One's in great condition. The other...not so much.

You know one of my favorite time wasters?

Perusing online classifieds.

I usually try to stay away from Ebay or anything with one-click buying, because those require an iron will to not gobble up every single little cool obscure thing you will never need.  There is, however, one auction site that I really do like: www.shopgoodwill.com .  First off, your money goes to charity, making that frivolous purchase seem just a little more justified.  Secondly, Good Will donations make me think of cleaned out attics and garages, making me think that if I just sift enough, if I peruse super patiently, there will be some hidden treasure that someone forgot about and simply overlooked when they were sorting into a 'donate' pile. 

Plus, I'm strangely a sucker for old lady jewelry.

Can we please bring the brooch back?

Love this one:

You've gotta wonder about some though...

Described as "Adorable real fur googley eye cat pin".

Several things preclude this from being "adorable" in my opinion. 

1) Nothing with 'googley eyes' is adorable.

2) By wearing this pin, you are probably proclaiming that you are one of those smelly, sweet old ladies who has far too many cats and stops taking her medications rather than stop feeding them.

3) That whole real fur bit?  How real?  Skinning cats does not equal adorable, not in anyone's book.

Another site I recommend is www.freecycle.org .  It's not really an auction site, but it's pretty handy. It's more of an online barter system - and I'm a big fan of the barter system.  You can swap individual items by offering up *Item A* and saying that you'd be willing to trade it for either X, Y, or Z.   But say a broke student like myself really wants Item A, but has nothing to barter for it with.  Being a broke student, I don't have cash either, so I can't just go to an auction site.  Here's the beauty of freecycle:  As a broke student, I can barter my dogwalking, tutoring, nannying services, etc. for your Item A!  It's kind of a cool system really.  Haven't actually bartered anything yet, but I like the concept - waste not, want not.

Lastly, who can ignore CraigsList . I was skeptical when my Dad first told me about it 7 or so years ago, but now I love it.  It really helped lighten my load before I moved across the country and gave me a little spending money to do so.  I love the categories.  A few faves:

Free: Yep, completely free.  Some stuff is really good - like TV's, houseplants, etc. that people just don't want to move and don't want to take the time to list for sale, come up with a price for, or even be home to sell.  A lot of people just put this stuff on the curb and say "First to pick it up gets it." Great find of the day in the free category?  "2 White Toilets. One is in great condition. The other not so much."

Pets: Now technically you're not allowed to sell your pets, but you can ask for a small "rehoming fee."  For the gal who wants a dog but knows that it's a terribly impractical time and therefore won't get one, clicking this category is like plunking a toddler in a toy store.  I mean really, 

Who could say no to these faces?

Apparently I can, because NO, I can't get a dog right now.

Well, F***. I REALLY want a Puggle, but since they're a designer dog and I'm insistent upon adoption over breeders, I didn't have high hopes.   But will you just look at this?   Okay, enough of that now before I can no longer resist and I go drive the 20 minutes to pick that little baby up.

I'm amused enough by the 'for sale' items that I never even feel the need to venture into the personals or discussion forums.  Probably some ... interesting stuff in there though.

Many happy hours of browsing to you all :)  Time to get back to mine!