At a local Borders right now. The place looks somewhat slower than I anticipated. Could it be the result—of sort—of the economic clusterfuck that is affecting everything from large malls to the gas stations to chain stores to restaurants? That is a rhetorical question; of course it is. This is the first of the economic recession that I am experiencing first-hand. I could count the dot-bomb bust at the turn of the century, but to be honest, it probably was not as bad as the situation that I (and the world) am (are?) in right now, and I was quite dependent on my parents back then, whereas I hold a job of my own, albeit a part-time one. It hits closer to home whenever I receive a paycheck and have to fill up the gas. I am more conscious than ever when I spend money… or maybe not, but at least I am cutting back, just like everyone else. I tend to spend more than I am comfortable with, but only because I feel bad about everyone else having to go through the tough times. I could say that it is out of sympathy, but it is probably I that probably needs more receiving than giving… I own no store, have no savings, and feel like a leech whenever I come back home and say hello to whoever is in the charge of the house at the moment. I probably should not think so, but I feel like sitting on a pin cushion every day I stay there.
I wonder if I mentioned that the author of the book Freakonomics is visiting my campus tomorrow for (what I think is) reading from the book and also signing of his book. There lies in my reason to visit Borders: I wanted to buy the book. Problem? What I had in mind when I came to buy the book was to pick up the paperback copy of the book quickly, maybe take a quick break (by blogging? Are you serious, man?), and then go for some reading on the subject of accounting. Instead, what happened was that I could not find the book where I thought it would be (“I am pretty sure I saw this book around here somewhere… it is a popular nonfiction book, right?”), roamed about the place for some minutes, before stumbling onto the books that I looked for in the economics section, right next to business and computer books. Oh, but this book was not what I was looking for, not entirely so anyway. It was hardcover, relatively shiny-looking and mostly ding-free, with the superscript letters above the title: “Revised and Expanded Edition.” So, is it like the “Teacher’s Edition” for Jon Stewart’s America (The Book)?
Uh-oh.
So, that was a bad idea—looking for the book a little too late, not giving myself some time for the book to ship from Amazon, and buying the book that only worsens my economic outlook and puts me further into debt. Isn’t life wonderful? I knew that the author was up to something when he started touring again.
At least I printed out some coupons and brought it over. That made it about the same as buying the paperback… at regular price. That’s not too bad… right? Right?
But while scanning over the places and taking pictures, a brighter idea dawned on me, and it stuck with me long enough for me to write it down. Such phenomenon does not happen often… what happens, usually, is I think of something cool, fetch my notebook, and stand awed from dismay by the fact that I have bloody forgotten about what I was about to write. Most of them are lost cause; once it disappears, it is lost forever, never to be seen—or thought of—again. And even when I write it down, there is no guarantee that the ideas are brilliant and must be used right away, for much (like, 90%) of them is garbage that can at best be used as a reference or an inspiration for something else altogether.
And what is the big idea, one may ask?
Oh, nothing big, actually.
It is another blog, which is probably not a good thing.
But the idea… it might be good enough to be noticed (unlike this blog—hahaha).
You see, I pick a picture. It could be either something that I took, or it could be from, say, Flickr. And I write a short story out of it.
It may or may not work. But I am certainly excited about it. What should I name the blog?
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