Author: wickedchadwick

Kijiji and the Art of Selling

| wickedchadwick

That title is very misleading. I will, in no way, teach you the correct way to sell on Kijiji or any other online pawn-shop. Instead I thought I’d share my experiences.

Simply put, Kijiji can be a huge pain in the ass. It may depend on your personality type but being the passive aggressive people pleaser that I am I don’t like haggling. I like going into a store and, know the cost of something, and pay for it. With online selling I know I’ll have to face back-and-forth offers until a price is agreed upon. Now I know, that’s the price you pay for selling stuff yourself and that’s not really the “bad” part. The bad part comes when they show up at your door, after you’ve already worked out the details (through email for me) and they begin haggling to your face. I’m sorry man, but we agreed on a price, that’s what your paying. In all fairness this doesn’t come up too often, but because it has, I’m always weary of it.

The last time this came up, and I really shouldn’t complain when I think about it, I was selling our old stove. One of the burners wasn’t working but it didn’t really bother us, rarely needing all four burners at once. But when the top element in the stove went we called a repair guy. $70 later we discovered that the element was fine but the circuit board had a fried transistor (or something, I’m not a repairman, it could have had a broken rubber band and I wouldn’t have known the difference). Long story short the part would’ve cost $300 plus $70 for the element and we’d already paid $70. Now if you’ve ever had anything repaired the warranty on the replacement parts is not always the longest, in this case probably 90-days. Screw It! I declared and we went out a bought a new stove for less than $500.

Then I had my old stove sitting in the kitchen. It was tucked away decently enough and I promised to sell it online. Due to my powers of procrastination this took longer to post than it should have (I’ll admit it here but don’t tell my wife). When I did post on Kijiji it took a couple of weeks to get a bite. “Bites” for me are when I get any inquiries about the product I posted. I had a few tire-kickers when eventually a guy looking for a cheap stove for his camp replied. I’d had it posted for $50 and he was coming to get it. When he arrived he offered $30. Screw YOU! I thought. You see I can be incredibly stubborn. All I wanted to do at this point was telling him to take a flying leap… but it was a pain in the ass having it in the kitchen and it was worth more to me out of the house than in. We settled on $35 which was still better than getting my buddies pick-up truck and paying $20 to drop it off a the dump.

Was it a bad experience? Not really. As I reread the above I want to tell myself to suck it up man, you got some money. But I greatly dislike setting your expectations you’re going to be getting X-amount of dollars and then being disappointed when you have to compromise. Maybe that’s it. Kijiji is compromise. You’d get a lot less from a pawn-shop, scrap metal place, ect than you do selling directly to a buyer. But you have to be prepared for the challenges of running a store. You have to be quick to reply to inquiries, available to show the product and answer any questions. Hmmm.. really it’s a small price when I reflect on it. And maybe that’s why i wanted to write this. Work out some of the pros and cons of Kijiji.

On a much more celebratory note I had great success recently trading  on Kijiji. That’s right, you can offer Trade/Swaps and often this will get some interesting bites. Recently I’d finished an excellent casual Nintendo 3DS game; Fantasy Life and decided I would post for trade in the hopes someone would offer something equally time-consuming and fun. And they did. I did an even swap for Monster Hunter 4 a game which would have cost me $40+tax at EB or a pawn shop cost me nothing.

I’ve even sold a classic NES cartridge for $30 recently. It’s difficult to move collector’s items on Kijiji because it’s really best used for local sales. And that’s why my next venture will be eBay. If I’m successful I’m going to start moving items throughout Canada (and maybe the states if i can figure out this shipping nonsense). If that works I’ll be cruising Flea Markets and garage sales this year for gems.

Thanks for reading (even if there was no real point to this essay at least I’m typing again, right?). Let me know your experience with selling on Kijiji in the comments.

The Flash

| wickedchadwick

The Flash, the new superhero spin-off of Arrow, is hands down the best new show on TV. Now I know, everyone has their own opinions but.. ahem… you’re wrong. Where Arrow’s main character is a lost-on-an-island-for-five-years-billionaire Barry Allen, the titular hero, is more relatable. He’s a geek, much like Spider-Man’s Peter Parker, with all the same insecurities that speak to a wider audience. He loves his powers. He has fun and the viewers are taken along this exciting ride of “what-if”. What if I had those powers? Green Arrow trains for years under brutal conditions to be a honed superhero. But he doesn’t have actual super powers. The Flash’s powers are spontaneously granted and he takes us with him, learning his new abilities and pushing his limits. All while having that smart-ass, again Peter-Parker-like, youthful disposition. I’m excited to see where the series will go. Reportedly the first episode’s ratings beat those the Arrows first season opener. Of course, Arrow paved the way and audiences from its 3 season-so-far run are most likely viewers of CW’s The Flash.

It’s a shame the lead, Grant Gustin, will not be cast as The Flash in DC’s upcoming films. Of course, when it comes to the films and TV shows, Marvel has paved the way and made it a difficult act to follow in terms of long-term planning and cross-overs.

The Flash is currently airing season 1 and we’re 6 episodes in at the time of writing.

"Pilot"

My little project

| wickedchadwick

So in between all this Netflixin’ (it’s a word) and domestic engineering (aka doing laundry and the dishes) I’ve been trying to teach myself Gamemaker. As the name suggests this program helps you to train tiny elephants to serve you.. wait.. oh sorry, i was reading the back of the wrong box. This program simplifies the video game making process. Which, if you’ve ever spoken to me, even briefly in passing, you’ve known is a dream of mine. Seriously that hobo last week that asked me for some change got an earful about my gaming passion. Poor guy gave me change to go away.. but I digress.. as I always do.

After today’s coding practice and graphic work I just had to post the first mock-up screen from the game I’m working on. Realistically you’ll probably never play the completed game because [spoilers!] it’ll probably never be finished. But I’m learning a lot and really enjoying milestones like today’s.

Now all that to show you a single screenshot of the game, here:

mockupscreen_1_Oct17

the cool part (for me) is that the character can actually walk/run back and forth, jump AND he can change to face the direction he’s moving. This may not sound like much but when you’re working with coding and you’ve never gone to school for it, every success is a huge celebration (in your head, I can’t afford streamers and cupcakes everytime I make a new platform block)

I suppose you’re wondering what the games name is right? Well, I’m probably at risk of someone stealing it but I’d rather work out in the open (my goal is to entertain people not make money*)

The title is: Nick’s Odyssey, or the Gastro-Intestinal Adventures of Fart-Boy

Of course I’m sure you have many more questions like, how does he fart if he’s only a head? and what’s those pieces of bacon doing in the upper-left of the screen? Are you gonna eat those? Cuz I’ll eat those.. just sayin’. All your questions will be answered (or not, remember I’m a procrastinator). But if you’re interested in more message me and we’ll chat.

*please note, I’m not opposed to money. Stacks, piles, bags, bins, wads.. you name it send it my way. I’m just saying I’m not doing this for money.. but wouldn’t it be an awesome full time job?)

That’s all for today folks, thanks for reading.

wicked

More Movies, Shows and Time Devourers (pt1)

| wickedchadwick

edgeoftomorrowWell for the fun of it this morning I thought I’d update my latest “Time Devourers” as I’ve begun calling them. More movies, TV shows and games! Anyone who knows me knows I play waaaaay too many video games for a 35-year old father of one. But I’ve come to terms with my maturity peaking at about 15 and holding steady. You should be too 🙂

When last we spoke I was in the middle of Drive Angry with Nicholas Cage. I wish I hadn’t been. Ouch. Cage either doesn’t have it anymore or his agent sucks. For me, this movie landed somewhere between Ghost Rider 1 & 2 for quality. It wasn’t the worst but it definitely wasn’t the best. That said, we all remember fondly Cage’s 90’s films (I think it was the nineties, please don’t make me google it, just comment to correct me). The Rock, Con-Air and Face Off  come to mind as some of the highlights of his career. Thank god that Superman movie he was supposed to be in never happened. Dodged a bullet there didn’t we?

After that debacle I watched Tom Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow. Wow. Just wow. I can’t say enough good things. Without spoiling anything it’s a sci-fi Groundhog Day. Tom Cruise raises the bar for sci-fis. The same way i find Will Smith does. This is a must-watch.

Now I was on a Tom Cruise kick with many many good movies versus those that weren’t. Jack Reacher was underwhelming, not bad. Just not as good as the Edge of Tomorrow.

Next up was Taken 2. Liam Neesom is the man and if you’ve seen Taken you know why. This film is good but ‘incidental’. It’s a simple revenge film spilling over from the first. But Neesom is the bomb. I hear they’ve greenlighted a third film titled “Tak3n”. (i hate nerdy internet writing, it’s a fad that needs to go away and be kept for the MMO gamers)

Finally (I know, I have a lot of time on my hands don’t I?) was World War Z. Brad Pitt rarely disappoints and this film was no different. It’s a zombie flick focused on a way for humanity to survive. Very good movie but don’t go out of your way to watch it. It’s no George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.

(to be continued)