No longer described as frumpy in the media here, Camilla is now seen as a fashion trendsetter, albeit more for the Burberry and tweed crowd. "I don't think people associated Camilla with the word 'chic' before her wedding," but now they do, said Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty, a magazine about royal life.

In fact a new book of colloquial expressions includes the phrase "Camilla chic," part of an overall lifting of the duchess's image since Princess Diana, Prince Charles's first wife, famously called her the "Rottweiler." Diana, an enormously beloved figure who died in a car crash in 1997, had complained that Charles and Camilla had carried on a relationship while she was married to him, causing a backlash against the woman who now has taken her place.

*****

Susie Dent, the author of the pop culture language book, said the turnaround in perception about Camilla's fashion sense "has gone hand in hand with change in opinion about her. She was an outsider and now she is very much accepted. She has been legitimized." Of course, Dent pointed out, Camilla's "status is still fairly precarious. Who knows what will happen to the royal family tomorrow?"

Camilla's face -- framed by a massive diamond tiara -- was splashed across front pages here Tuesday as newspapers prominently noted that it was the first time she wore in public a tiara loaned to her by the queen. "Resplendent in diamonds, the Duchess of Cornwall last night staked her place as the second lady of the land," the Daily Mail gushed, describing her as having "regal composure" at the state dinner at Buckingham Palace for the king and queen of Norway. That kind of positive tabloid press was all but unthinkable six months ago.

These aren't scammers. They're simply high-maintenance individuals that you'll want to steer clear of.

You can usually spot one by the threats in their listing. e.g. "DEADBEET Buyers WILL get *BAD* FEEDBAK!!!!!!" The capital letters, exclamation points and bad spelling are typical for the breed.

These hypersensitive sellers usually insist on long and involved transaction rules and they're looking for trouble. Transgress the slightest bit and the seller pounces, happy to find a technicality to fight about.

Or, you can work the opposite end of the equation by reducing the time you put into each unit. If all the issues of TV Guide in our example were the same date, you could save time by cutting and pasting descriptions, but that's penny-ante stuff. A realistic approach would be to sell the 50 magazines in lots of 10 or 20-or as one lot of 50. That would kick up your hourly rate considerably, with the added benefit of giving you more time to spend finding and posting additional items (which, hopefully, bring in far more than $1 per sale).

The moral: the worth of an item to a seller is measured in how much net profit it brings in, not by how many he sells. Making $50 on one sale is always preferable to making $50 on 50 sales.

The albinos are called ghost pumpkins, snowballs, luminas or Caspers -- presumably a reference to the friendly ghost. And the ones about the size of a baseball? Baby Boos.

White pumpkins are slightly more expensive than their orange cousins, but parents and party planners say they're more ghoulish and offer a better canvas for drawing or painting jack-o'-lantern faces.

White pumpkins -- simply another variety of the autumn favorite -- have been around for a while, but what was once a curiosity at farmers markets is now making the scene at larger groceries and pumpkin patches.

Gensler Gardens, a family farm near Rockford, grew 6,000 white pumpkins this year because the 1,000 it cultivated last year were such a hit. But more than a week before Halloween, all 6,000 had been sold, and the Genslers will probably grow 20,000 next year, Scott Gensler said.

The technical challenges are daunting. Most people have little understanding of the complex and volatile chemistry that occurs in their batteries each time they videotape the kids at soccer practice or listen to their iPod, says Brian Barnett, managing director of research and development firm Tiax Llc.

"Can you imagine a chemical plant that has to operate in a closed condition and send energy forward and backward 500 times?" Barnett said. "And you can't send anybody in to do maintenance. People who operate chemical plants laugh, but that's what we do with a rechargeable cell."

Sony Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, each announced earlier this year that they had developed longer-lasting lithium ion batteries by tweaking the chemical equation.

Both companies say their batteries can boost the life of a battery by up to 30 percent, claims that some analysts question.

2005 Top Kids' Costumes
			# of Children
1	Princess	11.8%	3,778,217
2	Witch	5.2%	1,664,215
3	Spiderman	4.5%	1,439,321
4	Monster	4.1%	1,304,385
5	Darth Vader	3.9%	1,259,406
6	Superhero	3.9%	1,259,406
7	Star Wars Character	2.5%	809,618
8	Batman	2.4%	764,639
9	Ninja	2.3%	719,660
10	Clown	2.3%	719,660
11	Pirate	2.1%	674,682
12	Angel	2.0%	629,703
13	Pumpkin	2.0%	629,703
14	Power Rangers	1.8%	584,724
15	Cinderella	1.7%	539,745
16	Vampire	1.5%	494,767
17	Cheerleader	1.5%	494,767
18	Cat	1.5%	494,767
19	Ghost/Ghoul	1.4%	449,788
20	Soldier/Sailor	1.4%	449,788
2005 Top Adults' Costumes
			# of Adults
1	Witch	16.4%	3,923,124
2	Vampire	6.0%	1,448,538
3	Actor/Famous Person	3.3%	784,625
4	Monster	3.0%	724,269
5	Pirate	2.4%	573,380
6	Angel	2.3%	543,202
7	Clown	2.3%	543,202
8	Ghost/Ghoul	2.1%	513,024
9	Zombie	2.1%	513,024
10	Renaissance Costume	2.0%	482,846
11	Princess	1.9%	452,668
12	Devil	1.8%	422,490
13	Grim Reaper	1.5%	362,135
14	Soldier/Sailor	1.4%	331,957
15	Superhero	1.4%	331,957
16	Nurse	1.4%	331,957
17	Gypsy	1.4%	331,957
18	Pumpkin	1.3%	301,779
19	Pimp	1.1%	271,601
20	Wizard	1.0%	241,423

Visit your nearest skin-care counter and feel the sticker shock: $380 for Sisleÿa Daily Line Reducer, $580 for La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe Cream and $600 for RéVive Intensité Volumizing Serum. But you need more than just dough - you need pull. Kanebo's Sensai Premier is $1,320 for three products, when you can get it; Barneys New York sold out in less than two weeks. A 21-day supply of La Mer the Essence is $2,100, available by invitation only. And don't you dare become complacent about DDF RMX Maximum: after you fork over $1,000 and stay home for delivery, the 28 vials must be whisked into the freezer. How to explain these breathtaking numbers? "You can buy a new designer handbag for fall, but you only have one face," says Jose Parron, the image director at Barneys New York. "It can't be replaced at the end of the season."

With consumers getting their fashion news almost as quickly as buyers and journalists, and more selectively if they are only paying attention to the labels they care about, there is no way to predict what looks will still matter in March. The belt that looks hot today may be forgotten tomorrow.

Maybe that's the reason the spring collections resembled a duck-hunting contest in Central Park. The thinking among designers seemed to be that if they fired off enough buckshot - that is to say trends - in a limited space, they might actually hit something.

And don't be surprised if fashion writers are talking (more than usual) out of both sides of their mouths, extolling the merits of, say, Stefano Pilati's slim high-waisted pants for Yves Saint Laurent and, after a polite pause, suggesting that you would look adorable in Marc Jacobs's elephant trousers. If fashion seems confusing right now to journalists as well as buyers, it's because the consumer has moved the fences.

*****

Taking a purely Darwinian view of spring, some trends appear stronger than others. New York designers like Narciso Rodriguez and Carolina Herrera opened their collections with dresses, and the trend just kept gathering momentum - through Francisco Costa's ethereal cotton voile dresses for Calvin Klein; Miuccia Prada's naïve, hand-painted shifts; Phoebe Philo's breathy baby-doll shapes for Chloé - until at a certain point you just gave up and drew a triangle in your notebook. Voilà: a dress.

To Robert Burke, the fashion director of Bergdorf Goodman, a loose, floaty shape looks new, especially with the balance of chunky platform shoes. "Calvin Klein really set the tone for Milan and Paris with its very refined, very light fabrics," Mr. Burke said. "I thought Prada had the same message - very simple dresses, cut away from the body, in these pale colors that emphasized the lightness of the fabrics."

The star of the show is the 7380, successor to Nokia's 7280 "lipstick phone." Like the 7280, the newer model doesn't have a keypad; you dial primarily by scrolling through your phone book or voice dialing. And when the phone is off, the screen becomes a mirror – perfect for fixing makeup. But the 7380 looks more organic, with leather and wood accents as opposed to the 7280's lacquer. It's also packed with high-end features, including a two-megapixel camera, an MP3 player, and no-training voice commands (to help you dial without that keypad.) We expect it to run $600, just like the 7280 does.

*****

Nokia's fashion phones will be released in the US early next year, but these kinds of devices generally aren't targeted at the price-sensitive US consumer. Rather, they're designed to be second phones for folks in Europe and Asia who already have cell phones, and want a "day phone" and a "night phone." While cell phones are considered purely functional devices here, in much of the rest of the world they're as essential a part of your fashion identity as your purse or your shoes.

Bulgari's CEO Francesco Trapani has overseen the company's 100 per cent acquisition of Pacini, a Tuscan-based company that specialises in making handbags and owns a 51 per cent stake in watch strap manufacturer Prestige d'Or, to make this a reality. Declining to disclose the amount Bulgari paid for its acquisitions,Trapani told WWD that the company intends to become "a serious player in the accessories businesss", beginning with an expansion of the company's handbag range from "70 models to 400 within weeks" and a diversification of ranges, colours and patterns.

Expect a mixture of classic and fashion pieces from Bulgari, whose creative team has been looking to market leaders Louis Vuitton for inspiration. Trapani says: "Within its [Vuitton's] product offering you have things that are younger and more fashion-driven and you have things that are more classic and timeless." Bulgari is opening its first accessories-only boutique in Osaka in November and has plans to move into Europe and America next year.

Women around the world have had enough. They're starting to turn their backsides on the thong, the scanty underwear style that has virtually overtaken lingerie departments worldwide.

Nationwide chains and department stores have brought in big supplies of hipsters and boy shorts in anticipation of the change. And last week, Mintel, a Chicago-based market research firm, reported sales of thongs in the United Kingdom have fallen 14% since 2003, to represent 23% of the panty market. Meanwhile, British women have boosted sales of full-cut "maxi" panties by 36%.

The newly popular boy shorts, also called French knickers, are made from stretchy mesh, lace or cotton and often cut to leave no visible panty line. They can look like an abbreviated, clingy version of 1920s tap pants or like a frilly men's brief.

"We're over the thong. Boy shorts are a woman's best friend," says Clare Nehra, assistant director of design at Donna L'oren, a New York designer lingerie firm. "They're still sexy, but they don't show too much."

• Black Belts Karate Home Studio (Spin Master/Ages 3 years & up/ $24.99)
• Dora's Talking Kitchen (Fisher-Price/Ages 2 years & up/$79.99)
• Fly Wheels Assortment (Jakks Pacific/Ages 8 years & up/$4.99-$39.99)
• Furby (Hasbro/Ages 8 years & up/$39.99)
• I-Dog (Hasbro/Ages 8 years & up/$29.99)
• iZ (Zizzle/Ages 5 years & up/$39.99)
• Leapster L-Max Learning Game System (LeapFrog/For kids pre-K through 4th grade/$99.99)
• The Magnetix World (Rose Art/Ages 6 years & up/Prices vary per item)
• Pixel Chix (Mattel/Ages 7 years & up/$29.99)
• Shell Shocker (Tyco/Ages 8 years & up/$79.99)
• Vcam Now (Hasbro/Ages 8 years & up/$79.99)
• V.Smile Pocket (VTech/Ages 5 years & up/system $89.99, games $19.99)

Building excitement goes urban with this complete city building set. The more than 100 pieces include magnetic rods that snap together with steel balls for sturdy, fast and rewarding building. Let your creativity construct the city of today—or the future. Then customize your creation with more than 95 different stickers.

• Autographed copies of The Sword of Angels by John Marco (DAW), the thrilling conclusion to the epic fantasy series that began with The Eyes of God and The Devil's Armor.
  
  
• Never Have Your Dog Stuffed and Other Things I've Learned by Alan Alda (Random House), the funny and moving memoir from the Oscar-nominated and multiple Emmy-winning actor.
  
  
• Secrets of the Widow's Son: The Mysteries Surrounding the Sequel to The Da Vinci Code by David A. Shugart (Sterling), the book that delves into the secrets, codes and clues behind Dan Brown's unreleased next book, The Solomon Key.

The acquisition includes the back-end processing system that AuctionWagon used to process auction listings on eBay.com and handle payment transactions for customers who dropped products off at one of 23 locations. Net2Auction did not acquire the 23 independent drop-off stores themselves, but will now provide them with processing services.

The deal includes AuctionWagon's Store Manager Pro software, which is used as a stand-alone eBay consignment system in another 145 drop-off stores in the U.S. and abroad.

From a New Jersey businessman building a 20-ton coral reef in his cigar room to the rock singer who bought Shaquille O'Neal's home for its predator tanks, some fish-loving consumers are starting to create at-home versions of Atlantis. One couple on Long Island, N.Y., is spending $400,000 for an 8,500-gallon saltwater aquarium.

Inspired by resort aquariums and spurred by technological advances in the $3 billion aquarium industry, homeowners are building the huge tanks in unconventional shapes like arches and racetracks.

While most of the growth is in expensive tanks, some of this is trickling down to regular homeowners. PetsMart’s biggest aquarium, which costs $475, is now 150 gallons, up from 75 gallons a few years ago. Later this year, some of the retailer's stores will begin stocking a 110-gallon model with upscale cabinetry for $1,000.

Petco recently expanded its line of fancy cabinet finishes for bigger tanks. Even custom builders are reaching out to a slightly broader audience: Living Color Enterprises, an aquarium company in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., just introduced its first line of $13,000 ready-made tanks about the size of a big-screen television.

When someone calls this city's police to report they've had something stolen - either in a home break-in or a vehicle smash-and-grab - Sgt. Doug Fisher gives out the same piece of advice, again and again:

"Look for your item on eBay."

Fisher says online auction sites are an increasingly popular way to offload stolen goods. EBay is just one of many such sites - others include Yahoo and Craigslist - but it is the most popular.

"Whatever you take to a pawn shop, you're going to get four or five cents on the dollar (and) they sell it at 60 cents on the dollar," he said. "But if you have the wherewithal to sell the item yourself, you'll get the 60 cents on a dollar."

1. Darth Vader
2. Batman
3. Fantastic Four
4. Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz
5. Harry Potter
6. Dora the Explorer
7. The Disney Princesses
8. Power Rangers
9. Divas & Fairies
10. Scream

1. Knights' Empire Castle
2. 3D Pool Table
3. Shake 'N Go! Speedway
4. ChatNow
5. Slurpee Drink Maker
6. Darth Vader Voice Changer
7. Go Go TV
8. Pyrates Dread Eye's Phantom
9. Nylint Rock Crawler
10. Card Kit

This fortified stronghold has all the medieval amenities: moat, drawbridge, trapdoors, towers, dungeon, and a rock dropper for pulverizing pesky solicitors. Our shining knights kept at it for dark ages. Two hundred forty-nine pieces.

That's because the waterfront home was auctioned off on eBay by Dan Whaley, a Web enthusiast who founded the first Web-based travel agency. During the 10-day bidding period - the maximum allowed on eBay - which ended Wednesday, the 1,650-square-foot home received

152 bids, according to eBay.

"There are two parts of selling online," Whaley said. "One is having a technology or interface that handles the transaction, and the other part is marketing. For some things eBay serves both needs. For real estate it does not."

Only the transaction component is served well online, he said.

Clad in water-resistant fabric and open-air netting, this classic-looking pet stroller will turn heads as you enjoy an outing with your cat, older dog, or smaller dog who has to work hard to keep up with you! Removable, 26"x14"x17"-tall carrier folds for travel and storage. Stroller includes rear safety brake; independently turning, 4-1⁄2" plastic front wheels; washable 1⁄2"-thick padding; 13"x14" privacy "parlor"; rear pockets. For pets up to 25 lbs. Measures 37-1⁄2" tall from ground to handle.

Upgrade to the 30% larger SUV for larger pets! Similar to above, but considering this one is for pets up to 50 lbs., it’s bigger, (removable folding carrier is 31"x16"x20" tall), has bigger 8" hard-rubber wheels, and measures 40" tall from ground to handle. Also includes a thicker 1" washable padding, privacy "parlor," two rear pockets. All-Weather Gear Kit for your Pet Stroller. Tour the town in any weather! Kit includes waterproof rain cover, canvas sunshade awning, faux-sheepskin cozy cover and pad, plus two flashing red safety strobe/reflectors.

There are just 3 days left to bid on a private dinner with Jennifer Garner (who will likely be attending with hubby Ben Affleck), Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York or Ricky Martin. Godiva Chocolatier is ready to make your dreams come true with a glamorous evening of charitable giving hosted by celebrity favorites. A celebration of Godiva's new Platinum Collection - the next generation of Godiva, the dinners will be a celebration of legacy and will benefit charities chosen by the participants.

Bidding for the meals - which will be held in NY, LA and London- began on September 29 and will conclude on October 9 at 5pm PDT. Bidding as well as event descriptions can be found on www.Godiva.com/charityauction.

Each exclusive meal-to be held in NY, LA and London will be catered to your every whim by culinary wunderkind, Todd English, who will utilize regional flavors as well as those found in Platinum's new pieces to craft unique and memorable menus. The meals will fete another generation...the people who will uphold each host's legacy for years to come and those who have influenced them to become who they are today. Legacy is having your mother's hands and your father's wit. It is the wake we leave behind and the way we choose to affect the world. Legacy is of paramount importance as our actions affect the next generation in every way.

That's part of the reason why each celebrity decided to participate. As all proceeds of the dinners will benefit causes chosen by each host, it gives everyone involved a chance to give back. Ricky Martin will donate proceeds from his event to the children affected by Hurricane Katrina via his Ricky Martin Foundation, Jennfer Garner will donate proceeds to the Women's Cancer Research Institute at Cedar's Sinai and Sarah Ferguson will benefit Africa Foundation.

Last year, Godiva also held a charity auction with Sarah Jessica Parker, Ben Affleck, Ricky Martin(who was the highest bid), Leonardo DiCaprio and Benjamin Bratt. Over $150K was raised for charity, and Godiva's goal is to raise even more this year. With only a few days to go, there is a lot of ground to make up. Will Jennifer eclipse her husbands bid from last year? Currently, she's raised about $14K. Only time will tell if she'll pull ahead...