The Family Swap Meet And Other Finds

This weekend marked our I-don't-remember-how-many-times-we've-done-this annual springtime garage sale. We get the whole family together, get rid of all the stuff we don't need and collect more stuff we may or may not need by sifting through each other's stuff. I think we all did pretty good on the not bringing home more than we started with front, but it was not our most successful garage sale ever. I came home with $55 to put towards my new grill. But it didn't last.

Last year Marty and I got the great idea to have fun parties in our backyard. We have a large, fenced backyard that is surrounded by trees, so it is very private and secluded. The back of the house on that side has only one small window, so the majority of it is just siding. What better place to set up a digital projector and have movie nights in the yard? We had images of us curled up in lawn chairs, cuddling children and eating microwave popcorn and sipping hot cocoa as darkness came and our sleepy children looked into our eyes and proclaimed, "You guys are the coolest parents ever!"

We put out plan into action by trying to find a digital projector. And then the action stopped. Digital projectors are expensive. We called the library, to see if we could rent one. Nope. We called rental companies and found they started at $100 a day. Sheesh. Our dream of outdoor movies continued, but it did not look like it was meant to be.

My daily Internet hopping includes a site called woot.com. They sell one thing every day. If you see something you like, you have to buy it then, because you cannot buy it the next day. I have never bought anything from them, but I enjoy the quick peek at new stuff and their snarky descriptions of some of their products. They are honest in their descriptions, and are often quite funny. Last night, during my wind-down web surfing, I went to woot.com and found what I was looking for. Advertised as the "World's Crappiest Digital Projector," it was only sixty bucks! and I an not kidding here, they actually called it the "world's crappiest digital projector." Their words. And there was a review to back it up.

So herein lies the question, is it the "world's crappiest" to technology junkies, who care about things like contrast ratio and pixelization? Is pixelization even a word? Do I care? Is it good enough so that people like me would not even notice, since all I want is a movie on the back of my house to watch in the yard with the kids?

I looked up a few more reviews online. It seems to be OK quality, and one reviewer described it like taking a DVD and making it VHS quality. Well, we are the family that still has a record player and ahem, even an 8-track, so VHS quality is just fine for us.

I am not the "spend money on frivolous things" person. I am also not the "buy something right now because it's cool and you want it" person. I am the "I have no hubcaps or working speedometer because I don't want to spend the money and it's working fine for me" person. But alas, last night I bought the World's Crappiest Digital Projector.

The grill will wait a bit longer. But now I can watch crappy quality movies on the backside of my house, with my adorable children who are thinking I am fabulous. I am so excited!