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Living at the end of the road
Sep. 3rd, 2004 07:45 amAhhh, Alaska, where anything new takes forever to appear in stores (I'm looking at YOU, Shonen Jump!) and some things never make it at all. I wonder if the new (and last!) Dark Tower book will be on time or not. I may have a minor freak-out if it doesn't. I've been counting, if not the actual days, then at least the weeks. I'm sure I'll start on the days soon. This is very sad.
On the bright side, I'd forgotten how cool the comic store up here is. It doesn't have the huge back-issue bins that it used to when I lived here before, but it does have a giant manga section with every single title I've been looking for AND a bargain bin of discount manga AND anime ... even a big shelf of pocky. It doesn't seem to carry quite as many independent titles as it used to, but maybe that's just because I've been discovering more of the really obscure ones at cons lately. And they have graphic novels galore. Who needs Borders?
Actually, I heard scuttlebutt that Barnes & Noble is thinking about locating a store here. That would absolutely make my life complete. I would never have to go anywhere ever again.
I really never thought about Fairbanks's end-of-the-roadness when I lived here before. Actually, it's not technically the end of the road -- the road goes all the way to Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic Ocean oilfields -- but it's the last town that's bigger than 500 people (if that many) before you run right off the edge of the North American continent. And it's a long, long way to the edge of the continent -- at least several hundred miles. Living on the north side of Fairbanks, I feel like I'm poised on the edge of the last great wilderness in the United States.
Fairbanks really impresses me with how metropolitan it manages to be, in spite of its remote location. The nearest decent-sized city, Anchorage, is 7 hours by road or an hour by jet. The nearest CITY is Seattle or Vancouver (take your pick), a week by road or several hours by jet. If a business up here runs out of something that their customers need, they have to order it from Anchorage or, more likely, Seattle. And then pay to have it flown, trucked or barged over thousands of miles.
Yet still, just about anything you want to buy, you can find in Fairbanks. We've got a good comic store, a used bookstore and a Waldenbooks (but a Barnes & Noble is desperately needed; see comment above), a pretty good library, a wide variety of chain stores, grocery stores, hardware stores, chain & fast-food restaurants, etc.; about ten radio stations covering all the usual genres (country, classic rock, new music, etc), all the usual network TV stations, cable and satellite TV, cable modems and DSL everywhere in or near town, car dealerships for every major auto maker. The one thing you can't do in Fairbanks that I would really like to be able to do is rent anime. I might subscribe to Netflix one of these days, though I bet it takes longer than 3 days to get the DVDs.
On the bright side, I'd forgotten how cool the comic store up here is. It doesn't have the huge back-issue bins that it used to when I lived here before, but it does have a giant manga section with every single title I've been looking for AND a bargain bin of discount manga AND anime ... even a big shelf of pocky. It doesn't seem to carry quite as many independent titles as it used to, but maybe that's just because I've been discovering more of the really obscure ones at cons lately. And they have graphic novels galore. Who needs Borders?
Actually, I heard scuttlebutt that Barnes & Noble is thinking about locating a store here. That would absolutely make my life complete. I would never have to go anywhere ever again.
I really never thought about Fairbanks's end-of-the-roadness when I lived here before. Actually, it's not technically the end of the road -- the road goes all the way to Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic Ocean oilfields -- but it's the last town that's bigger than 500 people (if that many) before you run right off the edge of the North American continent. And it's a long, long way to the edge of the continent -- at least several hundred miles. Living on the north side of Fairbanks, I feel like I'm poised on the edge of the last great wilderness in the United States.
Fairbanks really impresses me with how metropolitan it manages to be, in spite of its remote location. The nearest decent-sized city, Anchorage, is 7 hours by road or an hour by jet. The nearest CITY is Seattle or Vancouver (take your pick), a week by road or several hours by jet. If a business up here runs out of something that their customers need, they have to order it from Anchorage or, more likely, Seattle. And then pay to have it flown, trucked or barged over thousands of miles.
Yet still, just about anything you want to buy, you can find in Fairbanks. We've got a good comic store, a used bookstore and a Waldenbooks (but a Barnes & Noble is desperately needed; see comment above), a pretty good library, a wide variety of chain stores, grocery stores, hardware stores, chain & fast-food restaurants, etc.; about ten radio stations covering all the usual genres (country, classic rock, new music, etc), all the usual network TV stations, cable and satellite TV, cable modems and DSL everywhere in or near town, car dealerships for every major auto maker. The one thing you can't do in Fairbanks that I would really like to be able to do is rent anime. I might subscribe to Netflix one of these days, though I bet it takes longer than 3 days to get the DVDs.