,
but one of their affiliates, prostores. Our prostores website address is
Http://www.Superior-Subscriptions.Com. Not all items have been added there
but we’re working to have all items today. So please bear with us while
we are making the transition.

We will provide the same prices and policies. The new addition to transitioning
to a website is that you can pay using your credit card directly and not
signing up a Paypal account. Of course you can still pay with Paypal. You
have the option for combined payments as well.

For more information on the eBay Presale policy, please visit:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/pre-sale.html

As always, we are here to answer any questions you might have. Please make
sure to include yuour Ebay userID when sending us an email or message.

Sincerely,

Superior Subscriptions
http://www.Superior-Subscriptions.Com

All strange capitalization aside (this company does sell on eBay, after all) I’m sorry the party stopped just after I found it.

But discount subscriptions are still out there. Just never, ever use the renewal forms right from the magazine. Go to a third party website like magazines.com or the one above. In my experience, they’re cheaper every time.

A week’s a long time, and a lot happens. But here’s what you need to know, where you need to eat (broken off into a different post now), and what you should avoid. Most importantly, I’m giving you the lay of the land – something I really didn’t understand until I arrived, and something which would likely change the way I organize a trip here next time.

Telluride is really two distinct areas: the old city of Telluride, and the newer area up on the hill called Mountain Village. The two are linked by free gondola (amazingly well designed and run), by roads, and by ski slopes. Beyond that, they’re two different worlds.

(Skiing down Telluride trail into the town)

So we stayed in the Mountain Village. Mountain Village is really a company town, like many of the big ski resorts these days. One company seems to own or at least develop the whole thing (you’ll get to know their logo with the mining pickaxe pretty quickly), but stays pretty low-key and licenses out the concessions to multiple vendors to keep the place from feeling too homogeneous. I’m not a big fan of these planned developments.

Our place is in Mountain Lodge, which is ski-out (so we can hit the slopes a few steps from our front door, and return to the condo just as easily). They offer a van/shuttle service around the village. And they have a concierge and a pool, etc. For skiing, this is great. For everything else, we really had to spend time getting down to the town, which we did almost every night for dinner, and most days for lunch and other commerce also.

(our cabin in Mountain Village)

The skiing is really pretty excellent. The skiing that is centered on Mountain Village is the beginner and intermediate terrain. It basically feeds down into one main area (the bottom of lift 4 and the top of lift 1) that has several restaurants (pretty uniformly bad – ski food like burgers and low-end draft beer) and a few sporting goods stores. That’s also where the gondola to town ends, and the second gondola starts.

The second gondola goes to the grocery store and everything at the other end of Mountain Village. The grocery store is really the star of the area. But it’s strange: if they recognize the need for good, gourmet food up there, why is it only available in the grocery, and not for lunch or dinner? Maybe this is to keep the town in the loop? I doubt it, frankly, but the town is pretty wonderful.

The town, down at 8750 feet (Mountain Village is at about 9500 and the lifts take you up beyond 12,000 feet) is a real charm. It’s basically an old western mining town, that’s been updated maybe once in the ’60s (it feels very Berkeley there) and then again in the late ’90s (gourmet food, high end clothes boutiques, and the ubiquitous real estate storefronts).

Through all of that, the town maintains both a sense of community, and great commerce. It’s like the little town that caters to the big town person. You can stroll down Colorado (the city’s main street) and get a good latte, some baked goods, a Stetson, and a new fishing rod. And the views are fantastic – from almost everywhere in town, you just look up and see the untouched or barely-touched mountains surrounding you.

In the end, there’s no question that for the skiing aspect of the trip, Mountain Village is the more convenient place to stay. If you do, try to stay in the village itself, where you can walk to the two gondolas. But for the rest of the trip (food and lazing around a comfortable small town) the town of Telluride is where you want to be. For me, I think next time I’ll stay in town and avoid the company-town feel of the new condos up in the Mountain Village.

Be sure to read all about the food in Telluride coming soon in another blog post!

Update: Dinner Restaurants in Telluride is now up. Lunch is coming soon.

One, I just found. A friend from high school emailed it to me. It’s called Stuff White People Like, and it’s amazing. Maybe even better are the comments. Somehow, this guy tapped into a pretty funny community.

The other tied-for-funniest blog I read is the Fake Steve Jobs blog. Half of the posts are just of the variety of “I’m speechless” with a link to a YouTube video or something, but even those are good editorial choices. Beyond that, his relentless attacks on the Borg (Microsoft), Hillary, Faceberg (Zuckerberg of Facebook), and, really, himself (the real Steve here, since he’s supposedly writing this) are really well written, and endlessly entertaining.

I posted last week about people posting on forums with really polished threads, solely to get links back to their sites. They get good screen shots, carefully tested info, and, of course, very specific links that they want to juice in Google.

Anyway, here’s a better screenshot of another spam post:

(weird – that picture got overwritten. I’ll have to wait for another, which is inevitable)

And if you get these on your forums, take the appropriate action:

Here’s a strange one: buying magazine subscriptions on eBay is surprisingly inexpensive, and it seems to really work. New subs or renewals, there’s a lot of money to be saved.

I had always used sites like magazines.com for my subscriptions; they’re generally much cheaper than going directly through the magazine’s renewal service, and generally easier too, since you can go online, do four different renewals in one transaction, pay by credit card, and be totally done.

But my cousin heard about a better way: eBay.

We’ve been speculating as to why this occurs, but like many oddities on eBay, we couldn’t really explain it. His theory is that since magazines basically don’t make their money on subscriptions but on ads, they want to raise their paid subscriber counts, thus getting more in ad revenue. So this is another way to get new subscribers (that’s the older term for “eyeballs” apparently).

Here’s an example: at magazines.com, The New Yorker is $47/year. On eBay, I can find that for about $24 (here’s a link, but it’s a live search, so you may find different prices when you try it). And here’s the worst par: on newyorker.com, the one year costs $39.95, which makes me feel like a real dolt for ever using magazines.com.

I took the plunge and set up a renewal. The company I selected had tens of thousands of good feedback – all from mag subscriptions, at least as far as I could tell. Saved some money . . .

Yesterday, a beautiful Sunday, we took a family bike ride down the Ballona Creek path.

For a ride in the center of Los Angeles, I highly recommend it. The ride really feels like it’s from another world.

To begin with, there are virtually no stops along the way: no streets to cross, curbs to come down, nothing. It’s just seven miles of gentle riding from Culver City to the beach, just below Marina Del Rey.

Next, being next to the creek means that you’re riding below grade, most of the time. So there’s no noise from traffic and horns and industry. There are no SUVs weaving wildly. There are just people, and some wildlife. And the creek, which, while confined to a concrete basin, actually has a nice, almost-natural quality, especially as it grows into a full-blown tidal estuary towards the end.

Access:

We parked on National Boulevard in Culver City, just where National hits Jefferson and ends. On the north side of National, just east of the park with the baseball diamond, is a ramp leading down to the top of the bike path. From there, just ride about seven miles and you’ll be at the beach!

The marathon I ran has been constantly in my mind.

Here are more thoughts I’ve had:

Healthier Food During – I’ve got to figure out how to eat more fruit during the marathon, and less of the chemical energy substances. I had a banana, and that felt pretty good. I understand that many athletes want to spare their gut from having to work to get calories from the food fast, but there must be some fruits that are so close to these chemical mixtures that I could substitute oranges and bananas for GU.

Be More Competitive – If I do this again, I’d like to beat more of these people. So Oprah is the obvious candidate (she beat me by 20 seconds) but George W. is way ahead of me. I ran a half-marathon in just under two hours, so I figure I should be able to do a full one in under four, with a lot more training. In many ways, while I was able to finish this, I really didn’t train as hard as I should have, and definitely not as hard as I could have.

Deal With the Nonsense – There were several categories of people who drove me nuts during this run.

Probably the biggest group was the iPod users. I’m all for iPods, and I use an iPod when I run, generally. But iPod users have a tendency to stop running, or to slow down dramatically, when adjusting their settings. If this is necessary, fine, just pick a good spot, see if anyone is behind you, and work your way toward the side.

Like the iPod users, the cell phone callers really didn’t pay attention to their fellow marathoners. Just like in cars, these people are oblivious to the world around them. I didn’t bring a cell phone on the run – and I never do for runs. I just don’t think it’s necessary. Call me old-fashioned.

Ah, the beepers! Not pagers, but beepers, like metronomes. At first, when I heard one, I thought a truck was backing up. These are used to set people on an even pace, and to keep them running at the right speed. I use my Garmin Forerunner for this (in a very different way, of course) so I understand the need to monitor your speed and progress. But the beeping is heard by everyone in a 25 foot radius. Have you ever tried to run at your own pace, while a beeper is rhythmically beeping at a different pace? Save these gizmos for practice runs, my friends. Don’t plague the rest of us with this!

And then the walkers. Again, I’m totally with you. Walking is better than stopping. I’m happy to say that I didn’t walk, but I was on the verge several times. But when you walk, you need to get out of the middle of the pack. Move over to the side, and let the runners through. Walking in the middle of the road just makes it harder for everyone else who is still running.

As I cut off one guy at around mile 24, I realized how hard it is to take other people’s needs into account. You are so focused on the punishment your body is going through, that’s all you can think about. But I did manage to apologize to this guy for cutting him off – and he was nice enough to say something like, “Yeah, it’s amazing how everything at this point can totally piss you off, right?” He read my mind.

When I first saw one of these in the forums I administer, I thought, “Cool. Someone’s really taking the time to put up a nice post!” But I soon realized that this was just another Google link game. They put up a nice post in your forums, with links and keywords to suit their needs.

They’re generally along the lines of “Convert YouTube Video to work on your iPhone” or something similar, and the text is littered with links to revenue-producing sites (sorry my screenshot isn’t the greatest).

Anyway, if you administer forums, and you see posts like this, DELETE THEM! I get about one a week, and I use Captcha and everything for registration. These guys are working hard, so it must be paying off for them. Stop the nonsense!

Their site suggests so, but they have no dates yet. But John Battelle posted this, at least for San Francisco.