i really miss (or at least did before mass internets) the computer literacy bookstore, when i visited from the UK for the first time i was blown away , also wierd stuff was great too.
we still have places a bit like wierd stuff in LA, but not quite. i often wonder how much the prop industry keeps them up, they're pretty much all in the same areas ( but that's also because it's a cheap warehouse space)
i needed some solder paste this morning since i forgot to order early enough for SMT supplies to send me a fresh batch and all mine are a tad out of date. i can walk from my house to a place that carries it, so there are still places around ( coincidence it is so close), but i can also overnight it from amazon and get it around 4AM and take the risk on the date code, hard to beat that. I went out and picked up 5 gallons of vasco 7000 this morning as well, its nice to live next to an industrial area. took me a week + high shipping costs to get 5 gallons of cimcool last time via the internets and i'm waiting on a mouser order that had batteries so it shipped ground, got delayed at the depot so its been a week to get it. we ordered reels of leds from aliexpress at the same time and they got here faster than mouser. its such a mixed bag lately.