Preperations for our move have reached a fever pitch. Our apartment is a slovenly maze of three sorts of things, to wit: things we want to take with us, things we can't (due to size, apathy or disdain) take with us that are still of (arguable) value (the give-away/sell category), and things that we don't want to take with us and we don't reckon other people want either. In the case of the box pictured above, there is also a small sub-section of the last sort of things: things that we don't want but we don't WANT other people to take either. This was a big box of videotapes that contained endless hours of video-feedback, bad reception Gilligan's Island re-runs collected for a poorly concieved painting project, ancient half-ass pirated movies long ago purchased on DVD, half-completed video 'art' works and the like. I haven't wanted this box for years, haven't looked in it for even longer and yet I couldn't give it to Salvation Army or even just throw it away because I know, I just KNOW (particularly in North Brooklyn) that there is some other j-hole who, like myself, can't help but buy or trashpick old weird videotapes with the hope that they will hit some sort of odd footage jackpot. And take my word for it, video roulleette is the only game you can play where the house never wins. An unlabeled videotape is nearly always worth the $.50 you pay for it. But I couldn't let that happen with MY crappy footage and I am not in the position (financially or in terms of free time) to buy, borrow or rent a bulk eraser which, incidentally, would only serve to dilute the overall interestingnesss of the pool unkown videotapes. I don't want to be that guy. So I spent a THOROUGHLY enjoyable half hour in the backyard with my dollar-store hatchet (dollar-store hatchet: keeper. Dull as a dishtowel but painted a smart red and just a BUCK. I guess I need to go back and get a dollar whetstone), going Lizzy Bordon on a big box of videotapes. Boy, it was disbelief-suspendingly fun. The better quality tapes, mostly older ones, held up pretty well. It took three or four sturdy wacks to kill them. The cheaper ones, including taped over free Mormon or Hair-Club tapes and the like, would essentially disintigrate with one glancing blow. I imagine the whole thing sounded basically like a 30 miute car wreck. I figure, if someone wants to go to the hassle of rebuilding these tapes (and I made sure that every tape needed serious, federal government level repair before they would be watchable) they are welcome to what is on them. No, I am not particularly proud of the amount of waste. What real option did I have? Don't worry. I kept the handful of tapes that have actual worthwhile stuff on them. This tape massacre was only the unwanted oddities.