On the subject of commerce in the Bay Area
I finally got around to putting my Mac Mini, which has been sitting disused in a box for 2 months, up on Craigslist. I made up a nice little ad, slapped on a price of $450, and immediately got one buyer, and only one buyer, who was interested. Expecting another flake out, I told this guy to pick it up ASAP or I’ll sell it to the first guy who comes to my door. “Sure”, he says, “I’ll be over tomorrow morning”.
Since I had just given some stranger my address and phone number, I figured I’d see if this “Cliff Stoll” guy had any Google juice. And well, uh, I guess he has Wikipedia juice too.
When he showed up, he didn’t even ask me to boot the little Mac up. He said he’d looked at this very blog, decided that since I ran Linux I was trustworthy, and handed me the cash.
I was now $450 richer. So what to do with $450?
I went to the Freewheel Bike Shop on Valencia and asked what they recommended for $450, and they recommended the Marin Muriwoods 20 urban bike. I took it for a ride up the block, in what I can only describe as “frightening” San Francisco traffic (really, is it possible for people to drive any worse?), and loved it. I bought it with a helmet and ulock, and now I have one less way to get fucked by Muni in the morning:
