Charlie StrossRE: https://mastodon.social/@orci/116009155879650410
Living her best life.
(I've gawked inside a Target once, on a long-ago visit to the Excited Snakes of America, and yeah, this is the ONLY way to shop there.)
Steven D. Brewer 🏳️⚧️@cstross I wonder what wine pairs well with both sushi and cinnamon rolls…
@stevendbrewer Inari sushi I can see working okay-ish with cinnamon rolls? (It's got that sweet thing going.) Also mochi. But the wine is a head-scratcher. I'm guessing it's MD 20/20; if this had happened in Scotland it'd be Buckfast Tonic Wine (but there's no Target here and Scotmid just doesn't have the same bottomless-pit-of-despair vibe).
@cstross Back in the day, it would have been Boone's Farm. But I don't know what the current thing is. https://vinepair.com/articles/boones-farm-wine-history/
What Happened to Boone’s Farm, Gen X’s Favorite ‘Wine'?
There is perhaps no drink that carves out a space in your memory the way your first sip of alcohol does. Whether consumed illicitly or legally, there’s a high likelihood that simply remembering the beverage is enough to run a shiver down your spine and induce a psychosomatic hangover. But before the youths of today started downing socially acceptable hard seltzers, spiked teas, and boozy lemonades, one wine reigned supreme on the party scene. Well, wine product. First introduced in 1961 by E. & J.
@stevendbrewer Ah, so that's what American X-ers drink instead of scrumpy!
@cstross And, just for reference, Target (pronounced "targé") is where Walmart shoppers go when they want to feel upscale. If you really want to experience the true depths of despair, go to Ocean State Job Lot, which is stocked with stuff that didn't sell anywhere else. Or was returned. https://www.oceanstatejoblot.com/
@stevendbrewer Hey, this is the UK! We have Tesco here. (WalMart tried to break into the supermarket biz, bought ASDA—the third-ranked chain—and made a big noise. A few years later they ran weeping to the anti-trust people. Then they gave up, sold most of their stake in ASDA, and got out. Retailing in the UK is hardcore!)
Simon Greenwood@cstross
Walmart did try and bring some US style practises to the UK but mostly on the management side - I heard stories of having to sing a corporate song in morning meetings, which didn't sit well in Leeds. Their lasting legacy might be the amount of Halloween crap they introduced.
@stevendbrewer
Walmart did try and bring some US style practises to the UK but mostly on the management side - I heard stories of having to sing a corporate song in morning meetings, which didn't sit well in Leeds. Their lasting legacy might be the amount of Halloween crap they introduced.
@stevendbrewer
George BI know that Walmart still have ASDA's George brand of clothes because the fuckers own the .george TLD and don't let anyone register on it.
Szymon Sokół 🇵🇱🇪🇺🇺🇦@cstross @stevendbrewer Now, Tesco came to Poland in 1995 and in 2021 it left, allegedly due to competition from Lidl and Biedronka (which, despite Polish name, currently belongs to Portuguese Jerónimo Martins). Wanna talk about hardcore market?
Seiðr@stevendbrewer @cstross The idea of stuff that was stocked in the US and didn't sell elsewhere has instilled in me the fear of the Endless depths of the cosmos.
Tall SimonThen we have the liquidator warehouses that set up in big, dis-used industrial buildings around here. We called one of them the "Rat Palace" in recognition of the species present that solidly outnumbered the human staff.
It was the absolute tail end of the retail food chain and one of the most depressing experiences you can ask for. To think that every single item piled up in the multiple hectares of factory floor space was somebody's retail design idea, seen
through to production and marketed.
If you needed tiles for the bathroom, however ...
Ocean State Job Lot looks infinitely fancier: it has a web site and probably even tracks its inventory.
Ryan Finnie@TallSimon @stevendbrewer @cstross My contribution to the vibe: Harbor Freight Tools. I describe it as a cross between Trader Joe's and Spirit Halloween. It's got a lot of in-house tool brands and has an "upscale but value" fanaticism similar to Trader Joe's.
But the locations themselves always look like they took an old K-Mart carcass which had been sitting there for years, added dividers to make it about 1/4 the area, installed third-hand shelving, hung a HARBOR FREIGHT sign and called it a day. (I'm oddly specific here because there's a location in Reno which did literally that.)
@ryan @TallSimon @stevendbrewer Reminder that NONE of the businesses you named exist in Europe (including the UK). I visited a Trader Joe's and a Spirit Halloween while visiting the USA, but neither of the others. Your metaphors need localization!
@cstross @TallSimon @stevendbrewer Interesting! While I knew both Trader Joe's and Spirit Halloween were US only, I assumed their defining attributes were world-known, if only for the memes which have escaped the containment of US culture.
Trader Joe's: Smaller scaled grocery store (compared to US supermarkets), almost all white label store brands, "hipster value" fanbase. Owned by one of the Aldi's (can't remember which), actually.
Spirit Halloween: Pop-up seasonal retailer, tends to rent abandoned retail space, does the absolute minimum to make the space usable, and sells costumes and stuff for a month or so before re-abandoning it.
Oh, and K-Mart: Department store chain, mostly went out of business decades ago.
Fazal Majid@ryan @cstross @TallSimon @stevendbrewer Fun fact: the Trader Joe's canvas shopping bag (the cream-colored one with red, blue or green webbing handles) has somehow become the "IT" bag in London and Paris. I've seem 3 in the last week alone.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/trader-joes-tote-bags-london-b2862453.html
How Trader Joe’s totes became a status symbol across the pond
There’s a new influencer in London, and he goes by the name of Trader Joe. Ellie Muir looks into why the U.S. grocery store has become such a hit among Brits, and why belonging has never been so important when it comes to fashion trends
@cstross @ryan @stevendbrewer I'll add a fun one: "A1 Electronic Parts" https://a1parts.com/ in Etobicoke, Ontario 🇨🇦 (home town of Rob and Doug Ford). Besides parts, he has stacks of old control panels.
Apparently many sci-fi movie props in the Toronto area are sourced there. The owner regularly gets cleaned out for big productions.
I got a good laugh from a few other patrons when I remarked that "this is what my wife must feel like when we're at the Aberfoyle antique market."
Need a start capacitor for your pool pump, though? Can't beat A1...
Nearest Harbor (sic) Freight to me is in Rochester, NY...
🫣 So "safety critical" meets "bottom of the clearance barrel" in post-industrial upstate New York, eh?
Jon@stevendbrewer @cstross as a former resident of the Former US, I will say that I was at least *willing* to go into Target, because it was far more civilized, people controlled their children, and the employees generally did not seem in existential despair.
laura lemay@stevendbrewer @cstross Alas Target has not been the upscale Walmart for some time now, they are on par at best. Even aside from the terrible anti-DEI decisions they've made it's pretty darn depressing to go there.
Administrator@cstross @stevendbrewer Very close, at least in use! But even the worse scrumpy is made with more love than Boone's Farm.
Boone's Farm is basically Kool-aid mixed with a small amount of pure ethanol. Absolutely no love in it at all.
@mdm @stevendbrewer Whereas scrumpy is made with love and also scrumpy isn't ready to drink until the rat who drowned in the vat has fully dissolved.