Mullings by Rich Galen | Secret Decoder Ring for November 1, 1999

November 1, 1999 Volume II, Number 70
Can I Set My Body Clock Back One Decade?

TITLE: Unless you spent the weekend on Pluto, you know you were supposed to have re-set the clock in your bathroom, bedroom, on the microwave, oven, television, VCR, CD player, in your car, on your Walkman, your Palm Pilot, and your cell phone. I just want to reset my body clock which is even harder than the VCR.

"Buchanan can't even build unity …" The reform party is interestingly non-reformist in the matter of its rules. The new party chairman, Jack Gargan (Jesse Ventura's candidates) doesn't take office until January 2000, even though he was elected this past June. Pat Choate, former Reform party candidate for VP assured me this was NOT done to allow the Perot forces to retain control of the party so long as to make rules changes all but impossible for the 2000 elections.

"… dialed into Chairman Jesse Helms…" Even when he was a young man, Senator Helms' marked southern accent was sometimes hard to decipher. Now, he is all but unintelligible.

"The Shape of Things to .Com" … is a great title.

"inventory-shift concerns …" I made this term up. But the theory which, by the way I also made up, is this: When on-line buying was scattered and thin, a store like Macy's could take back a pair of jeans (as long as they were otherwise returnable) whether you bought them there or not. Now that e-retailing is likely to be a billion-dollar industry a major Macy's outlet like one in Suburban Virginia, might end up the post-Christmas season with MORE Levis jeans than they started the season with if enough people bring back jeans purchased on-line.

I have chosen to call this "inventory-shifting" (which might, for all I know, be a real term) because the inventory of, in this case Levis' jeans, has shifted from Levis' warehouses to Macy's return department without Macy's having been anywhere in the original transaction.

Home | Current Issue | Past Issues | Email Rich | Rich Who?