"scratch cards free | zonke rules of nokudlala | £ 5 free! | change is hard sometimes. as much as i appreciate downloading songs off itunes (and of course there was no other way to get dr. horrible’s singalong blog), i also enjoy shopping as a social activity. it was a great thing to walk out of a movie with a friend and wander into the virgin to see if anything interesting had come out or discuss the merits of a dvd’s special features. and, of course, artist in--store appearances are a thing of the past. even if i rarely went to them, it was nice that they happened. what it comes down to is that i don’t like losing my options. what bothers me even more is the idea that this is just the beginning. how long before kindle and amazon partner with real estate developers to kill off barnes & noble? at least two barnes & noble locations in manhattan have already been shut down thanks to the real estate industry’s irrational exuberance. one of those was among the chain’s most profitable stores, and its space has been vacant ever since.