Tag Archives: flea markets

Bye weak, buy week

Leave a reply

So the Phillies got bounced from the playoffs in the first round against the St. Louis Cardinals after the team’s bats got put to sleep against Chris Carpenter’s pitching. Then on Sunday, the Eagles beat themselves with stupid turnovers and penalties, allowing the Buffalo Bills to just sit, point and laugh. Had it not been for the Flyers shutting out the Devils or the Union clawing their way back into the playoff hunt, it would have been a lousy weekend to be a Philly sports fan.

There was a bright spot to the weekend, though…I got a chance to visit three flea markets and a farmer’s market. The latter was being held at Clark Park, probably not too far from where the “Occupy Philadelphia” protests were scheduled to take place…although I didn’t see anyone with costumes or placards until I went to the first flea market at a Presbyterian church, of all places. I managed to pick up some decent books (including Heir to the Empire, the first of the Star Wars “Thrawn trilogy” books, and a couple of Oscar Wilde plays, because I haven’t read a stage play since 12th grade Honors English and was curious), along with a few relatively current video games (Enslaved, Vanquish, and Data East Arcade Classics) from a game store located in the Drexeline shopping center. Oh, and also Mega Man X Command Mission, because I still need to play that and X8 to complete my collection. I didn’t like X7 very much, but I do intend to finish it one day.

Apparently, someone at the DCCC flea market had a hardcover copy of The Legend of Rah and the Muggles for sale for $1 (yup, the picture’s real, superfluous trademark symbols and all). I’ve heard a lot of silly things about this book, but I didn’t have any idea that it actually existed outside of the “Muggles” lawsuit. I didn’t buy it, of course; why spend money on buying a bad book for collection’s sake when you can laugh at what others have to say about it for free?

Red, white and blue all over

Leave a reply

My “where were you on 9/11/01″ moment:

I was just leaving a difficult art history class, and students were gathered around the TVs in the hallway (I think Good Morning America was on at the time), shocked and horrified out of their minds after seeing what happened. I remember being paranoid about low-flying planes throughout the rest of the day, as Penn State’s Harrisburg Campus is only a few miles away from an airport. I’m kinda embarrassed about it now that I look back on that day, but I think I’ve gotten over that fear. I had friends living in and/or going to school in New York back then, but fortunately, none of them were in the city when the towers fell.

I’m assuming that Upper Darby High School postponing its flea market until next week is somehow linked to this year being the 10th anniversary of that event. My mom and dad found out about this after coming away from another flea market up at Delaware County Community College, which was packed, undeterred (or perhaps even motivated) by the various 9/11 tributes in the area.

I was able to come away with a full starter deck of Pokémon trading cards – the Emerging Powers Toxic Tricks deck, which is full of Psychic- and Fire-type Pokémon from the Black and White versions, including Darmanitan and Gothitelle, a couple of my favorites. The lady who sold them told me that the box contained a code that lets you use that deck online. I don’t know anybody in my area who plays the Pokémon card game, so I went ahead and used the online code to try to win a battle in the Trainer Challenge (which I did). I needed the practice, anyway. Theme decks aren’t really my thing, but I don’t have enough virtual cards to mix-and-match yet.

I also got T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, which is supposed to be one of the best retellings of the King Arthur mythos. It starts out with the “sword in the stone” legend, and that’s really the one story that most people think of when they hear of King Arthur, anyway. Now that I’ve finished reading Pokémon Adventures Vol. 1, I can devote some time to reading it this week.

Buying is easy…selling is hard

Leave a reply

Yesterday, my family held another yard sale. We got the word out by hanging up signs all around our block as early as 8 in the morning. We would have tried to do it on Friday, but the rain and storms would have just washed them away. On that front, I think we did pretty well, but I honestly don’t know how much we sold…there were still tables full of merchandise by the time we chose to end it. I tried to auction off my PlayStation 2 Guitar Hero collection (with the first three games), but to no avail. Nobody seemed to be interested in my computer keyboard/mouse combo, either. I think we might have somewhat better luck if we took our wares to a flea market. More space, more varied clientele, and a better chance of getting our merchandise sold.

We went to the flea market Upper Darby High School today. It looked like there was going to be a big storm early, so we went in the morning to avoid the rain. Luckily, the weather held up long enough for us to get some good stuff. I came away with a couple of Xbox 360 games on the cheap (Saints Row and Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation) as well as Tak and the Power of Juju on PS2 and a handful of Prima Strategy Guides on almost all of the Sims 2 expansions (I didn’t get one for Apartment Life).

The next event is going to happen on September 11. I may try to get in touch with school officials to see how much it would cost to reserve a space. It might be hard for us to fit a table into the car, but if we could pull it off, I think it would totally be worth the effort.