Steps [continued] 2) Beat the mail through the wood. Step 3) Keep pounding.

b1-66er: The book on my living room table.

Special K: Enjoy.

The audio book narrator is problematic. Jennifer Jason Leigh  sounds like she just woke up and isn't that interested. Major vocal fry. I might return it.

b1: Do.

Buy the paper.

K: Not ebook?

b1: Tell me you either:

•are kidding

  >OR< 

• can't explain the deep cut in the middle of your forehead (along with some line like, "I don't REMEMBER anything happening")

K: I'm not kidding, I was just wondering if you were favoring paper over ebook / Kindle, or saying either was better than audio.

<45 minutes pass>

I returned it. 

b1: I wasn't ignoring you, I was just on my way into Actual Reality...

I WASN'T KIDDING EITHER.

The Spirit of OUaTiH, in case you somehow missed it, is late 60s Hollywood...

Late 60s Hollywood did not have audio books for the casual listener...

... CERTAINLY NOT ON DOWNLOAD...

... Mr. T is SO wrapped out on the general concept, he didn't even have his publisher release the hardback first ON REQUEST...

... He's emulating a drugstore paperback.

At my first job, I sold dozens of those...

Returned many more...

Is the audio book gonna have an ad for Oliver's Story (the compelling sequel to Love Story?)...

Is the fricken audio book goin' to tell you it's "The New Novel Based on the Film?"...

DOES THAT EVEN MAKE SENSE IN AUDIO FORMAT?...

Hell no.

You need to return to the snooty "I used a calculator once and it had a Nixie display" kid you used to be...

You still ARE that guy. You've just wrapped too many decades of AAPL, koolness and Pancake House breakfasts around that kid.

K: Now I get it. Thank you, that makes sense. After all, he's the guy who rediscovers old film technology. 

b1: Get rid of the fricken Special K facade and grasp the Denver Comix Large K...

...(remembering there wasn't even any such thing as Extra Large back then)...

You're gonna thumb that paperback for ten seconds max and realize precisely how right I AM and how wrong you WERE...

Everyone makes mistakes.

Not everyone is willing to admit it...

Fewer still actively correct those errors.

95% of Americans won't step through the door of correction.

Now it's on you to tell us, after reading, of your experience.

(I think I'm gonna start mine tomorrow.

This has been a psychologically hard, but fairly reassuring, day.)

K: I had no idea it was in that classic paperback format. I thought it was the modern, larger style.

Not only am I gonna buy it, I'm gonna go find it at a real store.

b1: NOW THAT'S THE SPIRIT!

K: Seems like it.

b1: All the evidence in the world is, literally, at your fingertips.

You can make a decision better than 85% of the people who're presented EXACTLY the same facts...

BUT those people weren't

A) Crazy Denver Jewish

B) Related to Solid Goldstein¹

C) Raised in a bar

D) Pojo players

¹ as Mark Twain said, "but I repeat myself."

K:I wonder if drug stores are carrying the book. If not, an indy bookstore would be next best.

b1: Those are EXCELLENT choices.

If/when you find one, save the sales receipt,

and use it as your bookmark•

I'm probably better at reading your mood through TXT messages than anyone else in the world...

I can see you, now, truly understand the situation you were in and you've used the K-standards to bail yourself out...

Today you stand tall over the apologetic murmuring pandemic survivors.

I salute you ...

... And look forward to your addled analyses...

...... with or without Muddy Buddies•

K: Right on•