Saturday we finally went to Knoxville and visited McKays Used Books, CDs, & DVDs. Yay!

After turning in a bunch of DVDs that I had Blu-Rays of or just simply did not care for, I used my credit to get:

Star Trek (the recent movie) and Zombieland on Blu-Ray

Darkman, Reign of Fire, Flight of the Living Dead, Stephen King – The Golden Years, The Last Winter and The Monster Squad DVDs

and two nifty box sets

Star Trek fan collective Klingon (I own the Borg set and really enjoy the best of different Trek series).

and my favorite find:

The Val Lewton collection – 9 wonderfully atmospheric B&W genre films: Cat People, Curse of the Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, The Body Snatcher, Isle of the Dead, Bedlam, The 7th Victim, The Leopard Man, and The Ghost Ship as well as Shadows in the Dark – The Val Lewton Legacy.

My wife found a few CDs and my daughter found a hardcover coffeetable book of The Rocky Horror Picture Show – I looked at the hardcover entertainment books for the table that will be in the home theater room but did not find any that appealed to me. I will certainly look again next month as my wife decided that we will make this a monthly ritual.

Afterwards we took our guest to Sonnys Barbecue, one of many restaurants available in Knoxville but not in Asheville. I thoroughly enjoyed my pulled pork sandwich on garlic bread and took a moment to remember my best friend Patrick who always loved their barbecue.

On Sunday we visited Big Lots where I am used to low prices but wow. I found a three pack of Margaret Cho DVDs (Cho Revolution, Notorious C.H.O., and I am the One That I Want) for a whopping $3. I bought a copy for myself and one for some friends of ours (which means I probably should not have mentioned the price ). They also had a number of hardback books for $0.50 but none were from authors that I knew and honestly with all those movies, I really do not have time to read a book.

I also picked up a few more three packs of DVDs of garbage films mostly for McKays fodder after I have watched them. For some reason I have to watch every horror movie ever made even if I know ahead of time that they will be bad. Interesting trivia though: one of the three packs had Incubus with William Shatner. The Incubus claim to fame is that it is the ONLY film shot entirely in Esperanto.

My to-be-watched drawer is now entirely full and I am still two days behind on blogging about instant Netflix movies.

Yippeee!

I-40, the only major route for us to cross the mountains into Tennessee, had a major rock slide late last year. I-40 has been closed ever since until last week.

We are celebrating the re-opening of I-40 this weekend by going to our absolute favorite used bookstore (and moviestore and gamestore).

Mckay (not to be confused with Mr. K which is not very good) is unbelievably amazing. They have three gigantic stores – each the size of a warehouse. Here is a small picture which shows only a portion of one of the stores (Knoxville).

Those light brown shelves in the photo hold books in various categories. The second floor holds all the CDs. The dark brown shelves hold the audiobooks and a small portion of the movies.

Mckay sells used books, CDs, DVDs, video games, electronics, and more. My wife shops mostly the book section, especially the bargain shelves which are filled with books from 50 cents to a buck and a half.

I love the incredible selection of movies they have. There are DVDs from $1.99. The last time I was there the horror DVD section took up four shelving sections from floor to ceiling.

They have a Blu-Ray section which was overpriced when we went last year. I am hoping for better prices this year but if not I will be looking for books, DVDs, graphic novels, and maybe even an old PC game or two.

Yes they sell used PC games – even Gamestop does not do that. Unfortunately they do have a cut off date. I think they only carry PC games from the past 5 years or so.

We have never been to the Nashville store but one of our favorite plans is to take a holiday weekend and go out to the Knoxville store one day, grab a cheap hotel, and hit the Chattanooga store the following day.

The funnest part about McKay is that they are filled with hidden gems. You really never know what you will find but I always come home with a basket full of goodies.

UPDATE: Okay everything I said above still applies but a minor cash flow issue means that we will be going in June instead. This works out fine as we will be taking a friend of ours who I hope will be impressed.

If you ever do visit the Knoxville location, visit Puleo”s Grille for lunch/dinner. An expensive but personal favorite there is Shrimp & Grits – “A Charleston Favorite” Sautéed shrimp, Italian sausage, peppers, and onions served over stone ground cheese grits with Tasso gravy.

My guess though is that when we go in June, we will have lunch at Sonnys Bar-B-Q as we do not have one anywhere near where we live. Their sauces are incredibly tasty and are quite reasonably priced. Also I can get a large iced tea to go for the long ride home.