Expanding the Collection

I've since added to my Goodwill collection after this past weekend. I had some pretty good luck for the most part. I found a battery for my laptop that gives me more disconnected time than either of my current batteries. I got an Dish network DVR-equipped receiver that I scavenged the 160GB hard drive out of. I did get a very recent DirecTV DVR, but unfortunately it's 320GB drive was DOA, so I returned it. I also grabbed another AS-IS original Xbox for cheap. It's DVD drive didn't work, but swapped it out with the drive from my flaky Xbox and it works great. Very quiet as well. Since I was still within the 14-day return period for the second Xbox I got (after the flaky one died), I returned that for a nice store credit for future visits.

The major bummer of the weekend was when I bought was was supposed to be a wireless network card for a PC, but inside the box was just a crappy modem. That was returned as well. I was very unhappy about that pig-in-a-poke.

As Tara says, I probably have a Goodwill addiction. I'm not sure I can really argue. It's like a Valley-wide treasure hunt. :)

The Goodwill Collection

I have sort of become a Goodwill addict. Tara I think just humors me on the 1/2 off weekends that the Phoenix stores have. I figured I'd try to go from memory (failing though it be as I approach my fourth decade in a few months) and compile a greatest hits of what we've found there.

Summer of 2000 Indigo iMac (works great)
Memory chips for said iMac
(2) Original Xboxes (I got the second one on Thursday after my other one crapped out. I couldn't leave my Halo game in the middle.)
PS2 video console
Older, but unused, barebones mini-tower with a 2.0 GHz Celeron and 128MB RAM
(2) roller computer bags
HP 6840 Wireless printer
HP 2500 Color Laserjet printer (status unknown, but it was only $5. need a yellow toner cartridge)
4-cup KitchenAid coffee maker
KitchenAid Coffee Grinder
Brother Intellifax 770 fax machine
PS2 controller
Xbox controller
New-in-box waffle iron
Tons of beading supplies for Tara
Lots of clothes (shorts, shirts, jeans, skirts, blouses)
External FireWire drive case
External USB/FireWire DVD burner
Large black Epicurean composite wood cutting board
Hand mixer
Purse for Tara (her old purse actually broke just outside a Goodwill as we were entering)
60 GB laptop hard drive ($5. Awesome deal. I just wish the other two I got with it hadn't been DOA)
Delonghi hot water pot
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
Several loaf pans, both non-stick metal and glass

I'm sure I'm missing some stuff. None if it is really cutting edge, but most is quite useful. For instance, the external DVD burner can be used with my ThinkPad to burn DVD images. The standard optical drive only burns CDs. Previously, I had to use one of my desktops (the last of which died months ago due to a bad BIOS upgrade) or Tara's laptop. Now that I found the old/new barebones, I once again have a desktop. I've upgraded the processor to a slightly newer Celeron D CPU (courtesy of Bookman's, my second favorite used computer parts source) and installed more memory (some also from Bookman's. Turns out I had compatible memory but didn't know it.) I just now was able to install Mac OS X 10.5.2 on it, so I've got a working Hackintosh as well. That leaves the status of the iMac in limbo, as the Hackintosh is MUCH faster. It's not as pretty, though. :)

The kitchen stuff has been very helpful. The cutting board is great. The coffee maker doesn't give the coffee a strange taste like our other one . Tara drinks coffee, so I took her word on it. The Delonghi hot pot is awesome. Boils water in 2 minutes. It looked nearly new when I got it. The coffee grinder is perfect for grinding spices.

I've had a few misses, as well. The two SATA laptop drives were toast, which sucked. They were a huge steal at $10. Some clothes didn't fit right. Luckily Goodwill has a great return policy. You get your refund on a Goodwill gift card (at least that's how it is done for the Central AZ Goodwill stores) that is good at any of the Central AZ stores.

I've also seen some deals that I had to pass on for one reason or another. I saw a great little Dell laser printer, but since we already had four printers in the house, not much need for it. I saw three TiVos this weekend that would have fed my TiVo addiction nicely, but I've got nowhere to put them. And I'd be single again if I'd bought them.

Hell, I was already on THIN ice for the Xbox on Thursday...

Highly-recommended Sci-Fi: Torchwood: Children of Earth

I'm a huge fan of science fiction and growing up in rural coastal Maine in the 70s/80s, it was scarce on TV. The various New England PBS stations did air Doctor Who, and I got hooked on it's cheezy effects and charms.

Fast-forward to 2005 and the BBC re-launches Doctor Who with vastly improved, but still somewhat hokey, effects and some stellar writing and acting. After his great guest shot starting in "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances", Capt. Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) was given his own more adult spin-off, Torchwood (an anagram of Doctor Who). With far less happy endings and much more moral ambiguity, it had a distinctly different vibe and tone than the generally more fun-loving Doctor Who.

After two seasons, Torchwood was moved to BBC1 ( I guess the more prestigious BBC channel) and given a short, five episode third season. It was aired as a "Five Night Event!" miniseries last week here in the States. And it was amazing. If you are new to Doctor Who and Torchwood, I'd recommend watching at least the DW eps involving Capt. Jack and Torchwood itself prior to watching. Otherwise, given the dense mythology of essentially TWO series, you'll be lost. Once you are up to speed and dive in, you'll be hooked. It's better than the previous two Torchwood series and even most Doctor Who episodes. It grabs you and just doesn't let up. And unlike me, you can watch it all at once on the just-released DVD sets: http://www.amazon.com/Torchwood-Children-Earth-John-Barrowman/dp/B002BVYBJW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248801656&sr=8-1

You'll be better off not reading any reviews or recaps of Children of Earth. It's best to see it unspoiled. Suffice it to say, it's probably something that could never have been made for American TV. And that's a very good thing.

Here is the minimum you need to watch for Capt. Jack background. Series 2 of Doctor Who features tons of Torchwood bits, including how it's founded, it's FAR future, and other background that is more or less covered in early Torchwood episodes. I'd recommend watching all the Doctor Who just because it's excellent, although it does have some dud episodes like all shows do.

Doctor Who Series 1 (w/Christopher Ecclestone): "The Empty Child" through "The Parting of the Ways"
Torchwood Season 1
Doctor Who Series 3 (w/David Tennant): "Utopia"/"The Sound of Drums"/"Last of the Time Lords"
Torchwood Season 2
Doctor Who Series 4 (w/David Tennant): "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End"

"We can't sell computers anymore"

That is a quote from a worker at a Goodwill we went to this past weekend. It seemed like it was for anti-identity theft purposes. I thought it funny because I bought the iMac a couple months ago and it still had the original owner's fully-functional hard drive with data and I see hard drives all the time at the various GW stores we frequent.

It was even more ironic because at the next store we went to after that one, there was what looked like a brand-new computer tower case. Upon further inspection, I saw that it had a motherboard inside as well. I couldn't figure out how to open the case easily, so I couldn't look inside. This was also the first GW store that had no computer monitors at all, so I couldn't plug it in and see what happened visually. Luckily, I'm a stubborn cuss. I plugged the case in over at the electronics testing bench and heard a successful boot beep. No glaring sounds indicating missing or no memory or anything. Since it was marked at only $17.99, I snagged it. Hell, the case and power supply alone were worth more than that.

Once I got home and plugged it into my monitor and booted it, it came up as a Celeron 2.0GHz with 128MB RAM. Not exactly a powerhouse box, but it did indeed work. I figured out how to pop open the case and it looked pristine. I'm guessing it's about 5 years old judging by the motherboard and BIOS on it. As far I can tell, it's never been used. There's no dust inside, all the metal covers for the drive bays were still in place, and the power supply's cables were still wire-tied together. It just needed drives (which I have in abundance) and more memory. A trip to Bookman's in Mesa later and I had 1GB of RAM for $20. Of course later that night I was grabbing one of my old video cards to install and found that I already had memory that would have worked. D'Oh! So I installed as much memory as I could and started installing operating systems. So far, it runs Windows 7 RC1 and Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackelope" fine. It's got a small wind turbine of a case cooling fan that is quite loud, but otherwise it's a great little box.

They might not sell computers (whatever, dude) but I've had some pretty good luck there. Granted none of it's cutting edge, but it's fine to mess around with for fun.

Project iMac

My first computer was a brand new Apple Mac SE with a whopping 20MB hard drive for my birthday my senior year of high school. At the time, that hard drive seemed HUGE. Not so much today.

Through most of my college years, I had the trusty SE with it's 9" B&W monitor and massive Imagewriter II printer. I eventually got an accelerator card for it and maxed out it's RAM at 1MB. During one of my "extra" senior years at WPI, I upgraded to a Centris 610 with a huge 13" Sony Trinitron monitor. Many a game of Hellcats over the Pacific with my Gravis mousestick were played.

Soon after graduation, I got a job at a small local computer store in Maine and learned the art of building an IBM-compatible PC. At some point I sold the Centris went fully to the Dark Side as PC user. Since '94 or '95, I haven't had a Mac.

A few weeks ago, I was poking around a Goodwill in Gilbert, AZ, and came across an Indigo iMac. I grabbed a power cord from a nearby rack and plugged it in in the testing area. I booted immediately and everything seemed to work fine. I'd been looking for a project to amuse myself during my spare time, and for $25, I couldn't pass up the little guy.

I found a Mac-compatible keyboard at another Goodwill near home and with one of my old USB mice, I had myself a fully-functioning, Summer of 2000 iMac G3 350Mhz in all it's glory. Mac OS 9.0.4 on it's 7GB hard drive with 192MB of RAM. I researched the latest compatible OS the little G3 could support and it turned out to be OS X 10.3.9. I was able to round up the install discs and after installing a larger hard drive I had hanging around, I got it installed no problem. I found a faster system board on eBay located in Queen Creek, and after verifying it was a compatible board, I bought it. The part number said it was a 450MHz board, but it turned out to be a newer 500Mhz board. The board also added FireWire and had double the onboard video memory. I swapped it out and it runs 10.3.9 pretty well.

I'm still trying to track down some compatible memory to max it out at 1GB of RAM, but it's turning out to be quite an ordeal. The first place I tried to order from "lost" my order, but I later found it wouldn't have worked in any case. A couple days ago, I got a call from my credit card company and the card that I tried to use had a ton of suspicious charges. Go figure. Luckily they rejected most of them and have filed fraud claims on the remaining ones.

The second company I tried to order from (the memory was explicitly listed as Mac-compatible) never charged my card or shipped memory. I tried calling and emailing, but they cancelled the order with no explanation. Great company, huh?

I found some that seemed to fit the bill, but when it arrived, the iMac didn't recognize it. I found a stack of memory chips at a nearby Goodwill yesterday, and was able to marinally increase my memory. I've loaded OS X 10.4 on it, but it runs pretty slow, as it is using all the available physical memory. I'm going to keep looking once I get paid again.

I did get a kick today when I was looking around a nearby pawn shop and found a much older Tangerine iMac marked at $100. Mine is way faster and I haven't spent nearly that much.

Hatteras - The Food

We didn't eat out much in Hatteras. Mostly because there really wasn't much need to and there aren't a whole lot of places. We had a house full of really good cooks and a ton of groceries. It worked out well. We did venture out a few times though. Here is what I can remember.

Teach's Lair. It was literally across from where we stayed. We ate lunch there a couple times. It's right on the water and is part of a marina. It's the first place we ate in Hatteras, as we met my aunt and uncle there after we hooked up with my parents. We were killing time until we could get the keys into the house. They also had the favorite item of the week. Their snow crab legs were absolutely amazing. At some point in the week, most of us had a plate of them for the meager price of $9.95. It was a steal. Their other food was really good as well. I loved my dirty shrimp and their homemade potato chips were great.

Pop's Raw Bar. This was a definite sleeper. My parents had been told it was really good, but when you first went in, you were greeted with a fairly seedy looking bar with a strong tobacco smoke smell. My brother later told me it's one of the rougher bars later at night. We went for lunch, though, so it was fine. I had some amazing crab cakes that totally belied the rest of the place. Perfectly fried, moist, and incredibly delicious. They also have killer hush puppies. I got a few as part of a lunch combo, but asked for a separate order because they were so good. Mom loved their raw oysters, but I took her word rather than trying them. I'm not a fan. Everyone else like their meals as well.

Dirty Dick's at the Hatteras-Ocracoke Ferry Landing. Meh. DD's is a chain along the Outer Banks. The food was ok, but nothing special. I ordered snow crab there as well, but they were pitifully small compared to Teach's Lair and more expensive. We went with my sister, her husband, and our brother for a night out without the kids. My brother and brother-in-law each had a smoked steak that was the nightly special and loved it.

The Jolly Roger in Ocracroke harbor. This was recommended to us by our aunt and uncle who ate here the day before we visited Ocracoke. It was about 30 degress colder with high winds, so it wasn't quite as enjoyable on their semi-enclosed deck. The food, however, was top-knotch. A wide-ranging menu and nothing we had was a miss. Tara had a great sandwich who's makeup I forget, but it had several layers of tastes. Spectacular. Just go on a warm day or dress appropriately.

A lot of places weren't open for the season during our visit. Overall, Teach's Lair and The Jolly Roger were our favorites. I did love the hush puppies at Pop's, but they have a limited menu compared to the others. The harbor-side dining reminded me a bit of Maine, but it definitely has a tropical vibe.

Printer Ressurection

Having had pretty good luck on our Goodwill run a last month, Tara and I decided check out the various stores on the last 50% Saturday. We had a couple things we were looking for. Tara wanted to find a used fax machine instead of being reliant on the local Kinko's. I kinda wanted to look for a waffle iron. Yeah, I dream big.

In one of our first stores, we found a really nice Brother i770 fax machine for $6.50, after the discount. She spent $3 alone just faxing a page or two, so this seemed like a good deal.

We hit several other locations nearby and found a pair of jeans and a book I liked. Most of the waffle irons were either beat up or of questionable electrical standards.

At the Dunlap/7th Street location, we noticed that they seemed to have a ton of late-model HP printers. In looking them over, I noticed one that seemed to be Wi-Fi-enabled, a Deskjet 6840. I did a search of the model on my trusty BlackBerry, and it was indeed a wi-fi printer. There was no power supply, but for $7.50, it was too good for geeky me to pass up.

We ended up going from Happy Valley in N. Phoenix to checking out a few stores we hadn't been to before in Scottsdale and Mesa/Tempe. Tara found a desk she loved for $10, but we had no way to transport it, so she had to pass. Our final tally was the fax, printer, Lonesome Dove novel, two pair of shorts for me and a pair or two of jeans for her.

After we got home, I was able to go online and found a used power supply for $19 including shipping. It arrived on Thursday or Friday. I plugged it in and it came to life immediately. One hurdle down. Now we just had to get some ink cartridges for it. This past Saturday we went around to the various electrionics and office supply stores looking for refilled ink. New cartridges run from $25-$34 and since we weren't sure if the printer worked, I didn't want to spend that much only to find there was a problem. Even the few refills we found were over $20.

On a whim, we stopped into Big Lots and found a refilled color cartridge for only $8. We snagged that and proceeded to look at other Big Lots to see if they have the black one. No luck. We started our search too late to go to the local Cartridge World. They were closed by the time we got there. (They turned out to be nearly as expensive as the big stores) We went to K-Mart and they had a few refills, but no black. I installed the color cartridge when we got home, but all that came out was red ink. So now I didn't know if it was the printer or the cheap cartridge. The next morning I tried again, and it did all three colors for one test sheet, and then only red and yellow. So the printer seemed to work, but the ink seemed bad.

Sunday we tried some stores further away and had no luck either. On a random suggestion from Tara, we stopped into a Walgreens near where we were in Mesa. They actually had cartridges for the best prices so far: $12 for black and $15 for color. I grabbed a black one and we headed home.

I went to install the new cartridge and it didn't fit. Upon close inspection, it was a color cartridge that was in the box of a black one. Since the other color wasn't working right, I put the new one in and got all three colors. It worked great.

Monday I picked up a black cartridge at Walgreens (I checked before I bought it to make sure) and it worked too. After some trial and error, I was able to get the printer to be recognized on our wireless home network and now we can print from anywhere in the house. And for about half the price of a new printer. Not too bad in the current economy.

Oh, and the fax machine worked great from the moment we plugged it in.