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Sometimes, I forget about the Internet

and its magical ability to make things easier. (Speaking of that, thanks to all for the fascinating and helpful gaming info.)

Case in point: in 2001, I got, in Cuba, a bootleg album: A Lo Cubano, by the Orishas. It’s become one of my favorite albums, and periodically I’d think to myself, “Damn, that’s a good album. I sure wish I could get more music from them.” Very rarely, I’d even remember to look when I was in a music store, but I never found anything. (Side question: what is it about music, video, and bookstores that makes you suddenly unable, as soon as you walk through the door, to remember anything you’d wanted to read, watch, or listen to?)

And then, finally, today, I thought: perhaps I should check half.com. And I did. And now two more albums are winging their way to me. Slowly, via media mail, but winging nonetheless.

Has anyone else had similar episodes?

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  • juliadurango
    August 23, 2006 at 5:40 am

    I love the Orishas! Have all three albums, the first of which I bought in Bogota, Colombia (where I first heard them) — 2 & 3 I bought off the Internet like you. Enjoy!

  • le_film
    August 23, 2006 at 6:22 am

    what is it about music, video, and bookstores that makes you suddenly unable, as soon as you walk through the door, to remember anything you’d wanted to read, watch, or listen to?

    That *always* happens to me. I keep meaning to bring a list with me, but I always forget. I think it’s the overwhelmingness of so much media in one place that does it for me, I’m easily distracted.

  • purvision
    August 23, 2006 at 7:27 am

    “(Side question: what is it about music, video, and bookstores that makes you suddenly unable, as soon as you walk through the door, to remember anything you’d wanted to read, watch, or listen to?)”

    My theory: Options Poisoning. The mind is so adled with all the sudden input and stimmulus, it crowds out what you went in there for. I often have to pull my notebook out of my bag before checking it in, so I have my lists with…

  • ms_anthropy
    August 23, 2006 at 12:31 pm

    It’s because we didn’t grow up with an internet, I think. I still occasionally walk around for hours or days wondering vaguely about some obscure fact and how I can find it out before eventually remembering what that big grey box thingie on my desk is for. We’re all perceptably tech-literate but no matter how fast the reaction time becomes it can never be truly *instinct* because we didn’t bond with a keyboard the instant we broke out of the egg.

    The six-year-old, who had his own computer at age two and still has trouble comprehending that not everybody has a cell phone, just shakes his head sadly and says “Mommy, why don’t you just google it?”

    (When I read to him as a toddler he also used to “mouse-click” the corners of pages with his finger when it was time to turn them, complete with sound effects.)

    Half.com is indeed Le Bomb.

  • juliawag
    August 23, 2006 at 6:34 pm

    The 3rd column you havve on your homepage (titled ‘elsewhere’), is it part of a template offered by LiveJournal? (If so, which one?) Or did you create this yourself? Thank you.