Pilgrimage

The two shopping malls that are out of the way for me (and for other people as well) are Rockwell and Eastwood. Because they're "in-between" areas which public transportation can't bring you directly, and barring a taxi ride, you have to walk quite a distance to get there once you're dropped off at the bus/jeepney stop.

So to me, going to Rockwell and/or Eastwood is like a pilgrimage; you don't go there often, but you must visit it at least once in your life (or in my case, once a month). And it is quite difficult to go there, and more importantly, to get back home (but there's a shuttle service at Eastwood so getting home isn't so much of a problem... except it's currently our of service). Why today, I had to walk all the way from Rockwell to Glorietta...

Space Management and Shelf Arrangement

I think these are two things every shop can benefit from. The former so that the place not only gives you your money's worth for the rent that you're paying, but to make the entire place accessible to your customers as well. The latter, of course, is helpful so that your customers find it easier to look for the stuff that they want to purchase. I mean if they don't find it on the shelves, they just might leave without purchasing anything.

So today, I went out to look for McSweeney's #13 since Dean wanted one. Suffice to say, while Fully Booked has space management, they definitely do not have shelf arrangement.

I mean for one thing, the place has three shelves, on different parts of the store (left, the middle, and corner right) for comics. And then there's another shelf as well for "humor", which also has comic strips like Dilbert. And there's the artbooks section which feature comic-related material like Comics Journal or X-Men Encyclopedia.

Of course there's also me the SF&F buff. While I currently have to contend it the SF&F stuff being shelved in the SF&F section and under the children's/young adult section, it's also commonly under the fiction section. And looking through the four, extremely long shelves of the fiction section in Fully Booked can be quite a chore. On a side note, I found some notables such as Jasper Fforde, Jeffrey Ford, Laurell K. Hamilton, Diana Gabaldon, and Stephen King (his Darktower novels) under the fiction section.

For The Collectors

On a side note, Fully Booked has some "signed" items, such as litographs by Alan Moore, and a number of graphic novels by renowned writers/artists such as Kurt Busiek, Neil Gaiman, and Dave McKean.

And Just to Clarify

I'm still currently unemployed, although I did pass the Client Logic exam and interview. I was supposed to sign the contract that day, but the guy who does the contracts wasn't there so they said he'll just call me within the week or next week to set up my contract. Of course here's me hoping that he actually calls and not get diverted somewhere...