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kollektin bug
Feb. 11th, 2011 10:15 am"How the Internet has destroyed the thrill of the hunt," it says. I don't really feel that way. I like the game, but when it's gone on too long, I don't mind cheating just to get the fracking thing over with.
When used book listings first became available on the web, the first thing I looked up was an obscure history book that I'd been casually looking for for twenty years. I found a copy from a bookstore in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, a place I have never been. I immediately ordered it. "It's like shooting fish in a barrel!" I enthused to my friends, and indeed, in my fishing days - and I had a few fishing days, back when I was around ten years old - I would much rather catch the fish promptly than sit around all day waiting for them to bite, because for me the point was to take them home, clean and cook them, and eat them.
I still love to wander around used bookstores, but my goal now is serendipitous finds, not books at the top of my urgent want list. (Not that I have much of an urgent want list in used books any more, partly because the Internet has fulfilled most of it.) And collecting random things can still be fun if you set a limitation on it. When I was collecting the state quarters, my rule was that they had to show up in my change. There were a few gaps for a while, but I got all 50 of them that way. That was fun. The more recent special quarters have not shown up in my change - none of them except the D.C. one - and so I have no interest in getting them. I could buy them from a coin dealer, but I see no point. I buy books because I want to read them, same as I catch fish because I want to eat them. Collecting is just the task undergone to get them. I don't want anything out of special coin issues than collecting them, and that has to be fun.
When used book listings first became available on the web, the first thing I looked up was an obscure history book that I'd been casually looking for for twenty years. I found a copy from a bookstore in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, a place I have never been. I immediately ordered it. "It's like shooting fish in a barrel!" I enthused to my friends, and indeed, in my fishing days - and I had a few fishing days, back when I was around ten years old - I would much rather catch the fish promptly than sit around all day waiting for them to bite, because for me the point was to take them home, clean and cook them, and eat them.
I still love to wander around used bookstores, but my goal now is serendipitous finds, not books at the top of my urgent want list. (Not that I have much of an urgent want list in used books any more, partly because the Internet has fulfilled most of it.) And collecting random things can still be fun if you set a limitation on it. When I was collecting the state quarters, my rule was that they had to show up in my change. There were a few gaps for a while, but I got all 50 of them that way. That was fun. The more recent special quarters have not shown up in my change - none of them except the D.C. one - and so I have no interest in getting them. I could buy them from a coin dealer, but I see no point. I buy books because I want to read them, same as I catch fish because I want to eat them. Collecting is just the task undergone to get them. I don't want anything out of special coin issues than collecting them, and that has to be fun.
