Went today with my father to a junk yard to sell an old, irreparable microwave oven. Not that we really NEED the money they paid ( US$ 2,50 ), but, since the junk yard was already in our way to other business...

When we arrived there, I got out of the car to take a look in the junk piles. All the junk was organized in specific piles: one pile was made, primarily, of dishwashers and other types of big kitchen appliances, other pile was made of electronics, and so on. I went to the electronic junk pile.

At first inspection, there was nothing there worth of my interest: only lots of commom, unatractive, not-valuable 1980's and 1990's TV sets ( ALL of them in HORRIBLE shape ) ans some VCRs and stereos, which were, also, in horrible shape.

I them decided to take a look in the other piles of junk. Since it was a small junk yard, and, really, with nothing that I found interesting in all those piles of junk, I returned to the electronics pile, decided to take another look.

A more careful examination brought to the surface a small gem: a portable, black and white, transistorized Hitachi TV, from the 70's, or early 80's AT MOST, and it was... an AMERICAN TV set!!! Or, better saying, a TV set made for the American market. Something quite unusual to find here, in this part of Brazil in which I live.

I instantly recognized the TV as being made to be sold in the USA because of a VERY distinctive little thing: it had two channel selector knobs, and it was something that was never mandatory here. In fact, I know of only one Brazilian TV with two channel selector knobs, a color Sharp made in 1975.

Looking behind the TV, my suspicions proved correct: there was written something like "made in Taiwan for the Hitachi sales division of America" .

Most likely, this TV could never be repaired again. But, to me, it didn't mattered. Despite being VERY dirty, cosmetically, it was in very good shape. All the knobs were there, and rotating correctly, all the emblems and etc were there, the CRT was intact. Everything was in good solid shape. It was a cute little ( some 14 inch ) and, at least here, rare TV set. Would made a cute display piece. Above the UHF knob, there was a window on which the channel numbers were changing when you rotate the knob.

Obviously, by this point, I decided to take the little thing home. I them proceed to buy the TV, and approached the junk yard employees to ask the price of the TV...

BIG MISTAKE:nono:

If there's a lesson I learned today with this affair is: NEVER deal with the "little people" if you can avoid it; try to ALWAYS go to the ones on the top of the line of command. I should have gone directly to the junk yard owners... but no, I thought that the junk yard was like any ordinary supermarket, where everyone can inform you the price of the goods.

I decided to talk to the guy that was closer, an ugly fellow with many teeth missing in his mouth. Here's what I ACTUALLY SAID to him:

" I want to TAKE this TV WITH ME. It can no longer be repaired. How much are you ASKING for it?"

But he reacted like he heard me saying:

"Do YOU WANT TO TAKE this TV? It can no longer be repaired. How much DO YOU PAY for it?"

Why do I say that he reacted like he heard me saying what I DIDN'T SAID? Well, because he them said:

"Can no longer be repaired? Give it to me, I will 'fix' it, right now."

He them took the TV out of my hands, and, before I could give any reaction, he walked a few steps, and THREW THE TV LIKE IT WAS A BASKETBALL back to the wrecked TVs pile!!!:tears:

I was horrified by seeing such a level of stupidity. I could not believe what had just happened. With some effort, I explained - AGAIN - that I wanted to BUY the set, not sell it. The idiots cannot not only understand what they heard, but they also cannot recognize something that ALREADY WAS in their junk pile!!!

I expected the CRT to be ruined, at this point. The TV landed on the top of the pile. Really, I had no intention at all of climbing that big, dangerous pile, just to see if the TV was still intact. But I didn't need to. The idiot climbed the pile, after I told him the b.... he had done, and went after the TV he threw. Amazingly, the CRT was STILL intact ( those CRTs are more strong than I thought ), but the impact had made bad damage to the plastic cabinet: a big hole, bigger than a grow man's fist, appeared on the left side of the cabinet.

It was finished, them. In that shape, the TV was no longer worth the effort of taking it home, and having a lot of work to clean it. I left it there, on the top of the junk pile.

When we left the junk yard, the guy's work mates were all laughing out loud; not of him, but of ME!!!

And my father tried to blame ME, for not being able to "communicate right with the guy" !!! What about THAT???

I have a college degree in Journalism. I have no doubt at all that I know just all to well, how to "communicate with people" . The guy who threw the TV is the ignorant fool, who is not able to understand even what he HEARS!!!

Some people are just Idiots...That's about all you can say.

That is exactly why he is working at the junkyard. His value to society is limited to his ability to throw trash into piles. If he were a great communicator, he would be a successful journalist, author, TV presenter, politician, executive, etc... instead of sitting with his equally-stupid friends at the junkyard. [Not that everyone working at a junkyard has to be stupid, no; some may be good people, but his stupidity will keep him there and prevent him from doing anything else.]

I've seen similar situations, where stupid people have needlessly smashed things that were worth saving. Value that was created from many hours of skilled work by many talented and hard-working people, which then survived for many years (or in the case of Bamiyan statues, for centuries!) can be destroyed in just seconds, wherever stupidity gets a chance... Very sad, indeed. :tears:

once, a few years ago,i was in a flea market looking for sets. a dealer there had a 19" sharp that was so-so. crt was kinda dim. he had some big price on it like 275.00. i asked him if he would take less. he told me to make an offer. i said 25.00. he became enraged and commented"i will smash it to pieces before i take 25.00". with that he produced a hammer and busted it up!!!talk about a bad day. i was stunned and told him "now you have nothing to sell.you could have had something-less than you asked but at least something. now you have nothing." we actually became friends over this incident.i still talk with him periodically and we laugh about that day.

Around here we get a flyer every spring inviting us to take all our 'old electronics' to the recycling center for disposal. :finger: At the bottom it says 'No scavenging or picking of any kind permitted at the event'

Kinda pissed me off; I can only dream about what was crushed there this year.

Some people are just Idiots...That's about all you can say.

yup.

That is exactly why he is working at the junkyard. His value to society is limited to his ability to throw trash into piles. If he were a great communicator, he would be a successful journalist, author, TV presenter, politician, executive, etc... instead of sitting with his equally-stupid friends at the junkyard. [Not that everyone working at a junkyard has to be stupid, no; some may be good people, but his stupidity will keep him there and prevent him from doing anything else.]

I've seen similar situations, where stupid people have needlessly smashed things that were worth saving. Value that was created from many hours of skilled work by many talented and hard-working people, which then survived for many years (or in the case of Bamiyan statues, for centuries!) can be destroyed in just seconds, wherever stupidity gets a chance... Very sad, indeed. :tears:

AMEN TO THAT.

once, a few years ago,i was in a flea market looking for sets. a dealer there had a 19" sharp that was so-so. crt was kinda dim. he had some big price on it like 275.00. i asked him if he would take less. he told me to make an offer. i said 25.00. he became enraged and commented"i will smash it to pieces before i take 25.00". with that he produced a hammer and busted it up!!!talk about a bad day. i was stunned and told him "now you have nothing to sell.you could have had something-less than you asked but at least something. now you have nothing." we actually became friends over this incident.i still talk with him periodically and we laugh about that day.

hey, that's pretty cool!!:thmbsp::music:

once, a few years ago,i was in a flea market looking for sets. a dealer there had a 19" sharp that was so-so. crt was kinda dim. he had some big price on it like 275.00. i asked him if he would take less. he told me to make an offer. i said 25.00. he became enraged and commented"i will smash it to pieces before i take 25.00". with that he produced a hammer and busted it up!!!talk about a bad day. i was stunned and told him "now you have nothing to sell.you could have had something-less than you asked but at least something. now you have nothing." we actually became friends over this incident.i still talk with him periodically and we laugh about that day.

Now, that man must have had a VERY bad day...

Anyway, it is wise not to be enemy of a guy who got a big hammer!!!:D

I have noticed that not every merchants' motivation is selling things. My favorite is the antique store who places prices on their items 3 times the true value, yet nothing ever sells. I could visit the same place a year later and almost every single item they had last year is still there. How do they pay their expenses? Booth rent?
I think some of those "dealers" use antique stores, booths, flea markets as storage when their collection becomes too large. or with some it is a Ego piece, like the dealers who have the entire store arranged like a Victorian parlor.
Logan

I'm sure that guy at the junk yard understood what you said perfectly. He was just being a jack@$$ by destroying that TV because he knew you wanted it. It's people like him that think collectors of vintage electronics are just a bunch of dorks and that was his way of putting you in a bad mood. I'm sure he got off on it.

I've never actually seen a TV get busted by an irate seller; but, I've had sellers threaten such action when I wouldn't pay them ten fortunes for their non working TV's. I'll admit that I've also threatened a few buyers with such action; but, I never followed through. The ones I'd blow up at were the ones that acted like they were doing me a favor by offering me $20 for a 25" remote control TV that it took me a week and much hair loss to fix. I have been guilty of pitching a few beat up working BPC TV's that I got tired of stepping over.

Some people are just Idiots...That's about all you can say.

Yep! You can't fix stupid! :thumbsdn:

In Portuguese: Um babaca...

Luckily, here in Italy (at least in my area) you can still pick everything you want for free at the council's bulky waste collection facility... actually, the only time there's someone in there is when the garbage truck moves in, the site is otherwise left unattended

It's a shame there are people "stuck on stupid." Shame you lose out on the American TV there. IIRC, Brazil uses the 525 line picture system, 30 frames a sec but the color was in PAL. Even so, that TV could still work, if it was color, you'd still get a black and white picture. Seeing these stories makes me ill, we waste so much. :tears: I know some people see us a packrats but a good friend of mine who had a degree in archeology told me, "history owes a lot of packrats." Unfortunately, he passed away at 35 a couple of years ago from lymphoma. I know with HDTV coming in less than a year here in the U.S., I think there will be a lot of dumping of TV's that is not needed, I got my two boxes so I just use them with my old TV's, well one is a Commodore 1702 monitor and the other a 1964 Sony B&W set but if I had to, I can shift them around. I might get a third box, my aunt doesn't need her second card. Looks like that junkyard guy needs a swift kick in the ...... um, butt.

You know, I always saw this hobby as a kind of archeological task. Really, in many ways, the 1950's ( the era of my favorite vintage TV sets ) seems like a VERY distant era, a very remote era... the 50's were way so much different than present day time, that they feel like they didn't happened only 50 years agor, but centuries... or even like they were another dimension.

Not related but I thought I would mention it, Captain...there is a teenage girl from our county (I've met her before, briefly) and she is currently 3/4 of the way through a year in Brazil as an exchange student. She wrote an nice letter to the paper last week updating everyone on how things are going. She kept saying how friendly & generous folks were and how beautiful it was down there. Anyway, I was thinking of you when I read that! I wouldn't want the tale of one junkman to spoil a good nations reputation.

Thanks!!!

I was not worried about one single idiot ruining my country's reputation. There are stupid people all around the world, and my own Nation would not be an exception.

Anyway, the Brazilian politicians, from all sides of the political spectrum, are usually doing much more harm to my country's image around the world than just the misdeeds of any commom Brazilian citizen.

Down here, we usually say: "the best thing in Brazil is it's people" . And that's true. The Brazilian people makes true miracles everyday, just to LIVE their lives, against all the horrible mess the sell out politicians make in this country.

There were VERY few moments in Brazilian History in which the government worked for the well being of the people. Most of the 508 years of the existence of this country, were like is described in an old magazine I have: "the government against the people, and the people against the government."

You know, I always saw this hobby as a kind of archeological task. Really, in many ways, the 1950's ( the era of my favorite vintage TV sets ) seems like a VERY distant era, a very remote era... the 50's were way so much different than present day time, that they feel like they didn't happened only 50 years agor, but centuries... or even like they were another dimension.

I have to agree there too. Heck, even the 1970's (and 1980's) feel that way to me now. Since I got my two "Government Issue" DTV boxes, I've been watching this TV station called Retro Television Network (RTN) that broadcast 1950's to 1980's era programs like "The Honeymooners, "Family Ties," "Knightrider," "A-Team," and they say they carry "Airwolf" but the Pittsburgh station here doesn't carry it yet. RTN seems to allow the local station that carries it (WPXI, channel 11 here) on their digital signal to choose the programming. I'm watchig "Quincy" now, sort of like a 1970's version of "CSI" wherw a cornoner solves crimes.

When I think back and see those shows and even when I go back and think about my experiences growing up then (I was born in 1966) it seems so distant and part of anther dimension to me yet I have lived it. In other ways, it doesn't seem that long ago. I guess as a side note, I'm still hanging with the same buddy for over 30 years, so I think that does help make it seem that way.

Still, it seems like it was a different era.

Thanks!!!

I was not worried about one single idiot ruining my country's reputation. There are stupid people all around the world, and my own Nation would not be an exception.

Anyway, the Brazilian politicians, from all sides of the political spectrum, are usually doing much more harm to my country's image around the world than just the misdeeds of any commom Brazilian citizen.

Down here, we usually say: "the best thing in Brazil is it's people" . And that's true. The Brazilian people makes true miracles everyday, just to LIVE their lives, against all the horrible mess the sell out politicians make in this country.

There were VERY few moments in Brazilian History in which the government worked for the well being of the people. Most of the 508 years of the existence of this country, were like is described in an old magazine I have: "the government against the people, and the people against the government."

One thing I do like about your country is that from what you told us, you can have your collection of TVs (or whatever) protected from destruction when you pass on or decide to quit. It's sort of like a "national trust." So far as I know, we don't have that here in the U.S. although the closest we have is to protect things like historical places and homes.

Stupid politicians are everywhere, (don't worry, no rant to get me into trouble, just some general advice) all I can say is that it is up to us, the average people to just keep on living our lives, do what we like to do and be happy. Although I'm very opinionated politically, I find most of the time I can just cruise on through and be happy doing what I like. I'm burned out on a lot of this stuff anyways so the R&R my hobbies provide me is very good for me.

Well, in my case, I'm looking for a new job, my old one ended on May 2nd so after hockey season (The Pittsburgh Penguins are in the playoffs, if we win, we are off to the Stanley Cup) I'll be looking again. Still I have my second job as web designer so I have to get back to doing that. ;)

I have to agree there too. Heck, even the 1970's (and 1980's) feel that way to me now. Since I got my two "Government Issue" DTV boxes, I've been watching this TV station called Retro Television Network (RTN) that broadcast 1950's to 1980's era programs like "The Honeymooners, "Family Ties," "Knightrider," "A-Team," and they say they carry "Airwolf" but the Pittsburgh station here doesn't carry it yet. RTN seems to allow the local station that carries it (WPXI, channel 11 here) on their digital signal to choose the programming. I'm watchig "Quincy" now, sort of like a 1970's version of "CSI" wherw a cornoner solves crimes.

I wish one of the Cleveland TV stations carried RTN on a digital subchannel. I'm 51 (will be 52 in July) and watched every one of the shows you mention; I was around when most of them (except The Honeymooners) were new. In fact, I taped most of the "Honeymooners" programs when they were on channel 61 in Cleveland (now a Univision affiliate) back in the eighties. Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden has to be one of the funniest actors I've ever seen, next to Art Carney as Kramden's neighbor and friend Edward Norton.

I like "Quincy" as well (I remember when the show was new on NBC in 1976 and watched all eight seasons, until it went off the air in 1984), which is why I wish there was an RTN affiliate in northeastern Ohio, although I do have a subscription to Netflix which has "Quincy"'s entire network run available. Can hardly wait to get the first three DVDs of the series; it will be great to see Jack Klugman again as Quincy in the title role, as a Los Angeles County coroner. I get a big kick as well out of the way he and his boss, Dr. Robert Asten (played by John S. Ragin) are always locking horns with each other on the show; Quincy's lab assistant, Sam Fujiyama (played by actor Robert Ito) was one of the program's best cast members as well, IMHO. I have about three "Quincy" espisodes on VHS and have seen every episode in reruns several times on Cleveland's channel 43, but I think I'm going to like it a lot better seeing the shows on DVD as those episodes are the entire show, nothing edited out (except the commercials). The dialog may have been changed a bit in the DVD version (the DVDs may contain scenes not even shown in the network program as well), but it will be basically the same "Quincy" I enjoyed for eight years in the late '70s-early '80s.

However, there's always hope that RTN will come to this area. Perhaps next year, when everything goes digital, channel 43 (or some other Cleveland television station) may decide to pick up RTN on a digital subchannel, as Pittsburgh's channel 11 did. The closest RTN affiliate to Cleveland at this time is channel 24, the NBC station in Toledo, Ohio, which does carry RTN on one of its digital subcarriers; but the cable system here (Time Warner Cable) doesn't carry that station or RTN itself--at least not yet. As I said above, however, that may well change on 02.19.09 (the cable system may pick up RTN, that is; they cannot carry Toledo stations on their northern Ohio systems, at least not on systems as far east of Cleveland as where I live, although TW may very well carry Toledo and even Detroit stations on its systems in Cleveland's western suburbs).

If you like old TV shows, but channel 11 doesn't carry your favorites yet in the Pittsburgh area, you can still find a lot of old 1950s-1990s TV series on an Internet website. Known as hulu.com (the entire URL is http://www.hulu.com), this site has quite a few of network television's classic shows (including Airwolf). It doesn't have "Quincy" (yet, anyway), but I'm hoping some day soon that will change. However, I am having a ball watching reruns of some of my other favorite shows from the '70s, such as The Bob Newhart Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Emergency!, et al., all of which are currently running on hulu.com. The site has many other classic shows besides, so you may never run out of things to watch if you get hooked on it.

I'm to the point where I like watching programs on this site, as well as other Internet video sites, better than watching standard television. I don't care much for cable anymore, anyway, with TV Land (which for years carried classic shows from the '50s-'70s) now showing movies (their new Movie Land programming) and rerunning basically the same classic shows (Beverly Hillbillies, Andy Griffith, etc.) over and over again. It's to the point now where, when I watch TV these days (except for the evening news), I watch my old favorite shows on DVD.

BTW, speaking of old friends, I still keep in touch with a couple of friends of mine I grew up with, though most of the time (especially these days, with gas prices so high) it is via e-mail, although I do see my one friend at least once a year, if we're lucky (I haven't seen the other one since he was married in 1994). Thank goodness for the Internet and e-mail; because of this technology, my two oldest friends are as close to me as my computer (and vice-versa), even though they live 20 and five miles away, respectively, so it's almost as if we were still together. I don't drive, so I really appreciate being able to keep in touch with these guys electronically. I wish I'd had email back in the early '70s, when my dad remarried and we moved to a Cleveland suburb (Cleveland Heights); if so, I wouldn't have missed my old friends from school nearly as much as I did.

Yeah, I know I should be working on my second, well for now, primary job, I have to answer. ;) I'm watching "Cannon" now and also what's next is "The Fugitive." I think most of those series are intact, it seems to me that there are not as many commercial breaks on RTN. I always liked Robert Ito too on Quincy.

I wish I had my DTV boxes when I was sick a few months ago with the flu, I would have just laid in bed while in pain in my room watching TV there. I know with the variety of RTN and PBS, I can do without cable if I had to although the downside is that I would miss some hockey games and NASCAR races. I know Comcast carries RTN but why should I feed the "Cable Pig" when I get it free over the air by just walking to the computer room or my room? Johnstown, PA will get RTN too on their channel 6, WJAC, station so if I can get it, I'll have my choices of two RTN's. I guess I'll have to make that monster antenna. ;) I wonder what our Channel 2, CBS affiliate, will do, I mean, they only have their main signal, at least the other two of the Big Three networks, both have weather channels with radar (if power stays, useful in storms and for Storm Watch amateur radio operators) and of course RTN.

I love the old commercials they run too, I saw one advertising a 1957 Chevy, you can get 283 horsepower if you order fuel injection and another from PG & E (Pacific Gas & Electric) featuring the "Reddy Kilowatt character.

E-mail is great, you're right, it is much easier to maintain contact with your friends. I still do with a few high school chums.

From what I'm reading, RTN needs to be carried everywhere. Man, I'd almost forgotten about "Airwolf." I remember when WGN carried "Quincy" back in the early to mid '90's, then, FOX picked it up. I remember Quincy, Trapper John, and Kojak all coming on FOX in the afternoon. Now, all they have are those stupid TV courtroom programs all afternoon.

I'm on Comcast, and, they do not yet carry RTN on analog cable in my area. I don't know about digital. I keep hearing that Comcast is going to dump analog all together in 2008. I don't know what I'll do if and when that happens. I'm not to enthused about paying digital cable box rental for all my TV's. If a local station carried RTN on a subchannel, I could just about dump cable. The only channel on my cable that shows any older programs is TV Land and they are steadily going downhill.

It happened to me too: I found a very close friend from my days in school, when I was between 9 and 14, and who I haven't seen and lost contact since 1993, thanks to the Internet. After 15 years the Internet made possible for me to find him again. I moved from another city when I was 14, and now he is studying in Spain... and we are able to make contact easily, without spending money on phone calls. Not only that, I was even able to have ( through the Internet, again ) a copy of a 1986 photo of the whole class together with the teachers... I had lost this picture many years ago!!!

A number of RTN affiliates are available using a DVB-S free-to-air satellite receiver and 30" ku band dish:

http://www.lyngsat.com/galaxy10r.html

From what I'm reading, RTN needs to be carried everywhere. Man, I'd almost forgotten about "Airwolf." I remember when WGN carried "Quincy" back in the early to mid '90's, then, FOX picked it up. I remember Quincy, Trapper John, and Kojak all coming on FOX in the afternoon. Now, all they have are those stupid TV courtroom programs all afternoon.

I'm on Comcast, and, they do not yet carry RTN on analog cable in my area. I don't know about digital. I keep hearing that Comcast is going to dump analog all together in 2008. I don't know what I'll do if and when that happens. I'm not to enthused about paying digital cable box rental for all my TV's. If a local station carried RTN on a subchannel, I could just about dump cable. The only channel on my cable that shows any older programs is TV Land and they are steadily going downhill.

I know, I think TV Land has "jumped the shark," although it can jump back if they care to. They keep rerunning the same shows all the time, "Andy Griffith," "Leave it to Beaver," "Here's Lucy," and so on, I mean I enjoy those shows, but I think we need a change every so often. Hopefully RTN will cycle some shows around. Mom said that once her CSI's go into repeats, there isn't al ot of TV so she might pirate my box on my '64 Sony and hook it to the main 1982 Zenith. My aunt says she doesn't need her extra card from the government so she plans to give it to us. Hopefully I will be able to get the new DTT901 box Zenith is coming out with so I'll shove that on the Commie 64 monitor and free that for the '82 Zenith. I'm recently unemployed so there might be a chance I might have to cut cable anyways, at least I can get 24 hour weather with my box from two of the stations here. I hope we get even more variety on OTA TV, so far, channel 2 here in Pittsburgh has no subchannels, maybe they will do something.

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