They have their own shop and know their buyers so they buy to a known market. I think those guys on the show pickers have been doing that for a while now, probably before ebay even existed.
They have their own shop and know their buyers so they buy to a known market. I think those guys on the show pickers have been doing that for a while now, probably before ebay even existed.
It's almost as if these "reality" shows are attempting to fool people into believing their is still an "American Dream". The American Dream does exist, but it's based on creating something, inventing something, building and retailing something, recovering and recycling something usable, it's not built on disassembling what someone else has worked hard, often their entire life to create. It's one thing totally different to recover usable materials and return them into the production stream, to be turned into a usable/salable product. But it's something totally different to profit off someone's loss. The reality programs that pertain to flipping houses are the most worrisome of all. Dismantling this countries family and social infrastructure, regardless if it's a storage unit, or someone's house they have been forced to give up, seems somehow wrong to me.
This mentality that it's alright to dismantle other peoples lives in order to make excessive profit, and the televising of this mentality, seems to be to be a cancer eating at the center of our society. Where once neighbor would help neighbor, now it seems neighbor is waiting for the fall of their neighbor so that they can profit from their misfortune.
My question is this, when does it become NOT okay, when do these reality programs stop being entertaining? When do we say as a society that the TV networks who are making insane amounts of money off the televising of these programs have gone too far, and we refuse to support them by watching them any longer? When does it stop being okay? When do we start to realize the real human price of our entertainment.
At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. -- Carl Sagan
Do what I do, I email the program that p****s me off and tell them I won't be watching or buying from their sponsors if I can help it. I'm just one person but if there's a few thousand like me across the country then they'll hear/head our voices.My question is this, when does it become NOT okay, when do these reality programs stop being entertaining? When do we say as a society that the TV networks who are making insane amounts of money off the televising of these programs have gone too far, and we refuse to support them by watching them any longer? When does it stop being okay? When do we start to realize the real human price of our entertainment.
The squeaky wheel sometimes gets the grease.
P & M Recycling - Specializing in E-Waste Recycling.
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I don't think pawnstars need to have a pawn shop anymore they are making 100k an episode.
Since this is a rant thread I'm working a night job downtown on a loading dock and this guy parks his rig in front of our dock last night. I ask the guy to move his rig cause #1 its a No Park Zone and #2 its partly blocking our entrance. Guy basically tells me to F@ck @ff and that he parks there every night and works backstage at the theater where seats go for $115 - $386 and chances are he makes 80-$100 hr. What a cheap b@st@rd won't pay to park. That's entertainment
Tell him you are going to call the police, or a tow company and have him towed.
When I owned a nightclub/bar, there was this guy who always parked and blocked my back driveway where it was clearly marked no parking. When I caught him parking one night I told him what I was going to do, he just laughed and drove off, next time he parked there I made sure I had the two signs posted, and called a tow truck and had his ride towed away, then I found him inside and kicked him out. Never had the problem again.
Either post the signs and have him towed, or call the police and get him ticketed and/or towed. There is no reason why he can't comply with the same rules everyone else has to.
Scott
Last edited by NobleMetalWorks; 02-21-2013 at 03:29 PM.
Of course the "reality shows" are fake. All of them. As fake as the "professional wrestlers" in the "wwf"! It's all just entertainment, folks.
AMERICAN BORN, AMERICAN BRED! AND I'M PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!!!
Yea..like Scott said. Have the bastard impounded. Nothing takes the wind out of the sails of a windbag like that like a 150.00 ticket. An do it everytime he parks there. After dealing with the cops (who won't help, cause its a legal tow) and the tow company he'll find another spot to park.
I got family in the towing industry, and impounding a dumbass that can read but chooses not to, is a lot of fun. Hell my town here on my sandbar owes me a cut of the tickets they get outside my house every summer. Buffet place next store plenty of parking, but their customers like to come park in front of the no parking signs going down my street. I had 60 people ticketed last year...at 150 a pop, my town owes me some coin. lol.
You want to be a dumb ass, that's your call, park in my yard or in front of a no parking sign an I'll have your stupid butt towed, ticketed, and I'll do it all from my back deck while breaking down scrap and drinking a beer while laughing at you arguing with the cop.
Stupid people = Free Entertainment.
/end rant
Sirscrapalot - My dog ate my sock.
I liked the picking/auction shows for a while, mostly when I did not have internet, a bike, or scrap to tear down. American Pickers stood out from the rest because they more actively searched for stuff to buy, instead of just standing next to whatever someone brings to a set. Eventually I was tired of the editing, exaggerated personalities, scripted conflicts, and commercials. When they cut to ads, I'm not motivated to wait for the rest of the show when I could be scrapping. The counterpoints are the hoarding shows. I watched a few of those, but I think the peak of that genre was passed years ago with Clean Sweep, before TLC became just another cable channel.
I don't watch tv much anymore between the reality tv and horrible news that is mostly speculation and fear mongering with tidbits off the internet REALLY the internet. I can't belive these people went to school to be a journalist so they could tell me about some celebrity's lame life or the most negative thing they could find in the world. I put my time into more positive things like my family,community,work and just being outside in general. its amazing how much you can get done if you shut off the glowing box for a week! try it sometime its good for you
There ain't nothing wrong with an honest days work. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool.- Old Man
I sound like a socialistic? You mean a socialist? Do you even know what a socialist is? A better insult would have been to call me a communist.
If you want to talk about political science, and are seriously curious as to what my interests are, you can message me. I'm no different than what our for-fathers were. I think insulting me in public forum without actually knowing who and what I am was a bit rude, but no matter. It did make me laugh.
Now that you have taken a cheap shot at me, I would like to give you an example of what I am talking about. I'll use storage units as an example. On those types of reality shows what they are showing you are almost always someone's storage locker that has come up for auction because the person who had it could not afford to pay the price of the storage locker anymore, and had no place to put the items because most likely they were homeless, living with relatives or trying to make ends meet so they could provide for their family, or worse.
How did they get into this situation? Usually of no fault of their own. Banks were illegally throwing loans at people, just like in the 80s during the S&L debacle. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the term NINJA loan but it means No Income, No Job, No Assets. They didn't check anything and threw the money at people who were looking to purchase houses. They did this because as fast as they could write the loans, investors were buying the bad debt. Then the investors were putting these portfolios together and selling them to other banks, and the problem was perpetuated over and over, again and again.
Now take your average joe blow US Citizen, hard working, honest, providing for their family, etc. Lets say they are a manager at your local super market. The Wallmart moves in (Which I consider to be just about as anti-American as can be). The super market is just simply out of luck because it happens to be a super Wallmart moving in. They open, they sell their items for far less than any of the competition and once they drive their competition out, they raise their prices. That manager at the local super market looses their job, their good paying job that provided them with insurance for their family. Now what do they do, go to work at Wallmart for minimum wage? How can they, they have their loan to pay on their home.
Meanwhile, their 5 year interest only NINJA loan is coming up, and they have to start paying on it. During the period of time when things were great, this family probably started buying on credit, because this is what our Government, banks and financing institutions were encouraging us to do. So they have their credit card debt, they lost a good job, their NINJA loan is coming up so they try to sell their house, and try to sell it fast. Right at the same time all the baby boomers are starting to retire and selling their own homes to pull the equity out for their retirement. The housing market crashes, and I don't mean like it did during the S&L scandal, but far worse.
At the same time Walmart is offering to pay new employees minimum wage with no insurance, matter of fact they are teaching their employees how to get public assistance, and health insurance.
So Mr Joe Blow can't sell his house, no matter what he tries to do, his credit card debt gets out of hand because that's now the only way he can make ends meet, pay the bills, buy food, clothes for his kids for school, etc etc etc. And now the bank forecloses on his house, because he has no job his credit cards go into collection, so he gets all his worldly belongings together and stuffs it into a storage locker.
And the next thing you know someone is auctioning off all the things of this world his family owns, and some idiotic characters are playing out some childish drama on some ridicules reality TV show. It's the TV show that is praying on the disassembling of our great nation. It started with the banking and credit card institutions, it was propagated by the ultra rich, and is now digested and presented to the American Public as entertainment. I don't see how not liking this situation and commenting on it makes me a socialist, on the contrary, I believe we need to have more small business owners, because it's honestly people who own businesses who have any say at all about anything. When this nation was at it's strongest is when there were more business owners. Now there are more people on public assistance, which seems like socialism to me, while all their worldly possessions are being auctioned off on some reality program.
It's idiot TV, whatever sucks in the sheaple so they can continue selling add space for junk made in China. If you are profiting off someone's misfortune, then shame on you I say. If we all stood up as one single voice and demanded that the banks be held accountable, that the huge companies that were bailed out be held accountable for their actions, nobody would be loosing their homes today. We wouldn't have this huge giant socialistic burden in the form of public assistance to bear right now. We would be strong instead of economically fragile.
So excuse me for believing in the individual instead of the giant corporations. Excuse me for not thinking that tearing apart someone's life is entertaining. Excuse me for being sick and tired of the American dream being ripped out of the hands of so many people who have worked so hard for so many years to realize it.
I think next time, before you post about something you know absolutely nothing about you should ask first instead of making yourself out to be totally ignorant. It only takes a second to ask, but it takes a lifetime to change someone's mind once you have made yourself to look a specific way.
I have lost, and rebuilt my life twice over already. I am self made, and worked very hard to get to the point in my life I am at. I am putting my daughter through Stanford University, I have paid off the house my ex-wife currently lives in and I have no debt. I have also helped other people, friends and family, keep their homes and even helped one start a business. You sir, owe me an apology!
And if I might add my own assumptions, you sound like someone who is about 27-29 years of age. I bet I could easily profile you, and if you would like, I would truly enjoy doing so right here on the forum, just for entertainment value, then we can see how you like it, someone profiting off your misfortune.
Scott
Last edited by NobleMetalWorks; 02-21-2013 at 11:38 PM.
Hey I'm in good company I guess..if it makes you a socialist to dislike reality tv, then..sign me up! You can keep your honey boo boo's, your foreclosed home entertainment, etc. I'll keep scrapping, ignoring the fear mongering on the news, and all the other assorted bs that is tossed out there as 'entertainment'. When I want entertainment, I turn on shows I enjoy that aren't about making profit off some dudes loss, constant fear mongering, or the latest "She slept with babys daddy's cousins, fourth removed step son who fathered a pitbull on the next Jerry!" talk show.
You can have your so called "reality" tv. I'll be over here listening to some good tunes, or reading a book or watching a movie.
Sirscrapalot - Socialist or just not a fan of reality tv...you decide, on the next Jerry!
ut oh; Why do I have to keep bringing this up??
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Full article at Scrap Metal Forum: http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/scrap...#ixzz2LbSleN2h
Mech is gonna pull out his vacation giving tool if we keep making him post that.
Tools of the Moderator trade...No Mod leaves home without one.
Sirscrapalot - Meep! Meep!
lol those are crazy shows......
came across this avatar reminded me of olddude......
Last edited by sollozo45; 02-22-2013 at 04:07 AM.
I'm sorry I was so rude to you nobalmetalworks. I need to be nicer.
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