Episode 121: Thrifting

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Flack
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Episode 121: Thrifting

Post by Flack »

Episode 121 is Online.

In Episode 121 of You Don’t Know Flack I talk about thrifting — this includes shopping at thrift stores, garage sales, antique malls and pawn shops. Throughout this episode I’ll tell you some of the best things I’ve found at these places along with some of the worst. I also talk a bit about what has replaced them (spoiler: online auctions).

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Episode 121: http://podcast.robohara.com/?p=165
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AArdvark
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Re: Episode 121: Thrifting

Post by AArdvark »

Great episode!
ladyjaye

Re: Episode 121: Thrifting

Post by ladyjaye »

This is really my favorite episode. It's reassuring to see that it's pretty much the same elsewhere in North America. Aside from videogames, we also collect 80s department store catalogs and VHS movies (either cult or cheesy) dubbed in French that were never released in French on DVD or Blu-ray (for example, The Wizard or BMX Bandits in French dub, or cheesy martial arts and action movies like most of Richard Harrison's filmography). One of our favorite places in Montreal is an antiques mall (we call it a flea market, but it's really mostly vintage stuff, not black market knock-offs).

Our best finds happened last summer, when Eric went through a lucky period when he found in the bottom of a bin in a Goodwill minty CIB copies of Ikaruga and Tales of Symphonia for the GameCube for $4 each. In that same period, he went to a neighborhood garage sale; didn't find anything there, but nearby an old lady was selling some stuff on her lawn. Eric spotted a Game Genie booklet and asked her if she had any other videogames, thinking that if she did, it'd be the same stuff found elsewhere, probably belonging to a grown-up child or grandchild. She said that she did and to wait a moment. She went back inside her home and then came out with several SNES games: the French NTSC version of Link to the Past (loose), Final Fantasy II loose, Final Fantasy III CIB, and Chrono Trigger CIB. She asked $20 for Chrono Trigger, and $10 for each of the other games. Eric didn't have $50 on him, so he paid for Chrono Trigger and bought the other games after rushing to an ATM to take out money. He later resold LttP (we already owned a CIB copy of the French NTSC version) for $50.

Of course, as mentioned in the podcast, the danger of such streaks of luck is that you half expect it to happen again, but it is getting more difficult as many other people are also looking for the same stuff as we do (including those catalogs). Here, Kijiji has taken Craigslist's place as the place where people sell back their items... Last year, we could still find great stuff, but it's more and more difficult, as people are now treating it like eBay (I hate when people indicate "make your price"). I did get some interesting items, including really nice (and reasonably priced) loose Zelda and Mario Bros. Game and Watches.
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k8track
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Re: Episode 121: Thrifting

Post by k8track »

I've been catching up on all your episodes from the beginning (I've also listened to everything since episode 169: Cruises to keep current) and finally got to this one. Thanks for the name check. I remember that day clearly. It stung me a bit at the time because that was exactly the kind of find I had been hoping for for years. I realize now that it's better for everyone that you found them because you converted and uploaded those programs for all to share, so it's better for the community.

And it was cool to be mentioned. You said my name like "Kate Track", and it never occurred to me that people would think of my name like that and might think I were a female named Kate. In my mind, I always pronounced it "K-8-Track." I was a counselor at a summer camp in 1997 and we all had nicknames. I was 8-Track. Not long after, I was signing up for an email account with our local provider. I tried to chose the username 8-Track, but it informed me that it couldn't start with a number, so I added the letter k (for Kevin), and I've been k8track ever since, I guess.

Don't do much thrifting these days, there's not much I want to buy anymore.
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Flack
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Re: Episode 121: Thrifting

Post by Flack »

I think I heard PDF say "kay-8-track" one time and I was like, wtf would you pronounce it like that, haha! Pronouncing names is the bane of my existance on my shows. Sprite Castle has SO many foreign listeners and I love reading their emails and feel terrible when I butcher their last names. I'm not even that good at American names so when I get emails from listeners in France, Germany, Switzerland, or anyone in South America, all bets are off.

I rarely go thrifting anymore for a few reasons. Mostly because, like you said, I'm not /looking/ for anything, and often find myself buying things I don't want or need simply to justify the trip. I have a stack of 50 or so vinyl albums that I don't even know if they play or not. That bag of floppy disks may have been one of the last retro computer finds I've had at a thrift store. These days I get excited if I find a Sega Genesis sports game. I don't buy them, but I still get excited over them. It's been a long time since I saw anything but broken down Pentium machines and CRT monitors in the computer section of a local thrift store.
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KeroroGunso
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Re: Episode 121: Thrifting

Post by KeroroGunso »

Wow.... so I was searching for this episode on my iTunes feed and it's gone. Man... does iTunes just remove stuff after awhile?

The boy is really into thrift stores right now. Thirft stores and YDKF, winning combination for the two of us.

Right now, he's obsessed with going back to the stores we visited last month and he found some new items to add to his vintage SIM gaming collection. I tried to explain to him, just because you found something there once, doesn't mean every visit to the same store will be a gold mine. Then I remember Rob talking about that. Maybe he'll listen to Rob. :lol:
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Flack
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Re: Episode 121: Thrifting

Post by Flack »

I'm flattered your boy likes the show.

The way podcast feeds work is a complicated tower of garbage. To make a long story short, websites have to generate XML RSS feeds for iTunes to read. Wordpress automatically generates this feed, but it's a little... fragile. Lots of things like renaming the website or changing the category will make it to where iTunes will no longer see it. It can also be difficult to get all the fields that iTunes required populated in a Wordpress feed. The solution is to feed the Wordpress feed into Feedburner, which is GREAT for podcast feeds (all of mine point there), but that adds a new problem. Feedburner feeds are limited to 1MB in size. If it gets larger than that, Feedburner stops updating and iTunes never gets the updates. It ends up being a balancing act of how many shows can you get in your feed without exceeding that 1MB limit so that iTunes keeps receiving the updates.

The reason they limit the size is because every single time you check for updates, you download the entire XML file. It's not a huge amount of data, but when you multiply it by x amount of updates per day times x amount of podcasts, I guess it can add up.

The good news is, every episode of all of my podcasts is available on podcast.robohara.com. It might not be quite as convenient with your phone, but you can always point your browser there, click, and stream the episode you want to hear.
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KeroroGunso
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Re: Episode 121: Thrifting

Post by KeroroGunso »

No worries Rob. That's I found it on your site. At first I thought I may have been crazy and dreamt the whole episode. But, found it. Downloaded it, sent it to my google drive and played it from there. It all worked out.

He was a bit jealous about your Apple II finds. He's been looking for one. Why... I don't know. He also is obsessed with finding old copies of MS operating systems. He thinks that it's great he has a boxed copy of Win 98 SE, full version. I had to talk him out of buying a new, unopened MS DOS 5.1 for $30. I figure, eventually I'll come across one at the local flea market.

Some of his comments are hilarious. When you said you found something in the wild, he asked me... 'He found it in the woods? How did he find a computer in the woods?' He's 10 and is literal.

The best comments he made were about your Disney trip. He has a weird obsession/fear of Small World. He thought that you being stuck in Small World was the funniest thing and made some kind of comment about you having a bad day at Disney. That had myself and his mother cracking up.

One day, I'll have him call the voice mail line.

The boy was highly entertained this weekend. Tonight, after another afternoon of thrifting, we listened to the VCR podcast (he's been nagging for a VCR for several weeks now) and the Tornado show. He became a storm chaser fan this summer. Made it halfway through the Tornado show before we got him. Of course he wanted to hear all of it... but there was still another hour to go.
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Flack
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Re: Episode 121: Thrifting

Post by Flack »

Well that is awesome! I am thrilled he is enjoying the old episodes. That's really funny about "in the wild."

I think at one point I had four or five Apple II computers, but when I got around to testing them only two of them worked. I either combined the others into a third working one or gave them to someone who I thought could fix them. I can't remember. I'm down to two working ones -- my "main" one, upstairs in my computer room, and a "spare" one, out in the garage. In 2016, the power supply on my main one blew up. A co-worker of mine was eventually able to repair the power supply but it was beyond my skill level to do. There is a place online that sells modern power supplies for Apple II computers but they cost $100 and I just couldn't justify putting a $100 power supply in a computer that cost me $2.

I can't remember the last time I saw any vintage computer stuff in a thrift store. I used to find Apple, Commodore, and Atari stuff all the time in thrift stores. I suspect it's all getting filtered out now and being auctioned off. I think the only chance of finding that stuff anymore is in smaller, non-name brand thrift stores, and even then you're liable to pay "collector" prices.

My local craigslist has a C64 system with disk drive, monitor, and a couple of games listed... for $1,200. I laugh every time I see it, and wonder what he will eventually get/take for it.
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obliterator918
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Re: Episode 121: Thrifting

Post by obliterator918 »

Flack wrote:My local craigslist has a C64 system with disk drive, monitor, and a couple of games listed... for $1,200. I laugh every time I see it, and wonder what he will eventually get/take for it.


Every couple of weeks or so, my CL alert shows me that somebody nearby is trying to sell a VIC-20 "Poker" cartridge for $7. I'm starting to root for the guy, hoping he finds a buyer...
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KeroroGunso
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Re: Episode 121: Thrifting

Post by KeroroGunso »

I'll have to pay a visit to this warehouse in my area. The guy was TONS of vintage 70's-80's electronics. Vacuum tubes, osciloscopes, microfilm readers, many TRS-80's, C-64's, Apple II's. And really wild crap, like a huge, 40 year old electron microscope and some kind of equipment that came from the local nuclear power plant. The son goes bonkers every visit.

I'll have to take some pictures and post them. It's a cool place, the owner is a bit on the religiousy side and have a chapel in the warehouse... I avoid that area.

But, man... the stuff just looks like it sat in a barn for 20 years and he keeps raising the prices and shuffling it around. When I first started visiting, C-64's were $60 each. Now, they are $75-100. He always says the prices are negotiable. Still, too rich for my blood. $20 is as high as I go for consoles or old computers.

But, he doesn't seem to really get what he has. He knows vintage electronics, but not well. I went in there looking for a Vic-20 power supply, told him there are several different variations of them and he dug around for awhile, found one, but was miffed that I insisted it was the wrong one. Plus, he was asking $20 for something that looked like it had been wet. Eh... It's like a crappy museum to me. I go there, cool stuff to see, but unless it was about half the ebay price, I'm not buying.

Probably the newest hardware I saw in there was a 1TB, IDE HDD. Used, behind a glass case and asking $70 for it. I could go to Best Buy, about 10 minutes away and get a 2TB for about $60. He just thinks everything he has is gold. It's cool stuff, just beat to hell and if it's still functional, needs some TLC.
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