BOC!!!!

(translation: Bag of Crap)

Okay, for you die hard blogger fans, you've probably taken the time at one point to check out the links on the right hand side. One of those links would take you to a website called Woot!.com. Let me explain Woot. Actually, I'll let them explain themselves:

Woot.com is an online store and community that focuses on selling cool stuff cheap. It started as an employee-store slash market-testing type of place for an electronics distributor, but it's taken on a life of its own. We anticipate profitability by 2043 – by then we should be retired; someone smarter might take over and jack up the prices. Until then, we're still the lovable scamps we've always been. But don't take our word for it: see what the online community has to say at this Wikipedia article.

The catch with Woot.com is that they only sell ONE item per day* and once it sells out, it's gone and you can't buy anything until tomorrow. Woots begin at 12 am central time (so we have to wait until 1 am here, in other words...) and usually, if there's something good, it's gone by the time you roll around to checking it out at work the next morning.

Now, Bag of Crap, or BOC (also seen on the Woot message boards as "Blinged-Out Cabbage", "Bandolier of Carrots", etc...) is essentially whatever they have lyin' around the Woot warehouse that they wanna get rid of. It's always a dollar a piece, and their flat $5 shipping rate applies (everything always ships for $5, even if you order a big screen tv, which they've had on there several times...) Usually, very few people are lucky enough to get in on a BOC, simply because they sell out so quickly. So how did we get one??

Enter April 1, 2006, also known as April Fools Day. Woot decided they would be nice and sell "Random Crap" for the low low price of $1,000,001. What a deal! Most people were like, "Aww, man, it's a joke," but I knew that there must have been a catch. Click on the pic of the item, showed the Beatles, and the words, "Please, Please, Please Me" with the second "please" underlined. What the heck, let's try that as a coupon. "$1,000,000 off your order has been applied!" Sweet!

And that's how we got the BOC. It sold out about a minute after we figured that out, a full 23 minutes longer than a usual BOC (they usually sell out after just a minute). But we were one of the lucky few... Awesome.

So what did our $6 buy us?? Some pretty neat junk!

The box... with all the stuff.

It's a cubicle door! Perfect for those moments when you just, "need some space." This kinda reminds me of William Wilburforce's Mom, who had like 8 kids, and when she would need a moment to herself, she'd put her apron over her head, and the kids all knew not to bother her when she did that. Like an apron, this won't completely hide you from the outside world, but Jeremy may be able to use it to get those, "me time" moments. :-)

A Drew Bledsoe figurine! Because everyone needs a Drew Bledsoe figurine... apparently...

Yeah man, nothing like a travel pouch for all your stuff when you're on the road. This is actually probably useful. But you don't buy BOC for useful... It's all about the ride, man.

The coolest part of the BOC--the Super Woot Monkey! Complete with "Woot!" cape! Supposedly he make noise, but it's broken (not uncommon with BOC items...) I think "very neat" indeed. Everyone needs a monkey!

*Except for Woot-offs, but that's a whole other can o worms.

Update: Jeremy opened the cube door box, and in it was ANOTHER monkey (cape-less, but still fun) and a mirror for your laptop (so you can see who's sneaking up behind you, in case you're trying to do some top secret stuff). And the monkey does work, you just have to LAUNCH it and it screams.