Used Leather Bondage Items for Trade

You just can't make some of this stuff up... plucked today from the Barter section of CraigsList:

leather bondage items

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Reply to: emaildeleted@email.net
Date: 2008-02-28, 3:46PM EST

I have some leather items used twice a while ago. like new condition.
I am willing to trade for anything.
email me and make an offer.
will take cash also.
I can deliver also.

_______________________________
end of posting... start of commentary..........

Well, my first thought is this: Let's say you and the old lady decide to try something crazy, and you go out and invest in some of this fine gear... you determine after a few decidedly weird evenings that maybe bondage isn't for you. What exactly makes you think that you can recoup some of your losses on craigslist? Granted, if you could sell used sex gear anywhere, it would be on craigslst... but seriously, was it that much of an investment that you really need to try to get some cash back? After all, sex toys are a lot like new cars... they lose a ton of value as soon as you drive off the lot. (side note: if you ever find yourself driving a sex toy off of a lot, you've got a serious issue...)

second thought: delivery? Um, no thanks!

the third thought is this: What sort of trades would you expect? What might be accepted? What might be rejected? (shudder...)

"Well, me and the missus have an extra weedwacker we're not using...?"
"I knit sweaters for Pomeranians and Chihuahuas in my spare time...?"
"four tires and rims for a 1993 Honda Civic?"

Like if you are selling a motorcycle, and request a trade, you might get offers for ATVs, jet skis, other scooters, etc... so does that mean that this person got emails like "well obviously bondage isn't your thing... but are you interested in some furry suits?", or "got spanking machine?"...

Anyway, as it turns out, this charming individual did actually need an old VCR and a breadmaker... and yours truly is now looking for a babysitter Saturday night, wink wink.

I am SO high-tech

In accordance with my policy of always being on the very cutting edge of technology, I am happy to announce that now have a "cellular" telephone, which is a new device that allows mobile telephone communication. The phone does not need to attach to any cords or special antennae, and has a self contained battery unit as well, so I can actually have a small telephone-like device with me when I am away from traditional telephone systems. I don't mean to shock you, but the phone actually has buttons as well instead of a dial. It is a pretty neat gizmo, and call me crazy, but I think this type of device may someday become popular.

If you wish to call me when I am not at home or at work, you can call me, and my "cell phone" (short for cellular telephone, an neato abbreviated nickname I came up with) will allow me to talk with you as if I were on a real telephone. Now I know I've joked about make-believe science fiction-type technology before, but I assure you,. this is an actual real product, and I would be happy to show you how it works if you still don't believe me.

Your technologically advanced friend,
Brian

the wonderful, more than you can believe it!

Back in the day when I was working at my first bike shop, we used to order Chinese food from a place down the street called New Jia Wei, which they pronounced as "New Highway". The food was quite good... perhaps the tastebuds memory cortex is affected by the good times at that shop, but I might be inclined to claim it among the top 3 General Tso's chickens available in recorded history... it was definitely the best in downtown Wallingford.


Anyway, every time we would call in to order, they would take the info down, and then tell us "your order ready 10 minute ago", to which we would always reply, "wow, you guys are fast". It wasn't about making fun of their mastery of the English language, as their English was worlds better than our Chinese.


Anyway, we'd sit around the back table of the shop eating some great Chinese food, and we'd look though the bike shop porn... various catalogs, magazines, and special order/closeout buy sheets that would hit the mail every few days. We'd dream about how we might make our bikes a few ounces lighter for just a half a paycheck or so, and angrily debate the merits of 32 spoke three cross wheels vs a two cross lighter option... During one of those epic lunches, someone came across an add for an overseas parts manufacturer, ChengShung Industries, or something like that. The add featured eerily lit bicycle parts floating through the cosmos, with the tagline "the wonderful, more than you can believe it!"

It was our own little precursor to the internet rage of "all your base are belong to us" . Weird thing, the internet. Remember when identity theft was all about getting fake id's? I remember when my high school first got email/telnet/pine, and you could send a message through the computer to someone sitting all the way across the room. You could probably do it to other places too, but to do that you needed to use the big scary not-Apples on the other side of the room reserved for Computer Club members.

Much as I think cars and airplanes and color TV and the Kennedy assassinations and the Challenger disaster were big moments in time, I think we have gone through some wacky momentous times in our lifetimes too. It is interesting to think about how the technology changes from then till now match the personal changes... more to come...

Whiny Little Schnauzer Bitch, Part 2

So in a shocking turn of events, it turns out that the whiny little Schnauzer bitch is named Sadie, and her jackass owner is both a Yankees and a Giants fan, according to his jaunty team sportswear. Just a brief moment while I put on a surprised face.

In other dog training news, some lady at class tonight told me I should call my dog Cujo. I guess that is better than Beethoven... interesting generational gap though, how some folks instantly Saint Bernards with that really disturbing movie, while others think of Cujo instead. It sure would be neat if Disney came along and made a charming little movie about an adorable great white shark to undo all the Jaws damage. If they make that movie, I hope it also features Danny Pintauro trapped in a Pinto. Matter of fact, I think most movies should proudly feature Danny Pintauro trapped in a Pinto. Furthermore, I think that my typical workweek should proudly feature me trapped in a Pinto with Alyssa Milano... but I digress...

Speaking of rabid dogs and 80's sitcoms, how much better would Who's the Boss be if the wacky adventures also happened to feature a 200-pound rabid dog?

"Next Season on CBS, tune it to "Cujo's the Boss, a TV show about Tony Micelli, the housekeeper, Angela Bauer, the career-woman, their kids Samantha and Jonathon, Mona, Angela's man-crazy mother, and Cujo, the loveable family pet, who happens to get rabies and then traps the whole cast in a a Ford Pinto... hilarity ensues."

Actually, I think a lot of 80's TV shows could benefit from the reintroduction of a new character. While the late introduction of a cute new character is a classic indicator that a show has jumped the shark, (think Cousin Oliver, Sam, Scrappy Doo) I think such a trend might be avoided if the cute new character turns out to be a 200-pound rabid dog. "Dang Tootie, you sure are good on them rollerskates... lets see how fast you are when Mrs. Garret accidentally lets Cujo into the dormitory!" ... "Whatchoo talking 'bout Cujo?" ... "Gosh, Mr. Ferley, I didn't see any see any giant rabid dogs in our apartment..."

Well, having beaten that topic to death, it is off to bed for me... but first a quick apology... A blogger should love and cherish those who takes the time to read, and frankly, you deserve better than this entry... it is such a cliche' to jump on the old standby topic of rabid dogs whenever one runs out of blog-worthy topics, and I'm sorry to have taken such an obvious shortcut. I hereby promise to not write any more blogs about rabid dogs in 80's TV shows... at least until tomorrow.

Okay, I take that back... I just got a perfectly clear image of a rabid Muppet totally tearing shit up, chasing Gonzo, maybe even ravaging the Swedish Chef... that would have really pissed off Harry Belafonte', no?

Justice Served, Story at noon

That's right sports fans, the charges against my two "vicious" therapy dogs were dropped this morning in court. I'm not sure if it was the pictures of the dogs in full therapy mode surrounded by a pile of special education kids, the fact that the charges were bullshit, or the fact that I didn't show up to court wearing pajamas like most of the other folks. Maybe it was my typed notes, letters of evidence, and pictures. I was going to write notes on the back of a Limp Bizkit CD like the guy in the Domino's Pizza jacket, or on the back of a McDonald's receipt like the dude in the mohawk, but I decided to be slightly less sketchy instead. Regardless, the $350 ticket was dismissed, and my charming wee beasties will live to chomp another shittzu another day.

It was interesting to see what legally complex questions would be asked by the State's prosecuting attorney... I was sure she would ponder the legal remifications of the precedent established in Lee Galdood vs. the State of Connecticut, 1987, but instead she asked questions about how much Saint Bernards eat, do they drool much, and why would anyone choose to have such huge dogs.

The best part of the morning came when she read the police report, and said the following:

It says here that your dog had the Shitzu's head completely in his mouth...
is that dangerous? I mean, couldn't the Shitzu have suffocated?

Ah, indeed, that is the question. To be or not to be was really just the abbreviated version. Shakespeare was really asking "to be suffocated, as if in the mouth of a Saint Bernard, or not to be be suffocated in the mouth of a Saint Bernard, that is the question." Apparently the true meaning was lost in the translation from Shakespeare's original words.

Speaking of Lost in Translation, that movie sucked. How collosally bad does a movie have to be to make Scarlett Johansen unwatchable? I'd watch her do laundry for fuck's sake. Mattter of fact, I found Match Point to be utterly unwatchable as well, but that is probably tied to Woody Allen, who is just slightly more annoying than that whiny little Schnauzer bitch from last night...

Here's the wrap-up:
Going to Court: just slightly sketchy... more nerve-wracking than sketchy, really.
The other people at court: about and 8 out of 10 on the SketchoMeter.
Woody Allen movies: not sketchy at all. Nothing that mind-numbingly boring can be at all sketchy, unless you consider the possible ramifications of falling asleep while you happen to be driving a big rig loaded with explosives at the time... and even then, the dull dialogue counteracts the situational risks, leaving one with an overall sketch-factor akin to riding an escalator with an untied sneaker.

Whiny Little Schnauzer Bitch

Tonight was the first day of obedience school for Special Eddie the Saint Bernard. He's a great dog, a very cute short-haired dog... but he was a bit cramped in the womb, and as a result he has one ear that is sorta folded, smaller than the other, and much lower on his head... just a little bit Saint Bertarded, he is. Anyway, it was a pretty typical dog obedience school experience... a few cute ones, lots of ugly ones, several whiners, and one even took a big dump in the middle of the room. Not the most impressive group of owners, to say the least... good thing all the dogs were cute and well behaved though.

So there was this one couple there with a little white Schnauzer who made this horrible high pitched squeal for most of the lesson. Towards the end of the night, as the assistant trainer was walking around, the douchebag husband put down his cell phone for long enough to assure this dog trainer that "it is much harder to train the smart dogs than the dumb dogs; that's why it is so hard to train Schmoopsy here..." I quickly stood up and shouted "Oh really, asshole, is that the reason your whiny little Schnauzer bitch is making that heinous noise?", and then I poked him in the eyes Three Stooges-style while saying "nyuk nyuk nyuk ".

Goodbye for now... ehhhhh.

Coming tomorrow: a (hopefully triumphant) story about Big B's Day in Court defending a certain crooked headed dog who escaped the yard and then humped a Llasa Apsa until Animal Control arrived and carted him off to the Big House...

New England Weather = Dyson Vacuum

You guessed it, New England weather really sucks. And unlike traditional vacuums, New England weather doesn't suck less if you have dogs... quite the opposite. You see, dog hair clogs a traditonal vacuum, thereby reducing the amount it sucks. New England weather actually sucks more as a result of dogs, be it wet dog hair, muddy footprints, or panting hot dog stink. Which is why I hereby recommend that everyone go buy a Dyson; based on the above-stated corrolary, I'm pretty sure that the increased Dyson ownership will somehow bring decent weather just a little bit sooner.

This is all of course related to the Coriolis effect, the physical property that was designed by toilet engineers back in the 1940's to help the water swirl down a toilet in a pretty manner. One common misconception is that Australian toilet engineers somehow reversed the Coriolis effect just to make the toilets go backwards... something about rebelling against the British for the whole Penal Colony thing. Anyway, that is totally untrue.

As it turns out, Australian toilet engineers used the regular old Coriolis effect in their first round of toilets, but quickly found that the swirling effect caused all boomerangs to fail. Rather than disrupt the entire boomerang based economy, they reverse engineered a backwards Coriolis effect, thereby restoring the boomerang flight, allowing the Australian economy to flourish, and giving Americans something to stare at in the loo. "Loo" is Australian for "toilet", just like "Fosters" is Australian for "crappy beer", and "shrimp on the barbie" is Australian for "stupid Americans doing bad accents".

So given all the scientifically valid information above, here's todays topic... I import an Australian Dyson, an Autralian toilet, and several boomerangs. If I simultaneously throw the boomerangs, flush the toilt, and turn on the vacuum, will all the boomerangs still wind up on the roof?

Monday

After a very long day of cleaning the basement, dinner at Ma's and assorted other weekendry, I couldn't fall asleep last night till midnight, and then I popped awake at 3:30 and couldn't get back asleep until 38 seconds before my alarm went off. So piss off.

Anyway, I found an interesting 35 question quiz on how your political views match up with the presidential candidates. My results were pretty much dead on, despite the fact that I am politically pretty ignorant... I've been torn between Hillary and Obama, but thought I was leaning more towards Obama, and sure enough, that web thang placed me between the two, but closer to Barack...

Boring blog. But I guess that is redundant.

Go Patriots! oh, wait, nevermind.

Folding Cardboard Furniture - Welcome to Upsidedown Land

I mentioned aerlier something about the sketchiness of folding cardboard furniture. I did a quick google search and came up with lots of artistic crap, and recycling stuff... that it not what i was talking about. Here's what I was talking about:

A roommate in college had two of these chests of drawers... the perfect compliment to a futon bed, right? His were navy blue with white knobs. Anyway, the design was totally symmetrical, so that it looked the same upside-down and right-side-up. In other words, if you turned the whole unit upside-down, it would look exactly the same, so that when the drawer was opened, all the stuff would fall out. After paranoia set it, he would always carefully check the top drawer before opening it. That's when we just flipped every other drawer.

I wish there was a way to do that with filing cabinets at work... dropping out 75 pages of engineering plans would be far funnier than spilling tube socks and boxer shorts. At least funny until I got fired and lost my home and ended up living in a fridge box behind the 7-11 with nothing but a chest of cardboard drawers, and all the other homeless dudes would probably sneak in and flip the drawers on me. Karma is a bitch, eh?

Day 2: Mitt-Bacon-HoleyCrotch Friday

I declare today Mitt-Bacon-HoleyCrotch Friday. Please update your calendars accordingly.

Item 1: Mitt Romney dropped out of the race. My aunt from Massachusetts (who makes me special brownies every Christmas) reports that as governor of Mass-a-hola, he was in state for something like 17 days year on average, and that he was present for 7% of the votes. She thinks he's been a tremendously bad governor, slashing town budgets so the state budget looks good, that sort of thing. Therefore, on the totally unbiased rantings of my political correspondent aunt, I dislike the dude, and am glad he's done. I think Tim Russert is also a great political correspondent, but he's never so much as sent a card for Christmas, so I have to default to my aunt on this one.

Item 2: Chili's has added a few new menu items, including a southwest smoked big mouth burger that has some crazy special bacon on it. It was the second best bacon I've ever had. The best bacon ever was at the Salish Lodge & Spa overlooking Snoqualmie Falls in Washington State where we stayed on the honeymoon. (NOTE: Saving Private Ryan is not an appropriate honeymoon movie while staying at a romantic resort and spa.) The hotel is that is where they filmed Twin Peaks. It is also near the Town of Roslyn, which was where Northern Exposure was filmed. Cicely Alaska is actually about 2 hours east of Seattle. Go figure.

Item 3: On the drive to work today I noticed that my pants have a good sized hole in the crotch. This is not related t0 last night's bacon, and thankfully, it is also not at all related to Mitt Romney.

That is about it for now. I hope you all enjoy Mitt-Bacon-HoleyCrotch Friday.

Defining the Sketch-o-meter, 2020 style

It all started out when all good stuff starts out: Back in the Day. More specifically, it was 1995 or so. Even more specifically, it was probably the start of Fall semester at CU, and I had just finished lofting my bed. The bed had served me well in the closet, and the time had finally come to kick Ad-rock out of the big room, and to live in a room bigger than a VW microbus. (Details on these and many more stories about the place known simply as 2020 will be coming soon... cut me some frickin' slack, it is my first day on the blog.)

Anyway, for whatever reason, it seemed neccesary to loft the bed up to about 5 feet or so. I think I wanted to jam a crappy couch underneath, but that part of the story is a little fuzzy. Anyway, lo and behold, 12 cinderblocks after I began, the bed was airborne. It seemed relatively stable, certainly stable enough. To me, that is... not so much to my roommates, who decided it was perhaps the sketchiest thing they had ever seen. Simply ridiculing me verbally wasn't appropriate, of course, so the situation was elevated to white-board status. A sketchometer was hastilly drawn, ranging from 0-10, with 0 defining a situation that was not even slightly sketchy, while 10 would define ultra-sketchy affairs.

According to the 2020 Sketchometer of 1995, this loft bed ranked in as a 12, via unanimous decision. Various other things were ranked immediately, including the Goocher's jailbait girlfriend, Wilson's suspension-less full suspension bike, folding cardboard furniture, and one former roommate's current legal status.

Through the years, the sketchometer keeps popping up... as our lives have changed, the range of events has migrated from bizarre college situations through the hectic post-college reality check to the complete and utter sketchiness of changing a fully-loaded diaper in an airplane bathroom during heavy turbulence. (Oddly enough, that ranks as only a 9.7 or so, coming in well below the sketchy bed.) This blog will rely on the sketchometer from time to time as I skillfully avoid the shrink's couch through the therapeutic use of this blog, Newcastle Brown Ale, and motorcycles.

By the way, it is pronounced "skeh-chom-eh-ter", with the emphasis on the "omm" sound. If you insist on reading this word as "Sketch-oh-meeeter", I will have no choice but to reprogram all your car radio stations to the same crappy country station.

buckle up, this might get sketchy...