Thanks again, F.Y.E.!

And so we have Round Three of trading in my old, dusty DVDs to F.Y.E. for store credit!

Amid the happiness that I feel about turning old, dusty DVDs into a functional asset (store credit) I have to admit that there’s something unsettling about the process of trading in these DVDs. I’m not sure what it is – it could be the fact that I’m receiving back in store credit only a fraction of what these DVDs originally cost me (and a small fraction, by the way). I don’t know what it is, but that unsettling feeling is more than squelched by the dual fact that I have less unused/not-going-to-be-used stuff laying around my bedroom and that, in return for getting rid of this stuff, I have a new functional asset in F.Y.E. store credit.

So how much did I earn in store credit for trading in all of these DVDs? Take a look at the list below and find out for yourself!

Ducktales Season 1 – $6.25
Smallville Season 1 – $3.75
Smallville Season 4 – $2.50
Smallville Season 5 – $5.00
Smallville Season 6 – $2.50
Smallville Season 7 – $10.00
American History X – $1.88
Beetlejuice – $2.50
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (new one) – $1.25
Creep Show – $1.25
Dane Cook: Harmful if Swallowed – $2.50
Great Outdoors – $1.25
Killer Klowns from Outer Space – $1.88
Lewis Black: Black on Broadway – $2.50
Lewis Black: Unleashed – $1.25
Life – $1.25
Masters of the Universe – $3.75
Meet the Fockers – $1.25
Meet the Parents – $1.88
My Cousin Vinny – $2.50
Office Space – $2.50
Robots – $1.25
Rudy – $1.25
Shrek – $1.25
Shrek 2 – $0.63
The Addams Family 1 – $1.25
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad – $1.88
The Passion of the Christ – $2.50
The Simpsons: Gone Wild – $1.88
The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror – $1.25
True Lies – $1.25
Wedding Crashers – $1.25
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (old one) – $2.50

I think that part of the unsettling feeling is seeing an entire season of the Smallville television series bringing in $2.50. I mean… good grief! Two dollars and fifty cents?! I probably paid $25 for that box set when it was released for goodness’ sake! Geez…

Anyway, in total I generated $77.53 in store credit from Round Three of my DVD trade-ins this year. As you might recall from Round One and Round Two, I’ve been trading in my old, dusty DVDs throughout 2010. In total, this year I generated $244.22 in store credit at F.Y.E. by trading in some of these unused old DVDs that were doing nothing more than taking up space in my bedroom. Add in another $25.25 that I generated by trading in some old video games to GameStop and another $54 that I generated by returning an unopened video game controller to Walmart and I’ve done pretty well this year in generating usable assets from completely unused stuff laying around my bedroom.

What remains of my once huge DVD collection

And I don’t think I’m done yet.

Take a look at the picture to the right to see what remains of my DVD and video game collection. It’s getting pretty scarce, don’t you think? Let me walk you through this thing starting with the media tower on the left side of the picture. The top and second shelves are filled with different DVDs that I haven’t yet traded in or that I’ve decided I’m not trading in. The third shelf with the stack of DVDs on it are product that I bought at a discount to give away on one of the wrestling sites that I own. The fourth shelf contains a few t-shirts that I’ll also being giving away on that wrestling site and a three-pack of DVDs that I received for Christmas. So in this media tower I really only have two shelves worth of DVDs that you can actually count towards my collection.

As for the media tower on the right, the first shelf contains all of my Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS video games. The second shelf contains the wrestling DVDs that I’m holding on to as well as some PC and PlayStation 2 video games. The third shelf mostly contains my Christmas DVD collection and the first few Family Guy box sets.

And that’s it. That’s what left of my DVD and video game collection. Pretty amazing, I think – especially when you consider that I once had probably 400 or so DVDs and video games in my college/post-college collection. What about you? Are there any old DVDs or video games laying around your house that you can trade-in to a store for some credit or sell on eBay for a few bucks?

If so, then what are you waiting for?!

If any of you are interested in buying one of these textbooks or any of the other books that I’ve posted on the auction, please let me know. Also, if you have access to students in college who might be looking to purchase some textbooks for the spring semester, please share this link with them:

http://shop.ebay.com/balrog275/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1

Any folks you can send my way would be greatly appreciated. All of the proceeds from these sales will go directly to reduce my remaining USDOE student loan. Thanks!

Governor Christie is the man!

Second, why is it that this particular post office is always jam packed with people? I know that the people working there are absolutely amazing (they really are the best postal employees that I’ve ever encountered – kind, courteous, knowledgeable, etc), but I just can’t understand why this post office is always filled up with customers. There aren’t a great abundance of post office boxes and the location of the building is slightly off of a main highway, so I don’t know if that has any impact on the traffic. But I do know that when I go to this particular post office, I usually have to wait about 10 minutes in line before I get to the teller.

Which brings up another point – why isn’t there an express lane at this post office? With the amount of traffic that comes through this place, you’d expect that they would put in a “fast lane” for people who are sending one envelope or who are just buying stamps. Instead, I often get caught behind people with dozens (no exaggeration) of boxes from their personal eBay businesses. I guess Ocean Township in Monmouth County is a hotbed of activity for eBay businesses or something. Weird.

Anyway, I went into this post office a few days before Christmas to send one package to a charity that I support on the West Coast and it took me about 20 minutes to send out a single package (which I had pre-packed before I arrived at the building). It was absolutely amazing and definitely an unnecessary complication for someone trying to complete a bunch of errands before heading away for the Christmas holiday.

Way to go, Judge Judy! And the fact that this disgusting human being – Kelli Filkins – continues on and on talking about how “people can’t read and it’s not my fault” only adds to her completely gross personality. She’s the worst person I’ve seen on Judge Judy (or at least on Judge Judy internet clips) yet. She ought to be ashamed to leave her own house. I’m not sure if there is an update on this case from 2007, but I hope that Filkins and/or her husband found themselves in jail. And I hope that after these dopes watched what a pathetic performance Kelli put on during the Judge Judy show that they realized how miserable they are and changed their ways.

Idiots.

Ha ha ha! How great is that?! Not only do you have the team at ThinkGeek.com reviving one of the most underrated consoles of the last generation, but they’re doing it on the cheap. And as for games, an eBay search shows me over 900 listings (plus I’m sure any GameStop or EB Games has some discs laying around for sale).

And I love that Dreamcast is now competing again (at least in terms of price) with PlayStation 2. Frankly, this is a battle that it cannot win since virtually everyone owns a PlayStation 2 (some 45.2 million sold vs. 2.2 million for the Dreamcast). But it’s fun and I got a kick out of it.

I would absolutely buy a Dreamcast, but the truth is that I really enjoy the Wii and Nintendo DS so much that I don’t want/need another system. And even more than that, I don’t really have any time to play video games these days. If I pick up an hour or two of gaming each month between the Wii, the DS, or my computer then that’s a lot.

But for those of you who want an affordable – and fun – alternative to the current generation of video gaming systems, give Sega’s Dreamcast a try!