Barnes & Noble: A Photo Essay

So, after a hard day of Magic at The Happiest Place in the Mall, then an hour donating blood at the latest Red Cross blood drive (25 pints lifetime!), where I had a drink with Kristi Arze at the Holiday Inn, I came back to The Cabana to see The Lovely Steph Leann on the couch, relaxing in front of the tv.

Gave it a little while, and decided that we needed to get out a little tonight... so she and went to The Barnes & Noble Cafe. And this is what I came up with...


I refuse. I absolutely refuse.



This is where you'd most likely find The Lovely Steph Leann



This is my favorite book as a kid... its a funny story, its a sad story, its a boy-and-his-dog story. I've got my original copy somewhere, saved in a box. Its got my badly written name on the spine, its leaf paged, its yellow, and I love it.

You know what I also loved? The Bunnicula Series by James Howe. I had the first five books, but I let Melanie Jackson borrow them. She never gave them back. Similiar to when I let Liz Malphras borrow all six individual novels from The Green Mile (which you can now only find in a single volume). Sigh.



I'm a big fan of trade paperbacks. The one on the left is a regular sized paperback, the one on the right is a Trade. Its slightly bigger, and you'll notice that most of the books on my shelf are trades. It just feels better when I'm reading it. Perhaps it makes me feel like I'm important enough to be reading a hard cover, yet, its not as heavy. Perhaps.



This is one of my favorite books as well. The Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, is a brilliant columnist, and with both of us essentially growing up in the 80s, I can relate to his pop culture references. And if you are familiar with his work, and read this blog and think "Ya know, d$ steals some of The Sports Guy's mannerisms" well... you'd be right. But only a few.



This is the first, and quite possibly the only, time I've ever taken a second look at a math book, and have considered its purchase and reading. Before you jump to conclusions and think, "Oh, he just likes the hot chick", I say to you that yes, it helps catch the attention of any male passers-by, but the fact that its Winnie Cooper is what really caught my attention. Winnie Cooper. Perhaps my first TV girlfriend.



This picture cracks me up. Yes, I said it.



I've taken an affinity for crossword puzzles lately, but I do love me some mazes. Always have. Probably because I'm good at it... now minesweeper and sudoku? Those are two games I refuse to do. Why? Because I don't know how to do them. Yes, yes, I'm sure its easy, yes, I'm sure you could show me, but I just don't care. And refuse to learn. So there.



Just finished reading "Carrie" for the first time, and "The Green Mile" for the second time (though not since 1996). My favorite Stephen King novel is "It", the daunting and thick paperback on the left. Its just amazing. However, I'm scared to death of "The Stand", the one of the right--not because of its content, but because it would probably just consume my life for a month. Do you, the Clouds in My Coffee Drinkers, have books like that? Books you want to read, but are just afraid to start, because you know what it might take to finish it?

And for whatever reason, I picked up "The Shining" again. Scary book.



They serve Starbucks Coffee. But they aren't a real Starbucks. Wanna know how to tell? Look for the gift cards. If they don't sell them, chances are, they aren't a real one. They'll make the drinks, they'll serve the coffee, but they get paid by B&N, not Starbucks Corp. Its a licensed store.



Because the Old New Deal works so well. Hello Social Security and Welfare.

Holy crap, there were "Love Me Some Obama" books everywhere. I told The Lovely Steph Leann that if McCain had won, the magazines would have had titles like, "Too Old?" or "How Can We Make America Great Again" and the books like "Palin Sucks!" and "How You People Are Too Stupid to Realize that America Is the Cause of ALL The World's Problems So We Need to Vote In Someone Blindly that We Know Very Little About To Fix Everything".

Then the guy came and told me I had to quit taking pictures. So I did.