The Things People Throw Away

[Mad-Mike]

The only reason I did not take the rear projection Big Screen my neighbor was giving away years ago was because I could not play static screen video games on it (Tetris, Pac-Man, Pong....the like).

I'm finding, the older I get, the less I want to replace the stuff I have. I spent all of my 20's living off of people's "old junk" that was often 15+ years old and still worked like new (My Mitsubishi CS1984R 20"console and my portable Daytron Dt-505 B&W set being two of them), all of that "old junk" still works and functions (well...except the Mistu, but I'm fixing that). When I go out to buy something new, I always look it over for build quality, and 9 times out of 10, it NEVER passes. Either the plastic is too weak, or I find out it develops a problem after awhile due to poor design choices, or that I can already grab one at Goodwill used for $10.00.

People tend to also throw away things with minor to practically pointless problems. I found an Epiphone Les Paul guitar in the trash! All that was wrong with it? A hole between the volume and tone controls with a rock glued onto it.....that and someone poured beer down the body. My friend was about to chuck his 3.5HP Craftsman mower as goodwill would not take it, I got it and found all was wrong was the carburetor jet was clogged with varnished gas. Just tore down a quarter of a lot full of 2 foot tall foilage with it yesterday. It feels sometimes that I could live comfortably posession-wise from dumpster diving and thrift shops.