Something you may not know about Kirsten and I is that we're pretty avid garage salers. That is, we often go to the garage sales around our neighbourhood, not that we hold garage sales ourselves.

I'm not entirely sure what the appeal of the garage sale is for us; certainly, it's a good place to find some nifty stuff for really cheap. In the past, I've found some great stuff -- some Star Wars action figures and ships for a couple of bucks, which sit in my office (nothing like flying an X-Wing around the office to get the creative juices flowing); a nice regulation dart board with a cabinet, a huge Lego monorail...

The problem, of course, is that to find the good garage sale finds, you have to go to a lot of crappy garage sales. And we've definitely been to more than a few of them in our time.

The biggest problem seems to be that people want too much for their garage sale items. Kirsten makes an excellent point in this regard: "This is stuff that you don't want any more, and that you're likely going to give or throw away. Why are you asking $100 for it?"

Another problem that we run across is the kids-stuff-only garage sale. I understand the need for it -- your kid has totally outgrown the 50 cute little outfits that you bought for him or her, and you need to get rid of them so you have room to buy 50 more cute little outfits. For new parents, it's also a great place to get those 50 cute little outfits for your own kid. It's an industry based on recycling and reuse, refuelled by first-time parents that don't know any better than to buy brand new clothes from the store. But it's a headache for the rest of us. These sales need signs, dammit!

Which brings me on to the next topic on the garage sale: signage. We've, for the most part, experienced good signage of the garage sale (perhaps the best of which was found this weekend, a sign which said, "Hey Sexy! Come to our garage sale!"). But we've also come across some extremely cryptic signage too. Signs on the left-hand side of the street pointing to garage sales that are on the right-hand side... signs that point you down a random street, but offer no house address... and most infuriatingly, signs that do offer an address, but are so small that you can't read them as you drive by.

But for every 10 or so crappy garage sales you go to, there's 1 really good one. Last weekend, we went to a garage sale where the people got it. We picked up a dart board and two Star Wars board games (for my office collection) for under $20; a few weeks ago, someone was holding a garage sale to get rid of the extra antiques from their antique store and Kirsten picked up some old cheese and butter boxes.

So, for those of you who recently bought houses... start heading to some garage sales. It's fun, a cheap way to entertain yourself, and, occassionally, a good way to find some neat stuff for cheap.