Amoeba Records!

I had a revelation today. Two weeks ago, I read about a place called Amoeba Records. They have branches in Berkeley, San Francisco, and Hollywood. Today I went for the first time. I’m in love. It’s like Johnny’s Records in Darien, expanded to the size of Virgin Megastore.

All the CDs seem to be about $12 (instead of the $18 that Virgin often wants). There are used copies of everything for $5. They have a huge selection of DVDs upstairs, including an import section. They have a separate section for STEVE COOGAN DVDs. STEVE COOGAN! I got seven CDs for $65, plus British DVDs of “Brass Eye” and “Cruise of the Gods”. Finally, a reason to like L.A. If you’re ever in town and need to kill some time, go to Amoeba. It’s the best store I have been to in my life EVER.

I took my booty (and the CDs I bought) back to the Omni for a quick ripping session and a listen to the Isles-Pens game. After a stirring comeback (and a first listen to the CD by The Datsuns), I took myself down to the CoDe Magazine/Wintellect party. It was quite nice, although I was getting a little hungry and took a plate for the carvery prematurely. Once you’re holding a plate, what can you do? I stood there trying to figure out the etiquette. I couldn’t put it back because I’d fingerprinted it. I didn’t want to put it down because it would be a waste of a clean plate. I ended up standing there, looking like a tool with a plate, for about 15 minutes waiting for the r. beef to be carved up.

I was accosted by Brian Randell, who reminded me to keep adding entries to the blog because he always reads them. Since he’s the only one, I might just rededicate it to him as our personal dialog. A magical dialog, devoid of proper RSS feeds.

All the great Wintellect guys were there, including John Robbins and Jeff Richter. The Junkies showed up for the the carvery, Code Project was there to talk politics. Everyone at CoDe Magazine is really friendly too, and they’re dedicated to what they do. If you subscribe to only two magazines this year, make them the second one.

After the party wound down, I ended up back at The Standard with the Junkies, trying to get to the rooftop bar. Unfortunately, it was closed for a private Fashion Week event. I forget who had the idea of putting our Universal Studios party wristbands on and giving it a shot, but somehow it worked. The guy working the escalator let us all right up and into the elevator. We made it into the party for a minute (some longer than others), until the bouncer got wise to us and booted us. Perhaps it was the hag-faced former models announcing in stage whispers that we had the wrong bracelets. We’ll never be sure.