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Surprise! On the dangers of Internet Shopping

Well, perhaps danger is a strong word. I mean, there are certainly dangers of Internet Shopping. Identity Fraud, for example. My friend Christine, for example, recently got scammed out of £180 due to the wonderful identity fraudsters. Poor girl.

But today, I am here to warn you of another, far more worrying danger. The danger of buying something, then forgetting you bought it. Because, if you do this, there might be a case where you buy it twice, which did nearly happen to me. Luckily, this time, I did not buy things twice, I bought them once, only I thought I’d bought them nonce.

So, I was surprised recently when I got an envelope from Portland, Oregon. Upon seeing the envelope though, I was able to remember having pre-ordered a live solo album from Colin Meloy, he of the melodious voice behind the Decemberists. It was a welcome sight, and an even more welcome listen.

I have seen the Decemberists live just once. It was meant to be twice, but sadly, they cancelled that tour. This album does not reflect a Decemberists live show, but then, it was never meant to. This is a Colin Meloy show. Well, technically, a compilation of several shows.

That said though, it is still a wonderful album. It is the sort of album that makes you want to sing along as you peddle desperately up that bastarding hill at Kings Park where some dobber just threw a McDonalds Cup at you from their car. Not even that is enough to distract you from the wonderous noise coming in your ear. Highlights for me, perhaps sadly, are the three songs from Picaresque. I’m sure I’ll come to love the other songs on the disc, the more I listen. However, the familiarity of the songs from Picaresque make them a more comfortable listen, for now.

Now, if you were paying any attention to the photograph above, you’d notice that the CD is not the only thing there. There’s also a book. A book which looks suspiciously childlike.  It does have a lot of pictures.

Craig Thompson, who I just noticed has a link to Carson Ellis from his blog page, who did the artwork for the aforementioned CD, wrote a wonderful book called Blankets that I bought last year. Blankets is a tale of him growing up and falling in love for the first time. A simply beautiful book. One I read in totality sitting in Borders, then bought anyway.

So, I decided to buy his first book, “Goodbye Chunky Rice“, under the assumption it would be as good. And, it is. It’s a very different book. No nudity in this one, instead, a sad little turtle.

It’s beautiful, and you should buy it. I don’t care if you don’t like graphic novels, you should buy it anyway. Right now. Go.