The Final Borders Haul

So as you probably know by now, Borders has finally closed, or at least is almost closed, by now.  My local store's last day was last Thursday and I decided to pop my head in one last time on Wednesday.  Pretty much everything else was wiped out but a few hundred books, and quite a few mangas surprisingly enough.  DVDs, Blu-Rays, CDs and graphic novels were completely gone.  I was quite shocked how quickly everything was gone because I had gone a week or so before and they still had quite a few Blu-Rays.  Then when I went back for my second-to-last trip, they were down to about 15, 20 tops.  By then, the only movie I was interested in getting was Die Hard.  There were still a few DVDs here and there at that time, and I just about snagged the recent 10th Anniversary Edition of Audition for pretty cheap but held off, since I already own the previous release and if I were to upgrade it would be to Blu-Ray.  But for the last visit, nothing of importance was left.  Though, by that point they were getting rid of books by making them a $1 each so I managed to snag a few things of slight interest and one thing I was super-psyched at finding...though now I'm getting ahead of myself.  I know I already posted a list last time but it kinda got buried under all that stuff so here's the final list:


Blu-Rays
Zombieland
Kick-Ass
Ong Bak 2
Inglourious Basterds
Crank 2: High Voltage
Tropic Thunder: Director's Cut
Dawn of the Dead (Original)
American Psycho
Die Hard

DVD
Knightriders
David Cross - Bigger and Blackerer

Books
My Custom Van by Michael Ian Black
My Year of Flops by Nathan Rabin
The Big Rewind by Nathan Rabin
You Might Be A Zombie from the Editors of Cracked.com
The Rough Guide to Cult Movies
Dreamseller by Brandon Novak with Joseph Frantz
Mr. Funny Pants by Michael Showalter
The Art of War for Dating by Eric Rogell
Countdown to Lockdown by Mick Foley
I Only Roast The Ones I Love by Jeffrey Ross
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim by Mark Twain and W. Bill Czolgosz
The War For Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy by Bill Carter

Music
Mastodon - Live at the Aragon CD/DVD
How To Destroy Angels EP
Louis CK - Hilarious


Graphic Novels
RED by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: Night Powers by Christopher Hastings


Miscellaneous
Fangoria Magazine Issue #305
Decibel Magazine Issue #82
Poster Hanger x4


I'm not 100% sure what the final total was for all this stuff.  Looking at the receipts I kept track of (mostly the ones I used my debit card on), those only totaled up to $41.  I know my first couple trips, where things were only about 30%-40% off, I spent about $40-$50 at a time, mostly buying movies and the occasional book.  I'm going to guess my final tally was about $150 or so, which is pretty damn good considering what all I got.  Hell, on the last trip where everything had to go, I only spent $6 on 4 books and 4 poster hangers.  Sweet deal.  One of those was the book I Only Roast The Ones I Love by comedian Jeffrey Ross.  Oddly enough, throughout all the previous sales, I usually went straight to the Humor section for books since they had some of the biggest discounts and I really wanted to get some books to help out my stand-up comedy, yet I didn't see this book until the second to last day where it was the only humor-related book left (unless you count The Situation's book, where the only humorous thing about it is the fact that he can read, let alone write).  Even though my style of comedy doesn't involve roasting people (not yet anyways), I still think it'll help me develop my style in the end.


There were a few disappointments, namely the fact that I waited so long for Chris Jericho's Undisputed to drop down more, only for it to get sold.  And out of that frustration, I ended up buying Mick Foley's Countdown To Lockdown, only to realize they had a ton of copies in stock to the point that they still had like 30 of them left when they dropped all books down to $1.  I only spent $10 on it but still.  Also, there was still a copy of Nathan Rabin's The Big Rewind left by the end but considering it was already in the bargain bin to begin with and I only spent like $3 on it, I probably could have gotten it for like 50 cents or something.  And for the longest time, there was still a copy of Michael Ian Black's My Custom Van left even though it was the first book I bought in the sale.  I probably could have held out longer for that one but what the hell.  All in all, I'm pretty glad with what I got.  I've already gone through all my movies but now I have like 12 books to last me all through the Winter, probably longer considering how often I really read.


In other news, I recently hit my One Year Anniversary in doing Stand-Up Comedy this September 1st.  I don't exactly consider it a full-year since the original location for Open Mics closed down a few months later and moved to Bowling Green, which I didn't want to drive to in the Winter, so I literally did nothing for those couple of months.  But still, I started out a year ago and I'm still here and that's what matters.  I believe I mentioned it in one of my previous blog entries but I've entered in the Best of the Midwest Amateur Comedy Competition on September 30th at Grumpy Dave's Pub in Bowling Green, so I hope to be celebrating my first year by making it a win, or at least making a name for myself.  I plan to do something comedy-related in my next blog post, whenever that may be, so be on the lookout for that.  Also, I went to last week's Smackdown taping in Toledo.  I thought about doing a live report like I did with the live Raw show last year but I decided to hold that off in an article for the Freakin' Awesome Network, where I compare the live experience to the final televised product.  Unfortunately, I haven't even started on it but it shouldn't be too hard to crank out.  If I have tomorrow off of work (which I should), I'll probably have it done and it'll be up in the next few days.


And that's it for now because I have to drop a monster dook.  Nash out!