As I said, your feminine side. Joking aside, Christmas is more enjoyable if you buy gifts as you go along and finish well before Xmas. Just leaves the fresh food to buy.
Music types - here's something you'll likely not have heard (yet) that I think is superb - [video=youtube;PBxU9xtwyg0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBxU9xtwyg0&feature=youtu.be[/video]
Online shopping is so, so great for Christmas. Long since done, never had to set foot in a shopping mall.
I predicted that back in 1991. I remember, quite distinctly, replying to a work colleague in STC, about the new technologies of the time [our company was in the vanguard of undersea fibre optics]. I reckoned that by 2030 there would be nothing sold on the High St bar perishables and stuff you can't easily post or parcel. He thought about and agreed. However, I believe I might be wrong. I think the WWW will virtually eliminate High St shopping, as we know it, long before 2030. Could also contribute to less gridlock and inner city pollution. It's a good thing, imo.
Technology changes...human beings don't. Normal people like to go places and see other people...hence the vast increase in coffee shops and cafes. Will be a sad day when towns lose their centres and identity.
What should happen is that all the High Street chain stores are made obsolete by the web, and are replaced by independent niche stores and local craft markets and so on. Then it might be possible to tell the difference between the High Streets of different towns.
More likely the small shops will disappear and only the big stores will exist. Niche demands are more likely to be met by on line shops.
On that wider point I agree, Chilco. I believe that there will be a small amount of stall selling of local crafts, along with market foods from local producers. For me though, the present day High St is dying and it will be dead within 20 years or much less. And good riddance to it.
What's the problem with a High Street? Employs a lot of people. I was one until recently. Shop work, whilst not fantastic, is one of the better low paid jobs. Done factory work...I wouldn't want to spend my time packing or picking goods in a soul less stockroom. If you don't like the High Street, don't go there.
How long until you go to a restaurant and place your order on a machine, like they now do for McDonald's?
I will never celebrate the loss of jobs...you can't say to someone, sorry all the shop jobs and waitressing jobs have gone, you will have to be a brain surgeon or work in IT. I would always rather deal with a human being...rather deal with human mistakes than those of a machine.
http://us.cnn.com/2014/12/21/world/asia/north-korea-us-sony/index.html?hpt=hp_c2 North Korea getting more and more insane.
No disagreement, but in many cases around here, one's shopping options are the big box stores that crushed all the local competition and pay a pittance, or the online retailers who are crushing the big box stores and pay a pittance. I'll buy from locally-owned places when I have the option, but for items where the options are either wading through a sea of humanity to support a multinational chain, or buying online and having it delivered to me (heh, and because I know the local post ladies, they deliver parcels to me at work rather than a post box), at least the latter supports a fast-diminishing national institution in Canada Post.
