My Birthday just past and someone forgot to wish me Happy Birthday!

The past Friday was my birthday and a bunch of people in my life forgot to acknowledge the day......I got a bunch of nice phone calls/emails and a whole whack of friends wrote nice things on my Facebook wall but I didn't any thing from Facebook itself.

....or Amazon, Ebay, or even a credit card provider.

Every year around my birthday I wonder if any of the sites or services I willingly give my personal information too will make me feel special and win me over as a loyal fan/customer for life.

......and every year I sit scratching my head wondering why people miss this obvious opportunity.

It would be embarrassing for me to mention how much money I have spent (happily) at Amazon and I will continue to do so but a simple email from someone like them would go miles with me to make me feel like I am not just a nameless faceless customer. I am not a computer programmer but I imagine setting up a automated email to kick out a letter on your birthday would not be too hard but the value of it would be worth much more them the cost!

You may be reading this and thinking I am making a big deal about nothing.....and you may be right BUT small gestures make BIG impressions and can secure or loose future business.

...and in case anyone was curious. Out of the thousands of places I have given personal information to I only received 1 electronic Birthday greeting....it was from a comic book message board called Jinxworld........and that is where I am going right now!

saul

OJ Simpson and I have something in common....people are selling my stuff!

I came across an EBAY auction the other day where someone was selling the one piece of "Saul" memorabilia from my days publishing comics that I don't own. I was going to write about this last week but I didn't want to drive up the bidding.

The item in the auction is the original cover art for Eclipse and Vega : Super Sized Special drawn by Bill Morrison. Bill is the top dog at Bongo Comics (Owned by Matt Groening and publishers of all the Simpsons Comics). I love this cover and so did Bill since he wouldn't sell it to me when he was done. I had heard he had donated it to a charity auction a few years back (because he is a good guy!) and that it got some good money for the cause.

I was all giddy when it popped up on eBay and I got into the bidding action right away...but instead of putting the full amount of what i would have paid I kept raising my bid in increments.

Long story short (it is probably too late for that but....) I fell a sleep before this closed and never saw that I was outbid.

Oh well.....I hope it is in a good home!

-saul

p.s. Wanna read the book? Click here and enjoy!