Claire's blog

If this post is fresh, take a look at my photostream here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/

If this post is old, look at the latest photo from this upload batch here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/7685272024

COMMENTARY/ANECDOTES:

 IT’S A SMALL WORLD. Lady at a sale remembered us! She said that SHE had had a yard sale (this wasn’t her house), and told us that we had bought the Wheel Of Fortune board game from her, but that she found the spinner, which is the whole crux to the game.We got her address in case we are ever in that area so we can come and get it.

Now — is there an Android app (that DOESN’T expire after a trial period, and is free) that makes location-based alerts, so that if we get within 1 mile of her house, it will remind us that she has our spinner? Becuase it’s not worth making a special trip for, and how the hell are we going to remember this?

FREE ICE CREAM AND GAS!  We went to a random Exxon we never would have gone to, and it was customer appreciation day! They gave us a $10 gas card AND free ice cream and water

Also, read my blue comments by the cd-player for a funny haggling anecdote.

SUMMARY:

Got up around 7AM, made it out driving by 7:39AM, and went out until 11:36AM, for a total of 3 hours 47 minutes (subtracting the 10min we spent at K-Mart picking up my prescription because it was on the way).

[Driving time was 2hr41min [71%]. Saleing time was 1hr6m [29%]….. There weren’t a lot of sales, and we expanded our usual radius just to get to the ones we did get to, so we spent a decent amount driving].

Spent $44.25 plus ~$11.31 gas for 47.8miles of driving (13.4 mpg @ $3.17/G), for a total cost of $55.56. … But really $30.56. Our numbers are all wrong this week because we ended up getting the $25 mattress for free. I don’t feel like editing them. The year-end summary will be correct, of course.

We made 20 purchases (22 items) for a total estimated value of $218.49, leading to a profit/savings of $162.93. .. Or maybe $25 more than that due to the mattress being free.

So in essence, we multiplied our $55.56 investment by 3.9X. Or something.

(Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $179 on the job pre-tax in order to take home the $162.93 in cash that we saved. How long does $179 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 4 hrs we spent here?)

Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $43.07/hr as a couple or $21.53/hr per person.

(Carolyn paid $10.00. Clint paid $5.00. Rest was from our ever-decreasing change jar.)

THE BOOTY:

• FREE (was $25.00): queen size mattress & box springs (EV:$60, because that’s the lowest local Craigslist price for the same thing… However, we paid $600 for our last mattress — which caused me to sleep in a different room than Carolyn for 5 yrs — so this is definitely a big savings compared to paying full price again. If this one is un-sleep-on-able, at least we won’t be out hundreds of dollars) (Plus, I intend to sell the old mattress for more than $25, so this should really be free!) – we did not pick this up until the following Thursday, but we exchanged information and got it because of the yard sale specifically mentioning this… Turns out she didn’t want $25 for this, so our numbers for this week are ALL WRONG!

• $10.00: scanner/printer/copier, HP C4250, CC210-00017, CN730CC186, model # SNPRB-0721 (EV:$67.34, though it lists at $199 on Amazon) – After our $5, $5, and $0 scanner purchases at previous yardsales — all fails — we were concerned about going down that road again. But this one still had shrink wrap on the scanner. Brand new. And then Carolyn and the girl selling it did dueling cellphones trying to see if it was supported for Windows 7. And it was! It was missing the USB cable, but it just so happened to be the same weird USB cable we bought at a yard sale last week for $0.50 :)

• $3.00: blacklight, 16″ bulb, 22″ fixture (EV:$7.99) – Already hung up on our upstairs wall. Finally, some UV-symmetry to the room! Strangely, the nail holes require the cord to hang from the top instead of the bottom. Stupid design. Connected to our X10 remotes (Code#6) for easy on-off. Took me awhile to mess around with various plug adapaters to get all that to fit. Picture forthcoming.

• $2.00: CD player, Philips Magnavox, AZ7368/17, KT 019814037185, Manufactured 199804, guy threw in a case, a car tape cassette adapter (Philips Magnavox AY3501), earbuds 1 missing cover, AC adapter (EV:$5.49) (EV for the tape adapter:$14.37 – This hilarious guy was trying to buy his other one for $1 instead of $2. He didn’t speak English, and kept just saying “One”. The guy selling it was like, “No, two!” The first guy repeated “One” at least 10 times in response. Finally he gave up and parted with it for 1. In the middle of this, he threw up his hands to ignore the “One” guy, and sold me mine, then the “One” guy started back up again. It was pretty hilarious.

• $2.00: mirror, Heineken Lager Beer, framed, 18.5×15.25?. Bartered down from $4. (EV:$9.99) (Hilarious price: $200) – gift for relatives

• $0.50: extension cord, brown, 2-prong (EV:$2.77) – specifically needed more of these
• $0.50: extension cords (2), brown, 2-prong (2@0.25/ea) (EV:$2.77/ea) – specifically needed more of these

• $0.25: action figure, Modok, Marvel, 5×4.75×4.25″, button on back (EV:$8.94 but ours is missing parts so we’ll downgrade it to $4) Also check out this link for more info) – Our purchase of this was inspired by this parody of the My Little Pony:Friendship Is Magic theme song entitled My Little M.O.D.O.K.

• $0.25: ice tray, sky blue (EV:$1) – We’re getting to the point where we may have to throw some ice trays out. But we are breeding them into a new race of easy-to-use ice trays. Some are WAY easier than others. Let the war begin!

• $0.25: book, My First Science Book- A Life-size Guide To Simple Experiments, 1990 (EV:$1.75) – for future-Sagan

• $0.125: Fluttershy, G4, McDonald’s toy 2011, with butterfly stand, 2.8×3″. (EV:$3.00) – I knew this day would come! G4 My Little Ponies at yard sales! Quicker than I expected.

• $0.125: Kilowog, Green Lantern, McDonald’s toy 2012, 4″x 6.75″ wide handspan, with opening and closing large fist. (EV:$2.00) – the new Green Lantern cartoon is fantastic, and we loved the movie as well (and the animated movies that recently came out). Time for us poozers to get a figure, since it’s only 12.5 cents.

• $0.125: Smurf, Greedy, McDonald’s toy 2011, 3×3″ (EV:$2.00) – never had anything Smurfy in my life!

• $0.125: Smurf, Painter, McDonald’s toy 2011, 3×3″ (EV:$4.25) – never had anything Smurfy in my life! Strange how this one is valued more.

• $FREE: This circular rug, about 4′ in diamter, which we forgot to add to our list of stuff gotten until a month later. . It was an outdoor rug at its previous house. I put it here because the wood here gets really slippery in the rain — I’ve slipped so hard as to grab the rail and pull the screws out of the wall and still be bleeding all over the place. This will helpfully mitigate that hazard. I’ll estimate its value at $40, but that is not counted in the numbers in this post,

• $FREE: jar, glass, cylinder, 12.875×3.5″ diameter, inter-locking lid (EV:hard to say, jar prices vary, and there’s nothing like this that I could easily find – I’ll say $7) – VERY VERY tall jar. Not sure what to use it for yet

• $FREE: jar, glass, cylinder, 10×3.5″ diameter, inter-locking lid (EV:$5) – Finally a jar large enough to contain my soldering iron with its solder and extra tip. Now if I could just find my other (larger-diameter) solder… My kit would be complete again.
• $FREE: cushion, circular, 11″ diameter, beige (EV:$1) – free cushions? ALWAYS

• $FREE: cushions (2), rectangular, 16×15″ (EV:$2) – free cushions? ALWAYS

• $FREE: gas card ($10.00) – We went to a random Exxon we never would have gone to, and it was customer appreciation day! They gave us a $10 gas card AND free ice cream and water. I wouldn’t normally count this as an effect of yardsaleing, but since we were ONLY at that one BECAUSE of yardsaleing, I’m counting this, and the value of the Klondike bars, in our total take.

• $FREE: ice cream bars (2), Klondike & Toasted Almond (EV:$2.00 because they sell them at the dollar store) – customer appreciation day!!

Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.

2012 STATS SO FAR:
TOTAL EXPEDITIONS: 13
TOTAL HOURS: 51:17
TOTAL MILES DRIVEN: ~553.8
TOTAL MONEY SPENT: $576.16
TOTAL ITEMS BOUGHT: 308-434 (depending on how you count multiple-item purchases: purchases vs items)
TOTAL ESTIMATED VALUE: $4,160.03

* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] While the Twilight movies are not awesome, incredible, great, or even really good… They are in fact in the passable to decent range, despite how much people who’ve never watched them love to make fun of them. Hell, I love to make fun of them too.

But vampire stories have always had romance. And romance movies have always been released. Why is nobody making fun of awful girlie crap like Where The Heart Is or Anywhere But Here? I guess it’s only fun to have the opposite opinion of a bunch of teenage girls.

To that end, I understand. I make fun of Hannah Montana even though I’ve never heard her music. But I also don’t consider that to be true music criticism. OMG vampires that sparkle, how horrible!! Yes, all vampire movies must be exactly the same!

Well — Twilight 3 had about 30 seconds of sparkling. And a few minutes of painful romance. But the rest? Interplay between groups of vampires and werewolves. Y’know what? If vampires and werewolves are in a movie, I’m watching it. So fuck you.

And you know what? EVEN THE DIRECTOR made fun of Twilight. But then he was chosen as director for Twilight 3, and withdrew his remarks. Pretty funny.

PEOPLE: blah blah same ones. Kristin Stewart was wearing a wig?!! Damn Bryce Dallas Howard is hot. That other chick was Scott Pilgrim‘s sister? The Bauhaus singer was in this?!?

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): Bella attempts to avoid having an undead hymen.

QUIRKS: Vampires. Werewolves. Romance. New vampires. I think everyone knows what goes on in these movies…

POLITICS: The censors required that the wolves have no genitalia whenever they appear on screen. I shit you not.

MORALS: Choice.. love.. blah blah.. Really though, having to choose between two people, when you love them both, must really suck. I’m glad I don’t really have to deal with that :)

And oh, choosing to become a vampire would indeed be a tough choice. Watching everyone you know die, etc, etc… I’d still do it, though. Even if it meant having to kill humans.

GOOD STUFF: Vampires. Werewolves. Four factions with their own agendas.

BAD STUFF: Well.. Bella and Edward certainly are made for each other. And I don’t mean that in a completely positive way. Between her stalkey obsessiveness, and his deceitful attempts to keep her safe by lying to her… They truly deserve each other. And I don’t mean that in a completely positive way :)

CONCLUSION: Definitely better than Twilight 2–not [quite] as annoying and emo. They had a cuddly romantic scene at the beginning and end, but overall there wasn’t quite so much annoyance with this one. It seems like the story has progressed, and the last 2 movies might be the most interesting ones yet. We shall see.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6.6/10. (Vs. 2.8/5, 5.9/10 for Twilight 2, and a 3/5, 7/10 for Twilight 1.)
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6/10. (Vs. 2.6/5, 5.5/10 for Twilight 2, and a 3/5, 7/10 for Twilight 1.)

(I was only gonna rate it 6/10, or 6.4/10, but then I looked back at the first Twilight movie, and it was rated 7/10. I thought this was pretty comparable, or maybe even better than the first one, so I adjusted up to 6.6/10. I still only consider this “decent”, not good. So I might be adjusting my ratings too much here.)

The native public rating for this movie on IMDB seems to be VERY gamed by the batch of Twilight-hating sheeple who rate movies they don’t even watch: 4.8/10. That is unrealistically low, and definitely voted on by many people who didn’t watch it.

But you take a pay service like Netflix, where people actually watch the movies they rate because they pay for the Netflix service, and you get a completely different rating: 4.3/5 stars on average. Which is quite high. Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.5/5 stars–it knows we like this less than the true average.

It’s very funny how our IMDB rating is higher than average, and our Netflix rating is lower than average. IMDB and Netflix voters are two different animals in some situations.

RECOMMENDATION: Most people have already made up their mind here.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Twilight 2 & 3 have shades of Underworld, what with a war between vampires and werewolves happening. But these movies are far more romance-oriented than most vampire/werewolf fantasy movies.

MOVIE QUOTE:

Edward Cullen: [about Jacob] Doesn’t he own a shirt?
^ Lol. Reminds me of Date Night where Steve Carell keeps asking Mark Wahlberg to take off his shirt.

COINCIDENCES: (Twilight 3: Eclipse, real life) Accidentally watched the Eclipse movie while the song Eclipse (8-bit cover of the Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon song) was on pause. (more…)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

PLOT SUMMARY: … it continues.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): Clingy emo chick won’t take no for an answer; proceeds to engage in self-destructive behavior.

PEOPLE: New director: Guy who directed The Golden Compass. BTW… Kristen Stewart‘s looking pretty hot these days.

RANDOM THOUGHTS:

holy shit this is so emo

now let’s build a motorcycle… wtf

what if this is all Bella’s delusions? like Garfield Minus Garfield?

*That* was the end fight? Really?

This cliffhanger is like a sitcom season finale.

WILHELM SCREAM: Twice during the movie “FacePunch”. The irony was not lost that in New Moon, they go to a movie and talk about how horrible it is. Self-deprecating commentary?

MORALS: Uh… I don’t even know. Sometimes love makes you do harmful things? Sometimes being a crazy clingy stalker bitch is the right thing to do because he really wants to be with you, even when he says no? Eek. Not a good moral in the real world. But in a fantasy world of werewolves and vampires, it actually made sense. Kind of.

BAD STUFF: “Too” romantic, and blisteringly emo… but then that basically applies to the original movie as well. But… it’s even more in this one. My god is this an emo movie. Holy moley. Cry like a baby and lay down in the woods and sleep because your love is so strong that you can’t walk! Ack.

CONCLUSION: The first movie was better… Haha. We both rated this as barely passable. The fantasy is what carries this movie, not the romance. And even that is a bit sub-par. But still passable… Probably only due to the big budget.

RATINGS: We both rated this as barely passable. I consider my “generic pass” rating to be 3/5 Netflix stars, 6/10 IMDB. This *rounded up* to that, but was slightly below that.

Clint: Netflix: 2.8/5 stars. IMDB: 5.9/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 2.6/5 stars. IMDB: 5.5/10.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 4.6/10, Netflix: 4.3/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 2.7/5 stars).

RECOMMENDATION: Neutral. At this point, you’ve either seen Twilight and decided not to continue, or you have.

SIMILAR MOVIES: This particular installation of the Twilight saga is most certainly influenced by Romeo & Juliet, which they feature in the movie.

MOVIE QUOTE: Jacob Black: Have you ever had a secret you couldn’t tell anyone?

COINCIDENCES: A double coincidence: (Twilight 2:New Moon, Nip Tuck S2E01) 2 videos within 2 nights with a person giving a dog cpr, or a dog (werewolf) giving a person cpr. WEIRD. PLUS… They both had girls whose right side of their face was scarred. [Note: We’ve been watching a lot of Nip/Tuck, and it might actually be more than 1 Nip Tuck episode to get this double-coincidence.] (more…)

My favorite pictures from each month in 2011.

Ideally I’d pick just one picture from each month, but that’s SO HARD. Some months are better than others. So I’ll try to make it 1-5 pictures from each month.

Here we go:

JANUARY:

microbead haberdashery

the dreaded two-ladder combo attack

Panik’s drawing of us for the SubGenius yearbook, which never happened after SubGenius leadership crucified him for being part of a joke that hurt poor wittle drama-llama Pisces’s feelings, even though it wasn’t even directed at her. Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.

You’re too young to smoke!

Megatron smoked.. and look at what happened to him!

FEBRUARY: Symmetric Dopplegangers:

MARCH:

Tabbitha’s awesome Gargoyles cake for Carolyn. I think this was the last time we saw Tabbitha.

I never knew goggles could be so sexy on Carolyn!

Mark’s hiding in the corner.. wuss :)

Awesome diagram of our home hardware setup

APRIL:

both drunk

Carolyn’s highschool yearbook picture, with Steve Buscemi eyes

Another Panik-creation! Magic Mist doesn’t have to care what you think! Magic Mist is made of Magic Mist!

MAY:

Goth Prom with signed Voltaire swag

power supply problems!

A slipper that is in constant, horrified agony. Just look at its face!

JUNE:

Realized mid-way that a repainting really isn’t gonna cut it, we need a new window.

new windows! $~2650

way too much house work after being dropped by insurance companies 3 times

Spent $200 and the only valuable info I got was this stupid fucking joke.

JULY:

It’s perfectly normal to sleep in a car with the sunroof open while it’s raining.

SubGenius artifacts

Carolyn cut my hair

Carolyn doesn’t know how to frown

AUGUST:

Scott Thompson of Kids In The Hall

earthquake “damage” (fallen gargoyle)

3rd fucking oral surgery there… tooth ultimately got pulled anyway

$5 worth of awesome yard sale bowling balls

SEPTEMBER:

with Nic Endo of Atari Teenage Riot

with Stephen Egerton of ALL/Descendents

with Scott Reynolds of ALL

Classic console center, ~$35

OCTOBER:

Carolyn’s one sexy sniper!

“I like guns, and guns like me. I like guns. They made America free.”

“You can’t fuck with me!”

NOVEMBER:

What’d I say? The tooth ultimately had to come out.

Chris’s picture looked even better after some photoshop color redistribution… GORY!

Did you know this happens if you mix 2 different soaps together? It takes several days.

“For glorious nation of Clarolyntopiastan!”

DECEMBER: 

We’re pretty much always this happy.

DO. NOT. WANT.

WANT.

2 of the ex-co-worker’s I’ve been trying to contact… J & K… Were in my dream.

But I was disheveled and about to go out yardsaleing (which was true in real life), so I avoided them.

They were in the basement of our highrise apartment building that we lived in. Our apartment was the entire top floor.

I opened all the blinds and could see the ocean in almost all directions, and got major vertigo (which I was getting twinges of in real life the past 2 days).

At some point, we traveled by raft from the ocean to the shore, then walked up to my building.

I asked Carolyn to set a location-based alarm (which I had also done on real life) to alert me if we were somewhere where they were checked in on FourSquare. Weird.

“Dreams… They’re the hurricanes that wash the soulfilth from the superdome of our nightminds.”
– Xavier:Renegade Angel (more…)

SUMMARY:

Short expedition! We only had 5 stops planned, but a scheduling error (don’t go to estate sales first; they open late!) basically turned it into 6 stops.

Got up around 7:20AM, Carolyn made breakfast, and we made it out driving by 7:56AM, until 9:40AM, for a total of 1 hour, 44 minutes.
Spent $7.55 plus ~$5.17 gas for 23.6 miles of driving (13.5 mpg @ $2.96/G), for a total cost of $12.72.

We made 15 purchases for a total estimated value of $95.32, leading to a profit/savings of $82.60.
So in essence, we multiplied our $12.72 investment by 7.5X.

(Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $91 on the job pre-tax in order to take home the $82.60 in cash that we saved. How long does $91 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 1.75hrs we spent here?)

Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $47.65/hr as a couple or $22.83/hr per person.

COMMENTARY/ANECDOTES:

At the last sale, the lady there could tell we knew our shit, and asked us if her prices were fair, because Carolyn counter-offered on the shower cap. Yea, it was an $18 shower cap, but that’s for fools who are willing to pay $18 for a shower cap. The more fools there are, the higher prices climb! Carolyn offered $0.50 because she didn’t want to pay $1. After all, she usually just uses a brown towel when henna’ing her hair. Now she has a ridiculous cap instead. It’s fun. But anyway, I gave her an honest assessment of her prices, which weren’t bad. $1 microbead pillows? $10 digital camera of lower resolution than the $3 one we just bought, but with memory card and non-broken zoom? Seemed legit. Perhaps I should have bought the camera, since our GE camera fucking sucks, and is rejecting freshly charged pairs of batteries 90% of the time.

(Clint spent $6.00 in bills, and Carolyn only spent from our change jar.)

THE BOOTY:

• $3.00: dvd player, Magnavox, MWD200GA, S-video out, manuf. 200610, SN#U41663026 ($14.99 on Ebay, but a past auction for $8 had no buyers… We’ll go with EV:$10) – Yes! Passed up the exact(?) same player the previous week, then realized this may be needed if we want to watch DVDs while on vacation (instead of stupid local reruns with commercials) … The other one was $3 also. $3 seems to be the going rate for DVD players a yard sales.

• $1.00: pillow, microbead neck pillow with battery-powered massaging action (EV:$12.99) – I’m maxed out on microbead pillows, but this one has a battery-powered massager, so I’ll try it :)

• $1.00: dvd, American Dad, Season 1, Volume 1 (1st 13 episodes of Season 1) (3 discs) (EV:$11.99) – mostly to watch the dvd extras

• $1.00: dvd, Family Guy, Season 3, Volume 2 (3 discs) (EV:$5.84) – dvd extras

• $0.50: bug killer, ant & roach killer, Raid, 17.5oz (EV:$4.14 but half empty so $2.07) – our war against the roaches is near-victorious, but cheap poison is always good

• $0.50: shower cap, red with white polka dots, Vigar, The Bright Company (EV:$17.08 — ridiculous price!) – for Carolyn to use when henna’ing

• $0.50: automobile sunscreen sunshade (EV:$4.96) – 3 cars means more of these

• $0.25: cat toys, mice, furry, 5 ea (EV:$0.79/ea * 5 = $3.95) – to eventually wind up under the stove, covered in poison

• $0.05: action figure, Plastic Man (DC Comics), from Batman The Brave And The Bold McDonald’s 2010 toy line, rubber arms with huge hand and one hand that’s a mallot, 4.25hx9″ armspan, 3 posable joints, arms bendable (EV:$1.20)

• $0.05: action figure, Stat Wars: Darth Vader, 2001, cutesy with cape, Family Guy Evil Monkeyish pose, 2.5″h not counting light saber, 3 posable joints (EV:$5.00)

• $0.05: toy car, Scooby Doo Mystery Van, 2001, Playing Mantis 2.125×1.875×1.5″ (EV:$10.99)

• $0.05: action figure, Fantastic Four: The Thing, Burger King 2005, smashes arms together with spring action by pushing button (EV:$1.50)

• $0.05: action figure, Star Wars: Darth Vader, 1998 LFL, Hasbro, 4.25″, 8 posable joints (EV:$12.50 in box, but ours is not in the box, so: $5)

• $0.05: action figure, Star Wars: Stormtrooper, with gun, with stand, 2006 LFL, Hasbro, 2.75″, head turns (EV:$1.25, for a similar one, but the face/gun/stand stand on ours is different. Lower quality. We’ll say $1.00.)

• $FREE: basket, 6x6x3.75″, no handles (EV:$1.50) – these things always find uses

Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.

* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] [Wikipedia link]

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Hippies waste our tax money, dose soldiers with LSD.

PEOPLE: Starring George Clooney (whose character reminds me of his character in O Brother, Where Art Thou?), Ewan McGregor (young Obi-Wan Kenobi in another movie talking about Jedi–weird), Jeff Bridges (the dude abides! Though he’s really spacy in the movie), and, speaking of spacy, Kevin Spacey (Lex Luther from Superman Returns, GERTY from the movie moon, American Beauty, K-PAX, etc).
Smaller roles by Stephan Lang (Colonel Miles Quaritch from Avatar) and Robert Patrick (T-1000 from Terminator 2, The Last Action Hero, Bridge To Terabithia, The Faculty, Wayne’s World)… and Stephen Root (the boss in News Radio, the stapler guy in Office Space).

QUIRKS: Based on a book. It’s one of those movies that is a comedy, even though a lot of what is happening is not funny. Though that definitely changes by the end…

Deals with paranormal psuedoscience; is roughly based on true events within our military: The study of remote viewing.

No women.

SOUNDTRACK: Billy Idol FTW!

POLITICS: Definitely some subtle political statements about how stupid the military complex can be, and how scared they are at falling behind the Russians at anything — even something stupid like remote viewing.

BAD STUFF: Some complain that this movie had a beginning and a middle, but no end. That’s kind of true. Be forewarned, this movie is about the journey, not the destination.

CONCLUSION: It’s a better movie than the plot summary would lend itself to making you think. That’s because this is one of those movies that is about the journey, not the destination. There’s barely a real ending — though the ending is, in fact, pretty hilariously awesome. This is actually a really good comedy, and a decent satire as well.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 9/10.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 6.6/10, Netflix: 3.4/5 stars.

Oh, and Rev. Ivan Stang of the Church Of The SubGenius absolutely loved this.

RECOMMENDATION: Check it out!

SIMILAR MOVIES: I’m really not sure which movies are similar to this… The guys-wandering-around-Iraq made me think of Three Kings, but the ridiculous military actions made me think of Wag The Dog or The Pentagon Wars with Kelsey Grammar.

MOVIE QUOTE: Lyn Cassady: “Don’t eat the eggs. We put LSD in the eggs.”

(more…)

SUMMARY:

Got up around 7:20AM, made it out driving by 8:00am and went out until 1:12PM. Subtracting the 20 minutes we spent in BJs, this worked out to a a total of 4 hours, 52 minutes. [Driving time was 3hr21min [69%]. Saleing time was 1hr31m [31%]. More time spent driving due to the derecho storm making it harder to get from point A to point B.]  DERECHO-DAMAGE PICTURES AT END OF THIS POST!

Spent $47.00 plus ~$11.09 gas for 41.2 miles of driving (11.0 mpg @ $2.96/G), for a total cost of $58.09.

We made 24 purchases (31 items if you count each piece of wood) for a total estimated value of $361.37, leading to a profit/savings of $303.28.

So in essence, we multiplied our $58.09 investment by 6.2X.

(Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $333 on the job pre-tax in order to take home the $303.28 in cash that we saved here. How long does $333 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 4.9 hrs we spent here?)

Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* “wage” of $62.32/hr as a couple or $31.16/hr per person.

COMMENTARY/ANECDOTES:

After storm yardsaling is crazy. We took lots of storm damage pictures.

Sleepy Hollow Road was completely closed due to a big tree and downed powerlines. Fortunately we know the backroads like the back of our hand around this area — so we got pictures from BOTH sides of the blocked road.

We were getting free cabinet-wood from a curbside (to use as sunblockers/attic flooring), when a random guy came and did the same thing. He was looking for a piece of wood to put his generator on because his ground was wet. He had just bought the generator last week from Costco for $600. What foresight!

We saw a woman putting up estate sale signs… So we followed her until she got back to the estate sale. Clint’s Dollar Store keychain-LED-flashlight came in handy: It was the only way to see in the basement. Looking through old tools in a pitch dark utility room feels very dramatic. We felt like emergency response rescue workers… Except we were rescuing old junk instead of people.

Neither Clint nor the general public realized “if the light is out, treat it like a 4 way stop”. Seven Corners was PARTICULARLY INSANE. It sounded like New York City. Constant beeping. Everyone was just going. That was around 9AM. By 12PM people were catching on to how to treat these intersections, and behaving better.

We stopped at BJ’s, which was having an open house. Spent 20 minutes or so and left without buying anything. The prices there didn’t really seem that spectacular. For the same cost, you can get 24 Yuengling beers in bottles instead of cans. Whoop-de-friggin’-doo.

post-derecho haul

THE BOOTY:

• $20.00: ping pong table, foldable, Pro-Action, 6’x3’x30″ (EV:$99.00) – Ideally we’d want one that could somehow be placed on top of a pool table, but be folded up when not used. Good luck with that. I’m not sure if that exists. This one is foldable/portable (need 2 people to carry it any appreciable distance), so at least it doesn’t take up a lot of space. It’s smaller than “normal” size, and we have no paddles or balls. But it also will make a great boardgame/card table, as it’s not so back-achingly low as our myriad of coffe tables.

• $4.00: storage unit, large plastic wheeled shelf w/4 drawers, Iris Wide Chest, 23.5x16x26.75″ (EV:$42.99) – Our utility room had built-in shelves we used for a decade. Last summer, we got some free bookcases from a curb and started using them to bring some order to the chaos. But there are still tools on the wall behind them, and they are kind of annoying to move. Well, these new ones have WHEELS and DRAWERS. Much easier to move around, much more organized. Replaced one of those shelves and moved it to another place in the house [between air hockey table and wall] that wasn’t being used much and could use some more shelves for stuff.

• $3.00: camera, Canon, A520, 4.0 mega pixels, Zoom lens 4x [but zooming doesn’t seem to work, lens kind of messed up], PC1106, No. 1122237588, no usb cable, no memory card, batteries worked. (EV:$29.99) – Takes a 2G SD (not SDHC) card. Carolyn’s claiming this as “Carolyn’s camera”. The zoom doesn’t work, though.

• $3.00: decoration, Halloween, Spider candelabra, covered in sequins, with spiders hanging off of it, can take apart and store flat (inside the HUGEST BAGGIE I’VE EVER SEEN) (EV:$59.99, though people have paid 74.95 for this[!!]) – for Britt’s birthday. She liked it.

• $3.00: toy, action figure, The Tick, Taco Bell balancing Tick with brick wall. (EV:$3.95) – We already had one without the stand, and didn’t even know the stand existed! Awesome! We managed to get BOTH of ours (this one, and the one we had) to balance on the stand at the same time. Win!

• $2.00: funnelcake maker, Carnival Funnel Cakes, 32 oz, includes 2 mixes (EV:$7.49 price tag, but some of the original mix was used so docking 25% to get $5.62) – almost bought this exact set from Angel/Susan’s yardsale for $3 last week, but I didn’t want it enough to pay $3. $2 however? Sure. Funnel cakes next party?

• $2.00: storage unit, small plastic wheeled shelf w/3 drawers, Iris Mini Chest, MCS-003, 14.1875×15.375×27.375 (EV:$29.99 price tag) – the companion to the $4 purchase above

• $2.00: toy, action figure, The Tick, Sewer Urchin, Taco Bell edition, with submerging dolphin (EV:$0.99) – Okay, we now have 3 out of 4 of the Taco Bell tick toys!

• $2.00: game, Save The World!, Crown Andrews (EV:$15.99) – for 2017 Sagan?

• $2.00: toy, workbench w/wooden tools, 16x16x9″, includes wooden hammer/carpenter ruler/wrench/screwdriver/nails/screws/nuts/vice grip (EV:$12.99, but ours is slightly more lavish) – for present-day Sagan

• $1.00: broom (hand broom), 13″ long including handle, 8×3″ brush, EPI Inc 7920-00-178-8315 (EV:$12.99) – Carolyn wanted this… for cleaning or something

• $0.50: deck of cards, “The Batman” animated series, missing the 3 of clubs (EV:$4.99, however, 3 of clubs is missing, so we’ll dock it inn half to $2.49) – Carolyn’s purchase

• $0.50: action figure, Kung Fu Panda, McDonald’s 2011 (EV:$3.95) – why not?

• $0.33: tape measure, 10′, Lufkin W9210 (EV:$11.25) – we always misplace tape measures, so the new probabalistic strategy is to just saturate the house with them :)

• $0.33: 2-to-3 prong adapter (EV:$0.69) – we use these a lot, but they also get misplaced

• $0.33: roll of thin wire, about as thin as the smallest string on a guitar, at least 50′ of it. (EV:$9.00) – for picturing hanging and minor repairs … I also repaired our gutters with guitar string before; this would have been a lot cheaper

• $0.25: toy, top, flip-top, blue, Eastern Hemisphere map on it (EV:$1.25) – for our vast top collection

• $0.25: USB cable, 5′, with Type B connector type on one end (EV:$1.40) – good to have on hand for weird USB devices

• $0.25: flashlight with huge clip, small light, Nextel, came with new AAA battery (EV:$1.30) – the clip is really nice, this will be tough to lose

• $0.25: headphones, Delta Airlines, in-flight audio, pretty much useless because it’s a dual-jack headphone for an airplane (EV:$0.99 [found 10 for $10 on Ebay; lost link]) – oops. How the hell can we use headphones with 2 jacks? Carolyn purchase ;)

• $FREE: mason jar lids, Ball, vacu-seal, 10 bands, 3 lids (EV:$1.13 price tag, but the price was for 12 complete lids. Prorated out to the parts actually present, we get: $1.13*(13/24)=$0.61]) – a gift

• $FREE: cd jewel case, blacklight green (EV:$5.52 for pack of 10, so $0.55 for this one) – since it’s free…

• $FREE: hard hat, with adjustable knob, really a nice hardhat – found on the side of the road! (EV:$5.40) – Now I can have a hard hat designated for the 2nd attic (that we installed a telecoping ladder into)

• $FREE: wood boards, 1 board @ 60×34.5″, 3 boards @ 11×34.5″, 1 board @ 17×34.5″, 1 board @ 35×18″, 1 board @ 35×18.5″, 1 board @ 35.5×17″ (EV:we’ll arbitrarily value these $1.00/ea, so $8 total) – all of them are now residing in various windows, thwarting the evil sun from hurting is with photons

Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.

* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)

COMEDY: Anderson Cooper comes out as a brony… In song

“Anderson Cooper’s Secret”, bu Lil’DeuceDeuce on YouTube.

Only 1 minute, 20 seconds.

LINK URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qSjHGSRD48&feature=player_embedded

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Warning: I shall be comparing this movie to The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.

PLOT SUMMARY: Dude time travels uncontrollably. Makes romance hard.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Pedophile grooms child to have sex with him once she’s legal, then cheats on her with a younger version from the past.

PEOPLE: Starring the lovely Rachel McAdams (Mean Girls, The Hot Chick, Wedding Crashers), who I still think is better as a blonde, and Eric Bana (Nero from Star Trek 0, Funny People, Troy, Hulk (2003), Black Hawk Down). With Ron Livingston (Peter from Office Space, Adaptation, Swingers, Some Folks Call It A Sling Blade, Band Of Brothers) and Jane McLean (Shoot ‘Em Up).

QUIRKS: Involuntary time travel and Romance. Based on a book.

VISUALS: No real need for them in this kind of movie.

MORALS: Time travel throws your entire moral compass in a river, leaving you to have to come up with new morals for situations that would otherwise be impossible. This was actually one of the interesting facets of the movie. If you wake up naked somewhere, you’re generally going to have to mug someone or burglarize some clothes. Like the movie Crank, we end up with a protagonist who is a criminal, but only for good reasons.

BAD STUFF: Primarily focuses on romance. Then again, compared to Benjamin Button, this could be a good thing, as they don’t lay on the thick drama. I think Ian called Benjamin Button “saccharine-stained”, but I could easily be remembering that wrong.

CONCLUSION: The strange altered relationship paradigm and unique morals created by the sci-fi time travel scenario made for an interesting and unique romance story. And I say this, because straight romance with no twists is one of the most horrible genres ever. But throw in some sci-fi, fantasy, or comedy, and suddenly romance is bearable. This is one those movies. This really reminded me of The Curious Case Benjamin Button, what with two souls having to deal with time anomalies affecting their relationships… But this movie did not lay it on quite as thick as Benjamin Button did. Which makes it possibly more enjoyable and less profound at the same time.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10. Same rating as Benjamin Button, but Clint at least had the initial impression he maybe liked this a bit more. It wasn’t quite as sappy or dramatic as Benjamin Button, and the sci-fi angle of time travel is more interesting [albeit less original] than the biological/fantasy angle of reverse aging. Carolyn agrees with that.

Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10. Same rating as Benjamin Button, but Carolyn says she liked this movie slightly less.

The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 7.2/10, Netflix: 3.8/5 stars (which, coincidentally, is also Netflix‘s predicted rating for us).

RECOMMENDATION: I recommend watching this and Benjamin Button on successive nights, and leaving a comment here as to how it was to experience both movies.

SIMILAR MOVIES: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is the most similar movie to this that I can think of. This had time travel, Benjamin Button had reverse aging. Both caused two soulmates to have to race against time, in one fashion or another, to be with each other. Benjamin Button definitely laid it on more thick and sappy, however. I think it would be interesting to watch Benjamin Button and this movie successively, to more accurately compare and contrast them.

MOVIE QUOTE: Clare Abshire: I wouldn’t change one second of our life together.

COINCIDENCES: (The Time Traveler’s Wife, Planetes #24) 2 videos in 2 days where someone had to *temporarily* be in a wheelchair due to hypothermia. Space/time travel’ll do that to ya.

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Ian didn’t like it. At least he is consistent with our consistence in feeling approximately the same about both this and Benjamin Button. :) (more…)

SCIENCE: H1N1 vaccine linked to potentially fatal nervous system condition

no! anybody who questions ANY vaccines is a child abuser who should go to jail for being a neo-luddite anti-science conspiracy theorist!

LINK URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9389139/H1N1-vaccine-linked-to-potentially-fatal-nervous-system-condition-study.html

CULTURE: 10 Things Most Americans Don’t Know About America

A great article about American culture, and it’s flaws.

Why the hell did I settle down here again? Oh yeah… Once upon a time, we had the best internet.

LINK URL: http://postmasculine.com/america

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Executive Order Grants US Gov’t New Powers Over Communication Systems

Obama: Continually proving himself as bad for civil rights as George W. Bush ever was. 

Seizing private communications facilities so that they are silenced? Really?

This is unconstitutional, anti-American, police-state bullshit. The type I’ve come to expect from Obama & Bush.

But oh. It’s to make us safer from a terrorist attack, right? So it’s okay, then. Just like the internet kill switch is okay! When Iran/Libya/Egypt seize communcations, it’s bad. When we do it, it’s good. America, fuck yeah.

And don’t say this was already law, or the executive order would have not been needed. If someplace is communicating something that actually incites violence, there are already laws in place to deal with that.

LINK URL: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/07/10/1611237/executive-order-grants-us-govt-new-powers-over-communication-systems?utm_source=feedburnerGoogle+Reader&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29&utm_content=Google+Reader