A work friend of mine turned me on to Craigslist a few years ago. I've used it off and on to sell and buy items locally. I sold my old, broken, 30 year old snow blower. Yes, almost as old as me. My father and grandfather took great care of it, rebuilding a few times. I even added to its mechanical life with work on it in the past six years; but I'm certainly not the mechanical fix-it guy that they are. But its bearings finally went during the 2007/2008 snow season during the very last, and certainly deepest, snow storm. I knew I could fix it -- but I just didn't have the time and energy. And I really didn't want to junk the old faithful. Oh how many drifts did you help me through at my old and new houses. I put it on Craigslist at a modest price and had 10 people email me in two days. They guy who bought it fixed it the following week and emailed me his thanks. Good journey old friend, I hope there's another decade of blowing Cleveland snow in you.
It even helped out my next door neighbor, who had to move suddenly and did not have room for her old lawnmower. I helped her use Craigslist to sell it and a couple other items. It was a commercial grade mower. Had to come down in price a bit to get hits, but eventually I did, and moved a $1,000 mower in a week.
It's a great service, many, many, many people locally, across the country and even across the world now use it, and for local classifieds it's a lot better than Ebay in my view. This is particularly if you have something that is big that can't easily ship, you really don't want to junk something but it's not really that valuable, like to meet the people you do business with, or don't want to pay to have the item in the classifieds. You'd be amazed what's bought and sold there -- and I'm not talking about Craigslist's recent issues. But that too.
One of the most interesting things that Craigslist has attracted is random, funny, obnoxious and all-around amusing posts. Observing this, the creators allowed Craigslist users to nominate items to a "Best of Craigslist" category. Some of the posts are "explicitly sexual, scatalogical, offensive, graphic, tasteless, and/or not funny" -- but there's something for everyone who isn't afraid of being a little offended; or at least who will move on to the next post if they have higher sensibilities. Certainly not me.
There was a recent post that a friend showed me. It's a rant about how much one person detests, to the very marrow of their being, someone else. My friend was reading it me and some others today, and I don't think I laughed that hard in a very long time. I mean, ear to ear grin, knee slapping, belly thumping, down on my knees laughter. I really was toppled over. Don't know what got into me. Take a look -- there's no foul language so this one is safe for work, but it's absolutely unabashed in its creative, frustrated meanness. I'd hate to be on the other end of this acerbic wit.
There's so much more in it and in the others. Check it out if you haven't before.
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