Monday Night Boredom

I can't believe how freakin' bored I am tonight. Normally I take advantage of an evening where I don't have to work yet tonight wasn't the case. My attempts to get rid of this boredom were met with frustration as well.

A few weeks ago I finished re-reading the entire "Sword of Truth" series by Terry Goodkind (I wanted to get an overall impression of the series since the first time through I had to read other books while waiting for the next book to get released) so I figured that I'd go to the nearby mall and get some new reading material. I had attempted to do this about a week ago at a different mall but it turns out that the Chapters had re-located or something and the actual mall itself had this poorly organized bookstore where I couldn't find anything.

Now the mall I was going to tonight is considered a better one since it's one of those multiple level malls. To tell you the truth this was my first time going to this mall (I'm reasonably new to the area, and most of my shopping is done online anyways) so I merely figured that since the mall was bigger than the one I previously went to it had to have a bookstore. Well after a 45 minute walk to get there I find out that they don't. Joy.

I then decide I'm not leaving empty-handed so I decide to visit the HMV to see if they had any CDs that tickled my fancy. Now I must admit something, I like listening to metal music and not necessarily the easy to find metal music. I've also learned that ordering CDs online through American distributors is actually cheaper than buying them at HMV (most of the time, sometimes new releases are reasonably priced but when I want to buy something that's been out a wile, I find myself spending $30 on one CD, that's ridiculous!). Basically, I wasn't holding my breath until I found that obscure European band that I've been itching to buy one of their releases.

Well, I enter the store, browse the CDs they have on sale. I almost felt compelled to buy a bunch of Iron Maiden CDs because they were 10 dollars and my collection is definitely in need of some Maiden but I moved on. I then noticed something about this store that I never seen in any other HMV before, the CDs were sorted into only two categories: "Music" and "Classical". Are you kidding me!? Two categories!?

Now some of you might be wondering why that's a big deal. The answer to that is that I would like my shopping experience to be convenient. Sorting CDs by genre is a convenient marketing approach because if a customer is looking for a certain style of music it is very simple to get pointed in the right direction. Not everyone who goes to a store knows the exact band they're looking for, they might be looking for punk CD, or a rap CD, or a metal CD. I can at least vouch for the metalheads in how we sometimes make impulsive purchases simply because a band has a sweet name or an epic album cover. Without this genre separation (even the typical "Rock/Pop", "Punk", "Rap/Hip Hop", "Country", "Classical", and "Metal" would've been fine) it makes finding a specific sound harder to find. It forces the customer to sift through bullshit they don't care about in order to see if any band names strike a chord with the customer.

I believe the main reason why the CD section was so poorly organized was simply because the entire section itself was pretty small. I'd say only a third of the store was for CDs. As a CD enthusiast (hell, a hard copy of music in general I endorse) I find this saddening. Another reason for the limited selection could be because no one is interested in that hard to find music. I did notice a few surprises during my brief browsing of the store (Kalmah, Neuraxis, and Obituary for example). Still the fact that I have to spent a longer time trying to find something annoys when I could've had one or two small sections to look like and then promptly end my shopping.

In the end I picked up the newest 10 Years album (another surprise) and I'm currently listening to it right now. Like I said, I didn't want to leave that place empty handed and essentially waste 2 hours of my night.

To conclude this rant portion, I actually found this mall to be more useless than the one I visited previously. While I did leave the place with a CD, I wasn't there to get a CD, I wanted a book. I thought the point of a mall was to provide a variety of stores that sold different things in order to appease the various demands of customers. Not a hundred female clothing stores. So far, there doesn't appear to be any bookstores in my immediate area. Does anybody that lives in this area enjoy reading? I can't be the only one! I've digress... Like I said, I find this recent mall more useless than the other one because the size of it means it takes longer before I realize that there's nothing that interests me in it.

Well on my next day off, I might attempt a third mall. Hopefully the saying "third time's a charm" will be correct in this case. I think it will, since this one in particular is one of those "super malls" that have parking garages and shit like that. Definitely massive. Wish me luck.