RIP Borders.

I was going through my email half-heartedly, clicking on a litany of ever more vague Gumtree job adverts when I saw an email from Borders- 'A fond farewell...thank you.' I heaved a huge sigh. In truth, if you've kept even half an eye on the publishing industry over the past year or so, you'd know that the bookseller has been on life support. I wasn't shocked, but I was sad.

If you've ever shopped at Borders and signed up for a store card, or vouchers and coupons you probably received the email from CEO Mike Edwards detailing the factors that led to the fall. Bottom line: no one thought that the store was a worthwhile investment, no one was willing to keep it afloat.

Now, I am probably in the minority of those lamenting over the company's demise. Big corporate behemoth with 399 stores, putting little indie bookstores out of business. I can see their point. However, cast your mind back almost 10 years to the wastes of 2003. I was a 19 year old either just emerging from what I like to call a mini-nervous breakdown or right smack dab in the middle of it (your mileage may vary). Alone and depressed, spending entire Saturdays at the newly opened Borders at Ithaca's Pyramid Mall was one of the few bright spots. Finding a nice cosy spot with books too new for the public library to have acquired yet, I would spend hours lost in the pages, only breaking to have a decadent albeit overpriced chocolate muffin.

Or there was the night the fifth Harry Potter book came out and I went all the way to the next town, in Binghampton to pick it up, and meet this girl I'd been chatting to online. It was a rainy night, but the Borders was packed. Children dressed like Hogwarts students. It remains a vivid memory eight years on.

Or how about the fact that it was the only place I could pick up FourFourTwo and World Soccer. Or that it stocked British Maxim which was at the time infinitely funnier than its American counterpart.

Or getting the second PJ Tracy novel, Live Bait half price with my 30 percent off coupon combined with a 20% off sticker. Little victories, but at the time I felt like I was WINNING.

To be honest, it would have been bad business sense for anyone to step in. They would have been basically giving a terminally sick entity something for the pain. The rise of digital media rather than hard copy means that retail outlets are probably going to go the way of the dodo.

It's not just Borders, HMV is rocking, stores like Zavvi have had to close or become online retailers. Ebooks, digital music downloads they've changed the way we consume media. Remember when we used to listen to whole CDs? Or when we'd curse our choice of book purchased in the airport before going on vacation. Those things are a thing of the past. Put your mp3 player on shuffle, and you can go from electronica to country by way of opera. Can't decide which summer blockbuster to read. Why not load them all unto your Kindle and if you get bored with one, just close it, and try the next one with a few clicks or swipes. It all plays in to our increasing ADDness as a society.

I will miss bookstores when the last one finally closes its doors, most likely in my lifetime. Ditto libraries. Imagine a future where there are no more shelves, no smell of old paper, no sound of books being scanned. Just a sterile room with a wifi hub you can download your time-sensitive book from. No browsing, no having your eye caught by an odd looking spine. No recommendations from people. No sitting on the tube and sneaking a peek at the synopses of the paperback the person opposite you is reading, as it'll be the nice black matte finish of their eReader case that you'll be looking at. No more socialising or recommending books you love to others in the store (which is truly not that weird).

It's weird, as the internet becomes ever more prevalent we become ever more insular and closed off personally. Take video games. When I got my PS3, one of my first purchases was a second controller, harking back to the days of 2 player games on nintendo and super nes. I picked up the excellent Burnout Paradise to play with my sister who likes racing games only to put it in and find out that its much vaunted multiplayer was over the internet. I refused to buy last years F1 game for the same reason- no local multiplayer. What ever happened to your friends coming over for a gaming session? Most games to dont allow for that, preferring to make you play against some snot nosed 13 year old on the other side of the world.

Books are like that. Soon our libraries will be personal- intangible files on a device. No more having people go through your bookshelves and asking about this book or that and like that the social aspect of books will be lost or changed forever.

Thanks for the memories, Borders.

Thundercats footage.

When I saw the art for the New Thundercats series about a year ago, I instantly facepalmed. Gone was the classic 80s cartoon style, replaced by cookie cutter anime-esque artwork found in shows like Ben10.

However, having seen this clip I have to say it might not be as bad as I thought, and in fact, could be an improvement.

For one thing, Snarf doesn't speak anymore- Thank you, Jesus! I liked Snarf as a pet, rather than whiny nursemaid. He still retains the skittishness and desire to avoid danger that the original does, but that comes from hanging out with Lion-O who seems to like danger.

Lion-O is an improvement. It is easy to dismiss his new look as some emo Naruto knock-off but by making him a young man? cat? as opposed to the manchild (due to the stasis tube he was in malfunctioning) he was in the original, the series changes the dynamic between the characters in interesting ways. Witness his first reaction when he meets Cheetara.

The series makes Tygra his brother- possibly adoptive since Lion-O and his father don't have any tiger characteristics. Also, Tygra is older but not the heir to the throne. A few things he said in the clip indicate (to me, at least) that he might be jealous of Lion-O, and this could lead to some interesting storylines down the line.

By starting on Thundera, it gives the characters a bigger backstory, even the mutants, who we didn't see much of apart from a scene of two lizards in stocks. The Thunderans also seem to be none too tolerant of other species which should lead to some interesting storylines at least, and at least raise the mutants beyond ineffectual villains for the week.

I wasn't so sure about Wilykat and Wilykit having tails, but apart from that, I thought this new series had potential. Hopefully, a new generation will like it just as much as we liked the old one, but hopefully us 80s kids will give it a chance too.