Surreal Moment of the Day:
The evening news did a special segment on Wal-Mart, of all things. It opened with the newsreader wandering through a CGI model of a Sam's Club, describing merchandise piled to the ceilings, etc.

Wal-Mart recently bought a controlling interest in a Japanese supermarket chain, the name of which escapes me at the moment. (FYI: A Japanese "supaa" is more sort of a small department store. Think Target) According to the head of Wal-Mart's Japanese division (an American, BTW), they will be trying to impose the Wal-Mart philosophy of management from the start. For example, "Always Low Prices."

Traditionally, Japanese supaa have "sale days" at regular intervals, when the prices are very low, while the rest of the time everything is regular price. Instead, Wal-Mart's chain just marks down everything everyday, just like at home--although, not as low as the Japanese chain's sale days. Now, customers who are accustomed to waiting for the sale days may never go to that store again....