- Fans of the 1950s who wish those damn kids would cut it
out with their rock music and enjoy quiet evenings sitting around the fireplace
listening to their favorite weekly radio program, there is great news for you. J.C. Penney Co. is bringing back its iconic catalog, even though
the formerly massive tome of commercial product offerings will be much slimmer
in its modern incarnation. The old catalog once reached 1,000 pages thick, but
creating something that massive in the digital age would be a colossal mistake.
Instead, the catalog – returning after going into forced retirement back in
2010 - will be just 120 pages and its aim will be slightly different this time
around. "We're certainly not going back to a traditional big book catalog
business, but we will be issuing a more robust home mailer," J.C. Penney
spokeswoman Kate Coultas said. "It's a traffic-driving piece."
Reaching back into the past seems like a desperation move given that J.C. Penney
is recovering from a precipitous sales drop and hefty losses after a botched
transformation under its former CEO Ron Johnson, who was fired in April 2013.
Johnson was in charge for just 17 months and after his firing, former big
cheese Mike Ullman returned to the helm to stabilize business. In October, the
board appointed Home Depot executive Marvin Ellison to succeed Ullman in August,
but the identity of the man in charge may be largely irrelevant at this point.
Fact is, the retail world has changed drastically since the days when the
catalog was required reading for all. There are massive chain retailers like
Walmart and Target, specialty stores that have better offerings than department
stores like J.C. Penney and whole online marketplace from which to procure
goods rather than picking the sweater or end table you want from a J.C. Penney
catalog…………
- Nice try, Steven Knight. You cannot on one hand claim to
be making a sequel to a major blockbuster and on the other hand say that the
new movie will be totally original and separate from the first one. Sure,
you’re a Hollywood screenwriter and thus very adept at creating fictional
scenarios in which absurd things happen and no one bats an eye. But Knight is
attempting to do just that, saying the sequel to “World
War Z” will start with "a clean slate.” Brad Pitt produced
and starred in the 2013 original and the resulting zombie apocalypse film was a
dumpster fire of critical hate and overproduction to the nth degree, yet it ended
up taking over $530 million at the box office worldwide, becoming the
highest-grossing film in Pitt's 25-year career. Pitt confirmed his association
with the sequel in September and Knight was inked to write a treatment for the
sequel. Like any good salesman, he’s trying to pitch his as a totally new and
original idea, one that will blow people right out of their seats and reinvent
the whole zombie apocalypse genre as we now know it. "It's not quite like
the other [film], we're starting with clean slate. When they've signed off
we're on,” Knight said. Oh, OK then. If you say it’s a totally clean slate and
nothing like the first movie, then it has to be true. You wouldn’t be lying and
trying to use the franchise’s name value to push this pile of cinematic excess
forward so you and Spanish filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona, who has signed to
direct the film, can keep lurching forward and turn this into the most
expensive film of Pitt’s career and one that will earn him even more mockery
and scorn………
- Pope Francis has a knack for pissing people off. Usually,
those people are Italian mobsters with their hands deep in the Catholic
Church’s vast business empire after the pope says he’s going to rid the church
of corruption and push the mobsters out the door. But the pontiff’s recent
remark that Catholics
don't have to breed "like rabbits" has offended a much different –
and admittedly less scary – group of people. Those would be Germany's rabbit
breeders, who were incensed when the pope urged Catholics to practice
"responsible parenting" and use church-approved forms of birth
control. And yes, before you ask, there is an association of German rabbit
breeders and they are hopping mad. Erwin Leowsky, president of the central
council of German rabbit breeders, feels like the pope infected the world with
a misinformed point of view because only rabbits which live in the wild are
sexually overactive. Leowsky pointed out that bunnies in captivity have tamer
reproductive habits and rather than spend time with mating rabbits, maybe it’s
better to simply take this kook’s word for it. Either way, Leowsky feels the
pope should allow Catholics to use contraception and cease with his maligning
of rabbits’ character because, you know, the rabbits are really hurt by all of
this and their feelings are very real and very powerful. Here’s hoping that the
German rabbit breeders are upset enough to truck bunches of their bunnies to
the Vatican, occupy St. Peter’s Square and turn this into a real spectacle……….
- If you ever have the chance to play poker with former Buffalo Bills head coach Doug
Marrone, take it and bring your life savings with you. One month ago, Marrone
was the head coach of an NFL team, one that went 9-7 and narrowly missed the
playoffs despite alternating between an erratic young quarterback and a veteran
on the verge of retirement who rocked the best neck beard in the league. As of
this week, Marrone is now an assistant head coach for offense and offensive
line coach with a team that won just three games this season and had its
nickname mockingly changed to the Baguars by some haters. Yes, the Jacksonville
Jaguars have hired Marrone less than a month after he used an out clause in his
contract to leave the Bills and become a coaching free agent. Marrone went
15-17 in the past two seasons with the Bills and seemingly had the team on an
upward trajectory, but a clause in his contract allowed him to resign and coach
elsewhere if the team changed owners. That’s exactly what happened during the
season and while the clause guaranteed his $4 million salary in 2015, Marrone
looks like a chump for taking such a huge step down the coaching ladder. He’s
going to be the highest-paid offensive line coach in football, but how bad does
he look that he was a head coach and went to a terrible team that didn’t even
want him as its offensive coordinator even though IT DOESN’T HAVE A FREAKING
OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR? That’s right, the Jaguars are still searching for an
offensive coordinator to replace Jedd Fisch, whom head coach Gus Bradley fired
on Dec. 30. The Jaguars don’t feel that Marrone is qualified to lead their offense,
so maybe the Bills are lucking out on their former leading man resigning in
search of greener pastures that turned out to be a mirage. Oh, and any team
that might consider hiring Marrone down the road will also have to mull over
how they feel about turning their team over to a guy who quit on the last team
he was hired to shepherd………..
No comments:
Post a Comment