As people who frequent here could tell you with profound amazement, I have been the extremely fortunate recipient of receiving very nice Christmas gifts from a strange (and yet reliable) source… the trash. Back in 2004 I was gifted by the Trash Santa, a nice office chair, which I’m sitting in right now, a DVD player and other electronic goodies. Then the next October I got a cool portable stereo/CD player, an inkjet printer and a monitor. Heck, I’ve even got some very usable computers from the refuse bins over time.

A few weeks ago I ventured outside to innocently dispose of some trash/ refuse/ assorted body parts, like I always do. As I tossed the trash bag into the bin, I looked down (a nasty habit I admit) and spied a Playstation 2 just laying there. Now most people just leave it at that. Someone threw out a Playstation 2 which means (to anyone but me) that the PS2 doesn’t work and that’s why some stranger tossed it out. But me being me, I realized that it still might work, or at the very least I might be able to figure out a way to fix it, who knows. It’s not like I’d lose anything trying. So a few days later I bought the cable to hook it up to my TV, plugged it in, tossed in a Futurama DVD and waited.

The fan whirled, the power light came on and the PS2 main screen came up. Oooh… this looks promising I thought and then reality hit like a cold, hard mistress… the words DISC ERROR flashed on the screen.

And I laughed… and laughed and laughed. I had a PLAYSTATION 2 for free and knew with absolute certainty I could fix the sucker! And how did I know, you ask?

See, Minnietaur had the exact same problem and was able to fix her Playstation easily after following an article by a good pal, Robert Heron from ZDTV. Seems the PS2 Disc Error problem was pretty common, due to the DVD’s laser getting weaker over time. All one had to do to fix it was take the Playstation apart, remove the drive cover and rotate a plastic cog a few notches until the read error went away. Pretty durned simple too!

So I gleefully ripped apart my free Playstation 2, experimented with the cog in question and within a few minutes the DVD started playing! Woo-hoo me!! After some more adjustments, the DVD always played, so in a era of the stupid $600 PS3, I have a free Playstation 2!! Which I quickly gave a purpose to by buying a copy of Burnout: Revenge and playing like a madman! Cars. Fast cars. Explosions. Chaos. Destruction. Who could ask for anything more?

Thanks Trash Santa! Thanks Minnietaur! Thanks Robert! A Garbage Xmas came real early this year… hehehe…