queues? eff 'em

Waiting in lines is detestable. I spend a lot of time waiting in lines, especially virtual lines. Movie queues, holds at the library, what have you. In the past week I have bypassed two such lines for the sake of satisfying a manufactured need as soon as possible.

Line one: We like the idea of going to a tangible place to see what the film world has to offer. Net Flix is not compatible with Mac (bad move on their part) unless you are a pirate/hacker who can get around that sort of thing. All in all, Blockbuster works best for us...except when it comes to The Wire. We finished the first season about a week after my appendix took my bank account for a ride. I have said things about that show that I am pretty sure I have only said about my closest loved ones. Sometimes I feel dirty that I love that show so much. We wanted to take maybe a week off between seasons but Blockbuster doesn't carry it in store and the line to get a hold of the first disc of each season was backed up for two months. Finally, we caved and got the free trial for Net Flix. Season two arrived two days later and now the successive discs are easy to score. Free trial, then cancel, line circumvented.

Line two: Thomas L. Friedman writes some of my favorite Op-Eds for the New York Times and has written some books that I will some day get around to reading. I'm not cool enough yet to get the NY Times, but the Denver Post gives us a tease every now and again. Last week Friedman plugged Fareed Zakaria's new book, "The Post-American World." I knew the name and I'd heard about the new book. In a globalization class at Mines I kind of forgot to read "The Future of Freedom" and either sold the book or put it in a box in the basement. Feeling slighted by myself, I was very ready to make up for this and put the new book on hold at Denver Public Library. Number 70 in line. Not going to happen. Hard cover books are a luxury I don't afford myself as I spent thousands of dollars in college on hard backs I never cracked open. Having spent a sizable portion of my income on books from the Tattered Cover that keep getting placed by the wayside for borrowed books I feel a bit entitled to get through a book in its entirety while in the store. The chairs aren't that uncomfortable and they are stocked up well enough to ensure I'll never have to wait in line to catch an in-store adventure.

Speaking of bypassing lines and Fareed Zakaria, we jumped in front of a line of about 12,000 people at DU to see this guy (who happened to be in town again today):