Slashdot Mirror
Man Selling His Life On eBay
A number of readers have sent in the story of the guy in Perth, Australia who is selling his life on eBay. 100 days before the auction opened, he put up a site detailing all that was on offer: house, car, jet ski, friends, job, and so forth. (No wife.) The auction has five days to run and the bidding is up over $300K, supposedly from qualified bidders. The seller says: "Upon completion and settlement I will walk out of my home for the last time in just the clothes I am wearing, and carrying only my wallet and passport."
Is his identity for sale? Otherwise all he is selling is a bunch of stuff. Not "His Life". It would be more interesting if you could actually buy his identity and completely assume his life. Of course, you couldn't do that completely. His friends probably aren't going to buy into it. And also, what of the government?
If he can't tell everyone the reason why his wife left him, then he is obviously not ready to give his life away. He is still holding on to the idea of privacy, when in fact he is giving that away. Could you imagine selling all the pictures, memorabilia, etc. that you have.
because he got divorced, and "everything" reminds him of her and hes just so miserable. The divorce was the catalyst for the whole thing.
You mad
Here's your chance to finally get a life! Gentlemen, place your bids!
My blog
I hope he wrote his contract out properly. otherwise he's going to be the fall guy for some major crime sometime in the next 6 months.
I wanted to sell my life too, but then I remembered I didn't have one. :(
Link to the story here = http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,23908397-948,00.html
Man, he could have at least thrown in a PS2...what a cheap bastard.
I'd probably wind up having to pay the auction winner to take it off my hands.
...his debts are included? A 90% mortgage would make the house less attractive. From his own site: 1). Potential buyers of this package does not need to concern themselves with any mortgage or debt that I have on the property. In Western Australia transfer of property is done through a Settlement Agent, who pays off any mortgage I have outstanding with my bank before releasing the balance of the proceeds of the sale to me, The buyer is responsible for arranging their own finance, and is in no way responsible for my loans or debts. There is no outstanding finance at all on any of the vehicles, or anything else in the house.It's all fun & games until someone loses the game.
Honestly, this is the most fantastic Slashdot story that I've seen in a really long time. Unusual, sure. But I think that this is the perfect place to post this.
I've always dreamed of doing something like this. Starting over, giving everything up. And I'm right positive that I'm not the only one on Slashdot to have those dreams.
This guy has balls of steel. And I wish him the best.
Just RTFA!
All my life for sale is a book by John Freyer who managed to list most of his worldly possessions (even his Christmas presents) on eBay.
i have to pay 300K to get a house AND i have to work two weeks as a rug store sales assistant. What a sweet deal.
People sell their WOW accounts all the time.
... He's selling all of the things in the list, it's no different than someone selling the contents of a large lot of goods. Now if he were actually selling himself as part of it, or even his identity (which he clearly isn't if he's walking out with ID and Passport) then we'd have a story. Otherwise we just have a random pile of expensive crap for sale and /. just advertised it.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
My father in law does outside construction. He own's a tow behind camper, 16' bass boat, 2 jetski's, 2 chevy 1500 HD trucks, a lincoln town car, and a $450,000USD house and a camping property on the Missouri river. I'm pretty sure people who budget early in life can afford nicer things later on if they make enough to initially subsist on and a little extra.
Obviously the buyer is a guy with completely different skillsets. Obviously this guy does some sort of skilled job that requires some sort of degree if he can afford a house, a car, and a jet ski. I mean a construction worker and a cashier is not going to own his own jet ski.
The clue's in the article" Joy Jones, who co-owns the rug store in Perth where Mr Usher worked as a shop assistant, said she supported the auction idea.
Her company is offering the successful bidder a two-week trial, which could be extended for three months and then become permanent. "
God: An invisible friend for grown-ups.
I haven't bought any recently, but I used to get them three for a quarter.
the winning bidder wants to have it sent to his brother in Nigeria.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
You can buy a house and a jet ski and all the other stuff anywhere, but friends? Whoa!
I can't wait to show them my complete Star Wars Action Figures collection!
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
We're going to find out that the Mafia has a hit out on him or he's supposed to be in an arranged marriage to a cannibal princess or something. The lovable everyman who buys this guy's life will now be in a madcap race to escape the consequences, probably falling in love with a girl-next-door Hollywood starlet in the process.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
[quote]and so forth. (No wife.)[/quote] That's why he's getting so much.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Oh come on people, the guy lives in PERTH. Surely nobody is bidding on that.
"house, a car, and a jet ski"
I own a house, car, motorbike. No degree (although I have a trade that I don't use anymore).
People in the UK on less than average income can afford all this. Many families are home-owner, two-car families.
Degree? hehehehe.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Er...and $300K in cash. There is that.
P.S. Don't get mugged.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(Trying to figure out why I think it is so funny but it just cracks me up...) Meh. He's selling his current living conditions. He'll continue to live; if he's happy, he's still "winning," just like any of us. I'm not losing just because someone has more stuff than me (see George Carlin on that). BTW- It will be hard to see George since this weekend...
You'd better fly over and check it out. Make sure his friends aren't all loud talkers with BO who like to "get nekkid" at parties.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Probably very difficult because his employer could pull the rug out from under him at any time...
You are not your job.
You are not how much you have in the bank.
You are not the contents of your wallet.
You are not your fucking Khakis.
You're not your family, and you're not who you tell yourself.... You're not your name.... You're not your problems.... You're not your age.... You are not your hopes.
You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.
You are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of
the world.
that his boss and friends support the idea. I imagine him asking, "Is no-one going to say 'please don't go'?"
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Yeah, but there's no point in being old and rich.
"We spend our youth trying to accumulate wealth and our wealth trying to accumulate youth" --Someone
Don't fear the now.
i think we should try to customize our lifestyles according to our preferences. who says that you need to own a car, for example ? if one doesnt have the need for a car to commute or do traveling or shopping, s/he shouldnt buy one because everyone else has one and community thinks that owning car is a must.
not owning a car would release the person from many obligations.
same goes for furniture, other house belongings. we should minimize our belongings to the things we really need to have and like to have, but, we should try that what we have in that style are the best that we can have according to our needs or enjoyment.
this should maximize our benefit from possessions whereas minimizing our overhead.
Read radical news here
What if the guy has a bunch of sub prime loans, and is under water on them. People can legally buy debt, so will they incur this as well? I've had my student loans sold to several different banks without my knowing, so why not sell your debt?
..........FULL STOP.
I often hear people complain about how "materialistic" we've all become, and how much happier we're supposed to be if we learn to reject some of this.
Isn't that the same promise the Catholic religion has been hawking for the last 2,000 years or so?
No, your possessions don't literally equate to your "life" ... but at the same time, I think they can (even SHOULD) help define a person. Looking at myself, I realize that my purchases directly reflect the things I enjoy doing in life. For example, I own several computer systems. Well, that's been my main "hobby interest" for close to 20 years now, and it led me to my career choice. Computers are the key to what makes me a "productive citizen", earning a regular paycheck. I also have a decent-sized music collection, and even some musical instruments (electric guitar, synthesizer, etc.). Sure, they're not necessities in life, but they're enjoyable distractions for me, and reflect on my interest in music in general.
The people who worry me the MOST are the ones who don't seem to have any clear "hobbies" or interests that involve ownership of property! I've had friends like this, who seem like they're wandering aimlessly through life - spending their money on "intangible entertainment" like movie tickets, amusement park passes or sporting events. Ultimately, they have little to show for the work they do.
Well, gawd knows I'm not happy that the fire happened. But it did kickstart me into finally moving back across the country from N.Y. to Portland (which, of course, reduced my total possessions even further) and I'll tell you, by now, except for stuff like my high school yearbook, I look at pretty much every possession I own as an equation of utility, cost to replace, and cost to own. And having now bought most of my possessions twice over, I've been amazed at what can be bought at thrift stores, done without, or borrowed.
It's been gloriously liberating.
And let me note that the kind of stuff we talk about here, like Portland's own Freegeek and the number of things that can now be done D.I.Y., play a huge role in reducing my emotional tie to my possessions. Among other things, books are now just more stuff to me. And Project Gutenberg, Googlebooks, Netflix, and Hulu make most content beyond that a trivial commodity as well.
Personally, I would keep a minimum box about the size of four milk crates of irreplacable stuff. And I must admit that I'm quite fond of my three aluminum chairs that survived the fire. But beyond that, hell yeah, fifteen, twenty thousand, I'd walk away from everything else with a smile on my face and have it all again, or better, in a few months.
Let me suggest an exercise: go to the three biggest Goodwills and St. Vinnie's near you. Go to the nearest couple of dollar stores. Spend an hour (no, really) at each pricing out replacing everything that you could there. Western civilization has gotten astoundingly good at making stuff and we make it damned cheap. You can dress in elegant clothes, eat off china by the light of brass candlesticks on a hardwood table, eating food cooked in stainless steel pots on a gas stove, and you can do it all cheap. There are only three things that you will have to give up utterly: a new car, a new computer, logo-bedecked stuff the media has convinced you that you need because of the image they silkscreen on the front for a buck fifty.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
What I observe in many people I know is a trend towards accumulation of possessions that don't necessarily make them happy, but that they feel that they deserve because they work at unsatisfying and time-consuming jobs. They feel that they should have something to show for all of their effort, and so they buy themselves things. I myself have fallen into this trap, but have since returned to graduate school. I'm now much poorer and can afford much less, but on the whole, I feel that I need less because I enjoy the work itself and thus don't need to justify it through material means.
What I found most interesting was this comment you made:
The people who worry me the MOST are the ones who don't seem to have any clear "hobbies" or interests that involve ownership of property! I've had friends like this, who seem like they're wandering aimlessly through life - spending their money on "intangible entertainment" like movie tickets, amusement park passes or sporting events. Ultimately, they have little to show for the work they do.
Frankly, I can relate much better to your friends. I would far prefer to have interesting experiences and the resultant memories they bring tucked under my belt, such as travel or outings to concerts, amusement parks, etc. than to have a stockpile of possessions that may have resale value but rapidly depreciate and incur maintenance costs in many cases. Experiences are far more formative to me as a person than, say, car or personal entertainment system ownership.
Catching your wife in bed with another man is bad but not bad enough to sell your whole life. This guy must have caught her in bed with his best friend.
Which is bad news for the person buying his life. Guess who's going to be your new best friend?!
Well, see... the first paragraph of your reply is pretty much in agreement with what I was saying. People aquiring random possessions that don't even wind up getting much use or making them happy is just "hoarding", and taken to extremes, we classify it as a mental disorder. My point was simply that having material things is not inherently "bad", "wrong", or undesireable.
As for the last part of what you wrote, I ageee it is interesting how people can come away with two completely different interpretations of the same behaviors. I still maintain that carefully chosen possessions do nothing but ADD to one's "interesting experiences" in life. Again, looking back to my first interest in musical instruments ... my friends all purchased electric guitars and either taught themselves to play, or took some music lessons. Although I hung out with them regularly and was considered a "best friend" of theirs, I felt like I was missing out - all because I didn't own an instrument, and so couldn't participate in that interest of theirs. When I finally bought one of their used ones, a whole new world of experiences suddenly opened up. I wound up learning enough from them to get started, practiced a bit on my own, and eventually got to play rhythm guitar in a band they put together. Some of my fondest memories were from us playing out at clubs around town on weekends - even though it made me practically no money.