One of my personal weaknesses is a tendency to favour the new over the old. Put something in a shiny new wrapper and call it “new and improved” and you’ve got a good chance of suckering me in, whether it’s “New Improved Huggies with Barrier Leak Shield” or “New Improved Motomaster Titantium Alloy Wiper Blades with Wind Cutting Action.” Indeed the dirty secret of my penchant for world travel is that world travel delivers a whole new set of “new and improved” (at least to me) in every city.
Fortunately this is a tendency that Catherine and I share, both with travel and with variations of Swiffer, Glad, Saran and Ziploc products. While I may mock Catherine for falling prey to the “Press and Seal,” this is simply a cover for my own glee (something I used to similar effect with New Teen Titans comic books, purchased by Johnny and Steve but secretly devoured by me with just as much fervour).
All of which I offer as explanation of, if not excuse for, the fact that Oliver and I are pictured front and centre on page A5 of today’s Guardian as two of the crowd clamouring to get into the new Sears store in Charlottetown.
I realize that this sort of incautious consumer behaviour places any future “that Tim Banks certainly is a dink, isn’t he!” posts here on the blog in danger of being dismissed. But that is a risk I must take to feed my lust for the shiny.
Of course the inevitable result of this passion is the let down that comes from the new and shiny being not so new and shiny and wonderful and transformative as expected. Weeks go by of anticipation about the wonders of the new version of OS X; once it has arrived and is installed, well, it’s just an operating system, isn’t it. I thought riding a Segway would be like riding one of those hoverboards from Back to the Future; it wasn’t (and it tried to kill me, to boot).
And so I am ashamed to admit that I bought the whole “bold and radical new Sears concept” line entirely: I was convinced by the APM and Sears propaganda that the new Sears here in Charlottetown — the “first free-standing off-mall format in Canada” they crowed — would be unlike any Sears I’d ever seen. I imagined robotic product butlers, Italian espresso in the cafe, mens fashion in colours other than brown and blue. I imagined a cross between Ikea and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.
In other words, I am an idiot. A whore for the shiny and new.
Post-clamour at the door of Sears, Oliver, G. and I did the complete loop of the aisles. We witnessed frothing Islanders giddy at the sight of pillows on sale for $2.99 and a 5-piece luggage set for $24.99. We toured the Mastercraft (or is that Craftsman?) aisle, the Kenmore aisle, and the toy section.
And it was just a Sears.
A plain old boring Sears with the same old boring Sears crap that every other Sears in North America has, presented in the same old boring fashion. Indeed because the new Sears store has no windows, the effect was oddly similar to being at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut: you could be in any department store in any city at any time of day.
I can’t imagine why I would ever return.
So consider that I have performed a public service for you, preventing you from the need to go and visit yourself a place that you would emerge from only feeling moribund and depleted.
Sears, especially without the clandestine allure of escaping to Moncton for off-Island shopping, is, in the end, just Sears.
Hey, did you hear the Gap is coming to Charlottetown…?
Rob’s online course The Customer Revolution has a long thread of discussion in response to an assignment about the CARI pool and its failure to perform as hoped.
Ironically, if you search Google for “cari pool”, the first search result leads you to the selfsame discussion.
I stumbled across this when looking for the CARI website. Suggestion for CARI: ditch the meaningless name, and call yourself the “Charlottetown Swimming Pool” and set up a website at www.pool.pe.ca.
Oliver and I have been swimming at CARI every Wednesday since Christmas. When we go, during the supper hour, we usually have the pool to ourselves. It truly is a great resource, something that the “customer perception” of which does, indeed, demand study. Perhaps part of the challenge is that Islanders don’t know quite what to do in a leisure swimming pool, especially without kids. Float around?
Television views do travel in packs. Look at this mediocrity wavelet (red markup is mine):
Original link from kottke.org.
If the on-shore flurry activity and general slush are getting to you, take a look at Air Canada's seat sale, announced today. There are quite good fares: Halifax to London return for $448, Halifax to Bermuda return for $358.
Today is day one of an exclusive 15-day “Oliver and Peter without Catherine” engagement. Catherine flew to New Orleans this morning (she reports light rain, 17 degrees Celcius, and palm trees in the courtyard of her hotel); Oliver and I are on the Island until Sunday and then we fly away, albeit to the somewhat colder and less exotic Hamilton, Ontario. Our small family doesn’t reconvene until March 29th.
For an idea of how things will be radically different under the reign of Pete: here’s the book we returned to the library and here’s the book we checked out. Gers are much more interesting than Scoop and Wendy!
Post-supper diversions with Catherine include making healthy cookies. With Pete, it’s wall-to-wall Nanaimo Bars.
In other words, we already miss Catherine desperately, and will likely be admitted to hospital with either sugar shock or Mongolian horseracing-related injuries before the week is out.
If you’re a business-curious Charlottetown blogger willing to cross the divide into being “one of the media,” you may be interested in the Media Sneak Preview of the new Sears store on the Malpeque Road:
Greg Paterson, General Sales Manager, Atlantic Region and Anita McGlashon, Manager, Sears Charlottetown will lead media through a tour of the store describing its unique features including its design, merchandise assortment and services.
The Grand Opening (which Sears calls a “Major Photo/Interview Opportunity”) is Thursday, March 17 at 9:00 a.m.
Apparently Sears is now inside something called the “Royalty Power Centre.” Who knew?
Travel agent to the stars, George Stewart, has moved from Admiral Travel in downtown Charlottetown up to the new Sears store on Mount Edward Road.
I’ve written about George in the this space several times:
Ian’s post about baby readiness this morning prompted me to dig this photo out of the archives:
That’s Oliver’s room in its “he’s about to be born” state: the photo was taken on September 24, 2000 and he was born six days later.
It’s so clean and non-chaotic. There are so few stuffed animals in it. The laundry hamper lid hasn’t been ripped off yet. We haven’t had to have the plaster stripped out because of flood damage yet. He still has a door handle. And that car seat is so, so tiny.
In related baby sentimentality: Dave Hyndman has a great photo of his on his blog this morning.
In yet another hip, down with it, rad attempt to get all funky and props in the youths, the CBC has a rad cool new web effort called Buzz that seems to exist to promote trippy youth-type events happening over the March break.
Like the far out Rotary Regional Library Bird Presentation and the Fiddle Doo & Pot Luck.
To attract said youths, the CBC has recruited some hot young media superstars, one from each province:
About This Blog
I am Peter Rukavina and this is my blog. I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.
To learn more about me, read my /now, look at my bio, listen to audio I’ve posted, read presentations and speeches I’ve written, or get in touch (peter@rukavina.net is the quickest way).
You can subscribe to an RSS feed of posts, an RSS feed of comments, or a podcast RSS feed that just contains audio posts. You can also receive a daily digests of posts by email.