Archive for category Fun
What super power would you want?
Which super power would you want? There just sooo many options!
Be creative and you’d be amazed how there are truly infinite options. Read minds (telepathy), be able to fly, have the ability to teleport, change skin colors,…? Choose!
You can use your super enhancement for good, bad, or irrelevant causes, it doesn’t matter, but which power would you want?
A few minutes after typing this post, I stumbled onto a Wikipedia article listing super powers. Cool! Check it out and comment here about the one you’d love to have.
Craigslist and the Batman cookie jar
I had a collectible Batman cookie jar. I felt it was just taking up room in my apartment so decided to sell it. I put a Craigslist ad up in the “collectibles” section.
The going rate was $65 on ebay. I was asking $18. Yes, I’m a generous one. Really. (Although, I have smartened up in the sense that now people need to actually pay me for my ideas and such.) Not only was there an established going rate for this item, its value would likely increase over time, so the $18 price tag was quite the steal.
A man in his 40s comes over in the middle of the afternoon. He walks in, inspects the item and offers $15. (In my mind: Fifteen bucks? F^&# Y*#!)
I refuse and he agrees to pay $18. “It can’t hurt to try to get a better deal” he proclaims.
“I think $18 is an extremely fair price. Who is it for?”
“It’s a gift for my little son. He’s going to love it!”
“How old is he?”
“23.”
He then proceeded to walk around my apartment, looking for things to buy. Who said I was selling my other belongings?!??
He leaves in disappointment, hoping to have purchased other items.
The Craigslist lamp story
I was trying to sell a floor lamp. A simple Craigslist ad was placed under “furniture,” offering a $20 lamp.
Buyer: A woman with a strong foreign accent and broken English calls and leaves a message. We end up playing phone tag for 2 days. She then enthusiastically reaches me and agrees to come over and pay $20.
The Purchase: She calls me from her cell when she gets downstairs and asks me to bring it out. (A mistake on her part, in my view, since that didn’t give her a chance to test it). Anyways, I bring it down. Her daughter gets out of the driver’s seat of the car and speaks perfect English. We try to fit it into her car and have some difficulty.
She pauses and says “don’t worry, I’ll get it in, how much is it?”
“$20.” (I was very annoyed by the mere question. For more, see Craigslist and profitable frustration).
“Oh. Um. Really? Well, there are lots of ads on Craigslist for $5 lamps.”
“Maybe so, but this one is $20.”
“Oh. Would you take $10?”
“No.”
“Well, I have $15 on me so if that’s not enough, I’ll understand if you want to sell it to someone else.”
“Fine. Give me $15.”
Normally I wouldn’t give in to this academy award winning bullshiting performance but I was moving and couldn’t be bothered to place another ad.
How to buy profitable frustration on Craigslist
If you are about to sell your products on Craigslist, expect people to be cheap as hell. Don’t get me wrong - CL rocks but the cheapness is almost unbearable.
Here’s what you can expect:
In many cases, people will contact you, ask a million questions about the product and then delay the purchase for days while they negotaiate with other people. Believe it. There are a LOT of people out there with nothing better to do.
Next, expect people to make plans to come over and never show up without letting you know. That’s part of the double edge sword of Craigslist being so anonymous.
Moving on now… Expect people to come over and act dumb (at least dumber than they probably are). One very common scenario: ”Duuuuh, i thought it was only half this price. Isn’t it like $4 not $8?”
The Illiteracy Factor: Even if you had details in your ad, many people won’t read the ad and instead ask you questions about your items (via email, phone, or in person) when all the info is listed in the ad to avoid wasting time.
Additionally, many people will write to you asking if “they” are still available… what is “they”???
This one is almost a sure case: The person buying the item will have no respect for you whatsoever.
Regardless of the item, if you have the cheapest price in town, Craigslist people will still make a big deal about the cost and insist there are a few scratches. Expect them to use this as an excuse to get you to lower the price.
All in all, I still love Craigslist, although it can be a pain dealing with idiots. Still, profitable frustration is worth something.
24 Hours on Craigslist
Posted by admin in Entertainment, Fun on January 29th, 2006
I went to see the movie “24 Hours on Craigslist” last night. It’s a talking heads style documentary with lots of short clips, some of which were rather entertaining.
How it worked
An ad was posted on Craigslist looking for people who were willing to film Craigslist ad posters and follow their adventures (or lack thereof). This is fitting since the very nature of Craigslist is to post free classified ads! Craigslist then added a small feature where users could check off a box that said something like “include me in the Craigslist movie” and these people were filmed, the best of which made it to the big screen (or smaller big screens since it played in smaller theatres in select cities).
Film clips
They took clips from various posters in various categories around Craigslist. As expected, there were a lot of kuh-ray-zee people who were loving their 15 minutes of fame and took the opportunity to provide a brief synopsis of their odd lifestyles.
Some of these included a nutbar complaining that too many thin women in their early 20s were contacting him when all he wanted was 270 pound hook up. Groups of all types were shown briefly. Flash mobs were filmed (I’ll probably blog about those in the future). Couples who met directly or indirectly on Craigslist dating personals or other ads discussed their story. Other stories included people offering their services (such as maasages from a male adult video star), some guy trying to sell his boat, people looking to rent their apartments (reason for vacancy: former roomate killed in car crash - ouch.), and so on.
I’m impressed that the movie opened in minor theatres across North America from Montreal to LA. It was filmed mainly in San Francisco where Craig’s list began.
Overall, it was worth checking out, especially since Craig and his list have helped me on so many occasions I can’t count’em all.
Craigslist: The Movie
Posted by admin in Entertainment, Fun on January 27th, 2006
I first heard about the movie “24 Hours on Craigslist” in 2004. I followed up on it but the film’s website had apparently disappeared. It took a long time to get released but it’s finally coming out! I’ll go see it and get back to you…
Craigslist stories
I’ve been using Craigslist since early (~March) 2002. As thousands of others before and after me have done, I initially used CL for apartment hunting purposes. I then slowly discovered the many, many categories of what was to become one of my top 10 favorite websites ever. Ever? Yes, ever!
I have lots of Craigslist stories to tell. Some are my own, others belong to friends but all are worth discussing. Coming to this blog sometime soon.
How do you find yourself doing something?
I was writing a post the other day when I found myself writing “I found myself doing x” which lead me to question the whole idea of finding one’s self. How DO you find yourself?