S and I are watching the Antiques Roadshow right now, due to the fact that he is a very, very bad Tivo watcher. We have to Tivo 24 for him, but instead of just watching it (as we are sitting in the living room with the television) we have to just let it record, because he's so far behind. And our new (fabulous wonderful free) TV only recieves about 11 channels on basic cable, so we're watching the 11th, which is PBS in my area. PBS is great about half of the time (and we don't mind Antiques Roadshow, even though it makes me envious), and about half of the time, it's crap.
This episode of Antiques Roadshow seems to be the winners of the game--people with things like an original intact menu from one of the luncheons on the Titanic, or a signed Frank Zappa painting from a time when none really exist. People are making shitloads of money. One man found out his ugly-as-shit beer stein was worth 2,000 dollars and literally couldn't speak clearly because he was so overcome with emotion. I mean, good lord! Why doesn't my mom have an attic full of antiques that will make me hundreds of thousands of dollars? I suspect that S's mom might have some things in her house that are worth some money--some china and such--but quite a bit of my mom's stuff is newer. Possibly my mom's parents have expensive stuff, but I'm not sure that those things are antiques. I could be wrong.
Anyway, I don't want old things for my own house. I don't really think that old things are charming, unless it's maybe one piece in a room. I don't really like the quaint look that antiques create. My best friend in high school lived in a house with lots of antiques, and I always felt as if the house had more character than mine, but not in the way I liked. I remember there was an old sled (and an old dentist's chair?) in the den and it was odd to me. Who wants an old sled sitting around? Not me. I think my taste runs to modern/sleek. So if S and I did perchance inherit some antiques, something tells me we'd be selling them to finance our idea of design, which again, is modern and sleek.
Anyway, half of the crap on this show is ugly as hell, even though they're worth tons of money. I mean, people talk about buying these things at yard sales and garage sales, and I wonder, why the hell are they buying these ugly things? I don't have that kind of eye. I want pretty things, which tend not to be antiques, and then to not be worth tons of money. Except for diamonds, which we all know that I shouldn't want because the diamond industry is bad bad bad. But that's another story for another day.
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