(BTW, here’s a link to my page on Ebay as well as a nifty RSS feed of current auctions )

Anyway, I started small, but I’m working on a schedule for listing items.

• CDs and music
• Books
• Comic books (I was very into Batman during the late 80s, and have a big collection of THE SHADOW comics, which I might have some problem letting go of. We’ll see how that goes)
• sports cards (primarily football with some baseball, from mid-80’s to early 90’s)
• computer parts and electronics.
• tools and random "hobby" items
• Art. I’ve always been drawing and painting in my spare time, which has been shrinking as the kids have grown older, but I have several sketch books, paintings in progress, and small drawings that I have focused on lately – in addition to a stockpile of older finished works.

The original purpose for this site was to showcase a store for me to sell paintings and other art. I had imagined a dry, professional site with pictures and some contact info. Very cool, standoffish kind of thing. But I would like a forum to point out issues that matter to me ( net neutrality, copyright and DRM, and technology’s place in our life), as well as art and design.

Anyway, it’s back to the garage for me. I have some boxes to unpack.

It extended from there to the normal boyhood obsessions of sports cards and comic books and then beyond to music, then various other artsy knick-knacks. I streamlined things to more specific obsessions: only Miami Dolphins cards, only Batman or The Shadow comics, etc.

I don’t mention any of this because I think of it as unusual or special, as I’m sure most of us go through these phases or remain under the sway of such compulsions. We derive an unspoken pleasure and sense of purpose or completeness from collecting, whether it be Hummel figurines or sports cars. What nags at me, however, is the illusion of it all….the attachment that has made these items emotionally important to me, like some sort of nostalgia addiction I can’t break.

Which brings me to the purpose here…

I have heard a couple of times about projects, ostensibly artsy comments on the nature of possessions or some hooey like that, in which people sell off every item they own – even including their time or the dust bunnies under their bed. The idea always appealed to me as a way to peel back the ‘fat from the heart’ as some might say, that comes from the basic American materialistic lifestyle. As I grow more anti-consumerist and even more of a crackpot old man, nearly revolted by the assault of advertising that demands I buy buy buy a sense of peace that I already own, kicking my habit seems like a wonderful idea. And offering it for sale to others while also urging them to consume less pleases the ironist in me to no end…

Complications arise because I am not a single young man living in a small apartment somewhere, free to assume a monastic lifestyle. I’m married, have two young children, and my possessions are therefore not solely my own. There are some items my wife has no interest in (a ‘shout out’ to the complete 1986 Topps football card set), but if I try to auction off the table lamp there will be some problems. And it seems a shame to unload comic books that our superhero-centric boys might enjoy a couple of years. So some compromises must be made that will prevent this from becoming an artistically and intellectually pure ideal.

I have begun cataloging the detritus of what I once held dear, and will begin offering as much as I can on a certain internationally popular auction site and hopefully here on this website, provided I can get some sort of simple shopping cart system up and running. Along with the CDs, movies, books, magazines, computer components, household items, and miscellany I’ll also finally begin listing some of the paintings and sketches this site was originally intended to promote.