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Stardate: 20190220.2259 | |
Location: Dining room | |
Input Device: Gemini PDA + USB folding keyboard | |
Software: nano | |
Audio: Wall clock, fridge. | |
Visual: Kitchen table, bowl of grapes, floral print | |
table cloth. | |
Energy: 50% | |
Mental: 40% | |
Emotional state: Nostalgic. | |
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I have been reading the book, _Ready Player One_ by Ernest | |
Cline. I had seen the book and read the summary on the back | |
some time ago before I even heard that it was going to be a | |
movie, but never got around to reading it until now. I have | |
not seen the movie yet...I wanted to when it was in the | |
theaters, but life got in the way. So I am reading the book | |
now and will watch the movie later. | |
I am enjoying the book so far. There are so many 80s | |
references and personal computing stuff that I lived through | |
growing up. It is really taking me back. The book reads | |
like young adult fiction and just feels like a fun read, like | |
when I read the Hunger Games series or the Divergent series, | |
or even the Maze Runner series. Yeah, all of them eventually | |
turned into movies. | |
Growing up, I used to read a lot of movie books. I enjoyed | |
comparing the books with the movies. The books were almost | |
always better than the movies, but they added a lot more to | |
the movie viewing experience. All of the detail, like what | |
the characters were thinking or the detail of the scenery, | |
etc., was added to my experience of viewing the movie if I | |
had read the book beforehand. This seemed to add more depth | |
to the characters and the action in each of the scenes. | |
Sometimes it would work out well. Sometimes not so much. | |
I'll have to see how it goes with this book. | |
The movie books bring up a memory of mine when I was growing | |
up in Cleveland. There was this shopping plaza that my | |
friends and I used to hang out at almost every day. We | |
didn't usually have much money, but we would still go there | |
and walk around or ride our bikes there or whatever, being | |
latch key kids and all. | |
Behind the shopping plaza were these dumpsters that we would | |
always pick through looking for discarded junk from the | |
shops. My favorite dumpsters to pick through were Radio | |
Shack and Burrows Bookstore. They were usually clean and had | |
interesting things. RadShack dumpster usually had something | |
electronically interesting and Burrows would have all of the | |
discarded paperbacks with the covers torn off that were sent | |
back to the publisher. I always thought it was weird that | |
they didn't want the whole book, just the covers. I also | |
thought it was such a waste so my friends and I would help | |
ourselves. I used to have quite a collection of books with | |
their covers torn off. I probably read about half of them. | |
Most of the books I would take were movie books. That is | |
probably where I got in the habit of reading those kinds of | |
books. Usually, the other books didn't interest me since | |
there was no cover and I didn't have time to read the backs | |
of them while my friends would be on the lookout. So I | |
grabbed the ones with the names I recognized, which were | |
usually the movie books. I don't know how many 80's movie | |
books I read...there was The Goonies, Back to the Future, | |
D.A.R.Y.L., Pale Rider, The Explorers, Star Trek III, etc. I | |
didn't see all of the movies, but I did read most of the | |
movie books. There was even the autobiography of Mr. T! The | |
picture of his face and mohawk was on the spine of the book. | |
That was an interesting read. | |
One time, my friend dared me to buy a pack of Marlboros for | |
him at the K-mart in the shopping plaza in exchange for the | |
Fletch paperback book he got from the dumpster. I asked him | |
why he didn't go do it...he was chickenshit. I hesitated so | |
he offered to pay for them. So I went in, got a pack of | |
Marbs from the endcap by the register, and took it up to the | |
counter. This was back when they kept smokes out in the open | |
and not behind a locked case or behind the register. | |
The girl behind the counter, kinda young, kinda cute, looked | |
at me...I looked down and said without making eye contact, | |
"Uh, they're for my mom." | |
"Uh-huh..." She looked around, winked at me, gave me a big | |
smile, and rang me up. I said, "Uh, thanks...," took my | |
change and left, feeling my body turn to Jell-o as I walked | |
out of the store. | |
My friend was freaking out by our bikes and could not believe | |
I was able to score the smokes! He saw the transaction | |
through the window and even the cashier smiling at me. He | |
wished he would have done that. He was so jealous! I was | |
beaming...and I asked for the book, which he promptly handed | |
over after I gave him the smokes. I did end up enjoying the | |
Fletch book, but never got around to seeing the movie. | |
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