Swaptree

Like most avid readers the number of books I get far outnumber the number I'll ever get around to reading. 80% of the books I own are ones I have yet to read. I add an average of at least 2-3 books to my shelves a month. With that said, it's safe to say that I haven't actually bought a book in over two years.

Instead I've relied almost solely on the site Swaptree.com to feed my reading habit. Swaptree is a trading site for books, CD's, DVD's, and video games. You make a list of all the items you are willing to trade and a list of items you'd like to receive. The site then finds matches and setup a 2-way, 3-way, and even 4-way trade.

Time and time again I've made a trade for a recently released book in exchange for a CD I haven't listened to since college and instead of shelling out the $20 or more dollars for the new hardcover book, I'm only paying 2-3 dollars to mail the CD. I can even print postage right off the site.

So far my best trades have been for uncorrected proofs books also called advance reading copies (ARC). These are small batches of book copies the publisher gives out to the media, bookstores, and libraries before the book is released for sale. They are very collectible and without intentionally seeking them out, I've made trades for 5 ARC's so far. The best one being a signed uncorrected proof of Slam by Nick Hornby (movies based on his books include High Fidelity, About a Boy, and very loosely Fever Pitch).

To date I've made over 170 trades and estimate that I've probably saved between $1,100 to $1,700. The best thing is, when I'm finished with a book I turn around and list it right back onto Swaptree and I no longer feel forced to read a book I can't get into since I don't really have a financial investment with it in the first place.

So whether you're looking to feed all your media desires, save money, and/or de-clutter your bookshelves, Swaptree is the way to go. Enjoy.

Found

Found is a collection of discarded and misplaced notes, letters, and pictures, that someone came across along the sidewalk or crumpled up in the trash. The book is filled with strange, hilarious, and moving insights into people's lives. These are things people never intended anyone to see, which makes them all that much more interesting, getting to peek in on someone else's life.

That is after all what the whole social networking is built on. Now I've done or am still doing the Friendster/Myspace/Facebook/Twitter-thing and while the social networking sites are great for keeping current with far off friends, there comes a point where all I'm doing is just, for lack of a better term, spying on people while at the same time sort of boasting about everything I have going on. Social networking sites seem to feed two guilty pleasures at once, wanting to be nosey and wanting to be the center of attention. It could be called social eavesdropping or social grandstanding. And while I'm speaking only for myself, I'm sure most social networkers are guilty of either or both. Why else would anyone feel the need to share what they are eating for lunch in real-time?

Another draw back of social networking (assuming you find the previous point a drawback) is that these sites have all but strangled face to face conversations and replaced it with awkward small-talk. Think about it, we've seen each others' vacation pictures, know what movies each of us saw last weekend, and of course what we've had for lunch so what else is there possibly left to talk about when we finally meet up face to face. We can't talk about mutual friends because we've both seen the friends' pages and thus know everything about the friends already.

With all the said I probably won't be breaking the social networking habit anytime soon, but I have a huge amount of respect for anyone who has avoided them all together. The lack of desire to know what everyone is eating for lunch everyday is unimaginable.

If I can get back to Found, the book and its website have caused me to seek out my own found items by flipping through secondhand books and scanning the sidewalks . I haven't had much luck. My best finds probably occured during my classroom teaching days. High school students are gold mines when it comes to discarded notes, doodles, and writings. A teacher can create quite the collection over the years.

There is only one item that I've found and kept. It appears to be a skit done by three 10th graders I had in class. I found it on the floor at the end of the day and never bothered giving it back to the owners. The skit seems to be a commerical for pogs. I found this in 2002/2003 so the pog trend was long gone which I guess was intended to be part of the humor. Warning, it's funny but only in the immature, adolescent way. I'll transcribe since it's hard to read but I'll leave the spelling mistakes to add to it's charm:

Pogs

J - Hey I'm Master McPogsalot, I'm here to tell you about Pogs.

M - And I'm his superhero sidekick Poggy Pogenstrom.

L- These videogames are boring, I need something to do with. Someone help me!!

J&M - Hey Timmy, Pog superheros here.

J - We are here to tell you about mankinds greatest creation....ever...POG'S!!

M - Yeah remember when your parent's got a divorced because of you? Well pogs will bring them back together, so buy pogs.

J - Also try and collect all 50 million pogs on sale. And if your friend has some pogs you want, kill him and steal his pogs, I swear it would be worth it.

L - But wait didn't pogs only used to be cool?

M- Thats just filthy anti-pog propaganda the government is saying to control your soul. Pogs protect your soul Jimmy.

L - It's Timmy.

J - Whatever, Let's get back to the real point here...Pogs.

M - Yes and that is to worship pogs and slammers daily. And convert to P.O.G.

J - Pogs over goverment.

L - I see. Isn't that blasphemaus.

M - No! Pog was Washington's middle nane.

L - Wow, pogs are cool!

J - Damn straight, Timmy.

Special Commemorative Magazine Issues

When I was 8 my parents bought a video camera, the old 80's type that recorded to standard size VHS tapes and had to be worn on the shoulder in order to film. On the first tape ever used is a scene of me in the living room wearing a light colored sports coat on a Sunday morning just before church. Now something is fouled up with the tape because much of the sound has been replaced by loud static. This makes it hard to decipher what I'm doing and at times down right confusing as I fling the coat off my shoulders and at one point slap myself in the face.

But if you could hear the audio you'd hear the title track of the 1987 album Bad. Bad was the first item, let alone album, I can remember buying with my own Christmas/Birthday obtained money. And for the rest of my life I was married to a following of the Gloved One, for better or worst.

On my key chain I keep the key to my very first car. A 1989 maroon 2-door Chrysler Le Baron. Of course the only fitting name for the car, in my mind, was Billie Jean. I even made a tape for the car that played the song on continuous repeat. A tape I purposely left in the deck when the car finally headed to the wreckage yard.

With all the tributes out there for Michael Jackson right now I won't bother going into my own. So instead know that I'll be 30 in less than a year. An age where no matter how hard you try to play it you're officially an adult whether you like it or not. Having Michael Jackson die now almost seems fitting. Like mourning Mike is really mourning the kid that spend hours lip syncing to his songs in front of the mirror.