After today I will never, ever attempt to sell my used books at Half Price Books again. I took a stack of old textbooks to their huge store on Northwest Highway Wednesday afternoon, and after wasting more than 20 minutes walking around, the buyer offered me a mere $5.00 for the entire pile. My response: “I can make more dropping them in a recycling bin!” And I loaded the armful back in the car and left.

But before I made it to a good recycling bin, I thought that maybe I’d try my luck on Amazon.com. Last night I set up my account, and within an hour I had sold two books at a profit already 7 times more than Half Price’s offer. As of now, less than 24 hours into this new venture, I’ve sold 4 out of the 12. I finally see what the digital revolution is all about!

As part of another revolution–this one a little more anti-social than sitting at home online all day–I came to the realization that there’s not much difference (except for the drug use and momentary lapses of brilliance) between me and the character Blake in Gus Van Sant’s Last Days: despite the phone ringing and knocks at the door, essentially no one is home. I’ve even gotten to the point of recognizing the phone numbers of the daily commercial calls–despite having my name on the do-not-call list–on the caller ID, so now I’m able to pick up and hang up on them before they have the chance to hang up on my answering machine. [That’s right: I really am that anti-social.] If for whatever reason you’re bored and/or pissed off at the world, here’s a number to call: 623.847-3438. Feel free to take out any frustration on whomever answers; although you’ll probably just get to leave a message. (The number is for a company called Strategic Marketing based in Glendale, Arizona. I say there’s nothing “strategic” about annoying me.)