My loss is your gain... Thousands Invested!
I have a search running... I use eBay's Favourite searches functionality to monitor strange things which come up for auction on eBay infrequently. When something you're looking for pops up, eBay will email you. For instance, when the eventually invent a blood glucose monitoring watch, I'm there. I have a search running. So far, two years, no watch yet.
Over the past few years of shopping for that little special something on eBay, I've noticed that there are a few key phrases which can lead to some interesting or strange bargains. "Thousands invested!" is one of my favourites, along with "My loss is your gain"
Right now, I watch eBay for cars. Some of my searches take weeks to find something, but when they do, well, some of the cars on eBay can be ridiculous. CYIMPOOR? Others, you'd genuinely consider owning.
Sorry if this post isn't up to scratch-- but I've been saving these auctions for a long time for just this very post, but the problem is that many of them are no longer online.
posted by CatsFive @ Monday, May 30, 2005
10 Comments:
The first car link is awesomely funny. I like the doors that go up. (I'm totally not a car person, so I don't really know much about the quieter modifications.) And the Louis Vuitton interior! That is hilarious. If I could drive, I'd like a car like that. Although I'm not sure if I'm one to talk, since my dream car would probably be a DeLorean. Because they've got doors that go topwise! That's awesome!
Suicide Doors (they go backwards? That's what I gathered from the links) are kinda neat too, although the name of same makes me leery of actually having them. But it could just be a name. But then again, I've always been slightly paranoid w/r/t cars, and, say, would never get a convertible because of the safety concerns.
Ha! These are great! :D Though I think I'm blinded after looking at the world's ugliest Nissan (the CYIMPOOR link... AAAUGH!
I love the phrases you've identified, too... heh heh.
Rev. Syung Myung Me said...
I've always been slightly paranoid w/r/t cars, and, say, would never get a convertible because of the safety concerns.
No way!! :D I couldn't live without my convertible. (I'd right-click those and open in a new window... links in these comments can be a little kludgy).
Oh, they very definitely _look_ neat (especially that one, but I love that sort of design for cars -- cars just don't look the same anymore. Older cars look so much more classy. Actually, most older objects... older TVs and stuff. And I like older electronic components, too, with the faux wood grain and brushed metal... but that's getting off topic); it's just the safety aspect for me, not having the added structural support of the top, both in the event of a roll-over or also on the sides. (Though, your car does look pretty sturdy, so...)
But yeah -- I'm just paranoid when it comes to cars, I think, heh.
It's also hard to flip over a car that's wider than a double bed and rarely goes above 50 MPH. You'd have to be TRYING. ;D
I'm totally with you on the "retro design" stuff, of course... I live for that kind of thing.
Hehe, yeah -- though, I suppose that could be fun trying..8)
But yeah -- if I had my druthers, pretty much everything would look like it did in the 1950s and 1960s. (and before, too, really). Not quite so much the 1970s, but there's some cool things from that era, too.
Thing is, pretty much retro-everything is awesome. Retro-future is the best future!
You know, though, our collective obsession with the past has negative connotations to me (and there could be serious implications to this obsession, too). I think that there is a hell of a lot of cool things going on right now in terms of design, literature, music, etc., that I think that one day, when TODAY is "retro," many of us-- not you guys, natch-- will look back and think, what? Were we there? I don't remember that...
Hm, that's true too. And, it's kind of interesting, because most of the literature I read is newish, so that's one place where my retrolove hasn't really kicked in so much. Though, music -- I listen to a lot of older stuff -- perhaps too much, really. I liked it when I was working at my college station, because I was the music director for a while, and so I'd get to listen to everything that came down the pike... lots of awful stuff (no, really awful...), but a lot of cool stuff, too, that I wouldn't have picked up on, otherwise. (Although it's kind of frustrating sometimes because the student hosts would tend to gravitate to the established acts in the rotation, but our automation was pretty diverse.) I don't quite have that as much with the music, and mainstream radio/MTV2 (when it plays videos -- like its older brother, it's tending away from that...) doesn't really help, since most of what they seem to play is the Same Old Crap. But there're some cool bands going today who are putting on good shows; sometimes concerts are the best way to find that stuff out.
And, with design -- I'm a huge design junkie, and I really love the stuff that's like package design or advertising design, and there's some really cool stuff being done with that, but product design seems to leave me more and more cold. It doesn't seem that many risks are being taken anymore (though, I'd assume that at the time, fins weren't terribly risky either, but they were definitely an extraneous bit). TVs and suchlike seem to have become more utilitarian. About the only firm I can think of that's consistently impressing me with their design is Apple (and, boy, are they! MAN, their stuff is sexy.). It just seems that, for the most part, stereos and cars and all that seem to lack... personality, I guess. I like the big bulky cabinets you can't put anywhere! I like the big boats-of-cars that have fins and interesting grills and lots of curves! I like bubble windows!
Of course, I could be totally out of it -- from "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" (the Simpsons episode, not the movie), I actually wanted the Homer. I thought that was one of the coolest cars ever.
UGH... I have to disagree about Apple. I hate the whole "white plastic means 'the future'" and "round means cute" aesthetic their products have. It's as though their entire product line is evolving towards this.
I tell you who I think's had an unfailing sense of design for the last twenty years, and that's Peter Saville. You'll probably recognize a couple of his designs from New Order and other bands on the Factory record label. I'd love to find a book of his stuff.
Hm, I dunno -- I actually kind of like the round, white plastic stuff (like, despite the lack of extra buttons, I love the Apple mouse/keyboard. I like the new iMac stuff, too, just because it's so compact, although I am a big fan of the Brushed Metal stuff -- I like the MacMinis a lot, and I love my G5 PowerMac (oh my god looking at the inside is so clean and beautiful), so I think we'll have to agree to disagree on tat one... 8)
I'm a fan of Chopping Block's design -- probably most known for the recent They Might Be Giants stuff (I especially love the art for Mink Car). I used to be a huge fan of Shawn Wolfe, the creator of Beatkit, but he did a new art show not too long ago, and I didn't really like it very much -- the entire thing with Beatkit was that it was a faux brand, "Since 1984, Till 2000" -- with the whole thing that Beatkit would die in the year 2000... after Beatkit died, he was silent for a long, long time and everyone was really excited for his new stuff, and so when he did the new show, I went down there at the opening, and... his stuff was all exactly the same, just minus the "BeatKit" logo. Which was pretty much a really big letdown, I thought. (His other design stuff -- like last year's Bumbershoot stuff -- didn't really do much for me, either, sadly.) (BTW, Shawn Wolfe worked with Negativland on some of their stuff, most notably the Dispepsi era.) So, yeah. I dunno, it sorta made me sad, but the book of Wolfe's stuff I have (Uncanny) is still good!
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