Saturday, March 5, 2011

Karma's a bitch.

Talking to a customer about movies.

"Only two movies I've seen lately are 127 Hours and True Grit."

"So....you only go to arm chopping movies?"

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Young guy in my store. "This is wall to wall awesome!"

"Wait. Did you come up with that, or had you heard it before? Dude, that's my new promotional slogan!"

(Googled it. It's out there; mostly referring to a wall of video games....)

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I love the blurb to the comic Axe Cop. "Written by a 6 year old. Drawn by his 30 year old brother." The sidekick character is an automatic weapons touting, wise-cracking dinosaur....

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Oh, great. A paranoid District Attorney.

"Citing 'extreme security problems,' Flaherty seeks move to new office." Bulletin, 3/5/11. Combined with his subpoenas for leaks, it makes him sound a little zealous.

Then again -- when you read the actual article, his requests seem reasonably reasonable.

I'm not sure taking on the local newspaper is the smartest thing for a politician to do. They can write headlines that make you sound crazy....

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There have been a flurry of articles about how the Big Box stores are starting to scale down, for instance, a Walmart Express.

Another word for a scaled down Big Box store is --- well, store. You know, your average store.

Wait, wasn't the Big Box store an improvement on the -- you know, store? Isn't that why they were built?

Or were they, as I've always felt, a big old Ponzi scheme -- build up and build out and fill it with merchandise and carpet bomb the neighborhood and then build another one across town, and in the next town over, and make it bigger -- and on and on to infinity?

Well, exponential growth is impossible, and eventually you start cannibalizing your own customer base -- or the other chain, which is more or less exactly like you -- the Lowes to your Home Depot, the Office Max to your Staples -- builds right across the street from you.

And the public seems to funnel itself to these massive black holes, bypassing the neighborhood store on the way.

And now these same monsters want to build -- regular stores?

But wait again. I thought the reason for the ultra cheap prices at these Big Boxes was the economy of scale? Aren't you giving that up? I thought people flocked to these Big Boxes because they have everything there is to stock. Aren't you giving that up?

So...I think it's just a continuation of the Ponzi scheme. Keep on building, keep on vacuuming up all the available dollars, and hope no one notices that they're slicing the pie thinner and thinner.

Online is going to get them in the end anyway, heh.

And then, you know, when Blockbuster and Hollywood have disappeared, won't it be interesting to see a resurgence in neighborhood video and game stores? When Borders and Barnes and Noble disappear, won't it be interesting to see a resurgence in neighborhood bookstores?

You know. Human scaled. Reality based. Alternatives to the soulless online universe.

Karma's a bitch.

6 comments:

H. Bruce Miller said...

"I'm not sure taking on the local newspaper is the smartest thing for a politician to do."

"Never get in a war of words with a man who buys ink by the barrel."

Anonymous said...

There is a new video store called Video Village setting up on Third Street in the old Fly fishing Store across from Rozak's.

Anonymous said...

Now that BIG-STORE aka walmart has knocked out ma&pa, then its only logical that walmart step back into the the 7-11 and have a mini-me-walmart on every corner.

In the future WMart maybe the only shopping anybody see's for anything.

The government will probably pass a law advocating national-security, or 'health-safety' banning all other shop's, note Wmart also now in the produce business as well. So all your organic's will have to have the WMART good house keeping seal of approval. Think I'm funny? Your under-estimating the power of government lobby, and the stupidity of our electables.

Anonymous said...

The KOCH brothers must be stopped. They gave $40K to Scott Walker, the MAX allowed by state law. That’s small potatoes compared to the $100+ million they give to other organizations. These organizations will terrify you. If the anti-union thing weren’t enough, here are bigger and better reasons to stop the evil Kochs. They are trying to:

1. decriminalize drugs,
2. legalize gay marriage,
3. repeal the Patriot Act,
4. end the police state,
5. cut defense spending.

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Yep, I agree these bastards must be stopped, if for no other reason, than to protect the AmeriKKKan way. :)

Anonymous said...

1. decriminalize drugs,
2. legalize gay marriage,
3. repeal the Patriot Act,
4. end the police state,
5. cut defense spending.

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I think that anybody that believes in god and loves Bend knows that the above is anti-ameriKKKan.

Bewert said...

Hey, Dunc the DA stuff is funny. And they are still trying to make JR a success, eh?

Here, this may help Bend: http://gigaom.com/collaboration/rural-sourcing-a-trend-to-watch/

Bend has some smart folks, they are just underemployed. Me? I'm much happier now after leaving. Hell, I have a month of paid vacation and med/dental/vision for $180/mo for us. Talk about less stress.

Good luck all. I'll stop by once in awhile.