Junq Tour 2010: Swan River

This week, I'm in Swan River. I was pretty unhappy when I was informed that the local thrift store had been shut down. I figured that the week would be full of dullness. However, I was pretty much wrong. I've had quite a bit of fun here so far! It all started when I saw what I had for a TV in my hotel room. It's a big 32" LCD TV which has a VGA input on the back. On this trip, I brought along my many-times-hacked external DVD drive. You may remember that at one point I converted it into an external hard drive. Before I packed, I decided that I wanted to watch some DVDs while on this trip, so I converted it yet again.

Now, nothing would be greater than watching the DVDs on this 32" screen, so I went scouting for a place to buy a VGA cable. I stumbled upon a little computer store who had a table of shit on sale for dirt cheap. I found a VGA cable for $1, and went back to my room to happily watch my DVDs.


Here I am, playing with my netbook hooked up to the TV. This is a luxury for me since all the TVs I have at home are CRTs. I'm too cheap and poor to buy my own, and I usually shop for my TVs behind the evil computer recycling depot.


Anyway, the next day my DVD drive decided it didn't like me any more and went kaput. Remembering the table full of junk at the computer store, I went back and picked up a new DVD drive for $2.



While I was there, I decided to spend even more money, and here's some of the neat stuff I bought BRAND NEW for next to nothing...


More Cables


Here's what I got: a nice audio cable to connect my computer to a stereo amplifier. I also got a S-Video to Composite cable, and a DIN to PS/2 converter so I can plug an old-ass keyboard into my modern computer. Each of these were $1 each. I can't even make cables for that cheap.


56K Fax/Voice modem

Original Price: $79.99
Sale Price: $5.00

Why the hell would I buy such an outdated piece of equipment? Simple. It's a voice modem. You can do more than get dialup internet with this thing. Install some software on an old computer, pack it full of numbers of businesses that keep filling my answering machine with pre-recorded messages, and call them with my OWN pre-recorded message! What else is a land line good for these days? Not much.


TV Tuner / Capture Card

Original Price: $69.99
Sale Price: $5.00

Just what I need, another computer to record video. I'm hoping that there isn't any built in copy protection on this card. The shitty fucking ATI card I have has really been pissing me off with it's screen-blanking copy protection, even when I'm recording something that isn't copy-protected (such as Commodore 64 video). For five bucks, I can't go wrong. Worse comes to worse, I'll use it to hook up the CED player to the computer in my bedroom.

Video Sender

Original Price: $109.99
Sale Price: $5.00

This device is used to send wireless video signals from a source to a destination. I've got two potential uses for this... About a month ago, I came across a FREE working video surveillance system. My biggest problem has been how I'm going to set it all up with where I want to put my camera. This would nicely solve the dilemma of having the camera mounted on the garage, and the recorder sitting in the house.

The other idea I have for it is to set up a video rack in the basement (mainly for transferring videos to DVD) and being able to watch them in my living room.

All this stuff cost me just a little over $20. The best part is most of this stuff is new! Now excuse me while I go play with my new toys.