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Diving for Goodies "I think we should close the blinds." I lifted my head from my slack-jawed examination of the television to see that a couple people were standing outside our window beside the huge pile of furniture and filled garbage bags that had been collecting there. For the last couple hours, a crew of people had been carting out load after load of stuff through the maintenance door beside our apartment. The sun was down now, and all I could make out were moving figures out there in the darkness. I got up to close the blinds, and, on closer examination, saw that the figures were a mom and her young son, both of whom were staring in my window at me, smiling. Now that's creepy. I go to the door to the patio and open it cautiously. "Can I help you?" I ask. "Is this stuff yours?" "No. Someone brought it out earlier." Beat. "Can we take some of it?" "Um. I don't know. It might belong to someone who's moving out, right?" "Oh. Okay." I close the door and the binds, and go sit back down on the couch. A couple minutes later, Lisa hears noise outside and goes to look. "They're going through the pile," she says. "Should I call the office?" "Yeah, that's probably a good idea." According to the doofus who answered the phone at the rental office, the management is cleaning out the building's basement, and getting rid of all the old furniture and junk stored down there. "So it's okay if people take stuff from the pile?" I ask. "Knock yourself out." I hang up and tell Lisa. "Think we should go look?" she asks. I glance outside. The pile looks like garbage. "Only if there's a bookshelf." With a grin, she grabs her shoes and hops the railing. There wasn't just a bookshelf. Once I was convinced to join her I found something surprising. A Panasonic laser printer. An out-of-date model, yes, but one that's still selling in the states for $400 US. Other people have gathered. One lady is rifling through a bag of children's toys, while an older gentlemen is hauling off a matching couch and loveseat. "There's a pile by every building!" someone says. And so, after plumbing the possibilities of our pile (and claiming two CD stands, a couple toasters and a new spatula), our little hunt turns into an Expedition. The first couple buildings don't have much, with the best catch being a La-Z-Boy with busted innards. They we notice that some of the buildings don't have piles beside them - the management just went and dumped it straight into the trash bins. And suddenly, our Expedition turned into Dumpster Diving. I must admit some trepidation in admitting that I did such a thing. But in our defense, it was all intact stuff. Not once did we plunge into a morass of old coffee grounds or chicken bones in hunt of an elusive wine bottle. In any case, we didn't find much, but the folks with us claimed bags of kids' toys, a cute watering can and some lampshades. Only at the last building did we score. It was fully dark now, so we were moving in the junk guided by two small flashlights. "What's this?" someone called. "Another printer?" I came to look. There was a pile of junk in a shopping cart. On the top was something upside down, but it did indeed have a paper tray. I wrestled it out and turned it over. A photocopier. Again, out-of-date, but the glass was intact and it looked in one piece. Underneath was a huge old dot matrix printer, and what looked to be a desktop computer under that. So I took it all. Just wheeled the whole shopping cart into our apartment. Other than little stuff, here's our booty: Bookshelf. Two shelves, wood, intact. It just needs the screws tightened, and maybe a couple new holes drilled if the others are stripped. A Xerox 5308 photocopier. We plugged it in and it fired up just fine. According to the panel displays it needs a new toner cartridge and will need a new print drum soon, but other than that, it's great. We're debating keeping it or selling it. A Panasonic KX-P6500 laser printer. Drivers are available for download, and toner cartridges are still available for this. It was missing a power cable, but I scooped one from work. If it still functions, we'll be keeping this one. One dot matrix printer. Don't know if it works, but it's a monster. We'll be seeing how much we can get for it at Cash Converters. Maybe enough for dinner at McDonald's. And finally, an Avanti Computer. As far as I can tell, Avanti doesn't even make computers anymore. This one is old enough to have two 5.25-inch floppy drives and a Turbo button. A Turbo button! Hee! I don't know what's inside this one yet, but I suspect it's no younger than a 386. Maybe an AT or an XT even. It may not even have a hard drive in there. Really not sure what to do with it. Anyone want it?
Oh, and by the way. Cut my hair. Well, Connie did anyway. Check it out. I'm like Vin Diesel now. A flabby, out-of-shape Vin Diesel, but you takes what you gets.
On Survivor: They merged! Yay! And first thing that happened? Jenna and Heidi got naked. For peanut butter, of all things. The big funny thing about the episode was not the naked chippies, but that there was so much drive to boot Roger, that the editors didn't even try to mislead the viewers. Boot! Roger gone! Okay, my pick for Thursday's episode: This is a clever bunch that I think will stick to their guns. Unless he wins immunity, Dave is going home.
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