Sunny sunny day

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day. It was above 0, which is pretty unusual for this time of year. I decided to walk around in the early afternoon to enjoy the sunlight – and look for trash, of course. I came across these bags not far from my home.

Inside were lots of cassette taps. The woman throwing them out was in and out of her house and encouraged me to take them. I took the ones that were “official.” The more I find cassettes in the trash the more I realize that music pirating isn’t anything new – just the medium has changed. I probably left 2/3 of the collection behind.

Her collection was pretty good. There were lots of big names: Peter Gabriel, Corey Hart (5 cassettes worth – maybe everything Corey Hart ever made?), Rolling Stones, MJ, Depeche Mode, and David Bowie (on his birthday, no less). I’ll add these to my rapidly expanding cassette collection.

I found a walkman too. It’s a “sport,” which I would assume means it’s a bit sturdier than a regular walkman. I tested it and it works fine. Surprisingly there’s still a market for these; on the internet they’re selling for 10-20 bucks, depending on condition.

There were some books in recycle bags a bit further down the road. They looked like they’d been plowed under the snow, which makes me wonder if they had been there since the big snowfall. I didn’t have any need for these books – most were about computers and web design – so I left them behind.

I came across these bags on Gilford. One was already ripped open. Inside were some unopened packages of food. I scavenged two packages of organic gluten-free spaghetti and some xylitol. Xylitol is a sugar-alcohol which is apparently just as sweet as sugar but with less calories. I’ll probably give it away to someone but I’ll definitely use the spaghetti.

This dresser was a bit busted but could have been easily fixed. It looks like it used to be in a kid’s room.

I went out later in the day (with my bike) and found these new shea-butter soaps in some bags on St Hubert. Shea butter is apparently a pretty good antioxidant due to it’s high phenolic content. It’s used a lot as food in Africa but here it’s mostly used cosmetically. They’re completely sealed up so there’s no way there’s anything wrong with them.

I also found some new-looking women’s clothes. I’m guessing someone got some Christmas gifts they didn’t like.

The last item I saved was this Betamax player. It’s a bit funny that I found one because out of curiosity I had Googled the value of Betamax stuff earlier in the day. I had discovered that there was some value there so when I found this I called it a night and headed back home. It was pretty heavy – not as heavy as the 67 pound VCR I brought home a couple months back but still quite heavy (and hard to balance on my bike).

It looks good, turns on and lights up. These simple facts are enough to make it equal to one that recently sold on Ebay for 40$. Apparently this model originally sold for 1300$ (American dollars! – it would have been a lot more expensive in Canada).

I’d like to test it fully to bump up it’s value. All I need to do is find some betamax tapes in the trash and I’ll be set. Maybe on Thursday!