Halloween Costume Assemblage

Frankenfurter, may he be your inspiration!

Fall is here, and so Halloween closely creeps nearer and nearer. Many people are running frantic assembling costumes and Craigslist can be considered a costume mecca.

You could always go to the parties and trick-or-treating as something generic, like a doctor, Little Red Riding Hood, a sexy referee, or a sexy french maid. However, I encourage you to think outside the package.

Find a parachute and an Elvis costume to become Sky-Diving Elvis.

Find a too-small pageant dress and a tiara to go as Jon Benet.

A vintage pink suit, some bug-eyed sunglasses, and a pair of Mary Jane-esq heels will call you Jackie O.

Stuff a large red sweater, add eyes and a mouth and go as Meatwad.

I am personally a sucker for the Rocky Horror Picture Show and a Frankenfurter costume would make my night. All a (male) person would need is a pair of black briefs, black gloves with the fingers cut off, a black corset, some black heels and some black sheer knee-highs. Oh, and red lipstick! Practicly all the same things you’ll need for a Sexy Bunny Costume!

Barter Properties

The best real estate on the board.

The Barter section is never short interesting offers, where property and services collide in a rare state of equality.

In this case, property for property.

They have Park Place but are looking to trade for Boardwalk.

Flagging as Work

As a precursor to an indepth story on flagging I am working on, I have found a blogster who found some job ads for people to flag other commercial posts down. He copied the ad content, but after searching, I was unable to trace the ads myself. In a blog update he posted a site which searches all Craigslist ads where he found the postings himself.

Check out the blog posting.

Hopefully, a tasty appetizer.

Regifting Prudence

The taboo that is “regifting” is made prudent through the anonymous ads of Craigslist. It is also a great way to ensure you are getting new, and unused items when buying from such unnamed sources. It is also a great way to get your finger on some otherwise costly beyond value items.

A small ice-cream maker, a coffee machine and a quesadilla maker are items that are not essential to a kitchen but awfully convenient. When it comes to spending money on them, buying them cheap as a regift is a great way to obtain these otherwise appliances.

A wedding dissolved is also a popular source of unused and inexpensive wedding dresses and wedding accessories, including a diamond wedding band set for half-price (of course, use caution when buying expensive items) or a full set of China dishes.

Baby showers produce niche gifts for infants, and sometimes double-gifting occurs or gifts given miss the receiver’s target. Use caution when gifting books or the may end-up on Craigslist like a What To Expect When You’re Expecting book set and planner. One poster even received multiple double-gifts, including a car seat with base, a bathtub and a baby sling.

Some gifts are so off base it is amazing the giver thought to give them, such as a “Animated Ski Hill“, or a pair of boots in the wrong size.

The best unused gift I found was a new Mio Digi Walker C220 Portable Navigation GPS unit. Definitely the best steal of the regifting genre!

Clothing Swap Success at the Coloradoan

Recently, Elizabeth Sink made an ad inviting local families to combine the clothing their children have grown out of. She expressed that she was greatly impressed.

“The result was phenomenal.

Nearly 20 families combined their children’s clothing and accessories, shopped around tables categorized by age and went home with bags or in some cases cars full of “new” clothes, toys and accessories for their kids. The best part was that the swap was 100 percent reuse and no one spent a dime.”

Sink said that she was excited and notes that children clothing swaps are just one type and others can be found on Craigslist.

Check out the article and some of the responses at the Coloradoan.com.

Powersports Sale Season

Yamaha Grizzly 660

Fall is probably the best time to buy powersport toys for the upcoming year. With all the sales around town, owners are selling their old units to make room, and a little change, for their shiny new toys.

A lightly ridden, presumably perfect 2007 Yamaha Grizzly 660 is on sale for $3,900. MSRP is at $7,199. Includes aftermarket graphics, rims, tires, handlebar, exhaust filter, and snorkel. Made for mudding, instead sat in a garage. Additionally, one poster is selling a 2002 Suzuki Ozark 250 ATV, pretty good condition, $1650

If you’ve ridden a pocket bike, you know this post is a steal. 50cc’s and handlebars at your knees. One poster is selling his red “Pocket Rocket” miniature motorcycle for sale for $75, but needs a new pull-start (a $40 fix).

Yerf Dog go-cart

Go carts are ubiquitous in childhood memories that feed our inner NASCAR fantasies. You can find a Yerf Dog go-cart that needs a tune up in Loveland for $150.

If you are looking for a more immediate adventure, an older model Polaris snowmobile may be worth drooling over with a bit of finagling over the price. It is a 1991 Indy 400 (XY780), 3,900 miles on it, asking a grand, or best offer.

If you have a Street Glide you are willing to trade (plus a bit of cash), or more preferably $20,000, a poster is selling his 2003 AMEN Choppers 250 Softail snazzied-up with awards on the shelf for Bike Build-Offs. Look slick on this customized blue chopper.

MSRP puts a 2005 Yamaha TTR 230 at $3,299 new, while one Greeley poster is trying to sell his for $1,800. Says it’s in great shape as it has been sitting in his garage, with a dead battery as proof. Could be a good deal with some haggling and a good inspection.

Ducati Monster S2R1000

Ducati is a well respected brand for street bikes, which is why one poster is allowing you to make an offer on his 2007 Ducati Monster S2R1000. The 1000 is a nice size for most adult males and with 2,000 miles the bike should be significantly cheaper than MSRP without diminishing bike quality significantly.

If you are the proud, or likely shamed, recipient of a DUI citation and are scrambling for transportation, a motorized scooter under 50cc’s may be the ticket. One poster is selling a “2006 Schwinn Collegiate Scooter with under 100 miles. Silver and White, trunk, twist and go transmission, electric start, for easy riding.” Asking price is $1,700, close to MSRP but considering the very, very low mileage, reasonable.

Craigslist is the New WebMD

With the up-start or a medical websites like WebMD , vastly bloated sites of medical information galore, especially popular for features like WebMD’s self-diagnosing “symptom checker”, a new culture of self-diagnosis has rose, it is a culture heavy on information, and sometimes neurosis. The internet has made it easy for laymen to research health topics and create their own diagnoses. Miriam McMullen talks about this new culture.

“Traditionally, health professionals were the main providers of information to patients regarding their diagnosis, prognosis and treatment options. Until recently, many health professionals felt that patients were unable to cope with bad news and should be therefore kept ignorant of many details of their illness. However, with the easy access and availability of information through the Internet many patients are no longer satisfied with this attitude. They want to be fully informed and be part of the treatment decision making.”

The results of this new culture are varied: McMullen cites unrealistic patient expectations with diagnosis, treatment and education expectations concerning their condition, and also says that some trends are that patients perceive medical professionals to be impersonal and inept to guide them to new information. Although others feel a greater access to information is empowering to the patient who now has the ability to make more informed decisions, like when a doctor’s trip is actually necessary. Craigslist and other forums may play into the internet everyone-is-a-professional culture.

While navigating the Fort Collins Automotive discussions forum, I found a post of a person looking for help self diagnosing an automotive problem.

“I got this truck a month ago and the fuel tank switching clogged up on me a week after I bought it. I bypassed the switching unit and it ran fine for the ride to work and then on the way home had a rough idle and would stall when I decelerated. I’ve checked the EGR and PCV valves, cleaned the carb & replaced the float. Every time I try something new it runs good for a trip around the block and is running like crap by the time I get back to the house. My question is – could bypassing the fuel tank switching unit disrupt the vacuum system and cause it to run poorly?”

The poster is clearly not a layman when it comes to automechanics, but is clearly not a mechanic either. His inquiries suggest he is not looking for professional help and can manage a new frontier on his own. Responses led him to a variety of solutions including a cheep fix like changing the in-line fuel filter, to replacing the fuel line, or the transfer switch, or a dirty or rusty fuel tank.

It would seem the poster is no farther than he was before, in addition to not even getting his question answered. And although, a follow-up post describes that he just installed new inline fuel filters, the forum still seems to follow this line of thought. Finally one poster responded with “28 year old truck. Says a lot.”

So what becomes of the Chevy man or the symptom checking patient? It is unclear, but it is my assumption that automechanocs and medical professionals may soon be in the same boat of pleading with customers and patients for a bit of trust. In conclusion, symptom check carefully people, and if you must, use a variety of “reputable” (as reputable as the internet can be nowadays) sources and take all diagnosis’s with a grain of salt. Otherwise, you may end up spending that extra dough you were trying to save by not going to a mechanic or doctor, or worst…

And that goes for all of you on the Health forum, too!