Resolutions and Flexibility

I recently resolved to cut back on buying books (and dvds and t-shirts) because I am currently unemployed. To help myself remember this resolution, I wrote a list:
Don't buy anything more from amazon.co.uk, even though they have the best tv on dvd, at great prices, or from amazon.com, even tho it's great for US tv on dvd, and US books that aren't available in Aus;
Don't buy anything more from fishpond.com.au, boomerangbooks.com.au or booktopia.com.au, even though they're good, and Australian/New Zealand owned;
Don't buy anything more from threadless.com, even though they have fab designs, not even if they have a $10 all t-shirts sale.

and I knew without needing to list it that I should stay away from actual bookshops as well as online ones - frustrating given that I've just moved to a suburb that puts me conveniently close to Shearer's on Norton (where I bought some nice books in their sale the other day), and Gleebooks (always a delight to visit any of their stores - new, secondhand, children's, etc), and not that far from Better Read Than Dead.

so today I was in the city, having gone to a meeting at the Centre for Volunteering, and saw that Dymocks was having a sale. I don't often get to the big Dymocks in the city, and even tho the company supported the lifting of Parallel Importation Restrictions (which I was against) and used their Booklover email list to try and persuade customers that ending PIR would be a good thing (which I disapproved of, and emailed them about), they do have a great range of fiction & non-fiction, and are at least an Australian-owned chain bookstore, even if no longer the independent bookshop that Dymocks once was.
(I was pleased to see that they had several copies of F2M by Hazel Edwards and Ryan Kennedy - it's by local Aus/NZ authors, it's YA, and it's about gender identity and transitioning - a first for local YA - and it's a good read. hopefully they'll sell the copies!)

I decided to check the sale out - not committing to buying anything (I have on occasion actually made it out of a book sale without buying anything - not often, but it has happened), just having a look. the stickered sale prices were good - lots of recent fiction at $5, some at $10, and $20 for big hardcovers - so I picked up a few titles - a script book of Little Britain reduced from $39.99 to $5!, John Barrowman's autobiography in hc for $7.50 - and passed over others that were more than $10 and/or not something I'd be sure to re-read.

then a staff member made a charming announcement over the PA "shoppers, if you are in the store right now, consider yourself lucky, we are making you an offer you can't refused. all books and other items on sale tables are now reduced by 50% from the sticker price, so pick up a basket and go crazy, treat yourself, buy gifts for loved ones without costing a fortune. we want to sell all the stock so we don't have to pack it up!"

I did indeed pick up a basket and go crazy, as did many other shoppers. the nice announcer repeated his spiel a few times, changing "so we don't have to pack it up" to "we're doing this as a thank you to everyone who's shopped with us during the year" and adding "consider yourself lucky, it's like a Lotto win!".

so, I decided to be flexible and accommodate this amazing lucky opportunity to help the staff avoid packing up all the stock again, and suspend my "no buy" resolution for an hour or so. and just look at what I got!:

(I'm using pb to mean paperback, not picture book; hc is hard cover; tpb is trade paperback; gn is graphic novel)

Laurell K Hamilton - Blood Noir (hc) $3.75
John Barrowman - Anything Goes (hc) $3.75
Archimede Fusillo - Last of the Braves (pb) $5
Matt Lucas & David Walliams - Little Britain: Scripts and Stuff from Season 3 (hc) $2.50
Justina Robson - Going Under (trade pb) $3.75 (book 3 of Quantum Gravity; I have book 1, now looking for book 2)
Pamela Freeman - Full Circle (tpb) $2 (it's book 3 of the Castings Trilogy, so I'll want to buy or borrow the first two before I read it)
Elizabeth Honey & Heike Brandt - To the Boy in Berlin (pb) $3.75
ed.s James Gunn, Marleen S Barr, Matthew Candelaria - Reading Science Fiction (pb) $10
Kathy Reichs - Devil Bones (pb) $2.50
Brian Caswell - Cruisin' (pb) $2.50
Amanda Lohrey - Vertigo (pb) $1
Gabrielle Bell - Cecil and Jordan in New York stories (hc graphic novel) $7.50
Cristy C Road - Bad Habits (pb gn) $2
Dark Horse ed - My Space: Dark Horse Presents (pb gn) $2
Rehannon Pompey - Smashing Aunty Kathy's Car (pb) $1
Nicki Bloom - Tender (pb playtext) $1
Debra Adelaide - The Household Guide to Dying (pb) $2.50
Hunters & Collectors - Great Australian Albums 2: Human Frailty (dvd) $5
Powderfinger - Great Australian Albums 2: Odyssey Number Five (dvd) $5
Zach Braff - Garden State (dvd) $7.50
Alyssa Brugman - Girl Next Door (pb) $5
ed. Sherman Alexie - Tell the World (pb) $3.75
ed. Amy Goldwasser - Red (pb) $3.75
John Marsden - So Much To Tell You (pb playtext) $2.50
Simmone Howell - Everything Beautiful (pb) $3.75
David Walliams, read with Matt Lucas - The Boy in the Dress (audio cd) $7.50
James Manos, Jr/Jeff Lindsay - Dexter Season 2 (dvd) $10
Melissa Rosenberg/Stephenie Meyer - Twilight (dvd) $5 (now I can make my own Buffy/Edward mash-up!)
Sean Williams - The Dust Devils (pb) $3.75
Jane Godwin - Falling From Grace (pb) $3.75
Cathy Park Hong - Dance Dance Revolution (pb) $2.50
A. Koford - The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats Sell Out (hb gn) $2.50
Quentin Blake - You're Only Young Twice! (hb) $2.50

so I got 34 titles - books of poetry, prose fiction, criticism and plays, dvds of movies, tv series and docos, graphic novels and picture books, and an audio CD - all for $134.25!

and I'm obviously having a lucky book day, cos I just received an email from Text Publishing to say that I'm one of several new subscribers to their e-newsletter who has won a copy of a book published by them! yay!

I wish all who read this may have a lucky book day - lots of lucky book days - whether you're a writer, editor, publisher, bookseller or reader, may you find, buy, win, read, sell to a publisher or to a customer, contract, edit, or write - lots of wonderful books!!!

an actual entry in my blog

don't remember exactly when I created this blog, or why - did I intend to witter on about nothing? share profound thoughts? just have an ID so I wouldn't be 'anonymous' when commenting on my friends' blogs?

when I created it, I was writing a journal regularly and writing fiction sporadically, and didn't really have any urge to put words into a blog, talking to an unknown (and possibly non-existent) audience, when I had an eager audience for my journal (me, especially when bored or avoiding something - and it was in convenient form to re-read) and a supportive audience for my fiction (my writing group, particularly my buddies with whom I had a mutual pact to be an honest, constructive and committed reader).

but now I rarely get to my writing group, write tiny amounts of fiction once in a blue moon, and think about writing in my (paper) journal occasionally but don't often do it. most of my writing now occurs on Facebook, so I could just as well blether on here as on FB. except that I have a bunch of very interesting FB friends, who start their own discussion threads, contribute to others', and comment on mine - very stimulating.

hmm, maybe I can make some bloggy friends, too.

hello?

so anyway, I was just looking for a video cassette* which has my film school video You Can't Find Me on it (based on a story I wrote, script by Michelle Harrison with input by me, directed by Pauline Chan, 'produced' by me - but it was Pauline's student budget that funded it), mostly to see if there were any other bits of video on it, like my student piece from Theatre/Media at Mitchell C.A.E., that I could upload to YouTube. Not sure if I have the right to upload You Can't Find Me to YouTube, cos it's copyright AFTRS. (must ring and ask)

despite the title, I did find the video cassette, so will shortly check and see what else is on it.

while hunting for said cassette, I sorted through other videos and DVDs that are stored in the unit (which used to be my bedside table/nightstand). My lovely widescreen telly sits on top (usually covered by a nice leaf-green on cream batik cloth, so it doesn't get dusty), the VCR/DVD player is in the top shelf, and the dvds and video cassettes are underneath (they don't get covered with a cloth, and are thus rather dusty). fascinating what I had in there: videos of movies that I now have on dvd (and so will sell or give away); videos of films that I don't have on dvd and wouldn't mind watching some time, but had totally forgotten I had (like Buster Keaton's The General, Gill Armstrong's Last Days of Chez Nous, a doco about 60s Girl Groups and Motown...); and time-shifted tv on tapes so old they're probably disintegrating (but at least time-shifting is legal now. although there may be a limit on how long is considered 'time-shifting'. 15 years sounds okay to me).

now I've rearranged the videos, and resorted the dvds that were in front of them (my dvd bookcase is overfull, so the TV-on-DVD SF or fantasy dvds are on the nightstand instead of alphabetically shelved with the feature films, docos and non-SF/fantasy TV-on-DVD on the bookcase). and I might even watch some of the videos. after I finish this blog entry, and check my AFTRS tape, and see what's happening on Facebook, and maybe go and buy some groceries, cos I'm out of milk and bananas (two of my staple foods).

nice chatting to you folk/s, and I'll let you know what I find on the AFTRS tape (and whether I can upload my student video to YouTube).

cheers

*for the info of anyone born after 1990: you may have seen them, they're like a dvd, only not a flat disk - more like an audio cassette, but with pictures. an encased reel-to-reel magnetic tape, with sound and image track. playable in a VCR. there used to be two formats, but the Beta one died.