Saturday, October 18, 2003
I haven't written much in a while, but I'm glad it's the weekend. Anyway, I saw Under the Tuscan Sun with some friends today. It was an okay film; it had its moments. However, in a way, I'm somewhat relieved that I watched it during a matinee. It was interesting enough to keep me from falling asleep or from walking out of the theater, though, and that's a good thing. But I don't think I've ever walked out of a movie before (except for a couple of times in which I realize I'm watching the wrong movie in the wrong theater.)
After that, we were in the mood for some Italian food so we went to Pasta Bravo for dinner. How predictable is that? Then, we spent some time at Barnes & Noble. While browsing through the graphic novel section, I saw a copy of Rurouni Kenshin on one of the shelves. I didn't think that the manga was out yet, but then I realized that it was volume 7 of the original untranslated Japanese manga! It was the beginning of the Kyoto story arc which included the fights between Kenshin and Saito. I asked one of the Barnes & Noble staff if the book was a part of their regular inventory that they sell. She tried scanning the barcode, but since it was not a standard US UPC bar code, nothing came up on their system. Since the book looked a little used, we came to the conclusion that a customer must have accidentally left the book in the store. Then, someone working there assumed it was part of their stock and shelved it. The Barnes & Noble employee then told me that if I can read the Japanese writing, I was free to take it with me. They couldn't really charge me a price for it, anyway. The only price we could find on the book was in yen, and it's not as if they had any currency exchange rate tables handy. So I walked out of there with a free comic book.
After that, we were in the mood for some Italian food so we went to Pasta Bravo for dinner. How predictable is that? Then, we spent some time at Barnes & Noble. While browsing through the graphic novel section, I saw a copy of Rurouni Kenshin on one of the shelves. I didn't think that the manga was out yet, but then I realized that it was volume 7 of the original untranslated Japanese manga! It was the beginning of the Kyoto story arc which included the fights between Kenshin and Saito. I asked one of the Barnes & Noble staff if the book was a part of their regular inventory that they sell. She tried scanning the barcode, but since it was not a standard US UPC bar code, nothing came up on their system. Since the book looked a little used, we came to the conclusion that a customer must have accidentally left the book in the store. Then, someone working there assumed it was part of their stock and shelved it. The Barnes & Noble employee then told me that if I can read the Japanese writing, I was free to take it with me. They couldn't really charge me a price for it, anyway. The only price we could find on the book was in yen, and it's not as if they had any currency exchange rate tables handy. So I walked out of there with a free comic book.
