Wandering down to West Virginia

A few thoughts from a quick trip over the weekend to The Highlands, the shopping development just over the state line on I-70 on the way to Wheeling:

– The missus and I paid a visit to the Books a Million store at The Highlands, and after browsing for quite a while, I walked out without making a purchase. The reason: They didn't have a single thing that I couldn't buy online and have delivered right to my front door. At a cheaper price. I'm pretty sure that retail bookstores are about to go the way of record stores. The Books a Million Store was very nice, as are the Borders and Barnes & Noble stores up by South Hills Village, but when a person can buy a book from the comfort of their own home and save money in the process, what's the incentive for folks to drive to one of these stores? When the Borders Express store closed at the Franklin Mall, it meant nothing to me. I hadn't been there a half dozen times over the previous few years. One reason is that there just weren't very many books there. My online bookseller of choice offers thousands more titles than the traditional bookstore, as well as CDs, DVDs, clothing, etc. Plus, I can order used books from vendors affiliated with this particular online retailing giant, saving myself even more money. And I'm not one of those “techies” who wants to read books on a Kindle or some other such electronic apparatus. I like reading a good, old-fashioned hardbound book. I like the smell of them. I like the heft of a good book in my hands. I like falling asleep with one open on my chest. In short, I love books. I just don't love bookstores anymore, at least not enough to make a regular trip.

– I also stopped by Quaker Steak and Lube for lunch. From what I understand, their wings are their pride and joy. Maybe I just hit them on a bad day, but the wings I had were nondescript, tough and dry. I must say that the cheesy, bacon-sprinkled fries I had on the side were outstanding, and from the looks of the menu, I think I'd like to try their burgers and soup, but the wings. Meh. I've had better wings as several establishments much closer to home, including my favorite (and the closest), Breezy Heights Tavern. I think I'll stick with the locals from now on when I want some tasty chicken extremities.

– One of the (typically false) arguments used by those who favor keeping the Soviet-style Pennsylvania liquor sales system is that the clerks at our state stores are the only thing standing between us and private businessmen forcing booze into the hands of drunks and schoolchildren. They paint a horrible picture of unfettered sales by unscrupulous wine merchants interested only in making a buck. Well, it’s certainly not that way with the private-enterprise system in West Virginia, at least based on my experience Saturday. I went into a Target store to buy a couple of bottles of wine – buying wine conveniently, what a concept – and when I approached the young girl at the cash register, she asked to see my ID. Now, I'm 51 years old. On my best day, and with a cashier suffering from extreme astigmatism, I might pass for 40. Nevertheless, the young lady wanted to see my identification. She then took my driver's license, made sure the photo matched my face, and swiped the magnetic strip on my license through a slot in her cash register. Whether that's to make sure that the license was legit or to keep a record of who is buying booze, I'm not sure, but I am sure that West Virginia isn't the Wild West when it comes to alcohol sales.

Gay is OK again

Amazon.com has backtracked after what it described as an "embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error" that led to tens of thousands of books being removed from the popular online retailer's sales rankings. At first, it was thought that gay-themed books such as Annie Proulx’s "Brokeback Mountain" were the main targets, but Amazon says the "error" involved more than 57,000 books "in a number of broad categories such as health; mind and body; reproductive and sexual medicine; and erotica." According to Agence France Presse, Mark Probst, author of a gay romance novel, said on his blog that he questioned Amazon about the deletion of his work and was told that the company was cutting "adult" materials from its Web searches and sales lists "in consideration of our entire customer base." It's a good thing that Amazon is rectifying the situation, but I'm not buying the explanation that this was an error. An error is dropping the cap from the toothpaste tube down the drain in the bathroom sink. This seems more likely to have been a deliberate act by someone trying to impose his or her own value judgments on literature. That worked in Hitler's Germany. It won't fly here. I hope.