Pfah!

So last night, I went to the largest bookstore in Singapore to try and get at least one of the books from my reading list.

What did I buy at the end of two-hours?

Nothing.

They either didn't have the books I wanted (can't tell because the Information Counters were all closed by the time I got there -- from a HRC dinner. We chose to eat there because the wife had never been to one before; hyeah, I would also like to know from under which rock she crawled out from) or the only one that was there (Neverwhere) was in such a ratty condition, it didn't justify the price tag.

So I thought I would buy something else, so as to not make the trip a wasted one, but there really was nothing that caught my eye (I almost bought Elmore Leonard's Mr Paradise; I changed my mind because Noir wasn't a genre I'd really enjoyed for a long time already and I didn't want it to turn into a mercy buy). Most of the books in stock were in incomplete sets and I didn't particularly feel like starting on a new trilogy or series, only to wait weeks or months for the stock for the missing Parts to come in again.

And I'd given up on Tom Clancy after Jack Ryan became POTUS.

So much for being the largest bookstore in Singapore (actually, I'm not sure if that's true anymore, but why be technical about it?). For a place so large, it was hard to believe that it would be so impossible to find anything to catch my attention enough to make me buy it.

It sucked more because I couldn't go to any of the Information Counters to check if the books had been displayed in different sections from where I had looked, or if they were going to be brought in in the first place. The counters, if you remember, were all closed and the cashiers were having their own problems with the late-night customers paying for their stuff before the store closed at 11 pm. I couldn't even make advanced orders for the books I wanted.

I think I had better luck looking for Playboy and Penthouse magazines in the National Library.


Update, as at 14:36 hours, 4 March 2004:
Frustrated by my lack of procurement last night, I've just contributed no small sum to the US economy by ordering the books, along with some DVD titles which have been sitting in my Shopping Cart for a damn long time now, through Amazon.com.

I might be a couple of hundred USD poorer, but I'm feeling much better.

Alternative retail therapy.

P.S. For those who are interested, the latest Neon Genesis Evangelion DVDs (NGE: Resurrection and NGE: Genesis Reborn) are also out.