In case you missed yesterday’s BIG announcement: actor Alex Mallari Jr. – Dark Matter’s FOUR – wants to hear from you! That’s right! Got a question for The Raza’s resident swordsman? Well leave ’em in the comments section of this blog (limit 5 per customer).
Nope, still not word on that second season pick-up. But that’s fine. Have set aside the script and story spinning until further notice to focus on some late, late, LATE spring cleaning. (Almost) everything must go! Including those boxes that have been sitting in my crawlspace since I first moved into this house back in 2004. What’s the rule of thumb? If you don’t use something in 10+ years, you can safely get rid of it?
I suppose “get rid of” isn’t the right word. I’ll donate the clothes and books, sell the toys and comics, and junk things like those filing cabinets, old boardgames, and that antiquated cash register. My friend Tomomi told me about a book – alas, written in Japanese – that pushes the minimalist philosophy. The author suggests you go through your items and only keep those that elicit what Tomomi roughly translates as “sparkle-joy”. Everything else must go!
I’d love to find the quickest and easiest way to sell my vast toy and statue collection. And I do mean vast. Here’s a pic of roughly one-third of my collection… 
Not to mention all those dvd’s. Do people still watch dvd’s? What the hell am I supposed to do with those?
I remember driving by this shop several years ago whose business model basically focused on selling third party items on eBay. You just drop your stuff off and they did all the work – for a nominal fee. Sadly, they shut down years ago – which is too bad because I could have made their year!
Had a couple of real estate agents come by the house yesterday to give it a once-over and discuss possible strategy. The prospect of cashing out and riding into the sunset grows increasingly enticing – if not for everything that needs to get done before that can happen.
Dreamt about my long-time gal, Jelly, last night. I woke up this morning and, I swear, I could still smell her nacho paws.
That’s just a third of the toy collection? *jaw drops* I will say that purging those once needful things is a great relief after the fact. When I was trying to sell my house last year, I did that. And even though it didn’t sell until this year, it was still a great load off my mind, and when I did finally move this year made it much easier. So, the exercise is well worth it regardless.
Aww, Jelly. She was a great little dog, Joe. *hugs*
Meant to add, still thinking of my questions for Alex!
Questions for Alex
Q1) Your skills with the katana swords on Dark Matter are impressive. Was that your first time being exposed to the swords?
Q2) How do you feel about Four’s backstory/journey so far?
Q3) What made you decide to go vegan if you don’t mind me asking?
Thats’s quite a cleanup job you’ve got ahead of you. Have you ever seen that show “The Liquidator”. I’d say that you could use his help. The warehouse is located in Burnaby. Might be worth checking out. On his show, Jeff goes on location and gives ideas on value should you wish to sell in bulk..and you might even make it into an episode of his show!
You’ve got so much stuff, that you might want to have a giveaway contest or two.
Taking your statement literally, would this entail a move to Japan? Or maybe clearing the way for a semi-permanent move to Toronto to shepherd Dark Matter through the next five seasons?
I need to do a cleanout on our house too as I’m sensing a move for us after David goes off to college in two years. Having two teenagers running around the house has imparted more chaos to our storage spaces than your orderly stacks. I shudder to think what I’ll find when I dig into our basement storage areas. For now I’ll just close the door and pretend it’s not there. Two more years…two more years!
Give Jelly an ear tussle for us in your next dream!
You’ve got THREE carrying around Bubba and Lulu in Dark Matter. You’ve got Maximus heading up your banner on your blog. You need to immortalize Jelly in some way as a tribute to your favorite gal. Name a reoccurring character on Dark Matter after her. Create a new sidebar on your blog for something. For example call it Jelly’s Nacho Paws and it could be a list of your most favorite restaurants, or chocolates around the world, or most favorite ever recipes. (click on the name and it brings up the ingredients and how to make it.) Get a new pug puppy and call it Jelly2. Bring her back into your daily life and I bet you will quit dreaming about her. Not that dreaming about her is a bad thing…
No, no, no, no, no to just tossing out the boardgames!! If they got all the pieces, donate them, too! 😀
Btw … just a thought … what if real life dark matter was actually all the junk accumulated from galaxies throughout the billions and billions of years?
Somewhere, out there … there’s a Fieval doll floating outside the Oort belt …
I heard you sometimes get up at 4am to train. How many hours of sleep do you get a night, typically?
Does it take a long time to choreograph your scenes?
Also, I saw you went to a rescue shelter this past month, do you have pets of your own?
Book is called The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo and you can get it at your favourite bookstore.
It may take awhile but you could transfer all those DVDs to a hard drive. Not sure of the legality of that tbh, but I would assume since you own them and wouldn’t be selling or distributing them it would be OK. As for the other things if you want the most bang for your buck, individually selling on eBay, Craigslist, or another outlet (this may take awhile since it looks like you have a literal mountain of goodies). You could even advertise a few of the more pricey/collectible ones on your blog, but use another outlet to transfer funds etc for privacy.
There’s an old saying. “All dreams are but another reality.”
It’s something I live by every day. Parallel universes… alternate realities… anything’s possible. Some dreams are even so real, to the point where it’s hard to distinguish between the dream world, and this world.
i guess a yard sale would bee too much of a time-consuming hassle? too bad you can’t do an on-line auction. some site other than e-bay, i mean.
is there someone you know who could list & ship the stuff for you as a favor (or for a nominal fee)?
When you figure out how to get rid of all your crap, Joe, gimme a call and tell me how to get rid of all my crap, k? 😛
I am a trinket collector. I love little things – be it box, or a piece of pottery, or a shark’s tooth, or an interesting rock found while on a hike. Each little thing means something to me – things from nature reminders of what a generous and imaginative God we have, things from people reminders of dying arts and talents, and miscellaneous things that just make me happy for happiness’ sake. And I am a saver – can’t throw out a rubber band or a nail or a old rag because it might come in handy someday. I am also an organizer, so there’s a place for everything and everything has a place. But after a while, I start running out of places… 😛
Gotta run, Norton is gonna try fixing my computer again!
das
I’m jealous of your collection all I have is hot toys iron man mk42 and iron patriot and sideshow’s darth vader but I have ultron pre-ordered and over time given my wife’s tolerance my collection will grow slowly. Funny thing is my little tyler has nacho stinky paws and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Really hoping syfy doesn’t disappointe all of us again by cancelling another great show before it gets it fan base going.
I really *MUST* go “visit” my BFF in Langley some time…
And yes, I still watch AND BUY “DVD”s!! — BTW, I’d kill for that “space” and shelving… I have an 8×10 room that is literally STUFFED with stuff! Right up to the door frame! – I refer to it as “STORAGE WARS: Valley of the Kings, B.C.E. [Before Carter Excavated!]”
I’m pretty sure that I was likely a “curator” in at least 2 previous Lives! Like *WHAT* don’t I “collect”! — Say, You wouldn’t have any “rhinos” stuff in there would you? That’s my primary “passion”…
Anyhoo, you should probably find a sci-fi “dealer” that can evaluate what you have. Or, if there are any shops in town the specialize in that stuff. They might be able to arrange some special sale..? Perhaps check out the Vendor list from COMIC CON, there might be someone there that can handle your volume.
Oh, and make sure you go with U.S. Dollar pricing!! At the current exchange rate, you might as well just torch it all if you settle for Canadian currency!!
BTW, if any of “YOU GUYS” are in need of any STAR TREK: TNG *VIDEO* TAPES, [watched once, if at all] — give me a shout-out!
;-D
Four isn’t shy of killing needlessly and killing for a money job. I don’t cheer for that. Will there be ramifications for him?
Wow, I thought I had a lot of “crap”, as my wife calls it. You put me to shame. If you have any decent Punisher stuff, I may be interested.
♥ Jelly.
As someone who gleefully downsized by 2/3 I can completely feel your pain. Consider donating the board games and dvd’s. I know of a lot of people who still love their dvds and board games are making something of a retro comeback. Of course, in retirement communities, what’s retro is normal.
Pre-eBay (I don’t know what the situation is now), there were dealers who specialized in various categories of stuff and had the contacts to pair dealers and buyers. They’d sometimes buy whole lots themselves if they thought they could unload it. Maybe your local comic book shop might know how to contact such dealers.
The minimalist rules need to be balanced with storage costs. Someone living in a New York City apartment needs to be smart about what’s taking up space and if it’s possible to downsize to a smaller apartment, it’ll probably pay off a lot. So, getting rid of that spare blender, knowing the actively used blender will die within a few years and money will be spent to replace it makes more sense if you live in an area with high square footage costs.
Me, in my cheap square footage neighborhood, I figure I’ve been storing a single empty binder (paid ten cents at a yard sale for it) in my mud room for at least a year and letting it take up a whole square foot of space. I’m sure there’s a financial calculation I can make about why that’s a bad idea, but I really just don’t need that particular square foot for anything. But stuff like that can end up taking up mental square footage, like walking past it and wondering where the binder really should be stored if I were the sort of person who knew where the appropriate place to keep things was or if maybe I’m never going to use that binder.
Just the games might be worth a lot! Check out some of the titles on ebay. My hubby has “Dark Tower” but there’s a piece broken in the tower. A working one is going for $300 on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dark-Tower-Milton-Bradley-1981-Complete-works-Classic-Electronic-Board-Game-/121722757103?hash=item1c573ddfef Could you store all of them? That collection might be a good retirement stash.
Where are you moving?
Love the Jelly dream. It’s almost like she never left. I still miss Harry so much! The more time that goes by though, I realize how sick he was. 🙁
No Lulu news, huh? I hope she hasn’t had diarrhea this whole time!!!!
G’day All!
Joe, I much prefer DVD over the now more popular methods of over internet viewing. As I have mentioned I have learned many things by listening to the commentaries especially from my SG collection. You can’t get that from downloading. Nor do you get outtakes, extended scenes, or other bits. Also, I can watch many of my DVD in dubbed or subtile form, i.e. Ran or 7 Samaria. Another problem I found out is the “darn thing” called the cloud. Since I don’t have cable tv, I can’t watch SyFy even get it as a stand alone. Therefore, I could not watch Dark Matter, or the other SyFy programs. I did find that iTunes has DM. Even though I purchased and can share it on my iPad, when I leave on my overseas trip this week I will not be able to watch any of the episodes while on the flight because I will not have a cloud connection nor can I burn a copy to transfer it onto the iPad. So when in Thailand I will head to Mangpong and get some seasons of Boardwalk Empire, House of Card, maybe season 5 GoT, etc. Yes I am becoming an anachronism.
@Really hoping syfy doesn’t disappointe all of us again
Nothing to worry about there. You only have to see how last week, Dominion got a 0.23(With Smackdown as a lead in), Defiance got a 0.21, Killjoys a 0.20. Syfys scripted average is, well, dreadful. I know the wait is long and painful but it’ll pay off in the end. Dark Matter is doing fine 🙂
I’m an unwilling hoarder. My mother-in-law is a shopping addict and keeps saying “well, you guys have that basement if you can’t use it right now”. When I’d try to sort through stuff to get rid of something, my oldest kid would come through and unsort it every.single.time. It was too discouraging to even try. Now, my mother-in-law is slowing down on the shopping and I’m able to sort things and have it stay that way at least long enough to get rid of some things so we’re finally starting to make some progress in the right direction.
An urgent call-out from the women’s center for certain sizes of children’s clothing saved my sanity. Getting it sorted and picked up in a short period of time was the only way anything was getting out the door during that era. I was too afraid of an audit to claim several wardrobes worth of donated, new boys’ clothes on the tax return when I only have one boy, though.
Q for Alex: Dogs, or cats, or both, or other?
From the “easier said than done” department: Find someone to set up and run an eBay store for you. I have no idea how to do that without accidentally advertising that you’re in a prime position to be scammed. But you know a lot more people than I do, so you probably have a friend who already knows how to do that for you, and would welcome the extra income.
At the risk of being a downer, I had a collection that I fully intended to sell on eBay before we moved. It included a plate of Spock from the 1970s that I’d seen offered for sale for as much as $300.00. Then the economy tanked and people stopped collecting. That same plate was for sale on eBay for TEN dollars! I was devastated. Everything I checked on was selling for less than half of what I paid for it. My collections of Spock, John Wayne and Darth Vader all went to Goodwill. I sent a truckload of items that used to be valuable collectors’ items to Goodwill. It was painful and traumatic. This was three years ago. Maybe it will be better now. Just felt that I should warn you that you’ll be getting garage sale prices for your items unless you can find a dealer for your unopened, classic, hard-core-collector’s pieces. Good luck.
Love to LuLu and Bubba.
Ponytail: Love, love, love your suggestions. 🙂
Where are you going, Joe?? A bit too young for the sunset! I think the Japanese minimalist living book has been published in English as well: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22318578-the-life-changing-magic-of-tidying-up
Your stuff is so cool, I hope you can keep a few items for fun wherever you end up.
Well, as a Vancouver local may I suggest you donate your board games to Ludica? They are a great restaurant with a wonderfully curated selection of games. http://www.ludica.ca/ Alternatively, I could always give them a home. 😛
My son has an ebay biz selling rare video games. He has done some figures and old board games too. I’ll show him your pic and let you know if he has any ideas. I imagine that you want something done in bulk.
I don’t know what kind of time you have… but I wonder if Akemi would be interested in selling them on ebay. She would be learning English by looking up and writing descriptions of items. And she would be able to access the Japanese market.
I found the hardest part of getting rid of stuff was just making the decision that I didn’t need it anymore. As soon as I got past that point, the actual work of doing something with it was easy. I tend to get distracted easily though by going down Memory Lane while going through stuff, especially if it’s written material. Then after two hours or so of reading, I realize I’ve run out of time and have to leave it!
Interesting about your Jelly dream, the last couple of days Bart has been on my mind again a lot more than usual, and I’m actually missing her more now than I have been. What I wouldn’t give for just one more snuggle with that little bird. A normal part of the process, I guess.
Also, as I’ve gotten older I’ve started to realize that the only things that really bring me “sparkle-joy” aren’t material things at all.
First step is cataloging everything. I know it sucks, but you won’t know what you have money-wise until you know what you have inventory-wise. Once you inventory everything, start divvying everything up into groups and sets, like all the Iron Man statues together, then a group of his villains; all the Batman ones together, then his villains together; heroes/villains of a particular anime together, etc., etc.
You want to do what you can to make it easy for someone who wants to collect an entire set of something, but not force them to buy the entire lot of DC stuff, or Marvel stuff, or Akira, or Cowboy Bebop or whatever. You kind of want to keep them series specific and edition specific, too. If you’ve got every release of the B/W Batman statues, sell them as a group of just the Batmans, but sell the Jokers with the Harley Quinns if you don’t have the full release for that particular year. Also, don’t sell multiples of one particular statue in each lot. If you’ve got three of one kind of Iron Man, sell them separately in lots with something else. But if you’ve got three different versions/releases of the same Iron Man, sell those as a group. I know it can get kind of confusing, but to a collector, it makes sense, and to a new collector, it makes it easy to start your collection.
Same kind of thinking goes for the DVD’s, too. You want to keep the new collector in mind. Full seasons and complete series sell well, of course. Limited releases and international releases need to be specified as such, they do well, too.
I wouldn’t necessarily suggest you sell everything as one huge lot(unless you can actually find the right buyer who knows what you’ve got and offers you a fair deal), but if you were to sell things in smaller, more specific groups, I think you could do fairly well. Especially since a lot of your stuff is limited edition and almost assuredly has gone up in value.
I’d be more than happy to be like that eBay “store” you mentioned and just pick everything up from your house with a trailer and sell it off for you on eBay, but I’m from California and I don’t know if it’d be a problem crossing the Canadian border with all that stuff. I can easily see being detained and questioned for a long time until they realize that I didn’t steal it and I’m not a trafficker of some kind.
Good luck with it all though! I would suggest that once you know what you’ve got, you post a semi-complete list here for us blog regulars to peruse and see if there’s anything we’d like to take off your hands. 😉 I’m sure there are some of us who are fans of the same things as you. You could set up a PayPal account so we can pay you directly and everything! Joe’s Knick Knack Shack!
-Mike A.
Re: DVDs. Yes. I still watch DVDs. In fact, since my HDTV’s single HDMI port is broken, and I haven’t found a new TV yet, I’ve been watch Stargate Atlantis DVDs from Netflix 🙂
Excuse me but, isn’t it your duty as a science fiction writer/producer to have a storage room full of action figures, books, and classic movies? I say, keep the good stuff, organize it, and display it proudly. Find a Flea Market and sell the rest. (I kick myself regularly for not still having my childhood Barbies)
Lots of good suggestions about downsizing. Some of us must be getting the clean-up bug. I have a good part of the last week cleaning out my master bedroom closet when I got tired of not being able to get in there at all. Very, very interesting things I have found in there. Some pictures that I couldn’t find that were behind a drawer, etc. My neighbor’s grandkids’ Eagle Scout ceremony, which is timely because I am wondering if my neighbor is still alive. Her husband passed many years ago, but I lost touch with her. I’m going to see if I can find the mom of these kids on Facebook. I remembered her first name but I could never remember her last name.
About Jelly and @gforce about Bart — I believe in the spirit world and I think they come to us to let us know they are okay, or to help us through a difficult time or decision or maybe because we miss them terribly and they are reaching out to comfort us. The fact, Joe, you could smell her paws tell me she did actually pay you a visit. When we dream, we are better tuned in to that side and our minds are more quiet where we can hear them and their thoughts and wishes get through to us. Smelling something that was similar to an old scent is definitely a sign of a presence.
I’ll get my questions in for Alex by Sunday. I don’t want to ask the same questions.
Why not hold an auction of sorts of your items to your blog readers? That would be a good way to get the items to a good home and allowing you to recoup some money. Logistically, it might be a nightmare, but you would ensure the loyalty of your blog readers if they owned something previously enjoyed by yourself.
umm God Speed on the selling of the items. It would be wonderful if you could find a place like the one you mentioned that would sell the stuff for you. There might still be something like that around, but it’s the looking that’s not so fun. And I thought my DVD holder was huge! I bow down before the greatness that is your DVD collection. While I am slowly transitioning my stuff to Blu-ray and online there are still some DVD’s that are available either online or on Blu-ray. I still have my old Rainbow Brite VHS that never made it to DVD. Some of those DVD”s may just be worth some money. I know if you have The Girl Who Leapt Through Time DVD you have an easy $100.