Fiat Lux

I've been a little sinus-y and headache-y today, and am hoping that a cold is not on its way. Depite feeling draggy, Scott and I went out to do a couple of errands to complete the winterization of his bike today.

While we were out, we stopped by the local Tower Records, which was festooned with "going out of business" signs. CDs were all 25% off and DVDs 20% off -- not the greatest of discounts, but what the heck. We walked out with 4 DVDs and 4 CDs. I probably would have bought more if it weren't for the sticker shock. Last time I was buying CDs they were generally $16. Just about everything I looked at in the bins was $21.

Tower Records was a big part of my CD buying life before we moved to San Francisco. Living within walking distance of a branch will do that to you. Once we got to SF, I tended to do my buying via Amazon. And by and large that was just fine,. But the thing you lose by not going to a store to do your buying is the serendipity of discovery. Online stores try very hard to come up with good algorythms for "you may also be interested in..." sections on a web page, but it's not the same by a long shot. Those things are good for reminding you to buy batteries and a travel charger after you pick out a piece of electronics, but not so good for the more random connections that result in your walking out with 3 Star Wars DVDs as well as a copy of "Good Night and Good Luck".

With Tower going down for the count, there's even less chance I'll be doing much of that random browsing in the future. And that's a shame.

Local music critic Jim Harrington has a similar response to Tower's immanent demise.

I took some cold meds before I sat down to write this and they seem to be starting to kick in. With any luck I'll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the AM.