A friend and I went to BestBuy yesterday to get a cheap digital camera for a project. We knew we were stepping into it, but had no choice. It was as…ah… impressive as we’d feared. Insanity to the n-th degree. The place was choked with rabid shoppers reaching over each other for expensive blinking baubles from Far East silicon sweatshops. When we finally asked a salesperson whether the camera we were interested in was available, he looked taken by surprise. He went away for a while, came back, and said: “It probably is…” PROBABLY is? “We want to buy it,” we replied, “so we need to know.” “Oh, well I represent Canon, you’ll have to ask somebody else.” He was in an official BestBuy get-up but he’s a shill for Canon? Imagine a future in which all of the salespeople in a store can only talk to you about\/sell you products that they represent. <\/p>\n
This is just one Kodak Moment (from hell) of the afternoon. The parking lot was particularly entertaining. Each time we saw a near-accident or bone-headed manuever, we’d break into: “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” Indeed.<\/p>\n