My cousin Harry Gittes’s latest movie, The Girl Next Door, is out on DVD. I will be showing it to some friends on Friday evening and then we can have a discussion about this important milestone in American cinema. Perhaps other folks who read this blog can rent the movie on Friday night and we can host a discussion on Saturday?
[p.s. After the movie I’m going to stop living like a slob with a huge TV in the living room. I have put all of my living room video gear up on eBay: the 36″ Sony XBR TV, the HDTV tuner (broadcast HDTV is so strange and consumer-unfriendly it really deserves its own blog entry), the DVD player, the VCR. This monster TV was supposed to go up in a little loft area but it wouldn’t fit so for several years I’ve had this in my living room and none of my friends would agree to take it. It will be interesting to see if eBay works for items that must be picked up locally.]
Phil, could this be used like an LCD monitor on a PC (the PC has the S-Video port)? Is there any reason it couldn’t be done? anyone out there ever done it? Thanks!
So lemme get this straight. The creator of photo.net doesn’t have any photos on his e-bay auctions. Ahh, savor the irony.
BTW, why didn’t you try craigslist? I find that for local stuff it’s far superior to eBay.
i rented Girl Next Door this weekend. it was yet another high school coming of age movie, that although extremely enjoyable, drove me further into my 30-year old funk. (also my wife who was initially skeptical/maybe mad?? when she saw that i rented a movie with a porn-star also came away from it reasonably okay 🙂
I hope, as always, that Philip is being ironic when describing this film as an “important milestone in American history”. It did not strike me as being substantially different to any of the various “just finished high school” movies that have come out of the US in the last 5 years.
Perhaps this is because I finished high school last year and find the genre boring. But I still cannot believe that someone with a mind as lucid as Philip’s could find anything compelling about this film.
The regression from yuppie paradise deserves no comment except that Philip has come a long way since writing http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/.
Ah, Alex, maybe you missed the part about my cousin Harry Gittes being the producer of this movie. Not having seen the film yet this is primarily what I find compelling about it, i.e., that if I don’t watch it my cousin will call me a “cunt” the next time he visits and threaten to rip my lungs out.
Photos on eBay, eh? Seems like too much work for such low-value items. And can’t people get photos from the Sony Web site if they want to see what a TV looks like?
Probably not too much of a concern to you, but most of us like to maximize our sale value on eBay and good photos make for higher prices. Images ripped off the manufacturer’s website don’t work nearly as well; do that, and cut and paste the description from there as well and most smart people will think you are a scammer.
Having done a fair bit of “eBaying”, having a photo increases the sale price of an item by an average of 50%!
I’ll see if I can rent your cousin’s movie, seen the previews in the cinema and on TV and looked interesting, just never got around to watching it yet…
Sounds like your cousins interpersonal skills are as refined as his movie productions.
Please elaborate on broadcast HDTV sometime.
I’m thinking about getting one, since the prices are finally almost down to my price range. (Target has a 27″ widescreen w/HD tuner built-in for about $700)
Seena: My cousin made more than $100 million with his last movie, About Schmidt, which was nominated for at least two Academy Awards. If he had better interpersonal skills maybe he could be a Java programmer sitting in a cubicle quietly taking orders from a University of Massachusetts MBA. Maybe instead of going to Knicks games with Jack Nicholson he should be seeing a therapist to become a kinder, gentler, more caring human being.
I’m curious about the “living like a slob” comment — do you find the television distasteful for its size or mere presence? In other words, would you prefer an LCD projector neatly tucked away, or simply to be rid of such an (allegedly) unsocial/antiintellectual/plebian device in your primary living space?
I have a one-bedroom apartment and put in a television under some duress (from a friend and from a relative) three years ago. I often prefer to leave it off but it is way too easy to click on.
Philip, I can personally attest to the fact that refined interpersonal skills are not requisite for a succesful career in Java programming. And whether anyone would benefit more from seeing a therapist vice attending a Knicks game is questionable. As for sitting quietly and taking orders, many of us enjoy that role in life. Most people are followers, not leaders. Most people are lambs, not lions (or hyenas).
I thought Jack Nicholson was a Lakers guy, when did he start going to knicks games?
Funny, I just saw Girl Next Door…and not that I am gay but man, Elisha was super hot in the movie. Cute movie…it was meant to entertain. Why is everyone a movie critic?
Ooops. Sorry, I meant to write “Lakers”. Can’t keep these sports teams straight. There are so many (actually went to a New England Patriots football game last night; made me appreciate the Japanese system of not having parking lots next to their stadiums, only train stations).
Ryan: I think it would be kind of nice to have an LCD TV folded into a coffee table so that you could watch a DVD on occasion from the living room sofa. But a big TV in the living room gets in the way of other stuff. I usually have people over once or twice per week and it would be nicer to have seating in place of the huge TV. Given that I only watch 2 hours of TV per week (average of 1 DVD) it doesn’t make sense to have it take up so much real estate in a 1400 square foot apartment. Finally some years ago New Yorker magazine did a long article about the porn industry. Every porn star that the writer visited had white furniture, white carpets, and a huge projection TV in the living room. The writer began referring to “porn star decor”. Which gets us right back to the Girl Next Door… 🙂
Hey Phil,
The links in your RSS feed are messed up. Typically, an RSS feed link would refer to the blog entry. The links in your feed refer to an external link posted in your blog entry, not the entry itself. For instance, in the case of this entry, the link in your RSS feed refers to: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265208/
Is this what you intend?
–Glenn
Glenn: I have nothing to do with the software or server that Harvard runs. That’s one of the joys of retirement. No more code to maintain!
Photo nerds: You guys sure were right about eBay. I’ve gotten a whole bunch of questions from people wanting to see photos of the TV. They aren’t satisfied with the “check the Sony Web site” or “it is big and grey” answer. They believe that a photo will enable them to evaluate its “condition” (maybe there are a bunch of folks who let their dogs walk all over their TV, thus marring the grey finish).
People fear being ripped off, and photos give them confidence. Who knows how many knobs are missing from your TV? Who knows how much beer has been spilled on it?
Photos also allow people to figure out the model numbers of your DVD player and VCR, which you have otherwise failed to post. Is the DVD player progressive scan? Is it going to be able to play recordable CDs and DVDs? (You can sometimes Google the model numbers and learn this information, but not if you don’t have the model numbers.)
I might bid on the VCR even without the model number, though, since one SVHS VCR is pretty much like another for my purposes.
At the bottom of the TV page, you comment that “based on the bidding so far” you don’t expect to get more than a few hundred bucks for the TV. This may be unduly pessimistic. Remember that the savvy eBay bidder waits until the last second before placing bids, because then the previous bidders can’t get their email in time to be warned, arrive on the scene, and raise their bids. You might think that eBay’s automatic bidding system would eliminate this effect – if your opponents are willing to pay $1200 for the TV, wouldn’t they instruct eBay to bid up to $1200? In practice, the answer is no. A lot of bidders are only interested in bargains – they would happily grab an extra TV for $400 less than it’s worth, but they aren’t interested in paying the market price. More importantly, the psychology of auctions is such that buyers are willing to pay more when they’re in competition with someone else. They don’t even realize that they’re willing to pay $1200… until *after* they see that you’ve bid $1100! So, as a buyer, you’re more likely to get a bargain if you’re bidding against very few other people. Doing all your bidding in the last ten minutes ensures that you are only actively competing against a small group of peers who are online at that moment and ready for a fight.
As a seller, of course, what you want to do is make it really easy for several buyers to get into a bidding war. When I sold stereo equipment on eBay, I usually ran auctions for 10 days, starting on Thursday in the early evening, Eastern time. That gives prospective buyers two weekends to notice the gear that’s for sale, and bookmark it. It also makes the auction end on Sunday evening, when people are off work and are able to sit around the house lurking on eBay and placing last-minute bids. This worked as well as anything. It’s fun to watch one’s sale price jumping upwards in the last half hour.
Your TV auction ends on Wednesday at noon PDT, which isn’t the greatest. On the other hand, I could be wrong — most of Cambridge is probably sitting in front of a computer, getting bored, at 3 in the afternoon!
Talk about great interpersonal skills being used in the sales world!: Pictures again, eh? Are the Sony and Crutchfield Web sites down? An elevator? In Cambridge? In an apartment that cost less than $1 million? You are kidding, right? and Pictures? …It looks like a big grey Sony TV just like the big grey Sony TVs you see on the Sony Web site. Imagine bigness and greyness.
I’ve had good luck selling ” pick up only” on Ebay. However, no matter how prominately you state “local pick up only” – you will get a dozen emails from people wanting to know the shipping cost.
Mike: Thanks for the tips. I did put the model numbers of the DVD and VHS players in the ad… right in the headline. Do you think I should add these to the description as well?
I snapped some photos and parked them at http://philip.greenspun.com/images/200409-ebay/. Product photography sure does look bad when done outside the studio!
What is the deal with the “Ronald Reagan” VHS on the TV? Going Republican on us? ;>
Michael: I invited people over for wine, cheese, and to watch the Ronald Reagan movies just before the DNC. Unfortunately about 25 people showed up and it got late so we never screened the films. There is still time. Perhaps on Election Night!
[And I do have a note from George W. on the coffee table “thanking [me] for my support”. Not sure why I got it.]
Product photography sure does look bad when done outside the studio! Actually I thought the composite cable shot (http://philip.greenspun.com/images/200409-ebay/xbr-composite-inputs.jpg) was pretty cool.
I have absolutely no idea how I missed the model numbers the first time. I have got to stop surfing this weblog late at night!
It doesn’t hurt to repeat everything again in the description, because then blind individuals like myself will be sure to see it.
The product photography is excellent. If it looked like it was done in a studio you would win the battle, but lose the war. As you have already pointed out, the manufacturer’s web site has all the glamour shots buyers could want… yet they remain unsatisfied. Buyers are comforted when they see grainy photos from your den. It subconsciously convinces them that you are a down-to-earth Normal Person, and not a sleazy purveyor of stolen goods operating from the back of a deserted warehouse. The puppy is perfect for this. You should rent the puppy out to other eBay sellers as a spokesmodel – you’ll make more money that way than you will from an old DVD player. 🙂
I am now awake enough to see that an earlier poster has recommended Craigslist for local-pickup sales. This is a good idea. When I want to buy big heavy items like televisions I always head to Craigslist first, because who wants to pay shipping on an HDTV?
One advantage of the Craigslist classifieds is that you can sell the TV to the first person who shows up, hands over the cash, and carries it down the stairs. On eBay, if a guy named Fred wins the auction, he’s got a legal contract stating that he is first in line to buy. You are obligated to wait for Fred to answer his email. You are obligated to wait for Fred’s out-of-state checks to clear. You must wait while he collects a rental truck and some friends. And if Fred eventually goes NPB on you (“non-paying bidder”, an eBay term of art) you can try to negotiate a deal with one of the non-winning bidders… but you may well end up having to rerun the auction. It could theoretically take weeks to get rid of the TV. On Craigslist the only real danger is that you’ll price the thing too high at first.
(To be fair, I should point out that I’ve sold eight or ten items on eBay and have never had any problems collecting from the buyers…)
oftentimes you don’t even have to put a photo of your actual eBay item up on the auction listing. any photo of that model will do. i’ve often searched google images for photos of things and put those up. it seems people are very visual. they want to see what the thing they are buying will look like.
ps, you really should have sized your images for the web…