funny: my freecycle.org / fundable.org project

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Meng Weng Wong <mengwong () pobox com>
Date: December 28, 2005 11:29:11 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: funny: my freecycle.org / fundable.org project

For IP, if you wish.  This is a story about my attempt to improve my  
living room with the help of strangers on the Internet.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mengwong/7936.html

It all began with this post to Freecycle.

    There is an enormous shrine to the Gods of Electronic Entertainment
    in my living room. I am not a worshipper; I want it to go away.

    It is not actually from Ikea, but it looks like it could be. It is
    made of Ikea-grade wood, with tasteful glass front panels. It  
fits a
    27 inch TV, and has room on both sides for your DVD player,  
receiver,
    TiVo DVR, Playstation, Xbox, obsolete CD player, et cetera.

    At its highest point it stands about five foot six, and is about  
five
    feet wide. It is light brown. It dominates the room. If an
    insufficiency of furniture keeps you up at night, this is the cure.

    To get it down the half-flight of steps and through the front  
door, you
    may have to take it apart. You may need a truck or van as well. I
    have tools, but no truck.

    You are welcome to swing by and eyeball it before saying "gimme."
    Remember, the average American spends more than four hours a day
    watching television. The more you watch, the more average you  
become.
    Caveat Emptor.


It would be easy. Painless. A nice anonymous stranger would show up  
with a truck and a buddy. While I napped upstairs, they would quickly  
and quietly dissassemble the entertainment center and take it away.  
Your basic burglary charge, but minus the hassle of breaking and  
entering. Freecycle is genius: with the power of Web 2.0, you can now  
pull an inside job on your own stuff!

I got half a dozen responses, evenly split between "Yes, I want it"  
and "No thanks, but you made me laugh." The "you made me laugh"  
responses mostly came from female names. This leads me to suggest the  
following: all Internet services eventually evolve to the point where  
you can use them to date.

Anyway, it was all going according to plan. One person came to see  
it. Shocked and awed by its imposing girth, she decided she didn't  
have room. No problem. Plenty of other people wanted it.

Then my roommate pointed out that he'd paid a few hundred bucks for  
the thing, and it would be nice to recover some of that cash. I had  
to admit he had a point. Dented the momentum, though.

I know what you're thinking: this is where Meng deftly switches from  
Freecycle Success Story to eBay Success Story. Wrong. Too easy. Been  
there, done that.

Instead, we're going to make this a Fundable Success Story.

Here's the deal.

Before I can give away the entertainment center to a random stranger  
on Freecycle, I need my roommate's permission.

To get my roommate's permission, I need to give him, say, $256.

To raise $256, sixteen random people go to Fundable and donate $16  
each. You could contribute to this worthy common cause!

https://www.fundable.org/groupactions/mengwong.freecycle.1



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