Craigslist imitates life?

Guitar search or another day meeting jerks.

Its all about the odds I tell myself. Yesterday I had to go to the East side so I though I would drop in and see a used guitar that was on my route. The guitar came up on Craig’s days ago and I contacted them immediately as $95 seemed like a good deal. They responded and we were going to set a date until hours later I get another message a different account saying $95 was a mistake and they now wanted $200 which is almost full retail and out of the question.

I offered somewhat less and said it was pending the guitar being exactly as described. Three days later I arrive (after they set up and moved my meeting twice). Nice house in nice area but the first bad sign is a hand written “House For Sale” sign on the front lawn. The old dude is packing boxes in the garage and stops to take me into a house with no carpet just the underpad. His wife tells me a story of how the guitar was under a bed upstairs when they bought the house and that the guitar belonged to some actress… I mentioned it was a nice story but unless she was also famous for playing the guitar and left some document saying she was the owner it would not affect the value.

He hands me the guitar, first bad sign is he put new strings on it. The ad did not mention this nor did the photo show it, I said its not as described but he takes little notice until I find that he also lost one of the screws that holds the high E string so now what is the point of new strings if you can’t tune the string? I also notice a deep crack in the body that was not listed. He tells me he’ll find the screw and mail it to me. I also mentioned that his ad was misleading because he was clearly out of the area. I offer him $95 and he opens the door saying he has another offer, I ask if he lied to him too and leave.

Here’s the problem, everybody today is an expert at everything they do. They are consumers and the consumer is always right so how can anything they do be wrong? Our guy revised his ad last night, he still wants $200 but now he mentions the new strings and includes that this is a perfect guitar for the beginner, its not. You don’t buy a beginner a 40 year old guitar that has not been played for over thirty years. He’s a jerk for taking off the old strings as not only did he loose a part and put some fresh scratches on it but he also lost information that the strings could have told us about its condition and how it was stored. To this old timer 40 years is not a long time and that’s what allowed him to waste money on strings and monkey with something he knew little about.

You can get a brand new beginner guitar for $100, with a warranty and one that parts are available so how does his logic make his worth $200? Because its his, that’s it. I call it lottery mentality and its when anything that you find is worth a fortune because somebody else found one that was worth a million and hell I want mine too.

(Originally published September 10, 2011)

Why don’t we label energy usage like we label ingredients?

John Brower got me thinking with his post about saving the planet, well actually he was commenting about his son’s assignment to watch this film Six degrees that could change the world and he added about his efforts to save energy…   I agree that turning off an unused light bulb is a good thing but it’s a rather small thing when you compare it to industrial and military usage and those groups are actively working on making sure we never know the details of their operations. 

Part of the problem is much of the data of energy usage is shielded from our view for various reasons like;
-We’re only the public and why do we deserve to know the private business of huge corporations?
-We’re only the tax payers and why do we need to know how the military uses our resources?
-We’re only the consumers and why do we think we have a right to know what goes into what we buy?

Here’s one simple idea that could be implemented and its very similar to the laws that govern how ingredients are listed on products. How about if we had a “total energy cost” printed on the label? I don’t mean that label they put on refrigerators to show you how much it costs to run, you can (and should) buy a simple energy cost meter at the hardware store to find what all your appliances are costing you.

I’m talking about a label to display the amount of energy used to manufacture and deliver THAT product you are holding in your hand. How green are your vegetables when they require oil for chemicals, oil for farm equipment and oil for transportation to be sent halfway around the world to market?

Right now there is no easy way you can compare the energy cost of locally made vs. imported products, I believe having it at a glance would change people’s habits and that might be why we won’t see it and I’m thinking of Monsanto’s efforts to fight GMO labels.