Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

My Book Exists (in Bookstores!)
While roaming the Chapters on John Street, I browsed looking for new computer books of interest. So I was genuinely pleased when I saw the spine of my latest book peeking out like a dusky gold nugget in the Web development section. Even though the book has been out for nearly a year, believe it or not this is the first time I've run across it in a bookstore.

Ever since the Internet bubble went bust, bookstores in general seem to be devoting less of their overall shelf space over to computer-oriented subjects. It's not that there's no interest in them, but I suspect that the online market may well have taken over from the non-virtual, bricks and mortar stores in this particular. As witness to this, our nearest bookstore stopped stocking computer books altogether about a year ago, and I noticed that the local Coles (now gone) was devoting less and less shelf space to the topic. As I write the book is still doing relatively well on Amazon, and after dipping down to the 40,000s bounced back to the 6,000 range earlier this week. Somebody must be buying it somewhere.

But there's nothing like actually seeing your own book with your name on it on a bookshelf. Funny thing is, I had checked this bookstore a few months before for my book, and was disappointed not to find it (or see it listed as a stock item on their computer system - yes, I checked. ;-) so this must have been a relatively recent acquisition for the store. All of which means I can likely look forward to another healthy royalty check come the Fall

I took the book out from the shelf, and laid it flat so that it was more prominently displayed. Hope it is gone the next time I return to the store. ;-)

Music Binge
My wife and the kids have gone "hiding in the woods" (as the kids like to say) and I've stayed behind, mainly to catch up on my backlog of writing projects. This also means that for once there was no urgency for me to get back home at the usual time. I had the itch to get some new tunes, so I took the car ride from work all the way to Bill's place, where I got off and checked out a couple of used CD shops in the Queen West area.

Here's what I came away with:

• Beautiful South - Blue is the Colour
• Brian Eno & J. Peter Schwalm - Drawn from Life
• Bruce Cockburn - Anything Anytime Anywhere-Singles 1979-2002
• Coldplay - Parachutes
• Moby - Play
• Radiohead - Kid A
• Velvet Underground - The Best of

All used save for the Radiohead album, which I bought new at full price at the Chapters store on John St. It was that CD which was my original goal at finding in the used shops, so a paid a bit more so that I could take a copy of it home. The only CD here I haven't heard before is the Brian Eno/J. Peter Schwalm one, and while I have been disappointed with a few of Eno's releases in the past, I took a gamble based on the number of guest artists who appear on the disk, like Laurie Anderson and Holger Czukay. It's been a long time since I've bought a CD before hearing it. All of the other CDs are ones I already have downloaded MP3s of, but buying the CDs is my way of trying to be legitimate, especially for music I end up listening to more than once - but preferably not at the unrealistically inflated pricing for new CDs whenever possible.