"Today is a GOOB day to die"

[captainsblog]

"Going Out Of Business," that is. We've been so jaded by the run of these things around here, especially the chintzy local furniture/appliance chain that's been having its FINAL WEEKEND of its post-bankruptcy GOOBer for about the last three months- but yesterday, I ran into the real thing.

Continuing my simply marvelous Mercury-retrograde run of luck, I tracked down the one final physical disk of Slings and Arrows- Season 1, Disk 2- that I'd yet to lay hands on. It was at only one branch of our county library, but the closest to us, and they opened at 1 yesterday. So yay! After getting an estimate on the car (four grand for an overglorified door ding?!?), meeting a client and running to the bank, I was there at the stroke of one to claim my prized Oliveresque skull.

Turns out, they no gots, despite what the catalog says.  Apparently, disks 1 and 2 from the first season were packaged separately, and either they lost #2 or nobody until me ever even noticed that it was never there.

No problem, though; I'd go to Blockbuster. They always had pretty decent quirky selections. Turns out, though, the only thing I was right about was the "had" part.

The store nearest our home? Big Yellow Signs. STORE CLOSING- FINAL 3 DAYS- EVERYTHING MUST GO. About the only TV they had left was a set or two of Nurse Jackie season 1 and an incredible selection of Weeds. I headed out in sadness, noting that even the security-tape gate at the exit had a "sold" sticker on it.

Next, B&N. Which would be cool, since they were running a BOGO (a sad anagram of GOOB) on all their TV. Tons of British, shit-tons of Mercun, but constipated when it came to Canadian. "We can order it, and would you like to try a Nook?" Erm, no. Netflix can get it here Tuesday. (Hell, Netflix would've had it here today if I'd known of the liberry's goof.)

Putting up a tentative white flag, I went back to work. At day's end, though, I had other errands: Tarjay, for a belt that actually holds up pants these days and my first XL t-shirt in a lonnng time (I refuse to pay the $2 fat tax on XXLs if I don't have to:); my office again, for a pile of files dropped off; and, wait, aren't there two more Blockbusters on the way?

One, already gone, replaced by a seasonal Niagara Candy outlet with no trace of that store ever having housed the dozens of videos we enjoyed from there; the other, sporting more yellow signs and a somewhat better selection, but still, neither a sling nor an arrow to be found.

Yet they did have some rather amazing things still on hand. Just from the past week or so of our views, Days and Clouds and The Damned United, even still counting two of the latter.  I wound up going with The History Boys, an Alan Bennett piece from 2006 that I seem to have missed; and Michael Caine in something called Is Anybody There?, which will be nice if only to get the unfortunate taste of him in Deathtrap out of my brain.

We plugged on with two of the three Lost Episodes of S&A through streaming last night, one of which actually worked perfectly well, but I still want the extrys that come with the real disk and will have them by this time Tuesday. Maybe we'll have one of Canada's Finest Hams for dinner that night;)

Comments

[firynze.livejournal.com]

I've heard that the Borders GOOB sales are also quite disappointing...all that's left is a bit of literary fiction and some self-help books. Of course, given that the nearest Borders OR B&N is 45min from here, that's a moot point for me...

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

When Media Play bit the GOOBer bullet around here a few years ago, they eventually reached a point in the percent-off reductions that they actually sealed off the whole book section and wouldn't let anyone buy any more of it. This thereby deprived quirky folks like us from getting in and actually picking up the nobody-else-wants kinda remainders for 90 percent off. "EVERYTHING MUST GO- EXCEPT FOR THIS."

[firynze.livejournal.com]

...I do things like that at library sales. "Oh, you're just going to get rid of that whole big box? I'LL TAKE IT."

GOOB

[caryn caldwell (from livejournal.com)]

We've had a few going-out-of-business sales around here, too. It always makes me sad and vaguely guilty - like I should have shopped more at whatever store has gone under. The worst, though, was the restaurant with the banner "The End of a Dream".