Nobody Loves You When You’re Gone

Sorry if my typing is a little off I hurt my finger, and I can’t type very well with my left hand.

My dad’s uncle died 3 months ago and my dad had to go and clean out his house. He thought he could make a quick buck off him by selling his old electronics and music. Nothing like making a quick buck off the dead. It sort of reminds me of A Christmas Carol. I think that if we weren’t in this situation he would not had wanted to make some money. Knowing him I know he still would have took the music and maybe a few TVs. Even if we weren’t in our current situation. Actually some of the electronics he brought got broken during transport. That’s karma for you. ;)

This made me think when I die what will people think of my music collection? If they do go through it to sell they would probably say “She listened to a lot of crappy music." Or maybe "Why does she have so many No Doubt and Garbage CDs?”.

So he had been trying to sell his old music. He said that when he died he took all the music and all the electronics. I know there is still more electronics he stashed (hid) away in the garage. Usually when my dad does something there is some kind of hidden motive. Him being enthusiastic about cleaning the over crowded garage didn’t come with a raised eyebrow from me.

To be honest he really doesn’t know that electronics depreciate very quickly. He even tried to pawn off the old electronics on me. I didn’t want them because I already have a new radio I got for Christmas. Who knows how old his electronics were? According to him he was going to sell the electronics at a pawn shop. He tried to, but they didn’t accept them. My idea was to sell them at a swap meet. Not like my dad would listen to my ideas anyway.

He managed to sell some records to my uncle. He was going to sell the rest (a mix of 80 cassettes and CDs) to Amoeba. I was also planning on selling some of my CDs too. I’m trying to purge my No Doubt collection. I have a few import singles that I bought and I didn’t even look at or listen to. Before I went I was on eBay pricing what I had. If they didn’t offer me what I thought the average price was I was going to not take it. Actually I’m trying to purge a lot of my stuff. I purged my closet in the beginning of last year, and I need to do it again.

When we get there they tell me that my 3 No Doubt CDs (2 singles and a sealed extra copy of “Return of Saturn“) are worth $5 all together or $1.67 each. I didn’t take the offer. I know I can get way more selling them on eBay or something. Plus I know what I’m selling.

This reminded me of back when I got the extra copy of “Return of Saturn”. I got the extra copy because you had to buy a copy for each wrist band to get into the Virgin Mega Store show. Since I was 16 at the time and not allowed to go by myself I had to buy 2 copies; one for me and one for my dad to get in. After I opened one of the copies to listen to I thought I could sell the other copy at school. I use to have it in my backpack like all the time. That was pretty hard for me back then because in 10th grade I had to cram like 3-4 big heavy books in my backpack. There was hardly room for anything else. I thought I was giving people a “deal” by selling it for like $15. I can’t believe I paid $18.99 for it. That’s pretty steep even back in 2000, but it cost less than a concert ticket. There was this girl who wanted to buy it, and my mom told me to sell it to her for $5. She told the girl I was selling it for $5. $5?! That’s a “crazy” price. I didn’t sell it to her because my mom set an unreasonable price.

Anyway back to my dad his “calculations” were that because he had 80 recordings it would yield $80. I told him not to bring the cassettes because they are a dead format. He said he went through them to see if they were the right ones in the right cases. I noticed there were 2 with the wrong cases. We didn’t take those to the store. When they evaluate what he brought a lot of it got rejected. They said what they are looking for are artist albums and not compilations. His uncle had a lot of compilations. My dad was upset that he would only get 5 cents per cassette. He ended up getting 42 in store credit.

But that is not all that happened. I was there looking for Garbage B-sides. I know I said I was purging my No Doubt ones. There wasn’t anything I wanted. Plus I found most of Garbage’s B-sides through a not so legal way. Torrents! There was still one song I couldn’t find and that was “Witness to Your Love”. It wasn’t right to put it on torrents since it’s on a charity CD. Well that’s what the darklings said. When I looked in the used “G” compilation section with a bit of searching I found it! :D "Give Listen Help" I didn’t have time to go pick up a copy when they were out with all the craziness of moving plus I don’t even know where the nearest Urban Outfitters is. According to the sticker placed on it. That CD is out of print and they charged a pretty penny for it $14.99.

The strange thing was that when I was browsing the No Doubt section it said that "Rocksteady" was out of print. Both covers the white one and the black one. I think it said it was rare too and it wasn't even the limited edition one.

I was hoping I would see somebody famous there. Maybe even Conan shooting a segment for his show, but I didn't see anybody famous. :( Anybody I recognized.

Be back for my next blog reviewing Conan's first Tonight show episode.