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Stardate: 20190220.2259
Location: Dining room
Input Device: Gemini PDA + USB folding keyboard
Software: nano
Audio: Wall clock, fridge.
Visual: Kitchen table, bowl of grapes, floral print
table cloth.
Energy: 50%
Mental: 40%
Emotional state: Nostalgic.
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I have been reading the book, _Ready Player One_ by Ernest
Cline. I had seen the book and read the summary on the back
some time ago before I even heard that it was going to be a
movie, but never got around to reading it until now. I have
not seen the movie yet...I wanted to when it was in the
theaters, but life got in the way. So I am reading the book
now and will watch the movie later.
I am enjoying the book so far. There are so many 80s
references and personal computing stuff that I lived through
growing up. It is really taking me back. The book reads
like young adult fiction and just feels like a fun read, like
when I read the Hunger Games series or the Divergent series,
or even the Maze Runner series. Yeah, all of them eventually
turned into movies.
Growing up, I used to read a lot of movie books. I enjoyed
comparing the books with the movies. The books were almost
always better than the movies, but they added a lot more to
the movie viewing experience. All of the detail, like what
the characters were thinking or the detail of the scenery,
etc., was added to my experience of viewing the movie if I
had read the book beforehand. This seemed to add more depth
to the characters and the action in each of the scenes.
Sometimes it would work out well. Sometimes not so much.
I'll have to see how it goes with this book.
The movie books bring up a memory of mine when I was growing
up in Cleveland. There was this shopping plaza that my
friends and I used to hang out at almost every day. We
didn't usually have much money, but we would still go there
and walk around or ride our bikes there or whatever, being
latch key kids and all.
Behind the shopping plaza were these dumpsters that we would
always pick through looking for discarded junk from the
shops. My favorite dumpsters to pick through were Radio
Shack and Burrows Bookstore. They were usually clean and had
interesting things. RadShack dumpster usually had something
electronically interesting and Burrows would have all of the
discarded paperbacks with the covers torn off that were sent
back to the publisher. I always thought it was weird that
they didn't want the whole book, just the covers. I also
thought it was such a waste so my friends and I would help
ourselves. I used to have quite a collection of books with
their covers torn off. I probably read about half of them.
Most of the books I would take were movie books. That is
probably where I got in the habit of reading those kinds of
books. Usually, the other books didn't interest me since
there was no cover and I didn't have time to read the backs
of them while my friends would be on the lookout. So I
grabbed the ones with the names I recognized, which were
usually the movie books. I don't know how many 80's movie
books I read...there was The Goonies, Back to the Future,
D.A.R.Y.L., Pale Rider, The Explorers, Star Trek III, etc. I
didn't see all of the movies, but I did read most of the
movie books. There was even the autobiography of Mr. T! The
picture of his face and mohawk was on the spine of the book.
That was an interesting read.
One time, my friend dared me to buy a pack of Marlboros for
him at the K-mart in the shopping plaza in exchange for the
Fletch paperback book he got from the dumpster. I asked him
why he didn't go do it...he was chickenshit. I hesitated so
he offered to pay for them. So I went in, got a pack of
Marbs from the endcap by the register, and took it up to the
counter. This was back when they kept smokes out in the open
and not behind a locked case or behind the register.
The girl behind the counter, kinda young, kinda cute, looked
at me...I looked down and said without making eye contact,
"Uh, they're for my mom."
"Uh-huh..." She looked around, winked at me, gave me a big
smile, and rang me up. I said, "Uh, thanks...," took my
change and left, feeling my body turn to Jell-o as I walked
out of the store.
My friend was freaking out by our bikes and could not believe
I was able to score the smokes! He saw the transaction
through the window and even the cashier smiling at me. He
wished he would have done that. He was so jealous! I was
beaming...and I asked for the book, which he promptly handed
over after I gave him the smokes. I did end up enjoying the
Fletch book, but never got around to seeing the movie.
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