February 09, 2005

• monkeyfilter login.
• Happy Pills
• A 40s or 50s era metal office desk, a beautiful light-green color. Heavy as all get-out, it was. Gave it away when I moved.
• oh, and congas.
• big hospital bill, excused because I was poor. Whew.
• a rather nice pair of Sony 3-way tower speakers from my stepbrother. the bass cone was torn. some tape done fixed that up right quick.
• a piece of ass
• and i really need it back now, fella
• An antique cedar chest, with brass hinges and lock (the key was still with it). Also has the wooden pegs instead of nails. Not too well-taken care of, but still gorgeous and lots of character.
• My free iPod ;)
• 21" Flat-screen Monitor
• Years ago, my wife and I stumbled into a screwed up promotion by Kraft Food. They were giving away prizes based on matching game pieces in packages of sliced American cheese, but unfortunately had given everyone the winning piece. Rather than hand out 15 million minivans (a minivan was the grand prize), they settled out of court and gave out several hundred dollars worth of coupons for free Kraft Foods products to anyone who submitted a prze piece. We got ours just before we moved to Bloomington, IN, where I was about to start grad school. We had no money, so the free boxes of Macaroni and Cheese, packages of Oscar Meyer hot dogs, and such came in very handy. Yes, it was actually pretty lame, but it was free stuff well-timed.
• Signed self-portrait of Leonard Cohen. Won it in a store raffle.
• Lost all my stuff in a house fire a month before Christmas in 1987. With four children and no money to spare I was devestated. All my college text books, Christmas presents, all of our belongings gone. The Red Cross replaced all my text books, gave me 400 dollars to buy Christmas presents for the kids and gave me pillows, sheets and blankets. The Salvation Army replaced my furniture and kitchen appliances. My fellow classmates filled my new rental place with more food than we knew what to do with. I was very lucky in that.
• A shout-out.
• A car. A friend moved to China and gave it to me.
• My grandmother's handmade Irish lace tableclothes. My mom had put them all away as too beautiful & valuable to use and forgotten about them, then she mailed me the box when she was moving. They're gorgeous: I use them all the time, now they have wine stains and small tears and are getting trashed and I think they're just getting better and better. Stuff is meant to be used, not locked away. (heresy from a museum person!)
• A ride on the Goodyear blimp.
• My 2 favorite scores have been a Vespa for $125 and a Vectrex with 12 games for $12.
• Hmm, other than Christmas and birthday gifts from family (which I reciprocate), I can't think of many times I've gotten something for free. Cheap, yes, as I'm a devoted thrift store shopper, but not free. And my mind keeps routing itself into "nicest thing I ever gave to someone else" mode. Hmm, maybe I really do enjoy giving much more than I enjoy getting? But here goes: I did get a rocking chair by shopping the curb about ten years ago. It was in perfect shape mechanically although the upholstery was in dreadful shape and ugly anyway. I used it for years by keeping an afghan thrown over it, then a few years back my mother insisted on reupholstering it and also refinished the arms. It's lovely now.
• The only thing I can think of is the 50-odd Maigret books in Norwegian translation I picked up at the Norwegian embassy in London. I gave them all to Mrs Skrik, and she promised to love me for ever.
• Oh yes, there was that time I noticed a shop had priced a hunk of beef for less money than the lowest denomination. I threw it in my basket with the rest of my stuff, took it through the check-out with the boredest-looking assistent, and walked out of the shop with two free dinners for the whole family.
• Hrm... I guess it's a toss up between a car, a sleigh bed, a HDTV, and a Cartier watch...
• A motorola Hi-Fi. It's loud as hell and looks awesome.
• barring gifts... it would have to be an envelope with 300 dollars in it... found in gutter when I was 15... I'm KING OF THE WORLD!!! (for about three days, then it was gone gone gone....)
• The railroad near my house replaced a bunch of ties, and tossed the old ones in the ditch. Some of them were in really great shape, if you turned them over, with the side that never saw the sun before now facing up. Of course, in theory I was stealing them, as they were on RR property and could be reclaimed at any time. In fact, they were an eyesore. Also, the act of getting them required a lot of hard work. I built pathways with them, and a compost bin that you could ride out a hurricane inside of.
• A relationship with my future wife. That really colored my life nicely. (And all those other wishy-washy women I wasted time on... I want all that time and money back! Seriously, man, if there's one thing I've learned dating, it's that if the chemistry isn't there, forget it.)
• A copy of The Closing of the American Mind and one of The Bible. In a newspaper stand at a University I was visiting.
• I got a free computer once. It's a little old now, but still useable. And I won $500 in college for filling out a survey.
• Do things you stole count?
• When i was ten, my dad who was a waiter, gave me an old beat-up pocket transistor radio, that someone had left at the restaurant. I bought a little earphone and i would listen to AM radio music at night, the radio under my pillow. I loved it. But probably the bestest free thing was the library card. I'd go every week and come back with armsful of books. I'd read past my bedtime and escape into other worlds by the light of the streetlamp outside my window. All the other free things i've gotten pale by comparison....let's see: Mordecai Richler's autograph on my copy of Barney's Version, Two pounds of Lindt chocolate from HBC, a silver bar from a defunct Canadian bank, Free gourmet lunch and a digital clock at the Chateau Laurier. Tons of similar stuff...
• A college roommate gave me his very comfortable, if a bit old, desk chair about 12 years ago, which I still use. Turns out it was a Herman Miller chair from the 80s, and though it's a bit beaten up and stained, it's still the most comfortable desk chair I've ever had. ... now if I could just get someone to give me a new Aeron chair for free...
• In terms of physical items, I'd say my wedding ring. It's a two-tone gold band made up of three wedding bands soldered together -- in the center is my father's original white gold wedding band (he wore it to war and back again), and on the outside are two yellow gold bands from my mom's original set. Totally free to me, and positively dripping with sentimental value. Runner up is an antique quarter-sawn oak filing cabinet that belonged to my grandmother -- when we got it, it was black and nasty looking (it had survived a house fire), but my father completely restored it, and now it's one of the most beautiful pieces of furniture I own.
• Three come to mind: Some really sweet records, Modern Jazz Quartet, some others. I think it was the result of an ugly divorce. Excellent old time cookbooks. A complete set of dishes -- 3 kinds of plates, 2 of bowls and 2 of mugs. Still use those all the time.
• When #2 left his California job, there was pretty much a free-for-all within the company since 80% of 120-odd people were made redundant. We scored two Motorola V60s (fancy at the time), a Dell laptop for his brother, a PC for a friend, two more cellphones for my sisters, a Palm Pilot for him and a Casseiopea PDA for me, plus assorted phone batteries and accessories. And others did better!
• An antique brass microscope that is spending it's second life as a lamp in my livingroom and a huge old 1930's DeForest floor model radio that still works like a charm and sounds great.
• Ah, stomper mentioned vinyl, which reminds me of an old vinyl EP I got quite by accident with the filing cabinet. On it is my grandmother, who died a few years ago, singing in a trio. I had to sit down for a moment when I heard it.
• The table I found was sitting in the alley behind my apartment building, and not only was its very existence marvellous, but equally amazing was that nobody had beat me to it.The West End of Vancouver is a very densely populated area chock full of avidly competitive alley hunters who scan the lanes with binoculars from their apartments (me included) as it's as close as we come to a sport here if you don't count drag queen bingo. I must have seen it seconds after they dropped it off by the dumpster. It boggles my mind that I would be so lucky, and actually restored my faith in the Universe as I tend to take the normal trials of life as personal attacks by the Gods - but now I have solid proof the Gods actually dig me. Man, I love my table.
• I totally forgot the 1/2 ounce I found on the sidewalk one time. ;-) THAT was a pleasant surprise!
• My very first computer. It was old when given to me in 2000, but worked well for internet, web design, and other assorted stuff until I replaced it in 2002. Now I expirement on it :o)
• Out of the trash: an old hospital bedside table, probably from the 40s or so, all wood with a bakelite top. I took the tray-arm and wheels off and it's in my living room now. From a co-worker: my first bunny Meda, who was a cranky bitch but who taught me that rabbits are generally cool little creatures.
• a handmade wooden victorian sign (simple white letters painted on a black background) approx 2 feet by 3 feet that says "costumes must be worn at all times" and i found a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk in front of my apartment once...but then i realized i couldn't walk past the spot without looking down and all around...very irritating after a while
• A hefty garbage bag full of shagweed found behind a gas station dumpster as a friend and I were walking back from a party. We were blitzed, and it seemed a good idea at the time. Only a two block walk. Looking back, I'm amazed we didn't get caught by either the cops or whoever it belonged to. It was the lowest quality stuff ever, but it worked. The other coolest thing ever was a folding wooden chess board someone threw away. Fantastic looking pieces carved from what might be hematite or some other really shiny rock and a green stone of some sort. Cool inlaid tiles full of little pictures. I can't imagine why it was in the garbage, but I'm glad it was.
• San Francisco Big Garbage Day! Happens twice a year, and everyone in my district would put out big or little items for free pickup. That was huge fun, especially as I lived near one of the pricier districts (Pacific Heights). I scored two big white leather ottomans to go with my two inherited big white leather chairs. Also a large pretty fake Chinese rug. Also a very rare cookbook by Marjorie Rawlings [sp] that I sold to a rare-book dealer for cash money when I needed it. I still have one of the chairs, the ottoman, and the rug. Looking at them right now. Scoooooooooooooooooooore!
• When I was an exchange student in Switzerland I found out that they have "big trash days". It's a day when anyone can set the large objects they wish to be rid of out on the kerb for pickup by the municipal authorities (much like SF's Big Garbage Day, only more romantic since it's in french*). Of course my fellow exchangees and I went nuts scoring fridges, rugs, radios and the like. I myself ended up with a pair of skis which came in very useful that winter. It didn't hold a candle to my finding a hundred and twenty bucks on the way to school when I was in the third grade, though. * I was in Lausanne. The statement would still be true had I been in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland although once you got into schwitzedutch-speaking areas all bets were off as to the romantic nature of saying "big trash day".
• participant in a (microbrew) beer survey. technically not free. they paid me!
• Hey, MJ! I've got a free remote control for ya...
• coffe maker, 2 pairs of shoes, a tap water filter thing and a brand new subwoofer. At my garage sale. So I made money -and- got more crap to move!
• Late to the game, as always, but just last week I was given this Primare CD player in return for building my friend a computer (music server) and a network to run it on. It's amazing, and not something I could afford to actually buy for myself. Free stuff rules.
• San Francisco Big Garbage Day! I always knew it as Put Out Night. That was one of my earliest and fondest memories of SF (that and Halloween in the Castro) back in '94. But maybe they changed the name due to the obvious connotations. Or maybe it was only my friends who called it Put Out Night. But you were always sure to "score big" on "Put Out Night"!
• In my neighbourhood, people put items they no longer want out at the sidewalk with signs saying "FREE!" all the time. I've picked up books, cds, dvds and other assorted junk (to my wife's dismay), but the best thing I ever brought home here was a fully functional NAD three-disc cd player. I can't imagine why it was discarded, but it's now mine. Hurray for recycling. We now put books and things out too, and there's quite the coommunity of sidewalk shoppers, particularly in the summer. It's one of the benefits of living in a small neighbourhood, I suppose, and very much appreciated by a good number of people.
• We do that as well, with my building. It's never been officially discussed, but has simply evolved; if you have something small to medium in good shape but unwanted, you put it in the laundry room, on a particular corner of the folding counter. If there is something unusual about the item, say, for instance you've grafted an extension cord to what remains of the electrical cord of a tv because, say, a very bad dog ate it you leave a little note, or maybe instructions. If it's bigger, or you're not sure anybody else would be interested in it, you put it outside near the bins, but protected from the rain in the covered parking area. And if you really think it useless, you put it beside the bins where it gets wet, but where a stranger passing by in the lane might see it and grab it. Only the completely trashed objects get thrown into the bin. Works great for the many English students here - there are probably dishes and pots that have been circulating for years at this point, and it also made me feel less guilty about upgrading my tv :)