In case you were living under a rock today, Apple announced the third generation iPad today, featuring HD video playback, better this and all of that.  So, for you early adopters who are dying to upgrade from what you’re currently using, eBay is offering really amazing prices via their Instant Sale option where they will buy your product outright from you.  eBay buys a plethora of products but have setup this nice landing page showing prices for the most common tablets and similar tech products like phones and e-readers.

Why sell it to eBay directly?  The fees associated with selling on the site have become ludicrous, averaging out to be roughly 10% of the winning bid plus the shipping costs.  That means if you sell an item for $90 and charge $10 for shipping, eBay wants 10% of $100, not $90 like it previously had.  Furthermore, you’ll lose another 3% on the total transaction when you accept payment via Paypal, which ironically enough eBay owns.  There’s also the hassle of dealing with bogus buyers who don’t pay, countless questions to answer and overall, it can be a real pain to sell electronics on eBay.

Craigslist is a great option, if you have a busy schedule or don’t trust meeting strangers, especially when you have valuable electronics, eBay’s Instant Sale option starts to sound more appealing.  Read over the FAQ‘s that they put together, they answer most common questions that you’ll have, the most common one being, when will I get paid and the answer is about 5 days after they receive your item.  Not just limited to tablets, phones and e-readers, eBay also buys GPS devices and other electronics, so unload your now out-dated iPad2 and have the cash to pre-order the new iPad!

Retail stores are in a fight right now, more than ever.  It’s no secret that Amazon [and a slew of other sites] has crushed the profit margins for many traditional brick and mortar stores, but these store fronts are still very much needed.  Clothing for example, it’s almost always cheaper online but most buyers prefer to try things on and see how they look first, even if the online store offers free return shipping and exchanges.  Other products such as cycling need a retail store front so you can be properly fitted by a professional, the same with most sports for that matter.  That doesn’t mean that after I’ve been fit for a product and taken your advice I will actually spend my money with your business, and here’s why.

I’ve decided to buy a pair of hiking boots, a purchase that I don’t plan to make again for 5+ years and wanted a pair of boots that would last.  Other than that, I knew almost nothing about what I was shopping for.  Fifteen years ago I would head to my local sporting good store and talk with a sales rep, they would listen to what I wanted to do and suggest something for me.  The Internet has flattened this process and I can now quickly use Amazon, REI and a slew of other specialty websites to pinpoint exactly what brand and type would work best by simply ticking some boxes on what I want to do, then read real customer reviews.  Customer reviews to some extend hold far more value than a salesperson, mostly because the customer has no reason to lie and no influence to sell you a specific brand, they have nothing to gain, making them the ideal reason for feedback.  In lass than fifteen minutes of reading I decided on a pair of Keen boots.  The only thing that slightly worried me was an occasional review about them being slightly smaller than true to size.  So I did something that is probably becoming more common for many, I went to a retail store to try on something I had no intention to ever buy in that store, only to get the proper size and fit.

Is this morally wrong? Perhaps.  Am I a bad person for not supporting local stores? I’ll answer this in a bit, my answer may surprise you.  Could I have been swayed to buy them in-store?  Possibly.

After looking on the Keen website I found that my local Army Navy store was an authorized retailer so I drove down to try them on.  This locally owned store has been a staple for decades in my town, but over the last few years has drifted away from the once surplus style store and focuses more on seasonal sports such as snowboarding and skateboarding than it ever has on what was once their core, gun sales, hunting and outdoor activities.  They are also famous for having blowout shoe sales and usually have a buy one get one 50% off sale running, so my fingers were crossed that I could maybe find Keen boots in my size in the racks of sale items, I didn’t.

The massive wall of shoes, boots and sneakers is about seven feet tall and maybe 30-40 feet wide, but I found the Keen display on the wall quickly and saw four employees about ten feet to my left.  I started looking at the shoes and saw the pricing was true to MSRP, about $140.00 for the boots.  Knowing I found them online for $70.00 with free shipping and free return shipping if I wasn’t happy, the sales team really needed to wow me in order to walk out with a pair that night.

Listening to the four sales people talk about guitar cords and the band that they were all apparently in while checking out shoes, I glanced over after picking up several pair and wondered why no one had come over to check on me, much less acknowledge why I was there.  A guy walked up to them and asked where the non-steel toe, non-insulated boots were, one of the salespeople pointed and said, “over there,” without even looking and kept on chatting with his coworkers.  Fed up, I finally walked over to them holding a pair and asked for a size 10.

One guy looked up at me, said OK and went in the back to fetch them, clearly disturbed I interrupted their deep conversations.  A minute later a voice came over a walkie-talkie attached to the hip of one of the salespeople that was still talking, it was the guy who offered to get me the boots.  He said they only had a 9.5, at which point I asked them if they had the “low” version in a size 10.  They did and a few seconds later he reappeared and put the box on a bench, turned and sat back down with his co-workers.  I looked at the other customer who was also still looking aimlessly without any help in disgust and he returned the glance.

There I was, handed a pair of boots to try on, no question as to what I would be doing them in, why it didn’t matter if they were low or mid versions, no one questioned if I wanted waterproof or planned on doing 5 mile weekend hikes or was going on a week long 100 mile adventure.  They didn’t even open the box lid and pull one out for me.  I sat there, dumbfounded, tried them on, stood up and walked around the bench and started to untie them and put them in the box. Surely someone would ask how they fit, if I needed another size, would I need socks (maybe working on an up-sell), but nothing.  I put the boots back in the box, closed the lid and stood up, walking away from the coworkers who hadn’t lost a beat in their conversation I said, “thanks” and looked at them then the box on the bench, one said, “sure” and didn’t even look at me.  I walked out.  The time was 7:30 at night, there were 4 cars in the parking lot including mine and they are open till 9pm.  Clearly the time was there to have a conversation and sell them to me.

Now to answer my own questions.  Could I have been swayed to buy them in-store? It would have been a stretch knowing that they were already available online for $70, maybe if they were $90 in store because I didn’t have to wait, or if it turned out the Keen boots I wanted were actually totally wrong and I was educated on what I did need.  Am I a bad person for not supporting local stores? I don’t think so.  Offer me quality service and a competitive price and I’ll support you.  That said, MSRP for the boots I wanted was $140, I found them on Amazon and a dozen other websites for $97, all with free shipping.  Additionally, buying online doesn’t reduce local jobs, my local UPS driver stopped by this morning to deliver my boots, he still needs a job, as do the people at the sorting facility where they came into before getting loaded on his truck.  In a round about way, someone in my area still has a job.

Traditional retail stores are still very much needed for both personal knowledge, fit and finish, there’s something nice about touching what you’re about to buy.  That said, horrible customer service and lack of attention to detail will continue to drive shoppers online.  Higher gas prices also mean consumers are thinking about where they will drive to buy something.  As of today, gas prices in my neighborhood are $3.65 / gallon, my car gets 29mpg and Army Navy, the store I went to try on my boots is about 20 miles round trip.  That means it cost about $2.50 + my time to try them on, so realistically I spent about an hour driving to and from plus time in the store to save almost 50% off retail and not have to be totally annoyed.

A minute later this was also tweeted:

If you follow me on Twitter you’ve probably already ready my reply.  Some quick math says that 98% of $29.1m is $28,518,000, divide that by $250 is 114,072 people, but it’s probably far more contributors since the tweet indicates or less.

What angers me most is that in my purely speculative and totally unscientific opinion, the vast majority of those who contributed to the Obama 2012 campaign don’t donate on a local level, help out a charity or donate time to a soup kitchen.  Furthermore, if money can be raised this quickly, why can’t we raise money to fund further research for cancer, AIDS, feed the hungry people in this country or maybe rebuild New Orleans.  We have recess, music and art programs being yanked from schools for lack of funding but more than 114,000 people have $250 to donate to a presidential campaign?  Please, tell me why!

As soon as I read this it reminded me one of the great rants ever happen on MSNBC:

Click here to view the embedded video.

That pretty much sums up how I feel.  I understand that large corporations and conglomerates donate beyond large sums of money so that they can have a say, or to buy a seat in the white house with some position or other, and that ultimately is where most of the corruption is.  What truly dumbfounds me is what you think you’re getting from a $250 donation and why you didn’t choose to spend it somewhere locally, where it may have more of an impact.

Four and a half long years ago I wrote How not to hire a wedding photographer, an article that was a response to a Craigslist ad about someone who had very unrealistic goals about what they wanted.  In the article I broke down each and every absurd request the person had and gave reasonable answers.  I’m going to attempt to do the same thing with a recent Craigslist ad where a bride is flying off the chain at what she seems to think is a case of hanging out and shooting photos.

The original ad posted to the Seattle Craigslist:

Attn: Wedding Photographers (Puget Sound)

WHY is finding an amazing wedding photographer so difficult? :/

I am a Bride who is getting married this summer and have yet to find a decently priced, exceptional, amazingly talented, fun photographer.

WHY because the word “WEDDING” is involved photographers think they can change you $ 3,000.00 for wedding photos? Oh, because no bride is going to go without so they are going to pay it, because they HAVE to. They are ripping people off for all they have! Why when you want to get married it costs you AT LEAST 15 grand after all is said-and-done? Its such CRAP!! I love all you $ 3,000.00 photographers out there but i think your prices are WACK. All your doing is hanging out at a wedding taking tons of photos and editing them.. and thats owrth 3 GRAND!!! You’re making so much money its crazy. I just wish people would be more realistic. I mean the “average” persons salary for 1 freaking month is somewhere around 3 grand. (Thats making 19$ an hour) So you’re going to take someones WHOLE MONTH paycheck for one flippen day of photos? Just because you CAN!!?????? So that maybe they will not be able to feed themselves or pay any other bills they have, right? It makes me SICK!

I know im speaking for more than just myself right now. Alot of brides out there think the same thing. & I bet all you fancy photographers wont even read this. oh-well.
Maybe there are cheaper photographers that will read this and LOVE to take my photos

Like last time, I’ll pick this apart and give some depth to her requests.

WHY is finding an amazing wedding photographer so difficult? :/ Truth be told, it’s not.  There are more options now than ever, magazines and websites like The Knot that specialize in city searches and the abundance and growth of Facebook alone in the last two-three years means it’s only a matter of updating your status with Looking for a wedding photographer, can someone please make a reccomdnation? If you’re like most users, you should have a dozen replies within the first thirty minutes.

I am a Bride who is getting married this summer and have yet to find a decently priced, exceptional, amazingly talented, fun photographer. Well the old saying is, you can have two but never three of the following: Cheap, Fast, Good.  Also, what is decently priced to you may be very affordable to someone else.

WHY because the word “WEDDING” is involved photographers think they can change you $ 3,000.00 for wedding photos? Oh, because no bride is going to go without so they are going to pay it, because they HAVE to. Actually, yes, it’s partly because the word wedding is involved, but you’re also not fully understanding the pricing structure for a wedding.  We’ll talk about that shortly since you’re going to continue going off into the deep end about it.  And photos are optional, just like a wedding is.  I’m no expert at law but I’m pretty sure most states in the USA only require some paperwork to be filled out at a county courthouse, the actual wedding ceremony, for the most part, is totally optional, along with the reception.

They are ripping people off for all they have! We are?  If all you have is $3,000 then you should probably put that towards your cost of living, student loans and the such, not towards a photographer. 

Why when you want to get married it costs you AT LEAST 15 grand after all is said-and-done? Its such CRAP!! As I’ve previously stated, it’s actually not $15,000.00, that’s the to hire people who will provide you with the setting and facility to celebrate your wedding.  If you want a professional chef to come to your house and make your dinner, you can expect to pay more for it than if you went to their establishment.

I love all you $ 3,000.00 photographers out there but i think your prices are WACK. All your doing is hanging out at a wedding taking tons of photos and editing them.. and thats owrth 3 GRAND!!! You’re making so much money its crazy. I just wish people would be more realistic. Thanks for the love, can never have enough of that.  Now, I’m not going to argue the $3,000.00 figure you keep because that’s somewhat dependent on where you live, you’d be lucky to find a photographer in New York City for that much and in Po-Dunk, Anywhere it might be three times the going rate, so for this we shall stick to it.  We don’t hang out.  We run a business.  A business that has overhead, such as insurance, gear upkeep and maintenance, transportation, advertising, web design and deployment, brochures, sample books, etc.  All at a cost.  While most wedding photographers don’t have the overhead of an actual storefront, they still incur costs in their home / home offices such as lines for fax machines, Internet, computers, etc.  Also, there is no W-2 form when you are a sole owner or LLC, this means you need to pay taxes in most states quarterly, most photographers off-load this to an accountant, an added cost.  There are no paid sick days, vacation days, personal or doctor days, those are luxuries not afforded to a wedding photographer.  Likewise, business hours are virtually every hour of every day.  There is no show up at 8am, take lunch from 12:30-1:30 and leave at 5pm, it’s in your best interest to answer phone calls at 8pm while you’re enjoying a movie with your family or reply to emails at 1am, so the client always feels their wedding is the most important in the world.

I mean the “average” persons salary for 1 freaking month is somewhere around 3 grand. (Thats making 19$ an hour) So you’re going to take someones WHOLE MONTH paycheck for one flippen day of photos? Just because you CAN!!?????? This is the part in the story where I honestly hope you are good at math.  I’m going to break down for you very simply what an average wedding consists of, time wise.

• 20 minutes: Initial in-bound inquirer from potential client via email or phone call + response
• 10 minutes: Follow up to schedule a meeting
• 60 minutes: Initial meeting, this is usually in a home office or a coffee shop of some sorts
• 30 minutes: Time it will take to draw up contracts, review discussions during initial meeting, send to you for review
• 10 minutes: Email reminding you that the first deposit needs to be sent to positively reserve your date
• 10 minutes: Email reminding you the remainder of the deposit needs to be paid in full 1 week prior to the wedding
• 60 minutes: Driving time to and from the wedding and between the wedding and reception.
• 10 hours: Provided you are getting married at 4pm and reception starts at 6pm and ends at 10pm, figure being at the Bride’s house by noon for the getting ready photos, the Groom’s shots, pre-bridal party posed shots, shots between the wedding and reception.  Basically starting at noon and ending at 10pm.
• 60 minutes: To import all digital photos and start the work-flow of editing, backing up originals and preparing for final images.
• 5 hours: Time spent editing photos.  This number varies for everyone, I’ve generally found in my experience that for every hour I’m shooting I can expect to spend one-half hour in the chair editing.  This is also weeding out bad photos and getting the final selection ready.
• 60 minutes: Time to export fully edited photos, catalog them and burn to DVD
• 30 minutes: To back up the edited photos and keep copies safe via external hard drive or more DVDs.

At this point we’re now at 21 hours.  This time has several variables in it and does not include sending files to a printer for photo prints, books, etc, plus picking them up, assembly of them or delivery to you, the client.  Rough math says that’s equal to about $142.86 per hour worked.  That is gross profit per hour.  Let’s factor in 15% taxes, that chops $450 off the top right there, factor in another $25.00 per month for insurance and a solid $150.00 per month for an accountant.  Then of course there is the cost of running a website, Facebook and Google paid ad campaigns, attending wedding expo’s, printing promo material, print advertisement in The Knot and similar magazines / websites.  Gas, car insurance and wear and tear on automobiles traveling to and from meetings and events.  All of this and I still haven’t said one word about the cost of actual camera equipment.  A wedding photographer who is charging $3,000 is probably doing so because they don’t want to undercut their competition but also because they’ve been doing it for a while and understand what it is to run a full business.  That said, they are probably bringing between $4,000 and $20,000 worth of camera gear with them to shoot your wedding.  This stuff is all wear and tear items that routinely need to be sent out for repair and replaced over time.  Let us not forget that this is for a paying client, not everyone who emails / calls will be a paying client due to schedule conflicts, priced too far above (or below, yes I’ve heard of clients saying photographer is too cheap for them), or other various reasons.  Same goes with the initial meeting, you don’t get up to bat and always hit a home run.  All that time is unpaid time spent working.

So that maybe they will not be able to feed themselves or pay any other bills they have, right? It makes me SICK!  It’s interesting you bring this up, as mentioned before this is a luxury, you actually don’t need any of this to get married.  I think what’s also worth mentioning here is that it’s customary here in the USA to expect an engagement ring equal to roughly three month’s salary of the groom-to-be.  By your numbers of the average salary, you’re expecting a $9,000 ring?  That’s a really nice used car.  Moreover, it’s worth probably about $1,500 if you try to actually sell it because the only thing of real value is the gold or platinum in the band, the diamond for all intense purposes is a thing of value only to initial purchaser, there is no publicly traded diamonds out there in the same fashion as precious metals.  It’s a number made up by those in control of the mines, that however is a whole other article.

I know im speaking for more than just myself right now. Alot of brides out there think the same thing. & I bet all you fancy photographers wont even read this. oh-well.  Well this photographer did read it and I’ll be sharing it with other ones for sure. 

Maybe there are cheaper photographers that will read this and LOVE to take my photos Pull your nose out of the clouds, photographers love to photograph, it’s one of those service oriented jobs where most who do it chose to do it, and they truly love their craft.  They also love to get paid for it, and if you aren’t willing to pay for their experience, talent, skill and professionalism, then you have missed a great opportunity.  There are plenty of new shooters who bottom-feed and try to start at $500 a wedding, your photographs are going to look like they were shot by a $500 wedding photographer.

You complained a lot about a wedding costing you $15,000, if the photographer is going to make up roughly one-fifth of your total investment.  That means that four-fifths of your budget is going to be spent on consumable, forgettable items.  I’m sorry, on your one-year anniversary no one is going to post on your Facebook wall about how much they loved the duck breast and mashed squash they had for dinner or how great the DJ was.  They are going to leave comments on the photographs, that’s how people will remember and more importantly, relive and rejoice at your special day.  For your guests, it’s just a day they had to get dressed up, eat some marginally OK food, listen to music they probably don’t like and give you a gift that you probably don’t need or money that will be used to re-coupe the cost of this whole event.

Cupcake Flavored Toothpaste.  Yes, start your morning off with cupcakes.  If it’s too sweet for you, there is the old standby of Bacon Flavored Toothpaste too.

• Change oil & filter
• Adjust tire pressure
• Fill washer fluid
• Check all bulbs
• Check all belts for signs of cracks
• Replace wiper blades
• Replace air filter
• …and on and on

Part of the new-to-me car ritual for myself and many others is the dawning of an air freshener to help cover the smell of rank ass, wet dog or cigarette smoke the previous owner left for you.  I’ve done it myself, standing in the auto parts store or mega box store’s auto section wondering what exactly black ice smells like, or if I am too manly for a clip-on-vent style freshener thus putting me back to the traditional tree section.  There’s a solution for all of this, but it’s in a different isle.

Modern car maintenance has pretty standard intervals depending on who made the car, they are usually around 30 or 50k miles with another big one around 80-100k miles.   Most people who buy used card rarely take them to the dealer for these interval checkups, opting to do the previously mentioned stuff themselves or from an independent, local mechanic, and that’s fine!  What is possibly the most missed item is the one that can not only help your car smell new and fresh again, it’s actually better for your health, and takes only five minutes to do.

The cabin air filter is similar to a home furnace filter and does just what the name implies, filters air from outside to within your car.  These should be done on most every car every 30k miles or so.  If you live in a damp and wet party of the country like the Pacific Northwest you may want to do this every year, regardless of miles, or even twice a year.  To help cut down on mold, mildew and other allergens.

They install in minutes with no tools for most cars and come with very good, very detailed instructions.  I actually found how to change mine by watching a short YouTube video clip, so if you’d prefer to see someone do it than reading a piece of paper, search there for your make and model.  When I changed mine the old filters looked look a squirrel had lived in there with leaves, dust, pollen and small sticks covering the filters.  It was gross to say the least, and that’s what the air I was breathing was passing over every single time I turned the heat on.  Two of my friends also bought used cars recently and I shot them a text message about the new filters I found, both got them and had very similar experiences, cabin air filters covered with debris, dust and just grossness.

Within the first few miles of driving after changing I could already tell it was working, the air just seemed cleaner, the previous owner of my car had been a heavy smoker.  The other thing I instantly noticed was the heat felt hotter, faster.  It’s been cold here lately and my car comes up to temperature pretty fast and the heat has been really good, but now it’s really nice and toasty.

The most amazing part of this whole ordeal is that none of my local auto parts stores stock the Fram Fresh Breeze filters.  Wal-Mart had them, of all places, but the biggest of big box stores was actually more expensive, to the tune of nearly $4 over ordering from Amazon.  Regardless if you’re mechanically inclined or not, you can do this simple routine maintenance item in five minutes or less for under $20.

The world is going to end in a year, so why bother making New Year’s resolutions?  More importantly, why use it as the kick-off for any goals?  A year is 365 days, nothing we do is measured by that number, and we Americans use the most complicated form of measuring on earth because we’re too stubborn to convert to metric!

Our own government has a list of popular New Year’s resolutions right on their official website! What’s not there is how quickly you will fail at them.  This isn’t for lack of trying though, it’s just set in our brain that we need to start on a specific time and reach a completed goal to feel successful.  The problem is, there is no metric, or systematic way of measuring most of these goals.  Just to go through some of the list our government has put forth will open your eyes and realize it’s a stupid idea to make a resolution for the New Year, make a life change instead and start now.

Drink less alcohol.  Great, I think as a culture we drink too much as it is.  How much did you drink last year?  Oh, you don’t know?  Well then you have zero clue if you’re successful for 2012 unless you stop altogether.

Eat healthier food.  I like this one, but sadly the food education is a cluster that deserves it’s own article, hell it’s own chapter.  There’s good fat, bad fat, good calories, bad calories, sugar is good, sugar is bad, eat more fruits and vegetables but don’t eat too much fruit because it’s too high in sugar and don’t eat too many potatoes because they are high in carbs and carbs are bad unless you’re an athlete and you need to carb load and drink lots of water but not eight glasses a day.  The amount of misinformation out there is rather scary, the number of restaurants that prepare sub-par food as a whole is appalling and the fact alone that Amazon has more than 50,000 cookbooks for sale should indicate that we really don’t know what the hell is good, tasty and healthy.

Lose weight.  I’ve struggled with this, going on a serious yo-yo diet over the last 5 years.  The goal should never be to lose weight but rather be fit and active, forever!  A P90x program will put you in great shape if you are true to yourself and complete it, but what happens after 90 days and you’ve met your fictitious goal weight or strength training?  There’s no excitement in doing it again because it’s not new and you know you can complete it.

Reduce, Reuse & Recycle.  Again another really great resolution, why aren’t you doing that now?  Or rather, two days ago when you bought and wrapped all your presents just so you could throw all that paper and ribbon away? Is it that hard for you to separate those items that have a recycle logo on them from ones that do not?  Do it now!

Manage stress.  I really don’t understand this resolution or why people try to commit to it.  Stress for most people I know comes from work, money and family / relationships.  It’s safe to say that what is stressful in your life on December 31st will more than likely be stressful for you on January 1st too.

My goal isn’t to crush any grand illusion you may have for the resolution you have next week, rather to ask yourself why it’s not starting today?  Why must we as a culture treat resolutions like a 12-step program in that we get rewarded along the way?  Should we hand out coins at 30 days of proper recycling?  Hit the all you can eat buffet after you lose the weight you wanted to as a celebratory gift for ourselves?  Eat something decadent and bad for us because we went 45 days of eating healthy food? Order two pitchers and line up the shots because it’s been three months since our last drink?

Be honest with yourself,realize that it’s silly to start a resolution simply because it’s the start of a new month and a new year, when you could make changes now and stay moving in that positive direction for the rest of your life.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There seems to be a million single-use kitchen gadgets to solve all your problems.  I’m a big fan of Alton Brown‘s theory on kitchen tools, the only single-use tool in the kitchen should be a fire extinguisher.  Of the tools I use the most, a cutting board is near the top of the list.  A quick note about cutting boards, they hold true to the old saying bigger is better.  I see friends use these super small cutting boards, mostly because they are easy to store or are cheap and wonder how the hell they manage.  Your cutting board should be at least as big as your biggest knife diagonal on it.  I personally prefer end grain butcher block style boards, without the grooved channels as seen in the photo above, but everyone has a preference.

The biggest problem with nearly any consumer grade cutting board is that they are thin and don’t weigh a lot, because they are meant to be stored off the counter when not in use.  Because of this they can slide around while you’re working on them, especially if there’s a little water or oil on your counter top, causing an unsafe working environment.  A quick fix can be made with non-stick shelf liner, a more green alternative to wetting some paper towels and putting them down and throwing them away after your done.  Best of all, it’s usually at the dollar store, or at nearly any discount store like Big Lots for a few bucks.  It can be cut to any size you want, washed and if it tears, cheaply replaced.  Several other sites also suggest placing kitchen towels under a cutting board, my experience is that the towel is always too big, has to be folded so many times that it makes the cutting surface unstable.

The photo used above also showcases my favorite knives, Global.  Hands down, one of the best investments you can make in a kitchen is a quality chef knife.  There’s little need for a 27 piece knife set, one good chef knife will do 90% of the work you need to do in the kitchen.

The parent category is Weird Stuff, and there is just that, a lot of weird stuff.  I did see a bunch of Nazi stuff, which I guess there’s a market for, but then you’ll find something you never knew existed but now need, an egg white separator called A Booger Boy / Snot A Mug.

Within the Weird Stuff category are three more sub-categories, that get stranger.

Slightly Unusual brings some more weird stuff but appears to be a slight cover-up for the adult section of eBay, which is typically very deeply hidden.  The last sub-category is Totally Bizarre, and it’s just that, bizarre.  Items you’ll find in here will range from I <3 Mudd stickers to several listings for pictures of women’s feet.

So now that I’ve gone ahead and ruined your productivity today, what strange or weird things have you found or bought on eBay?