August 8, 2003

money for nothing, movies for free

Libraries rule. Everyone here can benefit from their local library and I suggest you take the following steps to do so:

1) Go to Amazon.com and search for your favorite books. Then once you’ve brought up one of them in the web browser, scroll down the page and you should see two things of interest: “Customers who bought this book also bought:” and “Our Customers’ Advice.” Both of these should give you some starting points for books to read. Make a list of books that look interesting to you. I looked up Catch 22 and ended up reading Syrup by Maxx Barry or The Contortionist’s Handbook, a Novel. by Craig Clevenger, two books I never would have otherwise read.

2) Go to the Internet Movie Database Top Movies and have fun looking around for a while. Look at the Top 250 films of all time as rated by users of the internet movie database. Check out your favorite genres, whether it be fantasy, musical, or film-noir. Make a list of movies you’d like to see. The cool thing is that even though these are great movies, a lot of them are the type that blockbuster won’t have and the library will. I’d recommend Annie Hall, Spirited Away, or even The Great Escape.

3) Locate your library if you don’t know where it is. I’m sure google can help with this. Try searching for “YOUR CITY public library.”

4) Place holds. Every modern library I’ve been to has an online catalog, so you can see if they have your books/movies before you actually go there, as well as place holds for books without stepping foot in the library. This is good, because even though your library says it has 3 copies of the movie you want, it doesn’t. Databases like to lie. So put it on hold; This means that someone will find your book for you, hide it, and put your name on it. The nicer ones will even send your book to whatever library you want and let you know when it gets there, so your lazy ass doesn’t have to go all the way cross town when there’s a library branch 20 feet away.

I’ve been trying to take advantage of my library system in the past month, with decent results: I’ve been reading more, watching interesting movies, and saving money. Which is good, since I don’t have money to save.

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