As I mention from time to time, I’m fairly obsessed with books. I get a lot of them from the library, but I buy even more. Some books I only want to read once, and then I’m done with them. Others I keep forever and will reread as the mood strikes me. Sometimes it’s not immediately clear which category a book will fall into, and it’s necessary to keep them around for a while to figure it out. Once I’ve decided that a book is not a keeper, I try to make its purchase pay off for me, anyway. There are a few book-swapping web sites that I belong to. The first, Paperbackswap, is the one I’ve been with the longest (over 3 years!), and I’ve had a good run over there. I joined the other two sites, SwapTree and Bookmooch, this year.
I was pretty happy with both of the newer services when I first joined them, because I got rid of a lot of books really quickly. Even paying postage on so many books didn’t discourage me. Of the three services, SwapTree was the only one where books were exchanged on a one to one basis. With the other services, people would request books from me and I would accrue credits by sending them. At some point in the future, I could use these credits to redeem books that I wanted from other users. Since the whole point of this exercise was to get rid of the books cluttering my house, I figured that I wouldn’t use SwapTree too much, but I actually did about as many trades there as I did on BookMooch.
Then, toward the end of the summer, SwapTree went through a lot of changes. It got a new CEO, and a new name, Swap.com. And just a couple of days ago, I received an email from them stating that they’re going to start charging members a fee for each transaction (on top of postage). Excuse me? Why would I pay to get rid of my books? I could take them to the library, list them on eBay, or try to sell them at a used bookstore. If I wanted to, I could have all of those books out of my house today, at no real cost to myself. I give a big BOO! to Swap, which I’m quitting (and a lot of other people seem to be, too).
This weekend, as if the universe wanted to tell me that I was heading in the right direction, I received two Paperbackswap requests. Take that, Swap!
Tags: Bookmooch, Bookmooch.com, Books, Paperbackswap, Paperbackswap.com, Swap, Swap.com, Swaptree, Swaptree.com, Trading
Books | Nicole | 
September 27, 2010 5:53 pm | 
Comments Off on So long, farewell
Yesterday a friend and I decided that we wanted Vietnamese for lunch. Thai restaurants in Englewood are plentiful, but there’s only one place to get Vietnamese food. We walked down Palisade Avenue to the restaurant, but were met with a weird sight when we arrived. The awning still said “Saigon Republic,” but there were sloppily placed construction paper cutouts on the window that spelled out “Asia Time.” Despite the fact that this has got to be the most generic name ever for a restaurant that serves Asian cuisine, we went inside anyway. They’d changed the decor (for the better, actually), and we still weren’t sure whether this place was a new restaurant or simply redecorated, until we received the Asia Time menu with the Thai food and relatively high prices. We thanked the hostess, asked for and received a lunch menu, and went to Kratiem, a tried and true Thai restaurant up the street.
I was really bummed that Saigon R was no more, and checked ye olde Google to find out what was up. And, happy day! it turns out that the restaurant is just moving to Tenafly (as per the owners’ web site). Even though we’ll now have to go to Tenafly to get it, their yummy duck will be worth the trip!
Damn, I just made myself really hungry.
Laughing at the stupid fears that prompt people to take out bizarre insurance policies is all fun and games until the article mocks one that actually sounds rather reasonable: Thai riots. A quick google search will show you that yes, this is a more legitimate fear than being impregnated by a deity or abducted by aliens (I think). I do want to visit Thailand in my life, and no, I wouldn’t buy this insurance, but it’s not like I don’t see why other tourists would consider doing so.
Today is a sad day for rock fans (and a certain Skinner family), as the New York Times has reported that Leonard Skinner, whose name was liberally disemvoweled to help out rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, has passed away at age 77. Anyone who is in any way related to Sweet Home Alabama is a-ok in my book. Plus, it’s awesome to be immortalized in the name of a band. I can’t wait until the economy picks up again and Nic0le’z N0nsense (attention musicians: name still available) goes on their first tour!
Ian McKellen, an actor who has spent my lifetime (and then some) playing interesting characters (and been knighted for it), marched in an anti-Pope rally in London. I don’t know what his particular difficulties are with the Pope, but my take on this is that he should wear some version of this shirt every day.
Let’s face it, no matter how awesome Windows Phone 7 is, there’s no way that it’s immediately going to make the iPhone and Blackberry obsolete. Why then did the eggheads at Microsoft throw a funeral for these phones? Not a mock funeral with engineers high-fiving each other and saying things like, “You’re going down, dude!” but an actual black-wearing, hearse-having parade. I have seen delusion, and it is not pretty.
Vogue Knitting Magazine is having a sale on all of their patterns, which is kind of awesome. There are lots of pretty things that I’d love to knit if I had unlimited time and an endless yarn budget. Here are some patterns that I like:
Then there are things that I would have to be already dead to be seen in.
Why????
Do you know what happens when a city or state isn’t finished paying for its current sports arena, but decides to build a new one anyway? If you guessed, the people keep paying for it anyway, you’re absolutely right. Of course, my home state of New Jersey would have to be on the hook for the biggest bill at $110 million, but there are several other areas that are still paying big bucks for stadiums that are either gone or just languishing. Good job, politicians!
I enjoy well-told zombie stories, regardless of their format. Recent zombie stories that I have enjoyed were Zombieland and the book Feed, by Mira Grant. I like the idea behind zombie plots, namely that dead is not always dead, and that lingering in some not-human form isn’t necessarily better than being truly dead. These two works took totally different views of zombiedom, both in terms of how zombies are made and their capabilities, but I enjoyed each of them a lot. Feed, in particular, struck me as one of the standout books for 2010. No, I’m not exaggerating, but then again, I have strange taste in books.
Anyway, although it probably sounds like I do, I do not in fact spend much time thinking about zombies. This guy does, though, and his multi-part post that considers the implications behind the SPEED of zombie movement in different movies puts my zombie-pondering to shame.
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