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Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Pop Culture League Challenge: “There’s a sale at Penneys!”

A meditation on my greatest deals and steals from

     I'm excluding Black Friday stuff, because that is supposed to be a good deal. Sorry, Jetwing Optimus.

     I have to go with my car, and one of my swords as the greatest deals.

     To set the stage, the year is late 2006, it's cold a few days after a snowstorm. the streets are mostly dry, with a few icy patches left over. Sam and I are on our way to Colorado Mills mall. A light goes red, we stop, and the teen driver going the opposite way hits a patch of ice, takes out the traffic signal and set me on a search for a new car with a new flinch when cars come at me from certain angles and a small insurance settlement.

    Cue to a couple of months later- I find an ad on Craigslist for a '93 civic, 120k miles on it.




    This was a "some things not as advertised". It was a '94 civic, had been salvaged after a collision and rebuilt with the front end of a '97 civic. It was posted as $1800- the owner actually wanted $2800. I Paid $1800 cash and had money to register it and get plates. He doesn't look quite like that any more, there's a few more miles on him, some scuffs, and new tail lights, but he's still on the road and reliable. I call him "the Hybrid" due to his unusual mix of years.

     Scene 2- I'm a little bored, I'm at a pawn shop. I'm a connoisseur of Pawn Shop swords, particularly after scrimping and saving for an impressive looking Katana to find it was pot metal, covered with flaking chrome. Usually what you see is decorative junk, but upon occasion you find the rare gem. On this day I found a Cold Steel Katana- a model from 2002- in excellent condition- New, these retailed for about $300 at the time- $371 now through Cold Steel's web shop- this one was priced at $60, and I couldn't pass it by.



It has good weight, good balance and heft, and Cold Steel is the company that has videos of punching their knives through a car door and then cleanly slicing a tomato afterwards- serious steel, my friends, serious steel indeed

Here is the art of the deal from some fellow leaguers

2 comments:

  1. Now we just need a picture of you holding the katana out the window as you drive the Civic. Epic!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, that is a cool looking katana! I have always thought swords were very cool.

    ReplyDelete