8.08.2008

On "Big Lots" and Purchasing Useless Things for Very Little Money

I have an odd tendency to buy things Which I feel are unusual to sell in stores. They are never expensive things, nor are they particularly odd objects on their own... They are simply things that I see on shelves and immediately have to pick up and poke at, just to be sure that they are really there.

Now, there are several retail chains in this country that seem to exist in an odd below-Walmart rung. The most prevalent of these, Big Lots, operates (as I understand it) by purchasing random abandoned lots of items from closing warehouses. The items in the lots are then divied up, given ludicrously low prices and shipped off to the actual stores. Naturally, many of the things that you will find on their shelves are both very old and in all likelihood very poorly made. This makes shopping there an ultra-low rent retail nightmare which should be only embraced by men who are either truly fearless or truly desperate.

It does, however, guarantee that a startling array of strange things will be for sale.

The point of all of this is that while visiting family last week I entered one of their stores on a fairly desperate search for large plastic water-cooler jugs. (which is a wholly pointless story in and of itself) Big Lots was naturally the last place that my family and I visited on our search and, just as naturally, they were the only place to stock the jugs we were looking for. As we waited in the checkout line I happened to look over at just the right time to notice a small book rack. Upon the rack was a small collection of different volumes, novels mostly, all of which were several years old. Among them however was an item that was so chronologically out of place, so useless, so cheap, and so damn strange to see that I had to get out of line and go and pick it up.

It was a copy of the strategy guide for Douglas Adams' 1997 adventure game Starship Titanic, and while I know and understand the concept under which this company operates... the presence of one copy, let alone six, left me completely baffled.

Yes! For three dollars I could purchase a new copy of a book that had gone out of print a decade prior, which was designed to serve as an accompanying piece for a game that had gone out of print almost as long ago. It is a game that I had distantly heard of but never played (though as a fan of Adams, I regret that fact) but, like most items that fall into the category discussed above, I had to purchase it.

So, now it sits on my shelf. I've read it, and actually found it quite interesting, but I don't know what else to do with it short of using it as a conversation piece. (starting a conversation so boring that it will drive people from the room, no doubt) So I wonder now if anyone knows where I can get a copy of the game?

Also, I'm fairly sure that this is the last published book that Adams wrote original content for before his death. I realized that while reading it and the thought comes back every time I look at the thing. Frankly it's a bit spooky.

8.07.2008

First Post

Just throwing this out to make sure that everything is working as it should. I'm setting up a new web space for myself after several years of determinedly ignoring a hideous and unsatisfactory livejournal page. Not sure if I'll definitely go with this service yet, but the creation process was simple and efficient and the process as a whole is growing on me already.

Looks like I may have found what I wanted. Maybe more to come.

Also: pretentious name.