Ahoy, there be treasure hidden here.

In the Northeastern US, the yard sale season starts during Memorial Day Weekend and ends over Labor Day weekend. I love yard sales for many reasons:

• find stuff you need for cheaper
• keep stuff out of landfills a little longer
• discover items from your childhood or things you’ve only heard about but never seen in person
• interact with (mostly) nice folks

Some folks love yardsaling like I do, and others just hate it. And there are those who wonder what it’s all about. For those in the last group, I’ve listed some pointers and guidelines to maximize your yard sale experience.

Finding Yard Sales

I usually grab a copy of the local paper and look in the classifieds for upcoming yard sale listings. For those who live in a more populated area, I’ve heard that craigslist is a pretty good source too. IMO though, stick with the local paper; the local paper probably has a website that lists their classifieds too, and whatever route you create from the local listings will suffice, as you’ll most likely run across unlisted sales, neighbors taking advantage of the free advertising. With the local classifieds in hand, I mark the ones that sound promising (e.g., “electronics” or “old photography” ) and avoid others (e.g., “baby clothes”; baby clothes are everywhere ,  of course except when you actually need to find baby clothes). Then I enter the addresses into Google Map and see where the yard sales are relative to one another, plan a route, and print it out.

Around this time I also email friends if they’re interested in going. In addition to being a lot more fun than yardsaling solo, yardsaling with others also increases your chances of finding something you’re looking for as you have more pair of eyes scanning each sale, improves your negotiation (more on this later), and acts as a reality check (“are you really going to use that scythe to mow the lawn?” True story).

Day of the Sale

Early birds are annoying, but you do want to start your yard saling around the start time, which typically starts at either 8 or 9am. Here’s a list of stuff I recommend having on hand for a yard sale session:

• small change. Easier to pay for stuff and doesn’t look as bad compared to getting change for a $20 for an item you haggled down to $2.
• water bottle. Depending on the area you live in, you’ll get dehydrated quickly. Coffee is a common alternative.
• list of things you would like to get. This helps keep your searches more focused and reduces the chances that you missed something at a yard sale.
• hand sanitizer. You will be picking up and inspecting a lot of stuff of which you rarely know where it has been. Baby wipes are a good alternative too.

Depending on how big your list is, you’ll want to spend the first couple of minutes at a sale scanning the piles. If your initial impression is that it’s a bunch of crap, leave and get to the next sale. You can always come back if you regret it.

Haggling Guidelines

So you found an item or a couple of items that you’re interested in buying. Here are some guidelines:

• think whether you will actually use the item. This is where having a list comes in handy because if it’s on the list, you’ve already thought about it.
• think about what’s the most you would pay for it. Unless you ABSOLUTELY need that item, you should always be willing to walk away from the sale. You may have pangs of regret –I know I have on several occasions– but also know that you saved money and it’s one less item in your place. It also helps that you can usually find the same item at another sale.
• in general, you can reasonably start at half of the asking price. Anything below that significantly decreases your odds of getting the item and may also insult the seller. Exceptions to this are items that are listed for $1 or less. There’s an alternative to getting a lower price:
• see if there’s anything else at that particular yard sale that you’re interested in. Sometimes you can get a cheaper price per item if you offer to buy more items, as most sellers are most interested in getting rid of stuff rather than making a profit (more on this in another post on hosting a yard sale). This is where having friends along helps a lot, as you can pool the items that the group is interested in.
• be nice. (Most) Sellers put a lot of effort into running a yard sale, so be respectful. Even if their stuff is crap and/or the sellers are douchebags, be courteous, at least until you get into the car and drive off.  An aside to this is if you offer a reasonable price (i.e., at least half of the asking price) and they get mad about it, just walk away. It’s not worth it and more power to the seller.

Release the Hounds…

There are many sites that focus on yard sales with a ton of tips and how-to’s, but if you follow the suggestions listed above, you and your friends will have a productive and hopefully enjoyable yard sale experience. And if you do go yardsaling enough, you’ll most likely need to have a yard sale yourself, which I’ll talk about in another post. Until then, happy yardsaling!

This past weekend, I got to see King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, a documentary focused on two men, Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell, and their efforts to get the world record high score for the classic arcade game, Donkey Kong.

Although there was a lot of retro history and footage, especially of the Classic Videogame & Pinball Championships in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire, King of Kong was surprisingly accessible to the viewer uneducated in video game lore. Love, envy, disappointment, perseverance, redemption, King of Kong had it all, and by the end of the film, everyone in the theater wanted to see how things turn out for Wiebe and Mitchell. It’s like watching an early Wrestlemania event with a side of Rudy.

Currently, King of Kong is on a limited distribution schedule, so watch this film while you can, or petition your local theater to pick it up.

King of Kong official website
FAQ on King of Kong (NOTE: contains spoilers)
Twin Galaxies – The Official Arcade Scorekeepers

With a runtime of over 23 minutes, this is one of the more painful video captures I’ve ever seen, a Super Mario Brothers mod, apparently created by some masochistic Taiwanese. Hardest. SMB. Mod. Ever.

One can just watch the first couple of minutes, but for some reason I couldn’t look away, and after a while you’ll catch yourself cheering/yelling at the little mustachioed doode to make it.

• Hardest. Video. Game. Ever. (G4tv.com)
• And for those who can’t download stuff from G4, try this YouTube link.

Thanks to Knick for sending me the links to side scrolling pain.

• It’s more expensive, but it’s not prohibitively expensive; it’s the cheapest of all film formats.
• It’s relatively easy to get the equipment from garage sales or ebay.
• You could imitate the look of film with a normal video camera, but shooting film is an entirely different experience than shooting video. Anyone who’s shot super8 before knows what I’m talking about.
• Watching footage from a projector is such a different (and cooler) experience than viewing the same stuff via a dvd player and TV.
• Film is still the best archival media format. I could write a whole series of posts on this one, but it’ll be easier if you just check out the Home Movie Day or Film Forever sites.

Anyways, I thought I’d share some of the footage I got back from the developers, mainly for my friends in Oz and for Matt, owner of the currently defunct Fatt Matt’s Skatepark. Leave relevant comments if you want the film nerd details (i.e., what camera I used, film stock, film labs, etc.).

Enjoy.

click image link to download film

click image link to download film

click image link to download film

No serious Apple Computer Inc. collection is complete without a pair of these bad boys/girls. Bid now.

Comics with Problems is an online collection of public service announcement-type cartoons focused on health-related issues. Compiled and edited by Ethan Persoff, the comics vary widely in topic and aesthetics, from Rex Morgan M.D. talking about abortion, to Dennis the Menance and child abuse, to Madonna and AIDS. Reading these comics are surreal and ironic, like reading issue number Eight’s “absolutely psychotic Archie comic written by the F.B.I.,” or the laughable and equally sad anti-drug music video starring Whitney Houston and produced by Nancy Reagan.

My favorite one so far is the current issue, number twelve, “Security is an Eye Patch,” a government funded comic about Amblyopia –Lazy Eye– starring Peanuts characters Sally and Charlie Brown.

Duck Fadar is what you get if George Lucas made out with a wildlife preserve during a 4th of July fireworks celebration, except this has a much lower chance of traumatizing your kids. A floating rubber ducky with beak-fitted breathing apparatus, Duck Fadar also has an internal multicolor LED that cycles through different colors when put in the bathtub(perhaps he swallowed a lightsaber that was stuck on “demo” mode). Nothing helps one relax in the tub more than ambient cycling of primary colors radiated by homicidal waterfowl with parenting issues. Showing his true dark ambitions, Duck Fadar has nonreplaceable batteries, forcing you to add another drake from the dark side to your growing disposable army after 45 hours of discophibious service.

Unfortunately, Duck Fadar lacks a sound module to give you authentic heavy breathing action, so enter the I Rub My Duckie. To your friends and neighbors, it appears to be an ordinary rubber duckie. However, you know that it’s a an epileptic anatidae of ease adrift in your abode. A soothing, swimming samaritan suffering some seizures. Dare I oversimplify and label it a “mighty mallard masseuse”? Two-fisted AA action supplies 3 volts of pampering, pulsating power to this ducky dynamo, which jitters into action with a backrub “click”. A travel version is available for long lonely journeys where you need a companion, as well as an ebony version, so all your envious friends can exclaim “I love your big black duck!”. Look for one slipping into a quack near you.

MIT Swapmeet = 3(science fair) + (comic con)/4 + miami swapmeet

The Lore of the MIT Swapfest

I’ve heard stories of the MIT Swapfest from friends and co-workers, of old computer and electronic gear up for grabs. Need an oscilloscope? They’ve got it. Need a replacement power supply for a Commodore Plus4? Check. And did I mention old skool games? Oh the stories people told me, of the boxes of C64 floppies and NES gems.

In spite of these great tales, I rarely go to Boston. This was the excuse I used for several months until around May, when during a volunteer session at WinCycle, MB mentioned that she needed to do some hardware housecleaning and offload some of her old computer gear. For various reasons, MB and I couldn’t go in May or June. July was just as busy for the both of us, but enough was enough; we had to experience the MIT Swapmeet for ourselves. MB got a vendor pass for the July 16 event; vendor setup time was 7am, so we (actually MB) loaded the gear into the truck the night before and took off for Beantown at 4.30am.

Highlights, Low lifes, and Other Oddities

I expected the Swapfest to be an epic experience and it was, but for different reasons. Several things come to mind, not in any particular order:

Mr. Dooshbag

Let’s say that there was a seller that that we’ll call “Mr. Dooshbag.” One of the perks of being a vendor is that you get first dibs on other vendors’ stuff before the gates open for the public at 9am. We were setting up when Mr. Dooshbag stopped by our booth and inquired about our box of Atari and NES games. These were dupes of games MB and I already had, so we were willing to part with them, but Mr. Dooshbag wanted $5 for a box of 25 games. I balked and told MB to not take anything less than $15. Mr. Dooshbag offered $10 and MB took it. Granted, we’ve been in the car for the past two hours and just started taking stuff out of the truck when Mr. Dooshbag stopped by. He could smell our salesman n00bness and we got played.

Unsurprisingly, when we got set up and looked around at other vendors’ stuff, lo and behold, guess who was the one vendor at the whole swapfest selling NES and Atari games? Yup, Mr. Dooshbag. At this point, I was like, whatever, that’s just “good business sense.” When I stop by his booth, he was already set up, but he kindly told me to leave and come back in 10 minutes. Guess what time it was when he told me this? 10 minutes ’til 9am. Even though he was the only vendor to not let other vendors see his stuff, at that time I gave him the benefit of doubt. We’re new here, I said to myself.

Later in the Swapfest, I go to his booth again and check out his stuff. OK collection. Mostly commonly found NES games, with a couple of harder to find stuff. One of the games was Pro Wrestling (common), one I was actually looking for. He was selling it for $3, which was in line with Ebay sales, but here’s the kicker: I offered $1 for it, since we did sell him all those games for cheap. “You sold me those games earlier today, right? So I’ll give you a discount and sell it to you for $2.” Since I was already there, didn’t have to pay s/h, etc., I bought it for $2, but WTF! Granted, it was only a difference of $1, but look at it from the other side: he couldn’t even lower the price to $1.

To add salt to the wound: I asked him about a couple of the games, since he said that he “collects these all of the time and has thousands of these.” He knew NOTHING about the games, except for their rarity. Instead of being knowledgeable of the material, as a comic book store owner would, he’s more like a Border’s manager. For the record, I didn’t protest when MB sold the games and I obviously cared more about that sale than she did. OK, rant over.

The Parrot Guy

Like at any fleamarket or swapmeet, you’re gonna run into your share of characters. One such person was The Parrot Guy. He was this scraggily bearded fellow who wore a red hawaiian shirt and had a live parrot perched on his shoulder. He must be a regular/Swapfest coordinator because it seemed like everyone knew him/about him. In any case, there was all this birdcrap all over his shoulder and he would carry on a conversation as if it wasn’t there. And I mean ALL OVER his shoulder. To increase the gross out factor, he also tended to hang out in front of the hot dog stand, a fact I’m glad I didn’t know until AFTER MB and I had one for lunch. Which brings up another minor rant: boiled hot dogs? Maybe it’s because of a fire code or something, but that’s just ghetto. At least try and cook it over an majorly overclocked PC system or something.

Rap session with the Sinclairs

MB had a couple of Timex Sinclairs for sale and someone would walk by, look at MB’s Sinclair setup, gasp “OMG” and then give a 1-2 minute account of how the Sinclair affected them. “I remember typing this program… how long those programs took… I remember my father showing me a program…” And on and on. This went on for almost an hour, with about 20 stories in all, sometimes interacting with other folks (“Yeah! I remember that!”). My story? I brought a camcorder and didn’t record these sessions. Verdict: I’m a douche.

Other highlights

• Almost everyone we met was really nice, helpful, and fun to talk with.
• Unsurprisingly, a lot of computer stuff, ranging from floppy-based PC games, to brand new über case fans. One vendor had several interesting Mac laptop stuff (can’t remember the model right now), but MB said that she already owned a couple of them. There was also a ton of C64 software for sale that I didn’t have time to sort through.
• The MIT Radio Society and Harvard Wireless Club are co-sponsors of the event, so unsurprisingly all of the walkie talkie channels were used. MB and I had to switch channels several times during the Swapfest.
• Seeing a skinny, crooked teethed kid beaming with pride as he lugged under each arm an oscilloscope and an old SGI server.
• Altough there was a lot of geekiness at the Swapfest, it was still a swapmeet, which meant that there were a lot of 1st/2nd generation immigrants –mostly Haitian and Cuban(?), some Chinese– that hauled away tons of audio gear and scored free hardware at the end of the day, when vendors are offloading unsold items.

And other low points

• We drove there about a week or two after one of the ceiling panels in one of the tunnels struck and killed a driver. With my incredible navigational skills, instead of avoiding the tunnels, we drove through them not once, but four times.

Which brings up another point:

• Driving through Boston sucks. Driving through Cambridge sucks even more.

Overall, it was a great experience: MB offloaded a ton of stuff, we covered our expenses, got to meet a lot of cool people, check out interesting gear, and learned a couple of things for the next time we go back.

The last MIT Swapfest for 2006 is Oct. 15, and then goes underground until next April.

Last month, I had the chance to see Harry and the Potters play at the Main Street Museum in White River Junction, Vt. Yeah, they rocked.

Fronted by Harry Year 4 (Joe DeGeorge) and Harry Year 7 (Paul DeGeorge), Harry and the Potters play a blend of garage rock and indie-pop melodies. Their DIY attitude and enthusiasm is infectious and will have you hopping to such songs as “Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock,” “We Gotta Save Ginny Weasley,” and “Stick It To Delores.” They also played their love ballad, “My Wizard Scar Still Burns For You,” but don’t reach for that lighter, ’cause that’s a muggle thing to do.

After the show, I chatted with the boys for bit and bought for a friend a black t-shirt with the words “My Guitar is a Horcrux” silkscreened in silver, like the stuff Dumbledore uses in his Pensive.*

Harry and the Potters have a couple of albums out, with a new one to be released within the next couple of months. Personally, they are so much better live and I prefer the Internet Archive recordings of their California shows, specifically, their show at the Westside Jewish Community Center. But I recommend getting their albums, especially their self-titled release and “Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock!” The artwork is great and the CDs are inexpensive, even for a cheapskate like me.

As of this post, the Potters are preparing for their 2006 Summer Reading and Rocking tour. Check their website for concert dates. And while you’re at the Potters’ website, also check out their tour diary. It’s very well written and hilarious. Favorite section:

Yes, Minneapolis is a real rock city for sure, so they were ready when the Potters rolled into town. Prince gave us a good tour of the Park. He was making crazy claims about being the half-blood Prince, but I really think it was just a ploy for him to regain some relevance. Everyone knows Prince is a pure-blooded rocker.

Rock on, Harry Potter.

* – If you don’t know what a Horcrux, a Pensive, or who Dumbledore is, start reading the books already.