Canadian Tire: Flea Market or Dollar Store?

Have you been to Canadian Tire lately? Canadian Tire is one of Canada’s largest retailers, it sells a wide variety of home and auto products. If you visited the store in the last year you have seen changes. There are all these cardboard boxes with $1 dollar items, shelves look like a clearance sale with one version of each item. Small tables and real horrible looking home decor items have begun to populate the store like weeds. This is the price all of us get to pay. Now we are blessed with a wide selection of crap to pick from with little quality merchandise around. This is just another example of the Wal-Mart effect, every retailer is just scared shit that if they don’t sell crap they are doomed. Where’s the good stuff, you know when someone actually might want to buy it but can’t since nobody sells any quality goods.

You Flake!

I found this ajax start page which has an interesting assortment of flakes you can add, visit Pageflakes

How to Hit a Moving Target

This business week article about how to stay competitive has a great line from Cirque du Soleil’s Lamarre, “attributes the company’s edge to a stubborn resolve to “stay crazy” and keep “the suits” away from all creative decisions.”

200 Confessions

With this bizarre story of Mark Karr confessing to the murder of JonBenet one criminal psychologist points to the story of Charles Lindbergh. His baby was kidnapped and 200 people show-up claiming to be responsible.

Video Jug, Life explained

New site, it’s a how to portal for life. Do you remember how to tie a tie, watch the video. Then when you are finished bake some Naan bread.

Hey, where did you get that eye?

Looking to start-up a business, why not body parts. It’s a billion dollar industry according to this story. It’s scary thinking that you might need surgery and what they use is harvested from the dead, a dead guy with cancer which has spread to his bones. What happened to that new arm you had…it went bad and fell off.

Next week you show up at the hospital in the returns line. Hi, I would like to return this arm. It’s just not what I wanted. Would you like a refund or your old arm back? We can’t give back your old arm because someone else is using it.

Noam Chomsky Speaks

Who is a terrorist?

Wal-Mart pulls out of Germany

There have been many reasons given for Wal-Mart’s failure in Germany. It seems obvious in this article that Wal-Mart had nothing new to offer the German market.

Fucked Up World

They didn’t show these images on the six o’clock news in Canada, wonder why. I’m not picking sides about this conflict but only can come to one conclusion STOP THE FUCKING MADNESS.

Luck

Seth Godin always has something insightful to say like this recent post about Factor L. I like this line:

“We live in a world of fashion, not rational computation. A world where everything from brake linings and ball bearings to clothes and airlines is chosen for unpredictable reasons.”

Also check out this Business Week article about the Crazy Logic of Sales.