The Perils of Being A Physical Media Fan

With Circuit City and most traditional record stores gone, there are fewer and fewer brick and mortar places to buy CDs and DVDs. I've seen the effects of this lately in my quest to buy a CD and a DVD I want.

There are two main places I go to buy CDs and DVDs: Best Buy and Borders. Borders is conveniently located right next to where I work and if I have a coupon, I can usually get a good deal. There are about three Best Buys I can get to easily but I usually go to the one nearest my job.

The DVD in question I'm looking for is Season 1, Volume 1 of The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest. It's one of my favorite animated shows and I've been looking for it on DVD. Since it came out a few weeks ago, I've only been able to find a copy of it at Target. However, Target wanted $10 more than any other place, so I decided not to get it.

Unfortunately, neither the usual Best Buy or Borders has the Jonny Quest DVD available. Borders' website states that it's available from their online store only while I'd have to go to one of the other Best Buys around me to get the Jonny Quest DVD.

The CD in question is Royksopp's newest release Junior. I love the album and I want to buy it but in this case, both Borders and Best Buy state that the album is available from their websites only. This CD just came out on Tuesday.

The reason this kind of annoys me isn't because I don't like online shopping. I do it quite frequently. What annoys me is that I like actually buying a product from a store and bringing it home to enjoy immediately.

Your enjoyment of online shopping is entirely dependent on the quality of the delivery of the product. While our mailman is great, UPS just sucks. The UPS drivers in our area will frequently drop a package on the doorstep, ring the doorbell, and leave, even if it requires a signature. I've come home to see packages out there on the front porch ready for anyone to steal. I like FedEx, but they're often a bit too expensive.

To give you an idea of how much things have changed even in the past couple of months, I was able to walk into Borders on the day Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion came out and buy it. It was readily available in the new release section. With the way things are now (and rumors of Borders getting out of the CD/DVD business entirely), if that album came out next week, I bet I'd have to order it online too.

I guess what it boils down to is that the days of me trying to buy anything non-mainstream in a store are probably over. My main reasoning for buying stuff online used to be for the price. Now, it's going to be because I won't be able to get stuff any other way.