All Narfed Up photography and words by Bryan Villarin

I just got an email from Borders Rewards about earning Borders Bucks, which starts on April 12th (emphasis is mine):

We’ve simplified your Borders Rewards membership. Now, for every $150 you spend on qualifying purchases at Borders, Borders Express, or Waldenbooks in a calendar year, you’ll earn $5 in Borders Bucks, issued the first week of the following month and valid until the end of that month. The more you spend, the more you get. There’s no limit to how many Borders Bucks you can earn!

That’s a reward of $0.0333 per dollar. If you want to “earn” $10 in Borders Bucks, you’ll need to spend $300 in a month. If you want to earn $20 in Borders Bucks, you’ll need to spend $600 in a month. I say “in a month” because those Borders Bucks are only valid until the end of the month they’re issued. I can’t even imagine myself spending $150 at a Borders in a month. If you spend that much in a month, you’ll probably be reading that stuff for the next few months, right?

Don’t mock our intelligence!

I prefer to get cheaper prices online, saving the amount of time and money that comes along with shopping in a brick and mortar store. “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” by David Allen is currently $8.99 at Amazon, and if you spend over $25 there, you can get free shipping. (It doesn’t hurt to have Amazon Prime, either.)

The only reason why I’d go to Borders is if I need a book right away. I can usually find a coupon to trim the price a bit, too.

What do you think? If you can buy online, why do you shop at Borders?

I was so compelled that I went to Borders earlier this afternoon to buy “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. I’m in chapter 3, and very impressed with what I’m learning so far.

As an update to this, it turns out that the article requires you to use an AppleScript for iTunes to make the imported audio CDs bookmarkable. I’m not on a Mac. I found this gem, though:

For bookmarks audio book try ripping to AAC and rename the file extension to .m4b.

I tried it, and it seems to resume the audiobook where it left off. Phew! I hope “A Painted House” is a good book…

Oh yeah, for the record:

A final note for the benefit of RIAA lawyers, and those looking to avoid same: We use this process to copy borrowed audio books from CD to our iPod, so we can listen to books we’ve checked out from the public library. That’s a fair use of the copying capability that is built into iTunes. When we’ve listened to the book, we delete it. Keeping the book, or file swapping it, would be illegal. We don’t do that.

Alex indirectly gave me a great idea: borrow an audio CD from the library, then import it into iTunes for use on your iPod. Nice! Guess where I’m going either tonight or tomorrow? I hope the Arcadia Public Library has some…