This is what I came to say. People buying 1K cars, loading it with $10K worth of wheels, bling, and stereo, and still having a POS car that's now worth even less. The worst is when they take a decent car and stick those butt ugly as hell aftermarket spoilers on them.

Those Sisyphus tables look so cool! I had forgotten about those.

I have a newly found appreciation for kinetic art since I more or less stole a kinetic metal sculpture by one Clayton Whitehouse by spotting it in an online auction lot, sitting among other stuff behind a basement bar, when apparently no one else did.

Imagine waiting to bid at the last minute on a lot sitting at your last bid of $10, wondering how high to go ($500? More? It's worth something like two grand!) and watching in disbelief as the auction closes with NO ONE ELSE BIDDING! Whoo-hoo! doesn't begin to describe it!

I could even claim that the rest of the lot was worth the ten bucks, so the sculpture was free!

The auction company really dropped the ball on this thing. It should have been a highlighted item, but sitting on a busy, mirrored bar shelf effectively hid it, except from me! (The old lady whose house it was must not have been around to point it out, either.)

Here's the main pic for the lot:
115616200_1800x1135_1000000000_CENTER_FFFFFF (resized).jpeg

And the solo pic, also from the auction website:
115616216_1800x1135_1000000000_CENTER_FFFFFF (resized).jpeg

Still hard to see how cool it is, right?

After I got it home:

That's pretty cool Dan. Fun story and a cool piece of art.

Yeah. 20's, no. 16 inch wheel and big tires, thats the way.

Alright, I have a good one for this thread. 7 years ago, I got back into my huge vinyl collection (I’m an Old). I decided to spend nontrivial $$ on a decent phono preamp, so I found a Graham Slee “Gran Amp 2 SE” on Audiogon for $275. Bought that, and then I bought a $200 power supply to go with it (because we all buy stuff for our stuff, right?).

Well, last week I saw a review on YouTube that said that the Gran Amp 2 was crap, and what a I really needed was the $129 Shiit Mani preamp! So I ordered that Shiit and thought I was really smart, because I could probably get $400 for the Graham Slee on Audiogon. I put in the Mani, expecting it to sound about the same or better, and damned if it didn’t actually hurt - the midrange was harsh to my old ears. I sent it back, with a 15% restocking fee and $28 return shipping. So now I’m into phono preamps for $525. I think my teenage self would approve, but damn. My ears aren’t what they were 40 years ago. It’s all backwards. I should have had the good shit in 1980 and the crappy stuff now.

PPV fights. I really like watching MMA, but I can't believe people pay $80+ to watch a fight on TV. The boxing and MMA industry really knows how to hype up fights and take advantage of weak people. Boxing is now a joke, with matchups like Mcgregor vs Mayweather, the latest Tyson fight and now Mayweather vs Logan Paul.

The other stupid thing people spend money on is religion. I'm pretty sure God is ok if you pray from home. These churches and clergy don't have a special hotline to god. IMO, they are one of the biggest scams in our society. They don't pay their fair share of taxes, they hide behind "freedom of religion" and they take advantage of people in their most vulnerable times. No need to go to a church and hand over money to them. Some religions even require a percentage of your paycheck?!

Televangelists are to religion what $500 power cables are to audiophiles

I love this, because I worked at Scientific-Atlanta in the late 90’s writing software for cable set top boxes. My first big project was our Pay Per View app. I’d get calls at 2am about problems, because back then PPV was a huge chunk of cable revenue. It was all porn and wrestling. One day we had a glitch and a whole city missed a PPV wrestling match. They hurled bricks through the windows of the cable headend. Later I did DVR and we had a whole other league of haters. Those were such good times. Man I miss those days.

I'm not a religious person, and pretty much agree with you, but I will say this. When their people are in times of need, they do come through, at least in the smaller congregations. I've seen it personally, and I can say it was pretty heartwarming to see them so compassionate.

For me...man...I suppose it is mostly just pinball right now. I have too many motorcycles, too many musical instruments that I can barely play...

For the most part I have had many expensive hobbies over the years, but I am very much a 'if i can do it myself' type person that has saved me thousands of dollars. As I've gotten older, I've slowed down quite a bit on crazy spending habits....other than pinball lol.

Hell yeah. When my wife and I used to go to church I’d do anything for anyone. I remember an older woman outside our church came in asking for help, she was being evicted from her apartment. Me and 3 other guys gave up our Saturday to help her move, she had so much shit! Lol. And I used to drive expired stuff from the bakery at our Publix to downtown Atlanta. I kinda feel like an asshole for walking away from all of that.