The Electronic Bay

Operation "Clear 'em OUT" continues at the house: We've had a monthly visit from ARC (a good local charity). Every week we've taken another load of old clothes to Once Upon A Child, and we're turning old clothes into new ones for our growing kids. I have a trunk full of CDs and DVDs which I have every intention of taking to Cheapo soon... And we've agreed that Half Price Books is a terrible scam and a self perpetuating nightmare: Why do you never shop there? Crap books. Why crap books? Because they pay pennies on the cover price for everything, after making you wait for a half hour. A full bag of decent books - $2.50. REALLY? For that price, couldn't you have just eyeballed the bag and insulted us right away?

Today our adventures were two pronged - Shredding and Ebay. We have stacks and stacks of documents which we were in the process of understanding when Bella came along 6 years ago, and we have been randomly adding to that pile ever since. Well, it's getting organized now, and we are deciding that insurance cards for cars we haven't owned since 1999 are NOT crucial for us to retain. Nor are 10 year old insurance statements declaring coverage on our Artificial Insemination procedures. No, there's a lot of stuff we have been saving for absolutely no reason. SO WE'RE SHREDDING IT. Whrrrrrrrrrr. We've actually filled a paper lawn clipping bag with shreds. It feels great. Manuals for a TV I haven't had for 4 years? GONE. HAHA!!!!

As we were cleaning the basement, we "found" the bins with my "collectibles" from my toy hoarding phase of the 1990s. LOTS of Star Trek things. I also found a trove of old concert T-shirts from the 1980s. I was saving them, thinking that when I got to 40, I'd think they were fabulous and would knuckle a tear away and cherish them. I maybe even thought my eventual children would think they were cool. Well, here I am, and I'm not knuckling anything away. And I doubt Bella or Isaac will be particularly excited by Depeche Mode or New Order shirts. No more than I would have been jazzed to have a Kingston Trio shirt from my Parents, I guess. No, these are mementos but not memories. Plus, they're fetching a pretty penny on Ebay!

So I have 18 auctions up now. Search on my username - ppgwave - if you'd like to see some of the gems. I can't really keep my personality entirely out of the picture when it comes to Ebay: On the concert T's, I talk about how the show was. On one Star Trek ship that was frankly pretty poorly built by the manufacturer, I plead that the horrible condition of the unit is entirely because it was a crap item. On one I lied that the scuff marks on a fake phaser gun were from my using it on a secret mission.

My favorite so far is my Laurie Anderson Mister Heartbreak tour shirt from 1984. I wore that shirt at least 300 times since getting it, and it is practically transparent, but still legible. In the description, I hint that Lou Reed could make a nice gift to his gal pal Laurie A with this remnant from the past. Of all of the postings, this one already has an interested buyer. IN TASMANIA.

My one complaint on the process is that IT TAKES A LONG TIME to do auctions. I have extra auction software (GarageSale), and it still took most of the afternoon to put it all together. What a pain. Plus, I'll have to mail that stuff everywhere. Oh well. Better than just tossing it. The people who will buy these things will likely love them more than I am now. And if the experiment works, I may start to look at moving along my other "treasure trove" - my comic books from the late 1970s and early 1980s.

And with that, it's off to bed!