High Praise for Barnes & Noble!
So my loyal readers. You may or may not know that I am a regular reader of books. I know this might come as a shock to some of my newer readers because all you've seen of me is webcomics, movies, and video games. But yes I do read somewhat excessively as well. Generally selections from the graphic novel section and the speculative fiction (read Sci-Fi/Fantasy) section of the book stores.
In my local area there are actually very few book stores. That is not true. I live in a college town so there are an excessive amount of book stores, all of them carrying more college paraphernalia than actual books. What books they do have are generally limited to text books.
So as far as I know, there are 3 actual book stores in my area, all of them major retail outlets. The most prominent being Barnes & Noble in my opinion due to their wider selection and prompt receiving of new books (although I do dock them for not getting in more than 2 or 1 Shonen Jumps a month and seemingly no Gaming Girls Monthly at all). Now mind you I still like to support small business because I realize how anti-competitive corporate structures are. Of course corporate structures also drive down prices for consumers which may or may not be a benefit to the industry, blah blah.
Anyway I'm not here to argue about that. I'm actually here to praise my particular local Barnes & Noble store. Yesterday I went in to purchase the last few graphic novels of Y: The Last Man, and the latest "Speed Up" manga novels of One Piece (See: Shonen Jump's evil marketing practices to be written in a future post, perhaps). I kept on my new Droid phone a list of the prior volumes that I owned and took it out to find them. I then went about my business, asking for help from a very nice woman who helped me scour the graphic novel section for a book the computer said they had but we could not find. I did enjoy her levity, however.
At some point I must have set my phone down because later in the evening, I could not find my phone! Thinking it was at work, I wasn't too worried. However my friends, whom were over at the time, insisted that they call it. One of them received an answer saying "Hello? Hello? Barnes & Noble" and quickly hung up (thinking that I just had a very funny voice mail system). This led to much laughter while I called my phone on a friend's phone and got a hold of the manager, who said that they would lock up my phone in a drawer for me and I could pick it up in the morning.
So in the morning I went by Barnes & Noble, returned a book, and received my phone, good as new (ish)!
So I applaud the employees of Barnes & Noble and perhaps any customers who decided not to steal my phone.
In my local area there are actually very few book stores. That is not true. I live in a college town so there are an excessive amount of book stores, all of them carrying more college paraphernalia than actual books. What books they do have are generally limited to text books.
So as far as I know, there are 3 actual book stores in my area, all of them major retail outlets. The most prominent being Barnes & Noble in my opinion due to their wider selection and prompt receiving of new books (although I do dock them for not getting in more than 2 or 1 Shonen Jumps a month and seemingly no Gaming Girls Monthly at all). Now mind you I still like to support small business because I realize how anti-competitive corporate structures are. Of course corporate structures also drive down prices for consumers which may or may not be a benefit to the industry, blah blah.
Anyway I'm not here to argue about that. I'm actually here to praise my particular local Barnes & Noble store. Yesterday I went in to purchase the last few graphic novels of Y: The Last Man, and the latest "Speed Up" manga novels of One Piece (See: Shonen Jump's evil marketing practices to be written in a future post, perhaps). I kept on my new Droid phone a list of the prior volumes that I owned and took it out to find them. I then went about my business, asking for help from a very nice woman who helped me scour the graphic novel section for a book the computer said they had but we could not find. I did enjoy her levity, however.
At some point I must have set my phone down because later in the evening, I could not find my phone! Thinking it was at work, I wasn't too worried. However my friends, whom were over at the time, insisted that they call it. One of them received an answer saying "Hello? Hello? Barnes & Noble" and quickly hung up (thinking that I just had a very funny voice mail system). This led to much laughter while I called my phone on a friend's phone and got a hold of the manager, who said that they would lock up my phone in a drawer for me and I could pick it up in the morning.
So in the morning I went by Barnes & Noble, returned a book, and received my phone, good as new (ish)!
So I applaud the employees of Barnes & Noble and perhaps any customers who decided not to steal my phone.