It seems you can't even give away old computers anymore. I have an old PowerMac 7100 that someone gave me a few years ago and that I never used. The thrift stores won't take it. They won't take any computer stuff anymore. No WONDER I can't find computer stuff at thrift stores anymore! I guess it is hard to sell them, and even harder to dispose of them.

How do people get rid of stuff? Nobody wanted to buy it at the garage sale last weekend. I don't really have a use for it. So, I guess I am stuck with a Power Macintosh 7100...with a monitor...and a box of Mac stuff...and a printer. Ugh! And now apparently you have to pay the dump or the recycling centers to take them. I can't even donate the thing.

Ah, well, what do you do?

I had a strange coincidence happen yesterday. Well, not really so much for me as for one of my eBay customers. I put some old BYTE magazines on eBay to see if they would sell (and for how much), and this one guy won four of my auctions (i.e. four magazines). It just so happened that in all the places in all the world, the guy who won my eBay auctions lives in Fremont (across the bridge from me).

But that's not the strange part. The strange part is that he used to live in an apartment just two buildings down from me. He moved out just three weeks ago. I can see his old apartment from mine - in fact, I am looking at it right now. I wonder if he ever looked over at my apartment and saw me sitting at my desk or working on something at my workbench? I didn't ask, and he didn't say.

It's a small world out there! It gets even smaller when you consider that one of my neighbors in my apartment building ALSO used to live in that same apartment two buildings down that I am looking at right now!

What are the chances of that? It is funny, too, because my wife once mentioned that maybe we should check that apartment out, since she saw it from the street and thought it looked interesting.

Hmm.

Maybe I should check it out.

By the way, the guy who won my four BYTE magazine auctions (who used to live in the apartment I am looking at right now) came by to collect them. That is how I found out he used to live there...since he, too, saw his old apartment through my window. Anyway, he wound up buying most of all the other BYTE magazines I hadn't sold, for a happy sum of money. Sweet!! Now I don't have to spend the time putting them up on eBay, and I've got one less box in my shop!

On another note, I am having trouble unloading my Amigas. This guy who won my auction for my Amiga 2000 computers STILL has not picked them up! But, I guess that's OK - he has until Monday. But here's the thing... While my auction was up, it had five bids on it, and this guy wrote me an email asking if I would close the auction early and give it to him if he gave me $300 and picked it up the next day. He said he lived near me. Well, the auction was for local pick-up, only, so I presumed that anybody bidding on it probably lived near me, so I basically told him to play the game like everyone else. At the time, the highest bid was only $217, so the guy had a good chance that he would get it for less than $300.

But I figured this guy was my ace in the hole. I could tell from the bidding history that there was a bidder who really wanted it - he kept coming back to top other bidders. I figured if this guy who wrote me was willing to give me $300 cash and pick it up the next day, that he must have really wanted it. I suspected he would pop in with a bid at some point and push the bid up closer to $300, since I figured this other bidder would be back to try to top him.

That is exactly what happened. In fact, the bidding war continued until it reached $330 at the end of the auction. The guy who had written to me was the winner. I guess he really wanted it! But now he has been making excuses about why he has not shown up to collect, yet. His latest excuse was that he is waiting for the money to clear the bank. So, I'm thinking, did he really not have $300 on the night he originally propositioned me? Does he really want this thing so badly that he would buy it even though he is so strapped for money? Is he playing me?

Enquiring minds want to know.

So, come Monday, we'll see if he is a flake. Hopefully, he'll show up to complete the transaction by then. Otherwise, I'm going to offer it to the other bidder who really wanted it. His high bid was $325. I'm sure he'd be happy to have it...and would probably collect it the following day with cash in hand.

Everybody wants something. They just don't always seem to know what they want, exactly, or what it takes to get it. I hope this guy doesn't flake out on me.