I have been buying and selling items on Craigslist for some time now, and for the most part its been very beneficial. It provides a straight route for selling items locally and fast, and it can be a boon to bargain hunters, waiting for those item(s) that someone just wants to get fast cash for, without the hassle of going to an auction site or waiting for it to appear in the local newspaper (which no one reads anymore). Best of all, its FREE.
But ever so often you do come across some of the dumbest ads ever. Some have seriously misspelled simple words repeated throughout the ad, some whose grammar seems to have been written by a louse (even a 2 year old can sound more coherent). Some have the amazing audacity of posting what they believe is the overinflated sense of value for an easily researchable price and common enough item to be found in stores for cheap, brand new. Its a free market, and people can command whatever price they deem fit for whatever item they post. But as it IS a free market, we also have the freedom to do this: make fun of them.
This section is dedicated to framing those works of (f)art. We aim to put in a capsule the ads that i believe are timeless in their stupidity, whose only worth to the reader is the mirth and amusement it brings.
We do respect the privacy of everyone, idiots included. You will see numbers and names and addresses and emails blurred or omitted or changed to protect the identity of the guilty.
So HOW do we do this?
The best is to screen capture the ad. For PCs thats simply making sure you have the ad as the mian window up, and hitting the Ctrl + Alt + Print Screen (3 fingers!). Then open up either paint or or whatever image program you have (Paint, photoshop, irfanview, etc), and select New Image, and simply paste whatever you captured in it. Thats by hitting Ctrl+V when you have the image program up. Then save it as a jpg file on your desktop.
1) you can then
email it to me, and ill upload it on this server and post it for you, or
2) have the screen shot hosted on a free image hosting site like imageshack, photobucket, or tinypic (google "free image hosting" and theres a bunch of them). once its uploaded to their site, it will spit out a URL where that image is now. Get that URL, paste that URL in a post youre about to make, highlight the whole URL, then click on the button above that says "insert Image" (third icon from the left above the smilies that looks like a picture in a frame). This will enclose the URL of the image within what we call image tags so when you hit SAVE it will now show the image in a completed post. or
3) simply use the the ATTACHMENT feature. You dont have to use an image hosting site separately - our server hosts it for you. If you click on Additional Options..., you will see an option to ATTACH an image. The CHOOSE FILE button allows you to do just that. Click it, and look for your screen capture to choose, and hit Open. WHen you hit SAVE you will now have a thumbnail of the image thats clickable to open the actual image if its large. Capish? This will only be visible to members logged in, no guests or non-members can see it, and it will be below your post (like, well, an attachment).
Keep in mind if and when you send a screen shot to me or upload it as an attachment here, this site will now host those screen captures. By doing so, you give up the rights to that screen cap or image, and give us (chosenfool.com and the owners of chosenfool.com) the right to use and alter it in any way we deem necessary. In short, You get the credit for finding it, but we now own it once we host it (bandwidth is expensive!).
We reserve the right to remove and/or alter ANY image posted in compliance to our house rules, hosted by us or other sites. Though we will try our best, no explanations are required.
Ok, on with the stupidity!
